i think we need more resources at the federal government level, not just dhs and a coordinated, sustained effort to deal with this problem. senator mccain: i hope this committee can get some recommendations from you because i haven't seen anything when i travel to new hampshire and hear the governor of new hampshire say it is an epidemic in her state, throughout the west as well -- maybe we should talk about demand, but no one wants to discuss that aspect of it, either. on the children showing up at the border, is one of the answers allowing increasing our embassy and consulates capability in those three countries, el salvador, nicaragua and guatemala?

sec. johnson: i agree with that. john mccain: i think you for the good work that you do, mr. secretary. we've had spirited discussions from time to time, but i appreciate the work that you are doing. reaganfinally, as nancy inaugurated, maybe we ought to talk more about trying to address the demand side of this problem rather than blaming it all on the mexican cartels, who i'm glad to blame it on, but there is a demand. you agree? sec. johnson: i agree. yes. you have to deal with the demand and the supply. thee mentioned earlier that insatiableis our

demand for drugs. that is an important component. we're working to address that. here's an idea in terms of intercepting drugs at the border. i know you are busy with the armed services committee. incredible interesting hearing on k-9 units. the red teams come in the failure rates, it is difficult to detect these things. and the university of pennsylvania, they have a groundbreaking k-9 training unit there. in the hearing, we saw that we have not increased the number of k-9 units. i want your evaluation. in the layered approach to airport security, bomb sniffing, drug sniffing can all those you think it is good

to explore the efficacy and maybe expansion of k-9 units throughout your different missions, whether it's drug , trying ton potentially sniff out bombs and airports, that type of thing? sec. johnson: there is no better nosenology than a dog's k for detecting explosives and prohibited items. just in the last two years, i've seen us expand the use of airports to look for inhibited items -- prohibited items at airports and in and around airplanes. i do believe in k-9 use, it is very effective. >> we have not really increase the numbers. is that something you would want to look at?

it's about 2500 units total in -- 1000 in tsasa . sec. johnson: i understand you had a hearing devoted to this. canines are very effective. one thing i was fascinated to learn when i was in turkey last week is that they are not as opposed to use of canines there as one might suspect them to be. they are embracing this, to bring. too.ey are embracing this, cyber, what dod we need to do? attract people from the private sector to take it to your sabbatical and come here -- a two-year sabbatical and come here? i'm very impressed with the

individuals like yourself, your entire team here. these people are patriots, they .ake their mission serious i understand the constraints. i'm a private sector guy. i know what the private sector will paper talent and you are constrained here. we have to figure out what we have to do so that your department is staffed with the best and the brightest. -- i know what the private sector will pay for talent. let's try to break down whatever barriers we create bureaucratically resourcing of. -- two resource you. >> i agree with what tom said. we ought to appeal to people's sense of patriotism. how about spending a couple of years serving your country, working for the government and cyber security, which will better enable you to get that terrific job in the private

sector? imaginative market ing campaign making it attractive to not go to these apps, but to go in and figure out how to make the economy run properly with information technology. i want to work with you in terms of what senator mccain was talking about, consulates so that asylum-seekers can do that in central america. -- with you if you in terms of reducing our need for drugs. we've been effective at reducing demand for tobacco. we ought to try the same thing with drugs. i want to thank your entire management team for coming here

and for all of your efforts. this is not an easy job. you are working hard to keep this nation safe and secure, so thank you for your efforts. with that, the hearing record will remain open for 15 days. this hearing is adjourned. sec. johnson: thank you. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2016] [no audio]

>> more live coverage today on c-span. the brookings institution will host a discussion about state parties and their role in national campaigns. we will hear from the republican national committee chief counsel and the executive director of the south carolina democratic party. at 5:30 coming conversation between political and government officials on the state of u.s. canada relations. bestis the head of the ahead of the canadian prime ministers visit to the u.s. next week. republicans will see who received the 99 delegates at stake. or democrats, 188 delegates at stake. we will take your calls and reaction life during our primary coverage starting at 8:00 p.m. eastern. join us this thursday for live coverage of the white house state dinner for justin to go.

-- canadian prime minister just trudeau. >> i'm a teacher. the most important thing to me is education. i'm looking at the candidates insely for their programs education and i'm not happy in the last 15 years or so with the core standards and common core that has been happening. i will vote for either bernie sanders or hillary clinton. i'm happy with both of those choices. i've decided i'm voting for ted cruz for the candidacy because he is a constitutional scholar, he's eloquent and he is principled, consistently out of all of the candidates so far. >> aerospace professionals met

recently at the national press club. this is about one hour. sec. johnson: good morning -- >> good morning. thank you for coming today. i'm jamie horwitz. on behalf of of our president and the members of the national press club, we are delighted to have you here. davidlighted to say that is not only a journalist, but just became the deputy chair of

our committee. this is a very special news coverage today. issueseen looking at that we think will become issues not only for the next -- and during the presidential campaign, but certainly for the next administration. a critical issue in that area is space. space exploration has been the great human adventure of modern times. administration, we will be celebrating the 50th anniversary of when we landed on the moon. and what happens 50 years beyond that. our speakers today will discuss that and discuss how we can ensure that the u.s. stays the leader in space. we want to allow time for questions. i want to welcome all those

watching on c-span live this morning. we have a large number of reporters on the line, calling in from around the united states. i will keep the introductions relatively brief. following their remarks, we will open it up to questions for about a half-hour. our first speaker will be the ceo of the space foundation. former be followed by a space shuttle astronaut and the executive director of the american institute of aeronautics and astronautics. she will be followed by eric, the president of the commercial spaceflight federation. i will be back when we get to the q&a. elliott start. thank you, jamie and thank

you for being here this morning. this is a day we've been looking forward to for quite a while. this coalition of groups that has come together to make this recommendation. it's all about ensuring the u.s. leadership in space continues. we all know we are in the middle of an election year. you cannot ignore it or escape it. we thought it would be a good time to have a platform of information out there that all candidates could refer to and learn from and take to heart as they plan their campaigns. the space industry is something that is just terribly important to the u.s. for a number of reasons. it is an instrument of technology development that has given us the technology-based that we enjoy today and help us

be the technology leader in the world. it provides the advantages we need to keep the nation secure. it provides opportunities for students wanting to advance their careers, wanting to learn more about what is out there in the great unknown. it is the essential infrastructure of our time. all the communication that is , all theseight now networks are interconnected come all enabled by gps timing signals. everything that runs the world for the united states is essentially on the backbone of the space systems we put in place. we wanted to be sure there was an appreciation for the great importance of space as we go forward and to these next several months. we did something rather unprecedented, to gather a group of our organizations in a way that had not been done before.

pj said these people have a short attention span. we have to put something together that is short and concise. if pj had his way, we would have had a paper that said "space is good, keep on investing." with all the organizations we do have an opt come up we wanted to be more specific than that. if you look at the organizations involved in this project, all of us took to heart that this needed to represent the entire space community.

all of us went back to our very large boards of directors and all of these organizations in all of their port members and other members have a chance to in theser input documents. we have a consensus of the space community in the u.s. from academia to corporate to government offices. it is a splendid, energetic community. we have crusty old aerospace -- despitep start the competitive tensions and so forth, we've all managed to come together to put together this document which we are now in the process of sharing with the presidential campaigns. we will continue to share this as we go forward and move this out into the campaigns of people running for the house and senate

and governor's offices and so forth to have a good base of understanding on a national level. some people who have really shouldered a big burden to coordinate input from that many places. erict to thank sandy and for the leadership of their organizations and frank in the leadershipor aia's and jim kirkpatrick from aas. team.pecially my that paper speaks for itself. pretty that addresses

much every sphere of influence that space touches. i want to thank you for your interest in the project, for your being here today. with that, we will talk more about the content. to sandy.pass it >> i'm delighted to be here per week been working hard on this for many, many months. that's we've been working hard on this for many, many months. we wanted to come together to create a strong consensus across the industry about what we feel is important. the cousin of the way our political process works, we have new ideas coming in every 4-6 years. the momentum that has been gathering in the space industry to continue. there's some really exciting things going on. doill describe it the way i

when i talk to the population, it is a big bubble. has been cringed reading a lot of knowledge and experience and operational knowledge over the last 50 years -- contributing a lot of knowledge. that baseline level of knowledge is out there and available to college students. a fundamental level that was impossible when i was in college. fundamentalhis understanding of what it's like to create technology to fly in space and operate in space, it's enabling a larger population to engage. with the way technology has developed over the last 50 years, think about what your smart phone can do. that is also creating accessibility. we have this entrepreneurial sector that sort of understands the risks rewards and the government is creating an

environment that is leveraging the experience of the industry nasa exploring -- expanding the bubble of expiration. create new industries, create economic advantages for people to come along. now, we have a situation where earthe caught in low orbit for 50 years. we're getting people engaged behind that expanding bubble in ways that are not so connected with government funding. we are in this transition period . it could take 20 years. we don't know. theeed to continue on momentous straight-line target. we want to see this momentum continuing where we are bringing

enterprises beyond low earth orbit. allowing companies and individuals and students to access space in a new way. this is good for everybody. this industry is just exploding and we are very excited about it. when you see in this paper is the consensus of the industry that we want this bubble to continue and expand. we need it to be stable. we have to have a long-term commitment. with this paper, we are hoping that we will convey how important this momentum is to keep expanding in the direction we have. i like to invite eric to the stage. we are finally bearing the fruits of our 50 years of labor and investments in our space program and we should continue that investment and continue onward and that is what we are excited about. >> thank you so much, sandy.

, talkingct to follow about the organizations. as we got together, a range of different organizations, it is quite the been diagram, the what ourf organizations representing the different interests. coming together in bringing this paper together and having this general consensus that we believe space is really a great place to be involved. it is a great opportunity for so many. i could not think of a better industry to be in. the investments we are making in in governmentm and the private sector. $4 billion in angel investor

contributions last year alone. it's extremely exciting. placehas always had that did not say i'm adamantly opposed to space. ,o matter who the candidate is we want to make sure that among all the other issues they have to deal with, that space is at the forefront of the ideas they are focusing on. collectively see space as the gateway to the 21st century. the innovation, technology being developed, it is propelling an industry that has no boundaries for what we can do. it is very exciting come exciting for me with an

organization that is looking at these new ideas, looking at this question of, why not? breaking through a technology called barriers that have not been touched. this space program with tremendous a congressman's but accomplishments but some people felt left out. we should be doing more. it's exciting to see a lot of companies working on these fantastic, innovative ideas and projects. with all the work associations we work with on this because it brought forth a lot of the interest that we all have. and from different perspective and -- different perspectives and different corners of the industry. we try to cover as much as we could.

we wanted to energize the youth and the industry and the decision-makers that could have an impact on what we do in the space industry and keep the path forward and keep the path open. with that, we will take questions. thank you. q&ae are going to go to our part of the news conference now. i've done a lot of newsmakers, i've never made it a family affair. my son william is on break from college today. he will pass around the microphone. ,or the reporters in the room if you have a question, raise your hand and i will ask you to identify your name and your news organization and we will get questions from the phone as well. yes, down here? >> good morning. here,yone a pair -- up

what are you doing to get this to the candidates who've said very little about see in the get them to o so far and take a position on what they would do as president in the area of civil, commercial, military space involvement? as i mentioned in my remarks, we do want the support of candidates. , there is nonefits one organization here that could reach all the candidates but among us, we can. we have already begun the process of socializing this with the campaigns. each of us have different contacts. we've figured out how to work those. the last candidate we are having -- i will notg to

name the person -- should be receiving a copy today. we will follow-up with their staff as well to keep this alive. an interesting question because to some extent, the purpose of this is not to have space become a big presidential issue. i would be perfectly happy if nobody on the campaign trail said anything stupid about space. we love everyone to understand is assumedmportant that you embrace the and because it is quintessentially american. just to follow-up on that, space has become a joke in presidential politics. from at least one report i can recall.

you did not mention the -- howntial candidates do you avoid this serious issue being drawn into the more -- i heard the term clown car debate that is going on. as elliott mentioned, the reason why we got together is we very, veryreate a strong consensus about what was going on in the industry such that it became a non-issue. because of space typically does not come to the top of national politics when you have a presidential campaign, one way to take it off the table but stress is importance is to have a huge, broad coalition saying this is what is important, we have these great things going on

and therefore, it continues on its own momentum, as it were. the bus is leaving the station and let's not mess with it. since it is already not a national issue, we chose to turn that into an advantage to make sure the momentum continues and we do not end up with discussions that take us off into leftfielder right field. field. field or right just to add on to the feedback from jeff's question, too often when space becomes the issue, it is a regional issue. what does this mean for jobs in florida? aia has fantastic statistics that can tell you that space touches all 50 states. have at just whether you nasa center there or whether you are launching or building, it

touches all 50 states, touches the universities, touches students, touches the innovative fabric of our country. it is not just this one program or this specific program. someone coming out with a wacky idea or something. it is what is going on right now and what do we see in the future? we have to think nationally. it is a national space program that is not just limited to government programs, it is across the board programs. that is how we wanted to address this. thank you. >> other questions from the room? yes? thehat do you see as theest threats to ensuring country's leadership in space?

threats come in a lot of different forms. probably the chief threat we are trying to address here, that we do not fall into some kind of malaise that allows us to stop investing in our space programs. there are threats around the world to u.s. leadership in space. most of those are also tremendous opportunities. when of the great aspects of space leadership is soft power. the ability to create an atmosphere where other countries around the world want to work with you and cooperate with you and learn from you. it is also a great opportunity for defusing some of the threats that might be out there. , allowing any malaise andelves to journey forward

being strong enough in our space leadership to be confident that we can use it in ways that benefit us tremendously as a nation but can also help with peace, with political understanding, with humanitarian relief and other things around the world, which i think raises our stock as a nation. back?the ofwhat do you think are some the reasons for that malaise that you just referenced? actually, i think the malaise is starting to take on a secondary role to the interest and enthusiasm.

my friend neil werasse tyson talks about is need to expand the bubble and we are finally expanding the bubble. the very act of doing that helps to address the ladies. -- address malaise. socially, if you look at what's going on with this new generation of kids coming up, they are the first generation to through all their lifetime having had access to all the information in the world on the internet. about what they can do with the knowledge they have, they feel like they do not have barriers. if you like they ought to be able to do anything they want to do. the recent call for applications nasa is anuts at

interesting new barometer -- we've had 18,300 something applications. the largest group of applicants as long astronauts -- as we don't mess this up, again, let's not undo what doesn't need any undoing, the trajectory is there and we want to keep it going. >> i would just like to second that. moon and thathe cemented in our heads that we were leaders, but there is a lot going on around the world. at the national level, making sure our leaders are paying attention to that and we don't establish this complacency that we did this great thing once, that guarantees we will be in the lead. there are great activities in space around the world.

in industry in the u.s. understand that we need to pay attention and make sure we are investing the appropriate amount into research and development across the board and not just resting on our laurels. there's a lot of good momentum out there and we do not want to disrupt that. area where you mentioned what are some of the threats, we see the greatest threats in uncertainty. what we would really like to see from the government is the government be there to help, not hurt. whether it means stable budgets for programs beyond earth orbit, exploration and regulatory issues, the government can be very helpful and it has been. they're trying to work with industry. we want to see that consistent.

. lot of people plan ahead when there's uncertainty, that can be challenging. especially on the policy stuff, we want to shift from policies -- if you radically shift come in can be disruptive. game innot the only town, but they are a big game in town. the faa is the tip of the spear. we want to help work with the government in this partnership with the government and not be too disruptive. >> i want to encourage some of our reporters on the phone to ask questions. do any of them want to ask right now?

i know how many of them are actually on the phone. yes? go ahead. it's jesse from space.com. -- what i'md to getous about, i'm trying to a read on what you think is the fundamental role of something to a privateative space industry. to have you wanted stable budgets for nasa to do certain kinds of exploration but also you want to the regulatory framework to encourage the

growth of the space industry. i'm trying to get a read on what you see nasa doing right going forward. i'm curious as to how you would propose that nasa's budget stays stable. i'm curious as to how you go about that. what would you like to see come from the presidential candidates? one of the things that has plagued nasa a lot has been the administration or congress. thatu are exactly right in nasa has been hampered by the of administration changes or things that have happened in congress. it is not just an executive branch issue. what we are hoping is the stability of purpose that allows

us to protect this project out over a decade. we will stick to our guns and do this despite whether there is a republican or democrat. we will execute the plan committee budgets yearly that support the plan -- execute the plan, do budgets yearly that support the plan. you never know until you try. this is an effort to try to achieve that kind of sense of the industry that this momentum is important and we want to such that we are dampening the wimp factor, if you will. , ther as the role of nasa reason why we can do the things we are doing today is because nasa has been investing for 50 years, developing the know-how and technology such that it is so widespread, the risk reward

equation is somewhat understood that private enterprise is trained to do things that are new and innovative and exciting and not dependent upon government funding. that is good because that is what government funding should do, create new opportunities and industries and ideas and innovative opportunities for people. the government should continue to do the investments that keep expanding that knowledge bubble come operational bubble, the college you need this technology unique going forward. they have to make a profit. government does not have to make a profit. on investment is to bring industry along and infuse new technologies across the country so that people can take that and do innovative stuff with it. that will be the role of government and if it is done correctly, what you are doing is allowing all this experience to a keenly across the industry in

this technology to infuse across the industry so that people with and creative minds and money to invest can do things behind. , thears from now government bubble will balloon and there will be people engaged connectivity is that maybe nasa will not be engaged with anymore and that is a perfectly good paradigm. you want to keep investing to expand the bubble and bring people in industry along behind you. that is all appropriate. the partnership with nasa with the commercial sector is really critical. the investments nasa has made over the past 40-50 years, to transfer that technology, not , to noting the wheel

take steps backwards, that is a really critical relationship that government and the commercial sector need to have to leverage each other's andngths and weaknesses understand how we can push the envelope forward. >> before we go to anymore questions, i wonder if one of our panelists might be able to -- wherehere this people might be able to find that on the internet. is there a website people can go to? >> sure. each of the organizations involved will be posting this to their website. business, wet our will all be armed with a copy.

you can go to my website and you will find it. other questions in the room or on the phone? what is the future of this collaboration? will you continue to work through november to continue cooperating? that we have really learned a lot from each other and about each other through this process. this was many months of hard the and involved not just five people at the heads of the five leading organizations involved, people in all of these organizations. i do not know that we are going build up eric to run for

president next year, but i think it has helped us to open lines to communications so we will be communicating and collaborating more than we have -- we've always had some collaborations here and there. they tend to be project specific. the fact that we were able to reach such broad consensus on such a broad set of issues tells us we will be doing a lot more in the future. i would like to ask a question, myself. last pointument, the has to do with trade policy. whereas i find a lot of the issues related to space described as nonpartisan or bipartisan. in your paper, you discuss a trade policy that

lowers trade barriers to make it more possible to sell more american products abroad. is that a double-edged sword? doesn't that also open the door to more outsourcing of work that has historically been done in the united states? work toing space russia? iswhat is actually happening the outsource is happening anyway because companies that are us-based set up laboratories in other places around the world to develop technology that they can then use and systems there selling around the world. doing is somewhat handicapping ourselves and encouraging other people to develop technologies we could be developing here.

you have to be aware of the balance, but to some extent, we are hurting ourselves by not a knowledge and that there is technology developing going on around the world and many to be engaged in that worldwide effort because some of the laboratories that are companies have around the world are already doing technology they can sell abroad. we certainly don't want to handicap ourselves unnecessarily. one of the things that often happens is through all the best intentions come we get unintended consequences. we did go through a time 20 years ago when there was this past tightening of export controls on us-made equipment. since our allies cannot buy from us, they developed their own indigents industries. this indigenous industries.

they found out how to buy from each other. there was a time not all that when 75% of the launch capability in the road was built in colorado. it is now 0%. ago, 75% of the commercial satellites built in the world were built in the united states. today, it is less than 25%. we need to recognize the unintended consequences of things that end up hurting us were other countries have their own technology and they do not need to buy from us. if it is something widely available in the world, why wouldn't you want an american company selling it? >> in the back? >> this is not a question, more of a comment.

i'm the executive director of the aerospace association. i want anyone to know that we have circulated this paper to every state governor and lieutenant governor. as an association of elected officials, we support this wholeheartedly and applied the industry for all its work and for the group that represents them here today for all their hard work to get the message out about how important the program is to america and every state. inky. -- thank you. >> other questions from the room or over the phone? >> something you mentioned was that one of the things, unintended quad consequences fre

expert tightening -- i'm curious how you square that with some of the issues that have come up with restricting technology sales to the chinese. there was a huge issue 10 years ago of whether or not they were selling satellite designs and the like. there are some countries he be upset if they had a launch capability. as to how you reconcile those two things. indigenous technology developing will happen. >> great question. often a challenging question. of the through 20 years second marshall plan for europe with the amount of business that was handed over to the europeans to sell and they capitalized on

it. we do want to capitalize on the u.s. industrial base. we think it is critical. we would love to see more and more launches coming from the u.s. we understand there is quality foreign competitors from europe and elsewhere. we would like to see the fact that the capacity in the industry is so great that it will open up new markets. i'm partial to see a lot of this happen and developed in the u.s.. i would've to companies export our products and services around the globe and we see that. the world is changing, it is a global market in the u.s. has fantastic products and services that we should be selling more of a broad. -- a broad. broad.e of a

they have national space capabilities much like us. we will need to work with them in foster that, the dialogue to spacehe industry and keep as peaceful as it has been without any outside actors. >> do we have another question on the phone? >> thank you very much. following up on the unintended consequences come i wonder where you folks see striking a balance countriesnting other to be using our launch services and take it manage of our technology -- take advantage of our technology. in developing their own. it strikes me as one of the unintended consequences of the unintended consequences, these countries developing capabilities to the point where we are talking about

international cooperation on , they need moon something more to bring to the table other than money. in unmannedhis space exploration and things like the international space station and now with orion. where is that balance between wanting to maintain a robust u.s.ology export from the with helping these countries actually develop their own ?apabilities >> good to hear your voice again. the current nasa program is a good baseline to look at in this. we have a requirement for a

launch vehicle that really can only be met by sls. we have a requirement for astronaut safety in a deep space environment that we feel like nasa is leading expert at. nasa is managing the orion effort. if you look at other parts of moneystem, germany not to -- not too many months ago where the test model for the service module for orion is being built. parts are being built in italy and germany. they are being integrated in germany and then they will come here. one of the things to recognize is that other people have technology that we should want to get our hands on as well. people can bring more than just money to the equation. we should be able to sell what that we don't so

have to make things that other people are good at and we should integrate those. we talked about the idea about a lunar village on the moon and expertise they have with public-private partnerships in europe, it seems to be more successful sometimes. expertise, itof is not all in technology. some of it is politics and fundraising and finance. mother have to be some barriers for true national security concerns. should not be erected so high that we cannot do common sense work together. to your question, i don't think it is up to the united states to tell other countries what technologies they should be developing. we have to think strategically what are our technologies

for national security purposes and bring those to the table. other countries need to figure out what technologies they want to develop and bring to the table. candidates focused on robotics and made a strategic decision to be the people in robotics and they bring the technology to the table. country us right and privilege to figure out how they want to engage in what technologies they feel are important for their populations. that is the other half of that equation. question from online.com. >> what reaction have you gotten from this? at this point, the staff have

expressed gratitude and interest. forwardbe carrying it as their campaigns move along. where we are in the campaign process, these types of serious policy issues are probably only now becoming addressed. we will keep in touch with them and continue to work with them. questionse to answer and hopefully keep it in front of them just enough so that everybody is smart about see moving forward. that's see moving forward. space policy moving forward. >> i was reading this and it says "restore american access to

space, the u.s. must regain the ability to launch its own astronauts into space and bring an end to the practice of buying astronaut seats." sayse next breath, it "vigorously pursue sos." there's no legitimate game plan for this. --a will not even say when there's no game plan for this. it exists to satisfy powerful and influential lawmakers, key contractors and constituents. sls may not even fly or last into the next administration. u.s.'t that hamper leadership in space? >> thank you for the question. if you go back to what we discussed earlier about the appropriate role of government

investment, it is the idea that the government is to expand the bubble. that is the expansion of the bubble, that system and what we are going to do with that. assumption that is not helping the whole program because you need to continue to push the boundaries. you need to bring the technology to verify that can push us out further. then that knowledge rolls out into the general industry and the technology transfer, and people learn from it. so i am not sure i will accept your hypothesis, but thank you the question. frank, you have another question. could you give him the microphone, please? >> thank you. i was wondering if you have plans of this point to follow through as candidates become

elected officials, as they move through their transitions at the federal level in the state level. are you going to work with transition teams to keep these policies in the forefront, or at least up there as they formulate policies for their terms? thank you. the answer is yes. that, as has already started in terms of meetings with other people on the hill, and in congressional offices in and having them take up this torch so that it is not just limited to the presidential candidates, but also something that becomes widely circulated and understood on the hill. plan, weof our game have lots of great ideas coming forward for how we continue to push this information out there and how it continues to follow up with people. difficult to start executing on a letter that of the we know exactly who the staffers are, who wore the cognizant people,

and in some cases we are already having over station command in some cases it has not become clear yet because it is not high enough on the candidate's radar. we will stay in contact with the campaigns as best we can, and hopefully be hearing about this in the general election as well. we had discussed trying to do at least monthly through the prime election in november, some sort of activity that revolves around this, whether it is that some of our individual events or all caps, which hopefully you will see out there. i think we want to keep the ball rolling. a want to keep this issue nonissue, as it were. and keep information out there that this is important momentum that we have generated in the industry and we do not want to see us fail. we are working on claims for who can do what each month as we go forward. beyond that, we have not gotten that far, but certainly,

anything to continue the momentum will motivate us to keep working together. i would just say, we are not just other organizations, we are also good colleagues and you know in the washington charcoal that makes start percolating on who is advising him to his helping, and we want to be part of those names and faces. many are our friends and colleagues as well. we will continue this discussion deep into november and beyond as the transition begins of the leadership. i think we are about to end. i want to say that if anyone is interested in becoming a member of the press club, or if you are interested in more information on our newsmakers, we will have p in march and u april. please visit our website. our that i want to thank speakers for being here.

i want to thank our audience, and i want to take our audience on c-span. thank you very much. -- saying our audience on >> live coverage today

here on c-span, coming up in about an hour. institutions hosting a discussion on state parties and the role in national campaigns. we will hear from the republican national committee's chief counsel, and the director of the south carolina democratic party. in a conversation between politico and government officials ahead of the canadian prime minister's visit to the u.s. later this week. campaign 2016 continues, three primaries and one caucus are taking in several states

today. a special focus on michigan and mississippi. join us at 8:00 p.m. c-span, for live coverage of the election results, candidate speeches, and your reaction. did you on the road to the white house, on c-span, c-span radio, and c-span.org. secretary debra lee james and chief of staff general sh answer questions yesterday at the pentagon. this is close to an hour. good afternoon everyone. thank you for joining us to we

. we have the honorable deborah lee james, secretary of the air force, and general mark welsh, chief of staff of the air force. as you've probably been told already, today's session will be considered on the record. we'll start with opening remarks by secretary james, then we'll follow with open q&a, and then, once the secretary and the chief are complete, then general bunch, the military deputy to air force acquisition, will remain behind to take some of your questions that are more in the detailed area that i know you will have. so with that, ma'am, we'll open with your remarks. secretary james: all right. well, thank you, general cook, and good afternoon, everybody. thank you for joining us here this afternoon. a few days ago, i had the opportunity to attend a women's history month event on capitol hill. it was hosted by the first lady and the second lady, and they honored not only all of the women veterans who have served, but also a real air force pioneer, whose name is brigadier general retired wilma vaught. she was the first woman comptroller to become a general officer, and she's also the recently retired president of the women in the military service for america memorial foundation, otherwise known as wimsa.

wimsa, if you haven't seen it, is the only major memorial that honors and tells the stories of our servicewomen and their contributions to the defense of our country. and so i couldn't help but be reminded by that event on capitol hill how far our military has come with respect to women and service. and of course this important progress continues today, and it needs to remain strong and moving forward for the future. as you know, we now have all of our combat career fields opened to women. we have two female four-star generals in the air force, and just last month, ms. lisa disbrow was confirmed as the undersecretary of the air force, which i think marks the first time in history that one of our military services has been led, in the two senior civilian posts, by women. so all in all, it was a pretty good start to the month of march, which, as i said, is women's history month. now, thinking back to our last state of the air force address, it's been a little bit more than

six months since we gathered here together in this forum, and a lot has happened since that time. in october, russia launched its first airstrikes in syria. in november, daesh terrorists attacked paris again, as well as lebanon, mali and here at home in san bernardino. in january, china landed an aircraft on a newly built runway in the south china sea, and then in february, they installed a surface-to-air missile system on woody island, and then a few weeks ago, north korea tested a nuclear weapon. meanwhile, in afghanistan, the taliban, al qaida, daesh and other anti-government groups continue to conduct attacks, undermine security and create challenges to the people and the government of afghanistan as they work to develop a more secure and prosperous nation. and as i'm sure by now you have heard, on saturday, we conducted an airstrike in somalia against an al-shabaab training camp.

this strike was in self-defense and in defense of our african union mission in somalia partners. we did use a mix of manned and unmanned platforms, and as more information is available, we will certainly be looking to provide it to you, but that is the only information i'm able to provide at this time. so the bottom line to all this is your air force has been extremely busy and extremely effective, and all of that is being accomplished with 200,000 fewer people than we had on active duty during the days of desert storm. we have continued the fight against daesh. we're gaining momentum. in the past year, our coalition forces have upped the ante, flying more than 55,000 sorties in support of operation inherent resolve, and that's a threefold increase of sorties as compared to 2014. so this is from strike aircraft like the f-16, the f-15, the a-10, the b-1s. they're deliberately and dynamically striking daesh every

day, enabling the iraqi, kurd and syrian partners to recapture territory. and then there's the isr aircraft, like the mq-1s and 9s, that are developing targets and striking them when they expose themselves. and then we have our kc-135s and our kc-10 refueling aircraft that are supporting this incredible daily sortie rate in both iraq and syria, and, really, all around the world. there's more than 16,000 airmen deployed in the region, and they are working diligently to sustain these operations that i've described to you seven days a week. now, as you know, this persistent effort against daesh is taking a toll on our aircraft, our readiness and our airmen, and while we continue to meet the increased demands for combat air power, we must also modernize, maintain, upgrade our aircraft, take care of our people, and i want to now talk a little bit about the b-1. the b-1, as you may know, redeployed home from centcom in january and while the b-1s will

be receiving much needed modernization and maintenance, the venerable b-52, with its similar capacity and accuracy and endurance, remains ready and able to meet combatant commander requirements. now, we're waiting for final approval, but there have been recent infrastructure improvements that now allow the necessary support to deploy the b-52 in theater. so additional details about all of that, should it happen, will be available at the appropriate time. ladies and gentlemen, i would ask that we don't forget our airmen serving in harm's way. in these last six months since we last gathered, we lost 19 intrepid airmen, eight of whom were due to enemy activity, and two of those were lost less than 48 hours after the last time we joined together for state of the air force. on august 26, 2015, most of us awoke surrounded by the comforts of home, but captain matt

rowland who was a special tactics officer and staff sergeant forrest sibley, a combat controller, woke up a world away in afghanistan. and in a sickening twist of fate, at a helmand province checkpoint, two men camouflaged as soldiers opened fire on a u.s. vehicle and we lost matt and forrest that day. in their combined 12 years of service, matt and forrest deployed seven times, and in addition to the purple hearts, forrest earned five bronze stars, including one for valor. and very, very soon, we will posthumously honor matt's heroism with a silver star, which as you know, is one of the highest medals we reserve for gallantry in action against enemies of the united states. now as i mentioned, matt and forrest weren't the only airman lost to the hands of our enemies since our august address. we also bid a painful farewell to major adrianna vorderbruggen, technical sergeant joseph lemm, staff sergeant louis bonacasa,

staff sergeant michael cinco, staff sergeant chester mcbride and staff sergeant peter taub. another development since we last met was the contract award of the lrs-b. we went through a gao protest and now work has begun. we've given the bomber a designation, the b-21, we've shared an artist's rendering, we've given a detailed acquisition approach explanation and we've told you how we intend to hold down costs. and don't forget, we still need a name. airmen and their families can now go to the air force global strike command website or they can link directly through af.mil and submit their ideas, as well as get more information on submission guidelines. now, all of this is in the spirit of more transparency, even though this is and will remain a highly classified program and we'll continue to be as transparent as possible going forward with, of course, the

appropriate oversight, people in congress being fully read in. so today, i have a little bit more information i'd like to share with you on the b-21, specifically the seven major contractor partners who will join northrop grumman in building the nation's bomber for the 21st century. these partners and the primary b-21 work locations are pratt & whitney, east hartford connecticut, bae systems, nashua, new hampshire, gkn aerospace, st. louis, missouri, janicki industries, sedro-woolley, washington, orbital atk, clearfield, utah and dayton, ohio, rockwell collins, cedar rapids, iowa, and spirit aerosystems, wichita, kansas. now, pratt and whitney, of course, is our engine provider, the other six will work on air frame or mission systems. and again, that is the totality of the information i'm able to share on this aspect at this time.

however, as general cook mentioned, after the chief and i conclude here today, for those who are interested, general bunch will remain behind, and he'll be prepared to give some additional details on the b-21 contract incentive structure, which i know has been of interest to some of you in the audience today. so chief and i will defer those questions to general bunch. finally, since the last state of the air force, we rolled out our fy '17 budget and we've completed three of our four budget hearings. to each of the committees, we have expressed our appreciation for the stability of the bipartisan budget agreement, but we also point out that that agreement did leave us somewhat short of our budgetary needs, $3.4 billion to be specific, for the air force. we've, of course, detailed the investments that we've made and we've tried to detail the tough choices that we made for budgetary reasons, none of which are popular, as you know. they're not popular with us either.

and that's precisely what makes them tough. and of course, we always remind congress please lift sequestration permanently so that we can do a better job across all three of our top priorities, which are taking care of people, striking the right balance between readiness and modernization while always making every dollar count. so again, we thank you very much for being with us today, and we'll now take your questions. bob, would you like to start us off? >> thank you. madam secretary, i have a question for you, or either of you, about the modernization of the nuclear force. the one, a lot of those pieces belong to the air force, and one that critics have focused on seemingly lately is the long-range stand-off weapon, the replacement for the er cruise missile. former secretary, defense secretary perry, for example, has said that he -- has called for canceling it, of course, and he said that canceling it would not diminish deterrence. i'm wondering if you would give your view on that and, more broadly, why it's needed, given

all the other priorities and requirements and so forth that you just outlined. secretary james: as you mentioned, bob, the lrso will be a replacement for an aging component, the alcm. it will fulfill a combatant commander requirement for a stand-off capability, and so i believe it is very much needed for the future. and maybe the chief can add more context. general welsh: the requirement, as you know, was established by u.s. strategic command and validated by the joint staff, and the services' jobs are to try and fill the needs of the combatant commanders. and so that's our place in this activity. i think the discussion of what can we afford over time in the nuclear re-capitalization is a discussion that has to complete. i don't think it's complete yet. i think it's a fair question and i think we should be prepared to defend anything stratcom identifies as a requirement. so that's where we are right now. >> if i could follow-up very briefly, that's -- there have

been criticism of this explanation and the -- essentially, it's a circular argument, saying that it's needed because it is a requirement. the question is why is it required? general welsh: well, i think -- i think the logic actually is in the classified realm, a lot of the logic is. and that's why you haven't heard a lot of debate about it. but for example, if we don't have a capable, penetrating bomber in sufficient numbers to conduct a major campaign, should that ever be required, you'd need to have a capable penetrating weapon to hit targets in that campaign. and so if you're the commander of stratcom, you'd probably want the capability to do both, and the types of targets, the range, etc., is really significantly important here. so i think that's why this requirements debate is very, very important to complete. we need to get that done. >> secretary, i want to ask you about the bomber in relations with congress. you were on the house armed services committee in the late 1980's and into the when both 1990's the b-1b and the b-2 were -- you had major battles with the hasc.

you were not in acquisition, you were in personnel, but what lessons do you take away from the battles over the b-1 and b-2 that brought opponents like john kasich and ron dellums together to stop the b-2? what lessons coming forward do you want to avoid so that the oversight of the b-21 is a lot less contentious? and then i have a follow-up for general welsh. strategic capabilities office, what technologies are you eying that could be deployed maybe in the next two or three years? you talked about swarming the other day as a potential. they talked about swarming drones. i'd like to get your thoughts on that. secretary james: so back to my memories from that period of time on the house armed services committee. for one thing, particularly with respect to the b-2, after the fall of the warsaw pact and the soviet union, i think there were many, many people who were questioning really where is the threat and there was a perceived lack of a threat. today, with the b-21, i don't see it that way. i think it's quite a different environment and i think there's

quite a substantial recognition that we do have threats around the world, that we do need this capability. another thing, my memory with the b-2 was that requirements changed, and when requirements changed, that in part drove costs increases. in the case of the b-21, we are having a very specific discipline to keep requirements stable, and this is the chief requirements control officer sitting right here to my left. so any proposed change in requirement would have to go all the way to the chief of staff of the air force, and there haven't been any, at least not so far. so stable requirements is very different. number three, when it came to the b-2, everything was new, meaning it was a new airframe, new components were going to go into that airframe and the integration challenge was enormous. so it was the equivalent of a miracle a day had to transpire. in the case of the b-21, we do have a new airframe. integration is always a challenge, but we are using a mature technology, so the risk is more bounded, i think. number four, i think looking back on it, perhaps for the best

of reasons, the b-2 remained in the shadows for too long. it remained classified -- too many details remained classified too long. and as you've heard me say, in the case of the b-21, we're leaning forward and we're trying to be more transparent and we're going to continue to do so. and then the fifth aspect i would give you is when the information was finally revealed on the b-2, there was sticker shock in terms of the dollars involved, and the dollars kept changing. so in our case, remember, cost has been built in from the very beginning, starting with secretary gates and the price point that he established right from the beginning, and we're going to keep tracking with that. we budgeted to an independent cost estimate which is higher than we believe we'll need, which will give us some margin there, and we have an incentive structure in the emd phase, which requires the contractor to meet milestones and performance and cost parameters, and

assuming those things happen, they get fee. if they don't, they will lose some or all of the fee and it's backloaded to the point whereby they're incentivized to get through the emd phase as soon as practical and not drag it out. again, i think you can get some more information from general bunch on that. so we think there's a lot of differences here and we're very committed. it comes down to human beings ultimately to keep track of this, but we're committed. >> are you committed to give the so-called then-year dollar that taxpayer pays this year and going forward, rather than the 2010 dollar that doesn't have a lot of relevance to most people? secretary james: well, this is where we have to keep working for more transparency and get to where we can talk more about the dollars. >> fair enough. general? general welsh: on whether it's a strategic capabilities officer, anybody else, we're looking to find anybody who is interested

in helping work on effects that we can create in the future. you mentioned swarming. just as an example, one of the key components -- attributes of military power is massing effects of some type. swarming gives the ability to mass isr, to mass electronic attack, to mass effects from kinetic activity or non-kinetic activity. it also, in the service, is worried about capacity because it does have -- you know, quantity has a quality also in this business. it gives you the chance to create more capacity for less cost in some scenarios and some capability areas. so anybody we can find that will work with, we want them. yes, sir? >> high. i want to ask you about -- i've got two questions. so one is about not selecting ge for the engine. so you've essentially locked in pratt and whitney to build the f-135 engine for the f-35. that doesn't leave a lot of workaround for ge. are you worried about backing yourself into a corner with one engine supplier for your high-performance military engines? second thing. you just named a list of suppliers. are you worried about cyber infiltration of those buyers now that you've named them, people

going after those contractors to try and get b-21 information? secretary james: so i'll take the second part first. the companies are required to have protection plans in place, and what allows us to, you know, tell you this today is those protection plans are in place. but of course, this is why these things remain in the classified world until we're able to reveal them to make sure that those protection plans have been developed. these are always concerns and this is always the balancing act that we go through between wanting to be more transparent, but also wanting to protect very important data. and as to the first part of your question, we're comfortable with the choices and the strategy that we selected. yes, please? >> you mentioned last week that you've liked to move that timeline ahead for the jstars recap, but that the risk still remains as far as radar

integration. i was just wondering, again, if you could elaborate a little bit on why there's so much risk with integrating radar on these business jets? and then i believe you also mentioned that one of the snags in the program, general welsh, along with selecting what kind of platform that was going to be, was a few issues in the tmrr phase. if you could mention maybe what some of those issues are? general welsh: certainly. the money we have in our budget for fy 17 is actually in that area. it's in the actual tmrr and radar risk reduction. so we believe that there is still some tech maturation that has to be done. we believe that by the end of this year, we will have a really good feel for where we stand going forward so that by the time we're ready to release some rfp, we'll be confident this program can stay on track and be executed properly. we have the funding in the budget throughout the life of the program to do this and our intent is as soon as we understand completely where we are in that tech maturation and radar risk reduction that we can

then do whatever we can to accelerate the program. >> again, can you talk about what those issues were -- general welsh: no, i can't. yes, ma'am? >> general welsh, two questions for you, sir, on two completely different subjects, if i may. on drones, can you bring us up to date since your last discussion here about how you view the drone inventory and the availability of active duty air force crews? has that situation improved at all? do you still have the equivalent of a shortage? how are you working that? completely different subject, as the head of the service, as a member of the joint chiefs, do you believe at this point that there is any military utility for congress to repeal the law banning enhanced torture techniques which is currently banned under the so-called mccain law? this is a question of national

conversation, and i'm wondering what your thoughts are. do you see any military utility in reversing that law and going back to making enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, legal? general welsh: yes, ma'am. my view on the second one is that's a topic that i am not qualified to comment on. there's military utility -- the military is not directly involved in using enhanced military techniques in the conventional military, and so air force forces are not involved in using them at all. so from my perspective, the policy as it stands is acceptable and i think changing them is a very, very large debate that has to occur in the policy arena, and then the military will execute as directed in that regard. it involves a lot more people than the department of defense as you well know. i think on the other side of the

house, for the drone training and crews, the issues there have not changed. we have been making progress. we just started about a month-and-a-half ago our first class of 24 pilots in a class as opposed to previously it was always 12 per class. we expect that in fy '17, we will train -- or, excuse me, in fy '16, we will train about 334 remotely piloted aircraft pilots, attack pilots as we call them now. those pilots will actually now -- remember, in the past, we were training about 180, so we think will break 300 this year and we think by the end of 2017, we'll be at 384. if we can get to 384, we will be making a big dent in the availability of pilots to fully man our crew force. now there's still all that other work to do which is equally as important, getting organizational structures right, expanding the basing, figuring out how to develop a new infrastructure, another wing needs to stand up. we think we need to stand up a new disassociated operational group somewhere in the very near future so we can give another basing option to the folks in this career field. the career tracks need to be finalized. all those things are still working, but on the training

pipeline, we're making progress. >> is there any extent to which the actual missions targeting and the carrying out of missions are constrained or limited by the current force you have available? are there times when the air force has to say sorry, we just can't do it, we don't have the assets? general welsh: no. right now, no. we are flying 60 caps, we are actually in the process of procuring aircraft to add 10 government-owned contract operated caps to do isr only, and this is one of the great things about our workforce in this mission area. they expand to meet the mission need. they work as hard as they need to to get the job done, and that's been the problem for the last eight years, they're working too hard. their battle rhythm has been unlivable over time. we have got to get the manning right in this career field, we've got to get the organizational structure right), we've got to get the training right. we've got to make sure that this is a career fair where people

can excel and endure over the long-haul and be very, very proud members of a professional mission area because they deserve that. over here. yes, ma'am. >> so senator mccain has threatened to block the bomber because it's being procured using a cost-plus contracting structure. you've been to the hill several times to defend acquisition strategy, but mccain doesn't really seem to be backing down from what i've seen. so have you had reassurances from him that he won't block the bomber maybe that we haven't seen in the press yet? and what more can you do to convince capitol hill to support the b-21? secretary james: the approach that we are taking is we are continuing to communicate, to provide briefings both in a classified and unclassified session. as you mentioned, we had both earlier -- about a week ago. and we just continue to tell the story. so i don't have any assurances of anything, other than this is a capability we need for the country. we put a very thoughtful process together, looking to both successes as well as to programs

that were not successful in the past, and we have crafted a good strategy, we believe, going forward. >> can you change the contracting structure now? or is that just set in stone if he won't support cost-plus? secretary james: well, the -- the contract has been let. so it is always possible to terminate a contract -- you terminate, you pay fees to terminate, you can rebid it, which of course takes more money and time. so these things are always possible. we certainly hope it won't come to that. please, colin. >> secretary, my name's colin clark, breaking defense. how much does maintaining strategic ambiguity govern the release of information on the b-21, as opposed to the completion of the security plans and such? i mean, i would assume you're letting this information out in

bits and drabs so that russia, china and others can't go, a-ha, that's what we need to build against. secretary james: strategic ambiguity is important. the technology is important. so i don't foresee that you're going to know, for years, very much more about the technology. as i mentioned earlier, this is a balancing act. this is a desire to share information with the public, but also protect that information, and not to put out so much information that a possible adversary can connect dots in ways that we don't wish those dots to be connected. so ambiguity is -- is certainly part of this. yes, please, pat. >> yep. pat host from defense daily. you mentioned the current-year price. is there anything else about the new bomber that you would like to talk about, that you perhaps don't have the clearance to talk about now? secretary james: i don't have anything else to share on the

bomber today, pat. >> thanks. secretary james: let's go over this side, please. >> yes, madam secretary and general welsh, almost since you came in, we've heard from you, we don't tell the air force story very well. when you first started out, there were problems with the guard and capitol hill, and as , general welsh, you come to the end of your tenure, more problems with capitol hill -- you got beat up pretty hard last week. i feel bad for you. what is the problem with telling the air force story? is it that you're not putting the right people in legislative liaison, or enough people? are you not talking enough to the staff on the hill? are you not talking enough to us? what do you think the problem is, and how do you fix it? secretary james: i will just say that i think, in periods of rising budgets, and when there is more for programs and more for all parts of the budget, that's just, as a general proposition, an easier sell than

when you are in tougher times, when budgets are either leveling off or decreasing, because it's very, very difficult to make these tough choices. all of these programs are good programs. they all impact the national security. they all impact different parts of the country. it's very difficult to reduce. and so i think this is in part what we are facing -- all of the services are facing. general welsh: yeah, i think, actually, our relationship with congress, in many ways, is very good. i don't think there's a -- a real problem, overall, that we see at all. >> senator graham was saying it seems to be always you guys, not the other services, so much. general welsh: yeah. i do wish we had heard that in some form other than a hearing because that's the first we heard that. but we'll keep working this. you know, every now and then, it's good to remind myself that it's good to be more empathetic with my pet's chew toys. [laughter] yes sir, in the back. >> madame secretary, general welsh, given the recent statements from north korea and its government, how concerned are you that a north korean ballistic missile can be

launched at the continental united states, and how confident are you that you could take that out? secretary james: well certainly, the actions of north korea are very worrisome, which is why we have everything from our presence in the pacific as a general proposition, why we have an alliance with south korea, why we work very, very closely with them on our defense posture. so north korea is a very big concern. general welsh: and the commander of u.s. northern command spends a lot of time worried about how we can be sure to take it out if they ever did develop the capability to combine a long-range missile with a warhead that was operable. >> are they at that stage now? general welsh: north korea? i don't think they're at that stage yet. >> just to follow up, given north korean provocations, china militarizing the south china sea, russian aggression in syria, has the world become a more dangerous place since you all have assumed your positions?

secretary james: i would say it certainly is a more complicated place than just a mere, for me, two years ago, two years and a couple of months. a lot of complexity, a lot of ambiguity, a lot of situations that it is different in terms of deterrence, and maybe deterrence doesn't impact the way traditional deterrence of years ago impacted. so there's an awful lot of complexity, that's for sure. general welsh: the range of threats has certainly increased, and i think we see that in the headlines every day. yes ma'am? >> i am with inside the air force. there's been some interest in congress on potentially funding the b-21 and the navy's ohio class programs through a joint fund, and i wonder what is the air force's position is on that. and then also what other options are you looking at right now specifically?

secretary james: well, certainly if there is to be a fund for nuclear modernization, it seems to me appropriate that it be for all three legs of the triad and not just for one leg of the triad. so if indeed that is the approach that is selected, it seems to me that ought to be a joint fund. i think the key question, though, is where will the money come from, and this is where we're simply going to have to have a national debate. it's probably not going to be settled this year, but it needs to be settled in the next few years. are we or are we not going to modernize these forces, and if we are, we must have the appropriate resources to do it. if we have to live within the existing toplines, this is going to create problems because here we're talking about how many of these choices that we've put forth in the budget are not popular. well, if we suddenly had to modernize the entirety of our triad within our existing toplines, think of all of the reductions that would have to occur. and so we're going to have to get this settled over the next couple of years. governor bush:

it's a question of what kind of a military do the american people want going forward. i believe we need these programs and we're just going to have to get this squared away. let me go back here to pat -- i'm sorry, mr. losey. >> steve losey, air force times. secretary james, in orlando, you discussed your desire, given everything that's going on in the world, to increase the end strength of the air force, but one of your caveats was if you can find the right people. now, of course, you singled out battlefield airmen, isr, maintenance, those guys don't exactly grow on trees. they require lots of time to develop, so what i'm wondering is where are you going to be looking for these airmen to fill these crucial roles? are you going to increase retraining opportunities, are you going to increase opportunities for guardsmen and reservists to go active duty? i have a follow up after that. secretary james: all of the above, but the real crux of the matter is that after 20 some years of downsizing in our air force, in order to now grow

modestly we needed to infuse resources into both the recruiting force, and into the technical training base so that we can go out and attract the right kind of talent and get them trained in the appropriate skills. so, we had to ramp up, to a certain degree, recruiting and the training aspects in order to be able to bring in those additional new people. the other piece of this, of course, is to have the types of incentives to try to retain at a higher rate the key types of people that we want to retain. so, when you're recruiting more, and retaining more, together that is how you grow. that's the approach that we're taking, and again, we hope to reach that 317,000 number on the active duty side by the end of this fiscal year, fy 16, and provided we can get that right talent between the retention and the recurring aspect, we could grow some more, and i think we need to in fy 17. at which point we would go back

and ask congress to consider a reprogramming option. >> and, my follow up question, can you talk a little bit about the strain that some of those career fields you singled out are operating under with the pace of the fight against isis, etc.. general welsh mentioned the isr a little bit, but can you talk a little bit more about some of these other career fields and what they're dealing with? secretary james: a lot of these career fields are high demand, low density. one that we didn't mention a moment ago is the maintenance career field, so in the maintenance arena because we have aging platforms and whatnot, the maintenance needs are going up. so we have thousands of maintainers in the force, but we actually need more maintainers going forward, and this is another focus area for us in the next few years. general welsh: you have six fleets of airplanes now over 50 years old, 21 or so fleets are over 25 years old. it just gets tougher to keep them flying, and we see that all over the air force.

our maintenance folks are working hard, and when they get undermanned and tired of this kind of work, retention rates start to drop. you got to accelerate retention training to refill the pot. >> we have time for two more questions. secretary james: okay, let's go over here to this gentleman. >> at the opening you spoke about the attack -- strike in somalia. you said it was in self-defense. could you just, i know you can't go into a lot of detail, but could you give us a sense of why that was in self-defense? what was al-shabab planning to do, and why was it important for the united states to stop that? and, general welsh, today we had a promise from the white house for increased transparency on all these strikes that are taking place outside of areas of active hostilities. could you speak just a little bit about the balancing act there, about providing transparency in places where there isn't an active conflict, an on-going conflict. how difficult is that for the military to do? secretary james: my understanding is that there was intelligence that this was a

training camp, and that these fighters would soon be embarking upon missions that would directly impact the u.s. and our partners. and, so that is why it was a self-defense matter. but as to what that information was, this is what we simply cannot discuss. general welsh: yes, the authorities to conduct the things outside areas of active hostility are beyond dod authorities. so, dod personnel who are included in that activity really have no authority to discuss or become more transparent. we just heard this from the white house as well, so we'll have to see what the details are and how this affects everybody inside the department of defense. i just don't know the answer yet. >> last question. general welsh: let's go to the back corner. >> for both of you, if you could focus a little bit more on drones. you said there was 60 caps now, you hope to have 10 more contractor caps for isr. give us a time table when that

will happen for the new ones, and with such a demand from all the combatant commanders, and a lot of talk about providing more caps for the afghan troops during this fighting season, do you expect, or hope for, want to accelerate that? general welsh: we'd like to get the government owned contract caps up as soon as we can. we're actually, in our budget this year, have been given approval to use oco money to buy 24 more mq-9's, which will help with this effort. there's also a decision in the department to go at a 90 total caps, the air force will provide 70 of those. and, so we will expand the ability to help the combatant commander, and the joint force commander using assets from the army, contractors, and the air force, and we're trying to get there as fast as we can. i don't know the timeline for the army. another year to 18 months for the air force. i don't know the timeline for the army. >> alright, thank you. thank you very much. as we said before, now lieutenant general bunch will answer some questions on the b-21 if you'd like.

lieutenant general bunch: okay, ladies and gentlemen. let me start by saying thank you. i thought the secretary was going to defer a lot of the questions to me, but she answered them really very well. so, let's start off with just a couple of simple things. our goal is to get a bomber in the field to fill a documented capability need, and we want to acquire it, sustain it, and operate it to support combatant commanders in the national military strategy in a cost effective manner. that's how we set up the contract structure. that's how we've set up what we're trying to do. the secretary's made a commitment to you, and we've made a commitment, that we're going to share more information and this is another step in that. i'm going to start with saying it's not going to be everything you want, but it is a balance between transparency that we need for public trust and protection of critical

capabilities so that our adversaries have less insight into what we're trying to do. i'm not going to give you contract value today, i'm not going to give you incentive value today, okay? i'm just being upfront and letting you know those are not going to be things that i talk about, but we are working through the process and briefing all the parties on the hill, and everyone else. we'll try to provide you more information as it becomes available. you've heard me talk about the program office assessment, you've heard me talk about our independent cost estimate, and the redistribution of funds, and you've heard me talk about the cost plus contract. i'll take any questions you want in those areas in just a minute. let me finish up. i've also talked about why this is different than previous contract types. secretary stepped through a lot of different things there that are right on track with what we're doing. i am going to take just a minute to go a little more into the incentive structure that we have on the contract because a lot of people have asked about that. there are two components in the incentive structure for the contract. one of those is cost, and one of those is performance, and the

performance piece is really based on schedule. and, the contractor, the way we've structured the incentives, must focus on both of those throughout the program in order to capture the amount of incentive fee which turns into profit for the company. the schedule incentive is actually the more heavily weighted of the two. it is more focused on schedule, and that schedule incentive is not just based on -- it's based on meeting event dates, and it's based on delivering capabilities, and meeting requirements. not just getting to a date. if a contractor doesn't meet it on the expected date, or the set date, then the incentive fee or the profit goes down until it goes to zero, that's the way that it's structured. but, the next schedule incentive date it's still out there on the calendar, and they have to march to that date. so, it is definitely incentivized to meet those criteria, and meet delivery on those capabilities across the whole program.

additionally, the schedule incentives increase toward the end of the program. so, the contractor must have more heavily weighted toward the end of the emd effort. so, the fee early on the schedule piece will be lower, it will be dramatically larger as we get more toward the end and we start trying to deliver the aircraft, and we start doing the test program. if northrop executes to the proposed cost and schedule, they'll earn all of the incentive, and there's various different formulas that go in there, into the equation, but that's generally to give you an idea. it is cost, it is schedule. schedule is the heavier weighted of the two, and the schedule is more toward the end. so, when i've said before, it's back end, loaded, it's delivering capabilities, meeting the requirements in the end. again, we'll share more information with you as we move forward, as we can, and we're

going to continue to be transparent with congress, as we have since the program started. and, we will continue to share information, and work with them. and, with that, i'll open it up. yes, ma'am, you were trying early. >> thank you, lieutenant general bunch. sandra erwin, national defense news. i wanted to ask you about the thinking on why this is not a fixed price contract. in the tanker we're hearing that boeing is absorbing, like, a billion dollars in losses under the fixed price contract which makes people think, why wouldn't you want to do that with a bomber, and just have the company take all the hits initially in the emd. what is the thinking behind that? lieutenant general bunch: yes, ma'am. our thinking on that, and the kc-46 is the program that many people focus in on right now because that's our big emd effort that we have going on.

the kc-46 is, in my mind, completely different than the bomber. the kc-46 is a derivative aircraft off of a commercial line that was already hot. they were already producing 767's and they had to do a derivative of that to be able to provide it as a tanker. boeing is able to keep a commercial line open so that they can continue to do commercial sales, and boeing has the opportunity to, with the kc-46, to be able to do foreign military sales. on the case of a b-21, which is a -- you do not have the possibility of commercial sales. you do not, at this time, nor do we anticipate the ability to do foreign military sales. you're building an aircraft that has never been built before, and you're integrating, yes, mature technologies but you still have to integrate those into a never before built platform. when we got into the discussions about contract type there were multiple factors that were weighed out, and multiple discussions about contract types, but the milestone

decision authority at that point decided that a cost plus contract based on the risk was the more appropriate. and, again, the risk predominantly is technical, and the other risk is the ability or desire of the contractor to continue to perform in the event that they get into a loss situation where they can make it up through other means. >> but, secretary, when tony asked about the lessons from the b-2, she said one of the lessons is that this program is technologically more mature, and that the risk is much lower. but, you're saying that there is quite a bit of risk. lieutenant general bunch: that's not exactly what i said, ma'am. so she did say that, and she was correct. i was a b-2 test pilot, so i can relate back to what we were trying to do at that timeframe, and there was more risk involved. we still have risk here, but the risk -- i do not equate to the same level of risk we had in the b-2 program. in this case, what we have done is we're using mature technologies to meet the requirement and deliver the capability that we need. but we're still building a

brand-new airplane, sohat carries risk. and we're integrating the mature technologies into a never- before-built airplane, and that also carries risk. so would i equate it to the same risk as a b-2? no. would i believe the risk is low enough that we would want to go to a fixed price? i wouldn't. so it's somewhere in between. yes, sir? >> hey, general. pat host from defense daily. i was wonderg if you could get into a little more detail on what, specifically, each of the contractors will be performing, because mission systems and airframes sounds kind of vague. lieutenant general bunch: it is kind of vague, and i won't go into any more detail. >> and i'm glad you brought it up, because that's what i asked secretary james, is what else would you guys like to be more transparent about, about the program? is what you have talked about today the extent of what you're prepared to release? or are there some other things you will eventually roll out? lieutenant general bunch: i think there'll eventually be more things we'll roll out. there are a couple -- there is one thing that i'll go into. some people have asked about life cycle costs, have we factor that in.

we have factored life cycle cost in from the very beginning. when we built the team, we brought in operators and maintainers from the field. we rolled in the depot team to look at depot maintenance and look at supply chains. we have reached out to the test organizations, to make sure that we have the right test structure set up. we are looking at all the things you would consider for putting an aircraft out in the field, to make it sustainable in the long term. those are all factors that have gone into our key performance parameters and our key system attributes, and we're making sure we're focused on life cycle costs from the very beginning so that we can not only get it out in the field, but we'd also be able to support it and sustain it. >> thanks. lieutenant general bunch: yes, sir? >> colin clark, breaking defense. if you had the chance to sit down with senator mccain and explain why the current contract setup makes sense, what would you tell him? : itieutenant general bunch

would be similar to the lines that we've already -- that i already explained. i believe it's a weighing of the risk, and there is no one-size-fits-all contract type. most studies have shown, if you go look, you can have overruns on fixed-price, and many of us can go back and we can look at the a-12, we can look at tssam. we can look at some of those programs that didn't go so well in a fixed-price development, and you can go look at cost-plus ones that didn't go so well, either, and we've tried to apply the lessons learned. so there is no one-size-fits-all, and they're -- we are all passionate about national security. we all have ideas on what we're trying to do, and we'll just go through, and we'll continue the dialogue. >> maybe you should send him the rand study on fixed cost. lieutenant general bunch: we will continue our dialogue, colin. yes, sir? >> general, james drew from flight global gen. lieutenant general bunch: yes, sir.

>> it's believed that the bomber will be built out at palmdale, where the b-2 was originally integrated -- at least that would be the final assembly. do you have any comments on final assembly, and where that will be? yeah, we'll start with that. lieutenant general bunch: no. no comments on where it'll be finally assembled. >> do you have an initial operational capability date? lieutenant general bunch: what we've released so far has been mid-2020s. the initial operational capability date and requirements is something that we will work with air force global strike command, general rand's team, to establish those criteria. but that's not been completed just yet. yes, ma'am? >> the air force has talked about b-21 being a cost-plus contract type, you know, for a while now. why is this issue so contentious right now, and was there some sort of change in strategy that has kind of led to this point, or -- lieutenant general bunch: no. we haven't changed our strategy. we've been very transparent with all the parties involved, we've been briefing for many years

since the inception of the program the staffs to keep them in the know and -- in a classified environment where we could lay all the cards out on the table. we've been transparent with multiple meetings over the last few years where we've outlined our strategy and our way forward, and we've been consistent with our message even before we released the request for proposal which outlined how we were going to do the source selection, which outlined how we were going to do the contract. so we've been very transparent with what we were trying to do and now we will communicate as we have the discussion about what contract type vehicle we should have used. >> congress in those earlier discussions similar to what you're hearing now? lieutenant general bunch: we believe we're executing in alignment with what we've told everybody from the beginning, and we didn't anything that would cause us to stop and change our course at this point. yes sir. >> general, philip swarts with the air force times. please forgive me if this is a bit of a stupid question, but

when the secretary showed the image of the b-21, i think the thought that a lot of people had was that it looks a lot like a b-2. and i'm just curious, is this an airframe that's -- you know, air frame shape that's held up over the last 20 years? have there been any changes to the shape of an aircraft that's needed for stealth operations? lieutenant general bunch: well, when you have a requirement and a blended wing meets that requirement, and there's not a lot of -- i mean, if you go back and look at some of the early northrop products of flying wings, they look very similar to what the b-2 did. you can go back to the late 1940's and the 1950's and you look at that, and its looks similar to what the b-2 was. so there's no really -- nothing special there, it's worked, it's been successful and it continues. tony? >> a couple of questions here. a lot of story have it's a $23 billion contract. can you delineate that? lieutenant general bunch: so we're not telling you the contract.

what we have released is the service cost position and the independent cost estimate in base year 2016 dollars was $23.5 billion. that's the number we gave you the day we did the announcement, and we haven't given any number other than that, tony. >> do you plan to give the contract dollar value at some point? lieutenant general bunch: i believe we will. i just can't tell you exactly when it's going to be, tony. but that will be something that we eventually will talk about. >> what about the incentive fee? you've hung your hat on this today, if it's $2 million, people are going to say who cares. if it is $200 million, that's a different issue. can you give some range here? lieutenant general bunch: i believe it's a significant enough number that the contractor will be paying attention to it, tony. that's all i will say. >> when do you think you could release -- lieutenant general bunch: hopefully, we'll release it all at the same time, tony, but i can't swear to that. >> when, like two weeks from now or -- lieutenant general bunch: i'm not going to commit to a day,

tony. i can tell you that we are looking at it, it is something we're discussing and we're trying to make sure we've got all the right protections and everything in place to make sure we're doing it the right way. >> one more. the gao's decision, you guys are trying to redact the -- [inaudible] what's the status of that, the gao's decision? it's in your court right now. lieutenant general bunch: well, it's who you talk to depends on whose court they tell you it's in. so we are going through the reduction right now, and i don't have the latest status on when they think that'll be done, but it is being redacted right now by the gao and by everybody that has to look at the security aspects. >> defense news. lieutenant general bunch: yes ma'am. >> when you released the bomber contract, i think a lot of us were surprised that there wasn't a contract value attached to that. so can you kind of break down why you're not telling -- giving us the number on this? are there concerns of hacking? lieutenant general bunch: i

understand, lara. it's all part of the balancing that i talked about, we're trying to do, with the transparency that we need to do to get the public's trust, and what we're trying to do to ensure that we are protecting enough critical information. initially, one of the big drivers was we were going intot. that is really what we are trying to balance. >> earlier in the program, the comment was when the first article was delivered, it would be a usable particle. you used to say in order to avoid some of the pitfalls, there would not be a big ramp-up. it would be a slow number per year. we factored in va