On cspan2. Okay. We went right to okay. Well, i think thats the tone for what we want to talk about today. So welcome, everyone, with that to our first readiness subcommittee hearing of 2024. Hopefully, he will be able to join us. We have a new member joining the subcommittee this year, representative gooden of the 5th district of texas. I look forward to working with him and hopefully when our other subcommittee members free up from their obligations, we can get everybody over here, but i look forward to working with all of you as we go forward through this next year. Unfortunately as you can see from the photos todays topics is not a new issue, infrastructure across the department and the services continues to age and the deteriorating conditions at military facilities, obviously, have brought us as you well know. The neglect, the disrepair, the underfunding of our military facilities doesnt just harm our operational readiness capability, it does have significant impacts on everything from quality of life, our Service Members, to sustainment, to their ability to innovate, their ability to do their jobs. I am going to spend another couple of sentences here to underscore the most recent and most glaring example of the problems with our aging infrastructure. This gao report where were just showing these photos from on the conditions of barracks across the military apartments, i hope has been a real wakeup call for our leadership. We just had reports yesterday of a cockroach investtation infestation where we had to remove marines out of the barracks and the Committee Takes things seriously and its something that we should talk about today for the public to hear that the leadership of the pentagon takes it seriously and what the heck were going to do about it. I know Ranking Member garamendi and i sent a letter to secretary austin last year stating our bipartisan commitment to conducting oversight, finding solutions to these problems because poorly maintained and neglected barracks can i mean, common sense would aggravate the recruitment and crisis that were currently experiencing. Disrepair at barracks facilities, however, is only one of the symptoms of the underlying chronic problem. Facility, budget line, ssrm budget lines are routinely underfunded in the budget request every year. These budget lines are used as pay forward and budget programming requests, via the fy24 ndaa, this subcommittee amount for ssrm above the president s request to mitigate this issue. Underfunding for modernization causing deteriorate and causing the conditions to accumulate, which is where i think we are today. The consequences of that scenario is bleak enough. Infrastructure issues are prevalent at our innovation and our Testing Facilities. We rely on rdt infrastructure and dod lab to advance the concepts and capabilities that we need to be able to compete with our adversaries and we have to be prepared for these conflicts. These National Facilities are critical to that effort and frankly are often overlooked by the department, by the military department. So thank you for coming today. I think this is a conversation that our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, guardians deserve and that the public deserves to hear. I hope you can speak to how we can Work Together on solutions for transparency in the use of smr funds and address our aging infrastructure. With that ill now recognize member garamendi for his opening remarks. Mr. Chairman, exceedingly pleased youve made this the first hearing of this year. Well, here we are. Here we go again. Everything is important except maintenance of our facilities. Weve been banging this drum for a long time and well have to continue to do so. Weve made some progress, but not where we need to be. Weve increased the Facilities Sustainment restoration lines annually and then we go about reducing the money throughout the course of the year and its diverted to other tasks. I must say the problem is not only at the department of defense from time to time, its sitting here in congress. Specifically last year about 13 billion dollars, 13 new f35s were funded from fsrm funds. We did that and so, we set our priorities. The photos you put up on the screen are illustrative and we could probably fill several books as we look across the entire military at the barracks and the quality therein. And unfortunately, barracks is just one part of the problem. So while we have to have safe and adequate housing and well begin to bang away at that, its a definite recruiting problem. And want to show young men and women we have places for you to live. Look at this and come and join the military. Not likely to do it. So, and the lavatories, mr. Chairman you spoke to the lavatory issues and thats certainly a major part of the problem. We will not know if the equipment works, as the newest idea has merit if we dont have labs that are capable of handling and managing the necessary testing of those ideas and facilities. So what are we going to do about it . Well, we did something about it with the Family Housing. We wrote into the ndaa, the law of the land, that the base commanders fitness report will in part be based upon his or her attention to Family Housing. So its on the checklist. You want to move up the ranks, then youre going to have to take care of Family Housing. It appears that maybe this is a lesson some of us learned in our childhood from our parents. Youre going to be held responsible for making your bed. If you dont, youre going to get in trouble. In this case, we ought to add to that requirement that the base commander be held accountable and responsible for barracks and if there are Testing Facilities and other facilities on the base, in other words, the base commander be held responsible for the quality of the maintenance and efficiency of the facilities itself. I dont know of any other way to do it. We could pass laws. We could do anything, but if you want to move up in the ranks and this is something you have to Pay Attention to if you are a base commander, or any other specific role at the base. Ill let it go at that. I would ask that my statement be entered into the record because it was wonderfully written by a terrific staff and i just skimmed over it. Without objection. Without objection. Yield back. Thank you, mr. Garamendi. Id now like to welcome and introduce todays witnesses, each of our witnesses are for their respective departments and assistant secretary of defense for Energy Installations and environment, we have with us again honorable, the honorable brendan owens, honorable rachel jacobson, honorable meredith berger, and honorable robbie. Well move over to you for your testimony. And i am going to echo Ranking Member garamendi, im pleased that this is the first meeting this committee is having this year. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss department of defense infrastructure, particularly governmentowned and government controlled housing and the investments were making to improve niece Critical Mission enablers, our installations are the foundations of the National Security posture and i look forward working with the committee to continue aligning our policies and resources for the National Defense strategy and the safety, productivity and quality of life of our personnel. More than two million, work, train, raise their families, these places are central to are their military experience, affecting their health, Mental Health and retention in the force. Its therefore, National Security imperative and our moral obligation to ensure our operations are resilient. Their housing has the greatest quality on their life. And the dod failed in many instances that the housing honors the commitment of the Service Members and their families and enables them to bring the best versions of themselves to their missions. These were highlighted in the gao report of september of 2023 documenting poor Living Companies in some unaccompanied housing and we appreciate the gaos work to acknowledge we have a lot of work to do. We look at the recommendations this year. Fy24 nda positions and the recommendations have been instrumental in shaping the priorities of a tiger team we stood up earlier this month. Tiger team will focus on new configuration and habitability standards and providing accessibility, reliability of uh metrics, standardized preventive Maintenance Plans and identifying opportunities for quality of life and resilience. The department recognizes that our Service Members are impacted by far more than just housing. Our entire infrastructure portfolio, works, bases, schools, commissaries, hospitals, parks, Child Development and more should be configured and maintained to improve quality of life and help our people thrive. Over the past five years the department has invested in 14. 6 billion a year for new facilities. 15. 3 facilities to maintain and repair buildings and infrastructure and 2 billion a year on Environmental Restoration and conservation efforts. Despite this investment, a significant gap persists between installations and conditions today and the quality standards that are expected, deserved and best support fighter readiness. Not only face a growing 134 billion backlog, but many facilities need upgrades to meet evolving requirements and preferences. And this is true in areas prone to extreme weather and hazards as aging and failing facilities are far more vulnerable to these threats. We can and must do better. Continued infrastructure challenges or failures negative live impact the quality of service life of Service Members. This will in turn affect their abilities to carry out their missions and exacerbate the readiness that the department faces. Therefore, we must accelerate making sure theyre prioritized to have the greatest impact and to that end were working with the military Department Three lines of effort to guide our infrastructure investments. First, adopting human senate requirements to help us create environments not just meeting utilitarian needs, but productivity and health and camaraderie. Apartment miesing our footprint to assure that its aligned with the needs of people of their missions and third transforming how we manage our portfolio, a Management Strategy to help target investments that has the greatest return on investments. Your continued support and partnership will be critical for our efforts to improve quality of life for our Service Member, their families and the civilian work force and we look forward to working with you, as we transform approach to our infrastructure investment. Thank you and look forward to your questions. Ms. Jacobson, please for your testimony. Thank you, chairman wal waltz, Ranking Member garamendi, and the committee for talking about the infrastructure. First want to say our hearts go out to the families of soldiers who died in jordan. It is a sad, but important reminder why we do what we do. The need for all soldiers to live and work in safe and healthy environments remains at the very top of our priorities. We recognize the linkage between the quality of our facilities and the ability to retain a ready force. With respect to Family Housing, the army has made real progress. Our oversight of Housing Providers has increased significantly and we are now preparing to institute a standardized quality assures, Quality ControlMaintenance Program that will be applicable at all installations and were making sure that they fully understand and take advantage of the rights that congress has given them. With respect to barracks, army shares the concern of congress as reflected in the 2024 ndaa that need and concrete measures must be taken to address our failing barracks, especially in the wake of the september gao report. We welcome the codification of these measures into law and we look forward to working with congress and with the offices of secretary of defense to make sure they are meaningfully executable within realistic time frames. In sum, the army will make it work. Our commitment is evidenced by our proposed investment in Permanent Party barracks which now exceeds 1. 5 billion per year across the future Years Defense Program and when adding all barracks types across all components, active, guard and reserve, it hovers at approximately 2. 1 billion dollars a year across that same time frame. A number much factors have contributed to the current situation, namely the sheer size of our inventory, the growing backlog of deferred maintenance, the large facility and Permanent Party bases and ineffective practices. Were applying a multipronged strategy to solve this problem. First, we will maximize every dollar we spend on barracks. Our funding must be focused on bringing as many barracks as possible out of poor and failing categories. We will take full advantage of the new Authority Congress has given us to replace barracks that are beyond repair using restoration modernization funding. This approach to inventory capitalization will save time and money so we thank congress for that authority. Also, the army has already committed to increasing our investments in sustainment. This funding will be used for large scale projects such as roofs and hvac systems. The goal is to bring as many barracks as possible into Good Condition and keep them there. Second, we will build a robust work force of trained civilian barracks managers. We will no longer ask soldiers to perform these functions as collateral duty. Third, we are taking a hard look at changing the way we do business. This includes how we design our barrack spaces to give soldiers Better Living experiences, it includes examining our assignment policies to determine whether more soldiers should live off base and it includes a robust Business Case analysis of barracks prioritization. The army is ready to move forward with the privatized junior enlisted barracks project at fort irwin and that will go a long way in helping us understand how and where privatization might be beneficial. Underlying each of these efforts is the need for reliable data. The army will examine our data bases to make sure they reflect current, real world conditions as accurately as possible. We need to have good visibility into how were spending our resources. Obviously, much work is needed to improve barracks. The army has made Great Strides in understanding the scale of the problems as well as the resourcing needs. Now is the time to roll up our sleeves and fix the problem. We look forward to working with congress to make improved barracks a reality. I look forward to your question. Thank you, miss jacobson and ms. Berger for your testimony. Thank you for inviting me to come talk today about our housing and aging infrastructure. The majority of our infrastructure, whether barracks, utilities, our public shipyards, not in the shape that it should be. As an institution we have allowed these assets to degrade over time, we have identified and deferred risk and allowed that risk to accumulate and compound. We have been paying the bill with quality of life and readiness. Im grateful to the sailors and marines who have raised these issues with me and with department leadership, to the Government Accountability office for creating formal reports and recommendations, and to congress for your attention and for codifying requirements. Your intent in the ndaa language is loud and clear and your goals for our sailors and marines are the ones that the department shares. Weve got some efforts underway. Weve made some meaningful progress and weve got some significant work left to do. Today marks a big step forward for the marine corps. The assistant commandant directed the wall to wall inspection of barracks and told them to report back. If your barracks have issues, get out there and own it, he says. What were doing across the department of the navy, were getting out there and were owning it. I talk about infrastructure in support of Critical Missions and chairman, i heard this in your opening remarks. A sailor or marine recruited and retained, healthy, safe, supported and trained with a physical space to do the work of our National Defense, will return infinitely more values than the dollars that it costs, but it will cost a lot to get it right. And a good maritime fighting force always keeps their eyes on the horizon, we cannot simply accommodate the circumstances that we have always known. We must also anticipate the environment and requirements. The department of the navy has advocated for and accelerated opportunities that will yield increased quality of life and competitive advantage. These include using the congressional Pilot Authority for unaccompanied housing in two fleet concentration areas, san diego and norfolk. Were also running a pathfinder project on free wifi and barracks in norfolk as we increasingly hear and believe this recent is a fundamental requirement for quality of life and operational success. We see resilience and efficiencies saves dollars and makes sense and theres a difference between historic and old. At this critical moment, and Ranking Member garamendi, i heard this in what you were saying, its leadership by action is param