Press Releases

Today, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), Chairwoman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the hearing titled "Creating a Flexible and Effective Information Technology Management and Acquisition System: Elements for Success in a Rapidly Changing Landscape."

"I'd like to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee on the important topic of Information Technology.

Several of us from the committee recently had a discussion with Eric Schmidt, who is the Executive Chairman of Alphabet, as well as the chairman of the Department of Defense's new Defense Innovation Board. That discussion was very helpful in provoking me to think about how the Department could do a better job incorporating best practices from industry. While it is unrealistic to think the Defense Department will ever operate exactly like industry, it is nonetheless imperative that we achieve every ounce of efficiency out of our back office and IT operations in order to fully invest in combat capability. The challenge is finding that correct balance, and today's hearing brings us one step closer.

Information Technology represents over $30 billion of the Department's total budget; however, too often it is treated as a support tool, secondary to platforms, weapons, training, and operations of the Department. But anyone who has seen US forces operate over the past 25 years understands that our military advantage comes from those networked systems providing the Intelligence, precision-strike, information fusion, and warning capabilities our warfighters have come to rely on.

This committee has been focused on reforming the operations of the Department for the past two years, from streamlining acquisition regulations to streamlining an overly cumbersome bureaucracy. The end goal of these efforts has been to enable us to buy and develop systems with greater agility and flexibility so that state of the art tools get into the hands of our warfighters faster.

I know our witnesses today will help provide us with a better framework for understanding how to think about defense management and acquisition practices for information technology as we explore the critical questions before us, such as:

What are the characteristics of well performing programs that we should focus on?

What leading indicators should we be monitoring to determine if programs are going off the rails, and before it is too late?

How can we better identify, encourage, and reward those program managers that are executing information technology programs well?

Today, we welcome three distinguished witnesses, all of whom have served as senior officials within the Department of Defense, and so they not only understand the government challenges with information technology management and acquisition, but also how private sector practices can be applied, or avoided.

First, the Honorable Peter Levine, former Department of Defense Deputy Chief Management Officer and Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness.

Next, the Honorable Terry Halvorsen, former Department of Defense Chief Information Officer and Department of the Navy Chief Information Officer.

And finally, Mr. Ed Greer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Developmental Test and Evaluation.

Welcome to all of our witnesses. I'd like to remind you that your testimony will be included in the record, and we ask that you summarize key points from that testimony in 5 minutes or less."