Today, Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's hearing titled "Ground Force Modernization Programs and the Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Request." For testimony and to watch the hearing click here.
"The Subcommittee meets today to review the Army and Marine Corps ground force modernization programs and the fiscal year 2019 budget request.
I'd like to welcome our witnesses:
Lieutenant General John Murray, Deputy Chief of Staff, G-8 and principal military financial advisor for Army program development and justification;
Lieutenant General Paul Ostrowski, Military Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology;
Lieutenant General Robert Walsh, Deputy Commandant of the Marine Corps for Combat Development and Integration; and
Brigadier General Joseph Shrader, Commanding General, Marine Corps Systems Command.
Thank you each for your service to our Nation.
Today the subcommittee will review a broad portfolio of ground force equipment modernization programs and their associated acquisition strategies covering over $40.0 billion in budget authority.
Our focus today is to conduct oversight on how the budget requests for these modernization programs and acquisition strategies are aligned with the new National Defense Strategy and how they will begin to restore full-spectrum operational readiness.
Last year during a similar subcommittee hearing, General Murray testified that 'the Army has nearly half of the funding for modernization and equipment that it had just 8 years ago,' and the Marine Corps stated that 'between fiscal year 2012 and fiscal year 2016, Marine Corps spending on ground procurement decreased by 48 percent in its base budget.'
Essentially the Army was 'outranged, outgunned and outdated,' and the Marine Corps was out of balance and required accelerated modernization to maintain overmatch capabilities.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 and the balanced budget agreement for fiscal years 2018 and 2019 sets the necessary conditions to start the long process of repairing the damage resulting from years of combat operations compounded with deferred modernization.
We all acknowledge this damage did not occur in a single year and it will take consistent levels of long-term increased investment to rebuild.
The Army's modernization budget request for this year represents a 22 percent increase over last year's modernization budget request. I'm pleased to see the Army is requesting enough funding to modernize one and a half armored brigade combat teams as opposed to last year's plan that modernized only half of the requirements for one complete ABCT.
The Marine Corps procurement request for ground equipment this year is $2.9 billion, which if enacted, would be an 80 percent increase over last year's budget request of $1.6 billon.
So it does appear that the Army and Marine Corps are taking the necessary steps to accelerate modernization and mitigate existing capacity shortfalls and capability gaps.
For example, the Army has identified six modernization priorities that include Long-Range Precision Fires, Next-Generation Combat Vehicles, Future Vertical Lift, Army Network, Air and Missile Defense, and Soldier Lethality.
To help streamline procurement of these capabilities, I understand the Army has also established eight cross-functional team pilot programs to expedite the requirements process and accelerate these priorities.
The subcommittee expects to hear how the fiscal year 2019 request is addressing these modernization priorities and better understand program schedules and fielding timelines that will enable acceleration of these capabilities to the soldier.
As a follow-up to the Subcommittee's hearing from last September on Army tactical network modernization, we expect our witnesses to provide additional details and justification underpinning this new strategy and how the fiscal year 2019 request enables it.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018 also directed the Army to develop a long term modernization strategy. Today is a good opportunity for the witnesses to provide us with an update on where the Army is at with developing this strategy.
From a Marine Corps perspective, this year and next will represent critical milestones for the Amphibious Combat Vehicle program, the CH-53K heavy lift helicopter program, as well as accelerating ground based air-defense initiatives. We expect to receive updates on all three of these issues today.
In summary, we cannot dig ourselves out of this readiness and modernization hole in just a couple of fiscal years or NDAA cycles.
I want to again place emphasis on what I said during last week's subcommittee hearing. We are experiencing a crisis in military readiness.
Over the last three and a half weeks we have witnessed a series of aviation accidents where 16 service-members have tragically lost their lives.
Many of these tragic events are a result of lack of training hours due to constrained resources and/or the current state of aging equipment; all of which resulted from years of underfunding our military, and clearly shows the magnitude of the problem we are dealing with.
This increase in modernization funding is absolutely required to maintain our comparative advantage against strategic competitors and improve overall readiness. However, with this increased funding comes added responsibility. If we are to sustain higher topline defense budgets we need to be assured that the military services and industrial base can execute the funds Congress authorizes and appropriates.
The bottom line is we have to get this right and we have to do it now."
