Today, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's Markup. For information and to watch the markup click here.
"We meet today to consider the Strategic Forces mark of H.R. 5515 — National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019.
Before diving into the details of the mark, I just want to take a moment and thank my colleague and friend, Jim Cooper. For six years Jim and I have worked together in a truly bipartisan manner to provide critical oversight on challenging policy considerations and technical capabilities. Our issue set can be deeply divided among party lines, but our ability to work together has consistently led to the best oversight and policy guidance for the benefit of our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. And maybe one day soon, our independent space forces.
I'll now turn to the details of the mark. Let's begin with three general themes across the mark.
The first general theme is that we must go faster in modernization and acquisition. We heeded the advice of General John Hyten, the Commander of U.S. Strategic Command, when he told us we must 'go fast.' For the nuclear enterprise that means that we require the DoD to develop and implement a plan to go faster on both the GBSD and LRSO program. To go fast in missile defense the mark prohibits changes to the unique requirements and acquisition authorities of MDA. We look to support continued progress on space-based sensing, boost-phase, and directed energy for missile defense. With regard to hypersonics, we authorize additional funding for the Department to accelerate testing and operational delivery of this capability. And in space we direct the Deputy Secretary of Defense to design an alternative space acquisition system with the intent to synchronize requirements of the space vehicle, ground segment, and terminals. To be clear, it is the belief of this committee that we must work harder, faster, and smarter in acquisition of all of our strategic capabilities for the defense of our nation.
The second theme of the mark was supporting the Full Committee in splitting up AT&L into A&S and R&E. In order to support the Full Committee's broader reform efforts as manifest in the new Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering we relooked at the authorities in the context of strategic forces capabilities. This mark provides the USD for R&E a seat on the Nuclear Weapons Council, to ensure an innovative, objective, and clear-eyed view of technologies and foreign threats is at the table. For missile defense we direct the USD R&E to transfer all research and development programs focused on delivering ballistic missile defense capability to the Missile Defense Agency by September 30, 2020. For space we look forward to R&E making contributions to this enterprise within the context of their existing authorities.
The last general theme that we took across the mark was energizing our industrial base and ensuring supply chain security. With regard to the nuclear enterprise the mark requires DoD to review and make a decision on whether and how to sustain two or more suppliers for large solid rocket motors. For space the mark directs the Secretary of Defense to develop a plan and conduct evaluations of the supply chain vulnerabilities for protected satellite communications and next-generation overheard persistent infrared systems. For space launch we continue to support resilient, responsive, and reliable national security space launch options offered by commercial industry.
Lastly, this committee continues to place a high priority on following through with fixing the significant flaws in the organization and management of the national security space enterprise. While we continue to work with the Department on their upcoming reports on organization and management we recognize that Congress must continue to place significant pressure on the bureaucracy of the Department to fix itself. Since last year, President Trump has endorsed the establishment of an independent space force. Jim and I remain committed to laying the foundations for that force within this committee. In addition to tasking the DSD to design a new space acquisition system, we also direct the Secretary of the Air Force to develop a plan to increase the number and improve the quality of the space cadre within the Air Force. We direct the establishment of a new numbered air force which will be responsible for carrying out space warfighting operations which will benefit from the increased numbers of space warfighters. Lastly, we establish a sub-unified command for space under United States Strategic Command which will further normalize joint space warfighting operations across all services, as Secretary of Defense Mattis testified before the Full Committee just two weeks ago. We look forward to aggressively moving forward to implement a sensible way forward to increase the lethality and agility of our joint space warfighters.
I'll now turn it over to my friend, the Ranking Member, for any comments he would like to make."
