ISIL still controls much of the northern and western Iraq, despite more than a year of United States airstrikes and the loss of Ramadi.

The Army's research and development budget has declined twice the rate as the overall cuts to the Army budget.

The impact of six years of budget cuts and of a fiscal year 2016 budget capped at BCA levels directly relate to the ability of the industrial base to support the engineering, manufacturing, development, and production of weapon systems.

General Cheek, do you need anything from the Senate Armed Services Committee to assist you with further cost reductions and acquisition efficiencies?

General Cheek, what initiatives has the Army taken to reduce acquisition costs and have they been effective?

The President's Budget request for 2016 (PB16) is the absolute minimum needed to meet the defense strategy at significant risk.

General Cheek, what is the Army doing to keep the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle (JLTV) and Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) programs on schedule and within costs?

I think that is one of the key issues we could find is where do they go to say 'make this stop?'

So the challenge is what is an interpretive rule and how do we actually get that out there if now the courts have determined interpretive rule does not go through an Administrative Procedure Act.

We will send some questions to you in the days ahead, if you do not mind.

Does anything prohibit that right now from an agency from doing that?

No, I do not, because we have agencies that will not give help that literally I have had folks that have said, 'I have called an agency and said 'Does this count?' and they said, 'Well, we will determine that when we come out to inspect.'…

regulations are not supposed to just appear out of the dark. They follow law.

Thank you. Let me ask a question just following up on the same line.

One simple way to ensure that the regulatory process benefits everyday Americans is to make sure that individuals have the opportunity to voice their opinions on all proposed regulations and make sure their comments are actually heard.

It is not broken. Why is the Federal Government here to fix something that has been working incredibly well?

This is something we have all talked about a lot and that is multiple forms.

My first response on that was, what is an interpretive rule? Is that clearly defined in law what an interpretive rule is?