Mazie Hirono

I am asking you whether the words 'climate change' are somehow not acceptable in your Department and your various releases.

Excuse me, I have to correct you, Mr. Secretary, because the paper's abstract did have that sentence which you excluded from your press release.

So I think it is an area we are working through. It is a challenge now.

I think if you are a Marine from Vietnam or World War II and you went into watching what the Marines were doing, you would have just been lost at what was going on with the amount of unmanned ground systems, vehicles that were in the air…

I completely agree. As we look at modernizing our four public shipyards, and I have met with many of our workers in our shipyards, they want to have the modern tools.

These threats require us to consider how we can ensure that the Navy and Marine Corps have the resources they need.

You have certainly kept a laser-beam focus on getting to a 355-ship Navy.

In my opening statement, I referred to the Navy's new plan for modernizing the public shipyards, of course, after years of neglect.

I don't think we have a very cohesive strategy for countering the ongoing Russian efforts to interfere with our elections and our democracy.

So, are you saying that the Marines are developing a capability to counter information warfare from near-peer competitors such as Russia and China?

So, by the listing that you gave, are you doing enough to address the lethality gap?

Over the course of the past several months, our committee has heard testimony and received briefings detailing the increasing lethality gaps between the U.S. military and our near-peer competitors.

The primary challenge facing our Nation is the reemergence of long-term strategic competition with Russia and China.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Mattis announced a new defense strategy that would shift the focus for planning defense capabilities from one focusing on smaller regional contingencies to one focusing on being able to deal with…

This is not a top priority for the President.

Don't you think there should be a lead agency, maybe the State Department, which has $120 million to do the exact thing we're talking about?

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Totally dependent on the steadiness of our funding.

The most toxic thing to readiness has been continuing resolutions and the Budget Control Act.

A huge percentage of that shipyard is historically preserved.

I'd like to have your commitment that we will continue to focus on the need to modernize and increase the capacity and capability of our people at the shipyards.

The Pacific Pathways provides our Army in the Pacific with unique training opportunities by connecting a series of security cooperation exercises.

I highly encourage these MILCON projects and revitalization efforts which will impact the readiness, safety and morale of men and women serving in our Army.

In the fiscal year 2018 NDAA the Committee directed the Army to transition ownership of the Terminal High Altitude Area Denial (THAAD) missile defense system from the Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

What lessons has the Army learned from the failed programs of the recent past and what changes have been made to make current modernization plans successful?