Jim Langevin

Foreign Military Sales (FMS) programs serve both as a boon to the domestic defense industry and our relationships with foreign partners.

The United States has enjoyed a significant advantage in C4ISR capabilities, but China has made significant efforts to acquire those same capabilities.

We touched on this already, but the U.S. Office of Naval Intelligence does project an unclassified assessment that China will have between 313 and 342 submarines and surface combatants by 2020.

So obviously today's budgetary constraints are familiar to all of us, and some of the hardest decisions that we are going to make will be basically trade-offs between the highly capital-intensive investments in platform modernization.

If we want to stay competitive in a 21st Century economy, then Congress must reauthorize Perkins at a level that will meet the growing demands for CTE.

Reauthorizing the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act is one of my top priorities.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. In 2010, maritime economic activities supported 2.7 million jobs and $258 billion in GDP. These resources are too important to our economies not to be managed with the best science practices available. I…

I and many of my colleagues believe that this investment is absolutely key in terms of enabling our Navy in future years--not just through land-attack capability, but also through the flexibility those tubes offer in terms of mission space.

What are the prospects for harvesting these investments across programs beyond the existing 3-ship buy?

I would like to thank our witnesses for their very informative testimony here today as always.

Developing bioweapons and using them against our population is something that terrorists could do not just once but again and again and again, and it poses great risk.

As horrific as a nuclear attack on the country would be, thankfully Mother Nature didn't make it easy to make weapons-grade plutonium or highly enriched uranium.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to our witnesses, I appreciate you being here today on this very important topic.

Biological threats must be at or near the top of that list.

Training in the complex environments of the future is a huge challenge that I know has been an issue for some time--particularly the ability to integrate cyber and EW.

As I look at the Air-Sea Battle strategy, I don't see a lot that is fundamentally new--in most cases this is activity and thought that has been ongoing for some time.

ASB heavily emphasizes cyber capabilities.

Full command and control connectivity and nodal linkages between Air and Space Operations Centers (AOCs) and Maritime Operation Centers (MOCs) do not currently exist.

The ASB office exists within a very crowded organizational construct--CAPE, AT&L, the Joint Staff, and the JROC, among others.

What authorities does the office have in the planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process?

As co-chair of the bipartisan Career and Technical Education (CTE) Caucus, alongside Mr. Thompson of Pennsylvania, I have made the reauthorization of the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act one of my top priorities.

Can each of you address the effects of continued sequestration on cyberspace activities and how you intend to manage the fiscal pressures?

Shipbuilding will drop in fiscal 2014

Defending investments in research and development can be very difficult since the investments, while crucial to future capabilities, are necessarily speculative in nature.

As DOD implements the Secretary's planned 20% cuts to headquarters, how will the Department balance these cuts among contractor, military, and civilian employees?