Gentlemen, thank you for being here this morning and for your great service to our country.

Well, I know that we are all anxious to work with you to see what we can do to get that fiscal year 2014 boat added within the FYDP if possible.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, we all recognize that we are facing difficult fiscal challenges and that we absolutely have to get our fiscal house in order. Obviously, that means that we have to make smart budgetary…

The cyber landscape is a dynamic one that continues to evolve at an alarming rate.

I am very concerned about the capabilities of our bases on the peninsula to withstand a cyberattack directed against outside supporting infrastructure, such as the electrical grid.

Congress, as we know, has the constitutional responsibility to ensure that our military is fully prepared to defend our country and our vital interests.

Congress has the constitutional responsibility to ensure that our military is fully prepared to defend our country and our vital interests.

The nature of future warfare is uncertain, but what is certain is that potential challengers will seek ways to circumvent our strengths and exploit our weaknesses.

What is the status of development and delivery of proposed National Cyber Range capabilities? Are resources adequate to continue maturing range capabilities?

Excellent. Very good, that is good information to have.

In order to be really effective at being able to defend the country, we have to be as far out from our shores as possible.

So much of our national security is dependent upon the reliable and timely flow of information across secure networks.

I think that is key to the future.

the most effective defense that we can have, or programs we have to defend our networks is this information sharing aspect.

In many ways we are at a tipping point right now with respect to the capabilities of cyber offense, cyber defense, intelligence gathering, if you will.

What discussions are underway to address the points of vulnerability? And how has the dialogue advanced in the past year?

What more can be done to engage our allies, especially NATO? How can we leverage DOD 'building partnership capacity' authorities to train and equip foreign forces to improve our allies' capabilities related to cyber operations?

What discussions and actions are going on within NATO to improve the capabilities of the alliance to deal with cyber threats?

What CYBERCOM capabilities are in need of further development to address our national vulnerabilities in cyberspace?

I urge this committee to please consider the importance of these programs as you continue preparing next year's budget.

As Co-Chair of the Congressional Career and Technical Education Caucus, I have seen that a failure to engage our students has hurt our country's innovative edge.

I urge this committee to make sure that any future budget support increased funding for the Port Security Grant Program.

Are there capability shortfalls with regard to your counterproliferation mission that require investments in R&D?

I have been very concerned over time about the capabilities of our bases here in the United States to withstand a cyberattack directed against outside supporting infrastructure, such as the electrical grid.

What is our current hedging capability for homeland defense?