Hearing Of The Terrorism, Unconventional Threats And Capabilities Subcommittee Of The House Armed Services Committee - "Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Budget Request For Department Of Defense Science And Technology Programs"

Statement

Hearing of the Terrorism, Unconventional Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee

Subject: "Fiscal Year 2010 National Defense Authorization Budget Request For Department Of Defense Science And Technology Programs"

Chaired By: Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA)

Witnesses: Alan Shaffer, Principal Deputy Director, Defense Research And Engineering, Office Of The Secretary Of Defense (OSD); Thomas H. Killion, Deputy Assistant Secretary Of The Army For Research And Technology, U.S. Army; Nevin P. Carr, Jr., USN, Chief Of Naval Research, Director, Test And Evaluation And Technology Requirements, U.S. Navy; Terry Jaggers, Deputy Assistant Secretary Of The Air Force For Science, Technology And Engineering, Office Of The Assistant Secretary For Acquisition, U.S. Air Force; Robert F. Leheny, Acting Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Office Of The Secretary Of Defense (OSD)

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REP. SMITH: (In progress.) This morning we are going to talk about the DOD S&T programs and the administration's plans and priorities for the S&T budget as reflected in their request this year. I have a brief opening statement, and will also have a statement that without objection I will submit for the record.

Just want to welcome all of our witnesses here today now to talk about this very important subject. This is going to be a very interesting budget year for the DOD on a wide variety of programs. Certainly we've heard about some of the big ticket items. But this has implications throughout the budget in terms of how we set our priorities. And Science and Technology will be no exception as we figure out where to do our research, what our priorities should be on how to spend the money.

Our overall priorities within the DOD budget are going to be critical to assessing that. And all of the gentlemen here today are going to be critical players in making those decisions and moving forward. In general, I want to say that I feel that, you know, our research and development in the science technology areas has done quite well.

I think the best thing they've done the last couple of years is been responsive to the battlefield needs. We would all like to have the long-term planning and we are still doing that. But there has been, I believe, a perfectly logical and reasonable shift in focus since 9/11 to what we need in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And that help, I think, has been critical to the warfighters in terms of meeting our challenges by providing them with the technological advances they need in many, many areas. Of particular note is the significant improvement in the quality of medical care, you know, both in terms of battlefield survivability, the various treatments that are now available.

And then for those who are seriously wounded, some of the advances in prosthetics, in other care that has really improved the quality of life for our men and women who are injured out there. And a lot of that has to do with investments that were made within R&D and science and technology. Certainly, there are many other areas where we've made those improvements.

In the balance that we try to strike going forward is make sure we continue to meet those battlefield needs, but also look down the road, which was, you know, one of the main purposes of research and development off the bat and to see what our challenges are going to be in the future and to improve technology in those areas that are going to put us in the best position to meet them, to make those investments early on. So look forward to hearing from our witnesses.

And with that, I will turn it over to the Ranking Member Mr. Miller for any opening comments he might have.

REP. JEFF MILLER (R-FL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do have an opening statement, and I would like to submit it for the record. But I have a couple comments that I would like to make as well.

Thank you, gentlemen, for being here today.

It was April 6th that Secretary Gates had a press conference where he gave us our first and the really only glimpse at this time into the significant investments that he was proposing to the president that would later be reflected in the FY 2010 budget request. We've got a lot of questions for the secretary and the department as they're going to be coming out over the next couple of weeks.

But you know, I feel that our job is complicated by the fact that we only have Fiscal Year 2010 figures to work with, and we've been told that future programmatic decisions will be based on the outcome of the 2010 QDR with some significant budgetary moves found in the Fiscal 2010 budget. I think everybody agrees that if we -- we've got to get this right

You know, this year's budget shows an overall decrease in the research and development, testing and engineering accounts from the previous year. I think it was back in '09 there was a 4 percent increase. But as I was going to say, if we don't get it right or we don't provide sufficient funding for research and development, our forces could find themselves without much needed capabilities.

I look forward to you gentlemen addressing these issues and answering the questions that we have for you today.

Thank you.

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much, Mr. Miller.

I will introduce all the witnesses, and then we'll take you from left to right. We always strive for between 5 and 10 minutes opening statements. There are all five of you, but I want to make sure that you get plenty of time to say what you've come to say. So please feel free to use that time.

We're joined first of all by Mr. Alan Shaffer who is the principal deputy director for defense research and engineering at the Department of Defense; Dr. Thomas Killion, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for research and technology -- good to see you again.

Rear Admiral Nevin Carr is chief of naval research, and I thank you in particular for being here this morning. I know you've got very significant family health care problems this past week, and appreciate your being with us here.

We also have Mr. Terry Jaggers who's the deputy assistant -- guess you can get the prize for longest title -- deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for science, technology, and engineering at the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Acquisition for the Air Force -- good to see you.

And Dr. Robert Leheny, acting director for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, better known as DARPA. Welcome.

And I should make a note we miss Mr. Tether, appreciate his long service and -- (laughter) --

MR. : (Off mike.)

REP. SMITH: I know. Doesn't feel right to be doing this without him, but I'm sure you will fill in ably. With that we'll start with Mr. Shaffer.

MR. SHAFFER: Good morning, Chairman Smith, Ranking Member Miller.

I ask that my written testimony be entered into the record. I am pleased to be here today on behalf of the nearly 100,000 Department of Defense Science and Technology men and women. We strive to discover, develop, mature, and field the best possible technologies at an affordable price for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, and civilians deployed in defense of our nation.

To meet this challenge requires us to develop the best we can from our DOD laboratories, and to partner with all elements of the national science and technology infrastructure -- academia, industry, small business, and other federal agencies. Delivering the best possible technology is a complex and multi-faceted effort. It is my honor today to show that we are making progress toward this challenge.

This is an exciting time to be in Department of Defense S&T. For the third straight year, we submitted a president's budget request that conveys substantial change driven by the shift in national security priorities in response to our current irregular warfare engagement.

Counter-insurgency warfare requires us to expand our capabilities in diverse areas such as persistent surveillance, protection technologies, cultural and social modeling, and other non-kinetic capabilities while maintaining adequate conventional operational capabilities at the same time. We've realigned well over 10 percent of the science and technology investment over the last three budget requests.

This year's budget submission was guided by four strategic principles -- the first, basic research, was articulated by Secretary Gates in his Fiscal Year 2009 Budget posture hearing. The other three were highlighted by the secretary in his April 6th speech which laid out the budget priorities for the Department of Defense.

They are: taking care of our people, developing the capabilities to fight the current and future wars, and improving our acquisition capabilities and accountability. The S&T budget submission we are discussing today addresses all of these priorities and more, building upon our budget requests of the past several years, and aligns our investment to irregular warfare challenges.

The S&T Fiscal Year 2010 president's budget request of $11.6 billion represents a strong continued commitment to S&T. Specifically, this year's request came within one-half of a percent of maintaining real growth compared to 2009. And the combined real growth of the S&T budget request from FY 2008 to '10 is about 4 percent growth.

Fiscal Year '10 continues the trend of moving investment from kinetic to non-kinetic capabilities. It includes a number of areas of increased emphasis. Medical research and development, which increases nearly $500 million for combat casualty care and mitigation and rehabilitation of traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other combat-related injuries.

Expanded cyber protection, which increases the DOD investment by about $50 million a year to fund information assurance science and technology for intrusion prevention and detection. Expanded anti- tamper technology, which increases efforts in vulnerability assessments of our platforms and development of new technologies to improve anti-tamper capabilities.

Stand off detection of fissile materials which increases our investment to improve remote detection capabilities of weapons of mass destruction. Large data handling capabilities starts a new science and technology program to improve our capacity to handle large and increasing amounts of information supporting current and emerging warfighter requirements.

In his April 6th speech, Secretary Gates said his first priority is taking care of people. The most significant way the S&T community is addressing his charge to take care of our people is medical research and development. About 18 months ago, in recognition of the exceptional importance and urgency of improvements in combat casualty care, the department conducted an extensive review of medical R&D.

The assessment resulted in the justification for a substantial budget increase which was directed to the Services and Defense health program. Secretary Gates' second priority is institutionalize and enhance our capabilities to fight current and future wars, which means we need to continue to shift this to the shift of investment from kinetic to non-kinetic capabilities to meet the unique challenges of irregular warfare.

We have emphasized development of new capabilities in several high priority areas to include intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, large data processing, command and control and network sciences, cyber protection, social modeling, irregular warfare modeling and simulation, and energy efficiency for forward deployed forces. I'll be happy to discuss any of these areas in detail during the question-and-answer period.

The final priority highlighted by Secretary Gates, is improving our acquisition process and accountability. There have been numerous blue ribbon studies pointing to the challenges facing our acquisition program. The S&T team can play a key role in several areas including technology maturity assessments, rapid acquisition, agile information tools, and high performance computing. Again, I will be happy to discuss any of these in further detail during question and answer.

In conclusion, the DOD S&T community has adapted and will continue to adapt to the needs of the warfighter as guided by Secretary Gates' four strategic principles. The basic research program is stronger. We are expanding our S&T program to take better care of our people. We are developing capabilities both for the current and future conflicts, and we are improving our department's acquisition posture.

In short, the S&T community stands ready to provide combatant commanders the tools necessary to carry out their missions around the world. Our measure of success will always be the ability for our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines to maintain a technological advantage on the battlefield. We appreciate the opportunity to provide the update on the status of the DOD enterprise. Thank you.

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much.

Dr. Killion.

MR. KILLION: Thank you, Chairman Smith, and the distinguished members of the subcommittee.

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the Fiscal Year 2010 Army Science and Technology Program and the significant role that S&T is playing in supporting our warfighters of tomorrow and today. And I've submitted a written statement and request that it be accepted for the record.

REP. SMITH: Without objection.

MR. KILLION: I want to thank the members of this committee for your critical role in supporting our soldiers who are at war and for your advocacy of Army S&T investments. They will help to sustain technological preeminence for our soldiers. Your continued support is absolutely vital to our success.

The Army's S&T investment strategy is shaped to foster innovation and mature technology to enable future force capabilities while exploiting opportunities to rapidly transition technology in the current force. The S&T program maintains flexibility to be responsive to unforeseen means identified through current operations. We have rapidly responded to a broad range of these needs.

Our Army scientists and engineers have made significant contributions to the warfighting systems being used by today's soldiers. Recent Army S&T transitions to Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom have significantly reduced soldier and vehicle weight burdens while increasing protection capability.

Additionally, because of the Army's S&T position early in the acquisition process, our work in armor, networks, power and energy, and other areas, are well-positioned to support Army brigade combat team modernization. Army S&T is seeking to optimize our future investments to mature vehicle and soldier protection and efficiently reduce weight burdens as collective systems.

S&T investments contributing to soldier weight reduction are approached in a holistic fashion to address personnel load issues. Exploitation of advanced materials and manufacturing processes allow for weight reduction of individual components while increasing the capability of soldier equipment.

Our investment in medical S&T provides the basis for maintaining both physical and psychological health of our soldiers as well as enhancing their performance. Battlemind, which is the Army's psychological resiliency building program, prepares soldiers for both the mental and emotional rigors faced during deployment, and improves their ability to transition home.

We have also recently initiated a program to develop detection and prevention methods to combat the incidence of suicide in our soldiers. While much of the focus of our S&T investments is necessarily on near- and mid-term futures, we have also sustained our commitment to basic research that seeks to enable the next generation of soldiers with paradigm shifting capabilities to dominate in the full spectrum of battle space environments.

In closing I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity to testify before the subcommittee, and for your support to Army Science and Technology investments. I'm proud to represent the efforts of thousands of Army scientists and engineers dedicated to providing our soldiers with the best possible technology in the shortest possible time. And I'll be pleased to answer your questions and those of the subcommittee.

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much.

Admiral Carr.

ADM. CARR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. It's an honor to appear before you to report on science and technology efforts within the Department of the Navy, and how the president's FY '10 budget requests supports the Navy and Marine Corps.

Accompanying me is the vice chief of naval research, Brigadier General Thomas Murray, who also serves as commanding general of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory. The naval S&T challenge is to support the Navy Marine Corps capable of prevailing in any threat environment.

In order to address critical Navy Marine Corps challenges today and tomorrow, ONR must focus on S&T areas to provide the biggest payoff for our future, be innovative in our thinking and business processes, and continuously improve our ability to transition that S&T into acquisition programs. President's FY '10 budget requests ($)1.8 billion for naval S&T to accomplish these goals.

As you know, it's not just about hi-tech weapons. Please let me share an example of S&T efforts to protect sailors and marines in the operational environment of reducing hearing damage to personnel exposed to high noise. We're working on multiple approaches to reduce, monitor, and assess exposure, develop advanced personal protective equipment, and develop enhanced warnings and procedures to ensure exposure does not become damaging.

ONR-developed technologies are now transitioning to -- (inaudible) -- warfighter as part of the acquisition sponsor's Flight Deck Cranial Program. We're also working on treatment including groundbreaking pharmaceutical inventions for situations where potentially damaging exposure does occur. In another area of interest to Congress, ONR is working with DOD and Navy Task Force Energy to reduce the amount of fossil fuels used by our forces.

We continue to invest in Navy Future Fuels efforts to investigate the impact of new fuel formulations on naval machinery. In FY '09, Congress added ($)20 million for alternative energy research. We are using the fund to evaluate energy positive structures, advanced solar, wind, and ocean thermal technologies, and to address system integration impacts of intermittent, renewable energy sources on power grids.

Finally, ONR continues to support research in fuel cells, methane hydrates, and other sources of energy. Significant S&T efforts are dedicated to responsible stewardship of the marine environment. This includes the impact of national security requirements on marine mammals. The Navy is the world leader in marine mammal research with ONR spending approximately ($)14 million annually to understand how marine mammals may be affected by sound.

Navy investments represent majority of funding spent on this research in the U.S., and nearly half of that spent worldwide. Congress has been generous in support of these programs, and I look forward to continued partnership in achieving the goal of better protecting the marine environment. Prevailing in today's threat environment and building a strong, flexible force in the future requires careful S&T investment to protect the nation and our warfighters.

To achieve that goal, we continue moving forward toward greater integration of capabilities, more effective partnership between research and acquisition, and a clearer vision of how to achieve shared goals among DARPA, Army, Air Force, and other DOD research organizations. We must monitor and leverage S&T in a global environment.

Worldwide movement of technology and innovation demands that we be able to take advantage of emerging ideas wherever they originate. We have an aggressive worldwide presence with S&T partnerships in 70 countries, 50 states, 900 companies, 3,300 principal investigators, 3,000 graduate students, and 1,000 academic and nonprofit entities.

ONR Global offices in London, Tokyo, Singapore, and Santiago, Chile help us stay abreast of emerging S&T trends around the world and avoid technological surprise. In order to tap the full spectrum of innovative thinking and discovery, we continue to focus the majority of our investments on performers outside the naval R&D system.

Nevertheless, in our ceaseless effort to attract world-class scientists become part of our organization, we continue to mature world-class skills and innovation within our lab system, and especially the naval research laboratory.

For these reasons I believe our S&T investments are sound and represent careful stewardship of tax dollars that will significantly enhance the safety and performance of our warfighters. Thank you for your support. I'll do my best to answer your questions.

REP. SMITH: Thank you, Admiral.

Mr. Jaggers.

MR. JAGGERS: Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee and staff, thank you.

I'm pleased to have this opportunity to provide testimony on the Fiscal Year 2010 Air Force Science and Technology Program. The Air Force S&T Program is a vital element of the Air Force' larger research and development strategy. At approximately $2.2 billion, the Fiscal Year 2010 president's budget request for S&T includes an increase of $98 million for almost 4 percent real growth over the Fiscal Year 2009 for S&T requests.

For the past two years, I have spoken extensively about adapting Air Force S&T to the security environment identified in the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and shifting investment emphasis from traditional conventional threats to new unconventional threats such as terrorism.

The Air Force S&T program continues to address this challenge by focusing investments on near-term contingency support far-term capability needs to maintain technological superiority for our nation. Five guiding principles I established back in 2005 for S&T now provide a comprehensive framework for our larger Air Force R&D strategy.

My number one priority still remains evaluation and protection of our greatest R&D asset, people.

To complement our recently approved human capital strategic plan for the acquisition workforce, we have created a major initiative to recruit, develop, mentor, and retain the nation's best and brightest scientists, technologists, engineers, and mathematicians, otherwise known as STEM.

The National Research Council study we commissioned over a year ago to define Air Force STEM and lay out a world map to manage it effectively, is scheduled for completion this summer. We look forward to the NRC recommendations, and plan on incorporating them into our new Air Force STEM strategic plan.

This STEM strategic plan will address the hundreds of thousands of critical STEM across the Air Force, and better integrate the approximately 3,000 STEM at our Air Force Research Laboratory.

Our hopes are to better synergize the many STEM workforce improvement initiatives across non-S&T with those targeted for S&T such as section 1108 and section 219 from the Fiscal Year 2009 National Defense Authorization Act. We are maximizing the use of these authorities in the laboratory, and hope to engage Congress on the larger STEM workforce issues in the future.

My second priority is to maintain stability and balance in the S&T portfolio. An appropriate balance is not only required between the three budget activities of S&T, but also between S&T and the follow-on prototyping budget activity 4. This is critical to successful technology transition while ensuring our future acquisition programs are structured for success with disciplined upfront systems engineering.

Mostly coupled with this is our third S&T guiding principle to focus technology development on Air Force strategic priority. Again, our S&T program focuses technology investments on the five priorities of the Air Force -- revitalizing the nuclear enterprise, winning today's fight, helping and caring for airmen, modernizing our air space and cyber inventories, and recapturing acquisition excellence.

Our fourth guiding principle -- transition technology to warfighters and system developers -- is one that has gained even greater importance during this time of acquisition improvement. Finding new and improved ways of transitioning technologies directly to the warfighter and into our weapon system acquisitions is an area that has received special attention since we stood up our technology transition office within the headquarters Air Force last year.

Already it has been directly responsible for crafting minimum criteria needed for successful transitions as well as leading the theory and thought across the department for early phased systems engineering and pre-acquisition technology insertion plan.

Last but certainly not least is our fundamental principle of honoring commitments we've made with our partners. Whether they are with others across the Air Force, our sister services, Defense agencies, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, industry, academia, our allies, or with you, the Congress, Air Force S&T stands by our commitments.

Guided by these principles, this budget request focuses investments on Air Force and joint warfighting needs. We continue to shift S&T investments from traditional areas to support unconventional warfare. A specific goal of the 2008 Air Force strategic plan is to bolster the Air Force core function of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance or ISR support to the joint warfighter, emphasizing irregular warfare scenarios.

The S&T program is developing unprecedented proactive ISR technologies to create a universal situational awareness through a layered and flexible sensing architecture for use not only in traditional air warfare, but in unconventional cyberspace warfare as well.

Other focused investments include energy-efficient technologies to reduce our dependence on foreign oil, sustainment technologies to assist in prolonging the life expectancy of our legacy aircraft, and of course game-changing technology such as directed energy, hypersonics, cyberspace, and highly accurate low collateral damage conventional munition.

Related to S&T and technology development I know there is a subcommittee interest in leveraging S&T competencies for acquisition improvement. As both the Air Force S&T executive and the Air Force chief engineer, I personally conduct all independent technology readiness assessments on Air Force major defense acquisition programs.

To date, I have led approximately 30 technology readiness assessments, 2 manufacturing readiness assessments, 1 overall program assessment, and multiple independent reviews. Obviously, these reviews inspect end-quality after defect (ph) and require integration to maximize their utility. In fact, we have a major imitative ongoing with OSD right now to combine these specialty reviews into a single standardized process.

However, to structure programs for success before these inspections begin, the Air Force is proud to have initiated two new programs. First, to address the NRC recommendation for early phase systems engineering during pre-acquisition concept development; and the second, to reduce integration risks through pre-program of record competitive prototyping.

The Air Force has already developed the policy framework to implement these two programs, and are emboldened by the fact that both the Department of Defense instruction 5000.02 and recent House incentive acquisition legislation reflect these very same NRC recommendations or any adopted by the Air Force.

Guided by Air Force strategic priorities, the Air Force S&T program is rebuilding and reshaping the workforce, balancing and focusing investments to modernize our inventories for a wide range of contingencies, shrinking the technology transition gap, and honoring commitments with joint and coalition teams to win the fight today and tomorrow.

Mr. Chairman, thank you again for this opportunity to present testimony. Thank you for your continuing support for the Air Force S&T Program. I look forward to your questions.

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much.

Dr. Leheny.

MR. LEHENY: Good morning.

REP. SMITH: Good morning.

MR. LEHENY: I'd like to thank the Chairman, Smith, and distinguished members of the subcommittee for this opportunity to briefly describe DARPA's programs and accomplishments which are discussed in much greater detail in my written testimony, which I would like to submit for the record.

By remarks this morning I'd like to focus on a few examples of how DARPA's work aligns with Secretary Gates' priorities for the department's 2010 budget. As we've already heard this morning, his first priority is to maintain our commitment to the care of our all- volunteer force. For several years, DARPA's bio-revolution programs have supported this commitment with innovative medical research programs.

And our flagship program that we started is our revolutionizing prosthetics effort which was recently showcased here on the Hill as part of the Veteran Administration's Research Week, and which was featured a few weeks ago on CBS Television's "60 Minutes" program.

Big news is that over the next 18 months in final tests with the VA approximately 30 combat veterans will participate in clinical trials of the prosthetic arm that is being developed in this program. And of this group, eight will test the arm at home in a normal day-to- day activity. In fact, one of these veterans is scheduled to take his arm home this week.

In another of our medical programs, we are investigating the cause and treatment of traumatic brain injury -- TBI. While the program is still in its early phases, it's already providing insights into the potential causes of TBI, insights that we believe will lead to new treatments and therapies to minimize the long-term effects of this devastating injury.

The secretary is also exercising the need to rebalance the department's investment to enhance our ability to fight the kind of wars we are fighting today. At DARPA we began this process more than a decade ago. And in direct response to challenges our troops are encountering in Iraq and Afghanistan, we identified urban area operations as a specific agency strategic thrust.

One success within this program is our Hardwire vehicle armor program which is demonstrated in advance composite armor system that is being used to protect our troops and thousands of MRAP vehicles today. At the same time we began investigating new modes of ISR capabilities, with the goal is creating a decisive edge for our forces.

Capabilities for sharing information among small ground units for better management of manned and unmanned ISR assets, for increasing predator effectiveness by providing video feeds to more than 50 users from a single predator platform, for providing new UAV-based radar capabilities for finding and tracking ground vehicles and dismounts in cities and under forest canopies.

And in a very ambitious program we're jointly working with -- recently undertaken with the Air Force, we will demonstrate a radar- equipped airship that can provide unprecedented wide area surveillance capabilities, and which when fully developed, will be capable of operating continuously for up to 10 years.

Current conflict has also highlighted the importance of prompt language translation. DARPA is meeting this need, the technology for near-real-time translations of Arabic TV broadcasts, translations that are providing our forces better situational awareness. Our long-term goal is dramatically reduce the need for human language translator.

And in further keeping with the secretary's objectives, we continue to invest in conventional force-on-force capabilities by supporting research on space technologies, unmanned systems -- (inaudible) -- weapons, and technologies for net-centric warfare, and information assurance. Of particular interest are our investments in cyber security.

These include investigating ways to find malicious elements inserted during manufacture into the microchips that are the brains in so many of our advanced systems. And in an effort that we expect will be the foundation for future cyber security research, we're creating a National Cyber Range.

This range, by providing tools for establishing and making precision measurements on a large scale using realistic cyber networks be tested for impact -- range of principal impact will be to spur further development in cyber security. Finally, in the belief that the best way to prepare for the future is by creating it, we continue to maintain a robust portfolio of programs focused on our core technologies.

These programs extend from quantum physics and theoretical mathematics, material and information science, to advanced micro systems. The fruits of these investments will create future capabilities and provide us our longest term guard against conventional or asymmetric surprises.

And in the initiative that grew out of our robotic vehicle grand challenge experience, we have begun a program targeted at high school students interested in computer science. These are just a few examples of what we're doing at DARPA. There are many more in the written testimony. Thank you. And I'm pleased to take your questions at this time.

REP. SMITH: Thank you all. We will do questions. We'll do them under the five-minute rule for everybody including me. First I'll ask about is the JIEDDO program and how much progress we're making in terms of dealing with improvised explosive devices and what your research is focusing on to try to solve that problem. I understand some progress has been made; it's a vexing, vexing issue. But what S&T approaches are we employing at this point to try to address that?

I guess, Mr. Shaffer, I'll start with you, and if anyone else wants to chime in, they may.

MR. SHAFFER: Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. That's a tough question and especially to answer in this particular forum but --

REP. SMITH: Yeah, I was looking through my series of questions here, and a whole bunch of them seem to be generated in areas that we can't answer in this forum but --

MR. SHAFFER: Well, I will turn to my compatriots who are in the services actually doing report.

REP. SMITH: Okay.

MR. SHAFFER: But what I will tell you -- this year and really at the insistence and hard dedication of Dr. Andre van Tilborg who's sitting behind me, our deputy undersecretary for science and technology, we conducted an end-to-end review, really a focused deep dive of what JIEDDO is doing in their Science and Technology Program in aligning those efforts with our service programs.

And really the JIEDDO program stretches across an entire spectrum of technologies -- everything from neutralizing nation devices, but now starting to work our way back up the chain to understand the network that leads to some of these terrorist bombers -- can we go ahead and get to the network and prevent the IED before the IED is built.

So when you take a look at the JIEDDO program, it's more from just protecting against the specific device to protecting against the event. And I think I'd like to turn to my compatriots and my colleagues for specific activities in their areas.

REP. SMITH: Certainly.

Dr. Killion, do you want to --

MR. KILLION: Sure, I can -- of course, there's a broad range of technologies that apply in this case --

REP. SMITH: I guess I'm trying to get at, sir, would -- what's most promising? What's the -- is it -- well, I guess the answer to that may be nothing is most promising, it's a whole series of different approaches and you need to try all of them --

MR. KILLION: But you have to try a range of them certainly --

REP. SMITH: Right.

MR. KILLION: -- and we've applied a number of them. What JIEDDO has helped to do is, a) to provide resources and focus, to actually take the technologies we're working in the labs, and quickly bring them to the floor and get them to the field. We actually continue to work the underlying technologies. JIEDDO helps to mature them quick and get them out.

That's a good partnership. And we're doing that in a number of areas. Armor is clearly an important area in terms of protection of vehicles -- not only for combat vehicles, for tactical vehicles. We've done work in the MRAP program in terms of enhancing protection on some of those vehicles where we've added lightweight armor to them that wasn't there to begin with.

And the electronic warfare domain, which we can't say a whole lot about in this forum, that scenario where in terms of exploiting devices and also coming up with methodologies to defeat control and initiation of those devices, there are tools that have been developed across the service laboratories.

And in the ISR domain, as Alan mentioned in terms of looking at the network, it's a matter of being able to monitor who's doing what, detect the presence of explosives, detect the presence of activities by certain individuals. There is a full range of technologies that do apply to try and disrupt the network of activities and also defeat the device when the time comes to do so.

I think we've been pretty effective at bringing to the floor as many of those as feasible. And that's always the challenge is the balance of what can you actually do and apply to a vehicle and have it still be able to do its job for its people.

REP. SMITH: Mr. Jaggers.

MR. JAGGERS: Yes, I would just echo the kill-chain approach and the good work across the kill-chain from understanding of social networks and who's doing what and trying to interrupt things before they get to that point of explosion, which is not where you want to defeat an IED.

I would say there's no single aha technology that's going to be our panacea. But across that whole chain, lots of working to interrupting that moment of detonation, protecting against it when it does occur, and obviously protecting the warfighters that have suffered those detonations. No single point's worth.

REP. SMITH: Okay.

MR. LEHENY: I would like to mention that DARPA is working closely with JIEDDO to -- we have created a village in the National Training Center where we are undergoing a number of tests. What we're looking at -- because the armed materials themselves are so difficult to detect -- the chemical detection systems are not very effective. What we're looking at is having persons in that village actually assembling arms.

We're able to determine using the techniques that we know that terrorists use, we're able to detect the chemicals associated with the fabrication of --

REP. SMITH: Learn what you should be looking for in advance -- understood. I'm out of time.

I want to -- Mr. Jaggers, do you have something really quick?

(No audible response.)

Okay.

I yield to Mr. Miller.

REP. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Dr. Leheny, how is DARPA coordinating its cyber research activities with other relevant federal agencies, including agencies that fund unclassified research in studies like the National Science Foundation, and will these agencies and other survey and research agencies have access to the cyber National Cyber Range or other supportive infrastructure?

MR. LEHENY: Yes. DARPA is participating with a number of other agencies with the government in an OSTP-led effort to coordinate our reaction -- national reaction, if you like, to the cyber threat. And it is certainly our intent that the National Cyber Range, once it's established, will be available for both government and non-government researches and other interested parties to take advantage of the capabilities cyber range will provide.

As one aspect of the range is the -- we believe it will be possible to conduct both classified and unclassified research activities on the range at the same time that the range itself will be capable of separating, if you like, the various activities that are taking place, as well as detect the classified nature of that work which has to be classified.

REP. MILLER: Thank you, sir.

A little more broader question. Anybody can jump on this one if they want. We all know that rapid fielding has emerged as the way to get things out to the warfighter, but there are challenges that are still out there confronting the process. And what I'd like to know is what is the impact that rapid fuelling has on traditional or standard testing processes or procedures. Anybody can take that one.

MR. : Sir, I will try this one. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to answer the question. I will speak from the experience -- two particular vantage points; one, I'm the executive director of the MRAP task force, and two, the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell falls under my responsibility. While we strive to push things out just as fast as possible, we always do test things.

So, for instance, the MRAP vehicles, the largest amount of time that it takes from the time that we put a contract out to getting those in the hands of the soldiers and Marines in Iraq and Afghanistan is in testing so we understand what is going on. The same thing will happen with the Joint Rapid Acquisition Cell. And anything we're pushing out, we accelerate testing.

I had hoped that Dr. John Folkes from the Test (Research ?) Management Center was going to be here today. He apparently was detained. But we work very closely with TRMC in all of these rapid fielding and OT and DT fielding and with the services to make sure that what we send out we at least understand and test.

MR. JAGGERS: Sir, I'll just add to that. But two things that probably suffer from -- you know, in the test world from rapid fielding are obviously you're doing developmental test or piece of developmental test, certainly operational test in theater on that piece is deployed.

Things that suffer are things like reliability, maintainability, and sustainability, things that you want to design into the system, test those, before they go over there, and the -- (inaudible) -- are surprised to the maintainers and logisticians, you have to operate those things in theater. The other thing that tends to suffer is interoperability.

A lot of legacy systems are out there that have to interface and to flush those things out ahead of time in an operationally relevant environment before you deploy it to the operational environment to understand where those interfaces are and the interoperability issues obviously would be something to value.

I guess my thoughts are that as long as the commander and theater knows those risks and those limitations and is willing to take the benefits that outweigh those risks -- (inaudible) -- happen.

REP. MILLER: DLO has criticized repeatedly

GAO has criticized repeatedly the F-35 program for reducing its T&E activities and assuming -- saying that it was assuming too much risk in the president's budget, is accelerating procurement of the JSF and stopping production of the F-22, or the procurement of the F-22.

Can you expand on the current -- what you may see as a current risk to the JSF program, either reduced T&E activity, or do you see any?

MR. JAGGERS: Sir, that's a better question for the service acquisition executive, -- (inaudible) -- SAF/AQ. I'll have to take that for the record. But in general, any time you produce -- two items that tend to get produced in acquisition programs, as a matter of record, when they stand out their acquisition lifecycle -- (inaudible) -- test, and the other one is systems engineering. Those tend to be tradable things in an acquisition program at the expense of cost and schedule.

In general, that's a bad practice -- (off mike) -- as a matter of process. But I'll let -- (inaudible) -- for a matter of record to address JSF specifically.

REP. MILLER: Thank you. My time has expired, Mr. Chairman.

REP. SMITH: Thank you.

Mr. Ellsworth.

REP. BRAD ELLSWORTH (D-IN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My first question probably is best for Mr. Shaffer and Dr. Leheny. Could you discuss -- I represent the 8th district of Indiana. Crane Naval Warfare Center is in my district. I know they do great work there.

Could you talk about some of the workforce development issues that you might face in research and development in DARPA? You know, are we -- difficulty in finding the folks, you know, it's in a very rural area of my state, but maybe some of the challenges you're facing finding the workforce or -- and finding the folks to do the R&D that you find necessary.

REP. SMITH: That's not just because they don't want to live in Indiana. It has not been an issue -- I've been to Crane. It's a lovely place to work. And I'm just giving you a bad time. Go ahead.

MR. SHAFFER: And anybody who likes basketball likes to go to Indiana. So I don't understand the problem with Crane.

Science and engineering workforce is a concern of everybody at this table, because it is a competitive world. And there is numerous recent reports. We need to do everything we can to grow the entire science and engineering base of America, and then be agile and effective in getting workers and researchers into our DOD laboratories.

There are a number of recent initiatives -- and then I'll turn it over again to Dr. Leheny and others -- that are allowing us better authorities for hiring people rapidly. The Department is beginning to use those. And actually the first one out of the chute is Navy research laboratory in the Navy Surface Warfare Centers.

I got a report -- and I should probably let Admiral Carr talk about this -- but I got a report in from John Montgomery at Navy Research Laboratory who loves the rapid hiring authorities. Since they were approved and delegated to him in March, he has been able to fill nearly his entire quota of 30 people with high quality people.

What you find is, if you have very good problems then you can hire people on the spot and give them a future. We can get people in science and engineering.

That doesn't address the overall issue of number of scientists and engineers available. We have to work that. And in fact there is legislation out. Take a look at that from a whole government approach. But it really is a very complex problem. Create the scientists and engineers, and then let us hire them quickly.

REP. ELLSWORTH: Bob?

MR. LEHENY: What I would add is that DARPA, of course, has a rather small workforce -- (inaudible.) We do most of our research through contracting.

And to specifically answer your question about your part of the country, we recently visited the University of Indiana at Indianapolis and spent half a day meeting with some of the senior faculty there who described to us kinds of research that were being done -- are being done on the campus there.

We're very impressed by the facilities that we saw, and the quality of research described to us. And we left them with information about how to access us. They're already being supported -- the people in the university being supported by DARPA and some of our programs. And we encourage them to make further use of availability of our research funds for their programs.

All our programs are competitively solicited. So anyone in your district who has a -- an interest in receiving support from DARPA for technical research that they want to engage in, we welcome them to contact us with their ideas, and we'll certainly take it under consideration.

MR. : Sir, I would just add. The authorities given to the lab, lab demos -- (off mike) -- those things definitely make it easier to hire better -- (off mike) -- what concerns me is that we have hundreds of thousands -- (off mike.)

REP. ELLSWORTH: Thank you. That would be my concern too.

Thank you all very much.

Chairman, I yield back.

REP. SMITH: Thank you. Mr. Michael Conaway.

REP. MICHAEL CONAWAY (R-TX): Yeah, thank you Chairman. Appreciate you being here.

And this is kind of a 50,000-foot question. But maybe it's not for Dr. Shaffer. How do you -- how is this system prioritized between immediate needs like the hearing loss program and the prosthetic program and the arms versus the 20-year -- (inaudible) -- what-if kind of needs. And how do you -- to assess those priorities how do you allocate the resources against that? And then how do you split that up between the various services and their cadre of great scientists?

MR. SHAFFER: Sir, that is a tough question. And I wish that there was a magic formula. There is not. All of us wrestle with the priorities between the near and the far term.

Right now Secretary Gates will go around the third floor, and he wants to make sure that we understand and we all understand that we are a nation at war. Anything that we can do to push technologies from our laboratories out to the hands of the war fighters if that technology makes a difference is our number one priority.

Beyond that -- and this is where the difficulty comes in -- while Secretary Gates clearly has given us that mandate, Secretary Gates also gave us the mandate to increase basic research to keep the overall knowledge base going.

So at the end of the day it's through the very hard work of going through the priorities, the alternatives of everybody at this table, working with program analysis and evaluation, working with the requirers, working with the combatant commanders. We do our very best to hit that balance. But there is no magic formula. It's everybody working as hard as they can to optimize pay off for the resource that we have.

MR. KILLION: And to follow up to what Mr. Shaffer says, I think it's important to recognize. We really -- you don't make that distinction in terms of what you're necessarily -- I don't make a distinction in my investment in 6-1, 6-2, 6-3 between what's invested necessarily in near term versus far term other than basic researches -- (inaudible) -- in terms of maturity than advanced technology.

It's really about the fact that we maintain a workforce of skilled individuals who understand technology and understand the Army and its needs. And that's both in our labs and with our partners in universities and in industry.

And it's because you have those people who have that understanding and knowledge about the technology that they can then take that knowledge and use it solve problems. They come up with the solution.

You can go back to the gentleman in the laboratory who is working on materials and say we just discovered a problem with this particular type of armor. Why is it failing the way it is? What can I do to go fix that problem?

And because they have that knowledge and the methodologies that they can use to bring to bear to the problem they can come up with a solution and answer to the question and come up with an alternative.

REP. CONAWAY: Let me give you -- let me ask this one then. The weight of body armor bothers all of us.

MR. KILLION: Yes, it does.

REP. CONAWAY: Soldiers wear it, marines wear it, airmen wear it. I guess the Navy guys wear it. Who decides that we're going to take on the task of providing effective equipment but lowering the weight? I mean, how do you decide how -- where that project goes? How do you focus it --

MR. KILLION: We have a systematic program within the Army. It's a partnership between the Army Research Laboratory. It does fundamental research in that area, materials research Midic (ph), and the PEO which is actually managing the soldier program in terms of looking at, okay, what I do to redesign, do we incorporate new materials into such a system -- to provide better protection? It's driven by the threat that you have to defeat up there.

REP. CONAWAY: All right.

MR. : I would just like to amplify on that a little bit, sir.

We have a process, and the representatives of the group called the Defense Science and Technology Advisory Group are sitting at this table along with Dr. Van Tilborg. We go out and scan the horizon and look for hard problems.

This morning our council of colonels at our direction came and said we're going to take on in a very deep dive look the weight of dismounted -- the weight restrictions on dismounted infantry.

So all of us are going to go out to our programs, focus the technology that we can to reduce the weight of dismounted infantrymen. And we're going to do that over about a two to three-month period, so we can affect the next program budget review.

REP. CONAWAY: Let me ask this then. So you got -- you guys at the Army are doing it, you got some Navy scientists doing it for the Marine Corps, you got some Air Force scientists doing it for the Air Force.

MR. : And DARPA.

REP. CONAWAY: And DARPA, of course. Why are they not all duplicative, doing the same thing? I mean, how do you focus it so that you've got the right synergies of enough minds going that you get the weird idea that really works? But you don't have everybody out there doing the exact same thing over --

MR. : That's exactly why we bring together this -- they're called technology focus teams under the DSTAG (ph). That technology focus team to reduce the weight on the soldier will actually reduce the weight on everybody because there are airmen out there walking around, there are marines, there are Navy people.

That will have representatives from all of us and our laboratories coming together and showing each other and comparing technologies and looking for those most promising option. So that team, the technology focus team will represent the entire department, and internally de-conflict because everybody we have in those teams wants to do what's right for the deployed forces.

And they will share and trade information. You know, it's remarkable what happens when bureaucracy gets out of the way and people who want to make a difference get together and start working.

MR. : For instance, Air Force is not in the body armor business, that's an Army job. However, when you come up with a hard problem like that the Air Force is into lightweight composite materials for aircraft. And we can bring skills and competencies to bear on that Army or bigger, larger war fighter challenge. And we get the right people hooked up with the Army to provide support in that regard if it is in that particular -- the materials inside the body armor vest.

REP. CONAWAY: Thank you.

MR. : In the interest of the Marine Corps we're certainly working closely with the Army at the same -- (off mike) -- say the cross talk is very good across the -- (off mike.)

REP. CONAWAY: Thank you very much.

MR. : (Cross talk) -- the magnetic attraction is to pull investment forward so you can help out programs. You need to keep fertilizing those distant fields not just for the technology, but articulating to the scientist.

REP. SMITH: Thank you.

Mr. McIntyre.

REP. MIKE MCINTYRE (D-NC): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I can't let the comment go about Indiana basketball -- (laughter)-- North Carolina basketball -- (inaudible) -- with the White House last week. And speaking of that Dr. Joe DeSimone from the University of North Carolina, I know his work with DARPA on nanoscience and nanotechnology, and that was recognized as the Tar Heel of the Year in North Carolina, the citizen of the year for his work in this area.

Being so involved with DARPA, I noticed on page 45 of the report that you've given us that you state DARPA is also exploiting advances in nanoscience and nanotechnology where matter is manipulated at the atomic scale. Can you tell us -- which one of you may be comfortable in describing exactly how this nanotechnology is making a difference at the atomic scale with what you're doing in DARPA?

MR. LEHENY: Let me try. The -- when we talk about nanoscale what we are talking about are dimensions. A typical atom is -- (inaudible) -- nanometer. So we're talking from the size of an atom to a few hundred atoms. What we know is that at those size scales nature allows us to manipulate forces like electromagnetic forces, light, in ways that are difficult to do at much larger scales.

For example, by capturing light more efficiently we can make a more effective photo detector and it is possible to do that using nanoscale structures because what the nanoscale structure does is it essentially takes the photon which has a dimension on the order of a micron, which is many hundreds of nanometers, and channels it into the material.

It is actually going to convert the photon into an electron or a hauke (ph), which can then be measured electrically. Very much the way that an antenna that -- for example, if -- think of the old television antennas that we have on our roofs of our house that guides the electromagnetic energy down into your TV set where it is detected. The elements in your TV set detecting that electromagnetic energy are much smaller than the wavelength of the RF signal that you're detecting. And it is the guiding properties of the antenna structure that brings the energy into your TV set where it can be detected.

At the nanoscale we can make objects that will guide light in the same way that your antenna guides an RF signal into your PC, and therefore more efficiently detect light. And the kinds of light that we want to detect are infrared light, short wavelength light, visible light for all kinds of sensing application.

REP. MCINTYRE: The research is fascinating, I'm glad that DARPA is once again at the forefront of using nanotechnology to our advantage.

Can you also tell me how DARPA is coordinating its cyber security research and planning activities with other relevant federal agencies, agencies like the National Science Foundation that fund unclassified research?

MR. LEHENY: Coordination is a difficult concept, because both the NSF and DARPA have very different missions. The NSF of course is -- primary mission is to educate and advance the -- our understanding of the world that we live in. Whereas the -- DARPA's mission is a mission to advance the utility of that understanding.

So in some respects we're subtle in our approach to how we deal with advancing the science and technology. And cyber technology is just another example of that.

We coordinate to the extent that we do, largely at the present time through the OSTP national cyber initiative activities. And as we go forward with this cyber range activity we will be of course creating a test facility that will be open to researchers who are supported by the NSF as well as other researchers.

REP. MCINTYRE: That's good.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. SMITH: Thank you.

Mr. Murphy, you have anything?

REP. PATRICK MURPHY (D-PA): Great. Thanks chairman.

Gentlemen thanks so much for your testimony today and your service to our country.

Recently in an article of the New York -- I'm sorry, the Los Angeles Times on April 26 which cited that the Department of Defense is the single largest energy consumer in the United States, last year about 4 billion gallons of jet fuel, 220 million gallons of diesel, and 73 million gallons of gasoline. And when gas prices skyrocketed, the Department of Defense energy tariff increased from about 13 billion per year in '07 -- 2007 to 20 billion in 2008.

The Army alone had to make up for $0.5 billion shortfall in this energy budget. You know, we often get our oil from countries that obviously don't have in that respects, interest at heart. And when -- (inaudible) -- a $10 rise in the price of a barrel of oil means $1.3 billion increase in Pentagon's energy cost. This is more than an environmental issue. It's a national security issue.

What is there in the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, to increase resource and development of alternative fuels so that our vehicles of war are not dependant upon traditional logistic fuels?

MR. SHAFFER: Okay. I'll go ahead and start that, but then each of the groups here are doing some things in alternative energies or fuels.

I've been very fortunate because I've had the chance to lead the Department's Energy Security Task Force. In the last three years our investment in research and development, not just science and technology, but research and development and energy security has risen from $400 million to about $1.2 billion.

You have to take a look at energy as a very holistic thing. And we have a number of efforts from improving our efficiency of turbine engines for our aircraft to making lighter weight vehicles for our Army for the next generation vehicles, to using fuel cells, to trying to get to a deployable system that will generate nearly as much energy as it takes in from outside sources, alternative sources, solar, wind, and that type of thing.

Specifically on alternative fuels, our single largest contribution in the past year has been a DARPA effort that went on contract -- Obama (ph) mentioned that you do this, but in December, January to turn algae and other biomasses into jet fuel.

But Dr. Killion has some small efforts around in some of his laboratories. Admiral Carr has some efforts primarily at China Lake. And the Air Force has done a tremendous amount for synthetic fuels using Fischer-Trope.

So the Department as a whole is looking at alternative forms of fuel, and that is coordinated through the Energy Security Task Force which has representatives from S&T, logistics, fuel distributors et cetera.

Other -- guys?

MR. LEHENY: If I could just inject something. At DARPA the approach we're taking, we're spending this year over $55 million and about the same budget for next year. The approach that we are taking is a broad one. In the area of alternative fuels based on crop oils and plant-derived oils the problem has been -- make it as simple as possible, if you've ever taken a bottle of olive oil and put it in your refrigerator you know that it turns to sludge because of the way that the oil condenses at low temperature.

One of the challenges with taking vegetable derived oils, using it for jet fuel for example is to ensure that that those oils remain -- the viscosity of the oil is adequate in low temperature -- (audio break) -- they have to operate. So what we're doing is we're investing in research to crack the molecules of the oil to create molecules that are more like the jet fuel molecules that therefore in effect convert these plant-derived oils into oils that can be used as fuel.

REP. MURPHY: How many years do you think we're away from seeing that technology put to use?

MR. LEHENY: I would hesitate to put a exact number on that. But I would think that we're between three and five years from being able to deliver an efficient process for being able to convert these plant- derived oils into usable jet fuel.

REP. MURPHY: I don't know if this was brought just -- I've got a quick follow up.

MR. SMITH: Sure.

REP. MURPHY: Mr. Killion, with the Army, I know that article in the Los Angeles Times that talked about Fort Irvin and how they utilize, and it -- the footprint of these -- (inaudible) -- is those solar panels that we utilize for vehicles transporting troops at Fort Irvin and give energy and obviously control their environment there. Is that ready to go out into the field in places?

MR. KILLION: Well, it depends on what you mean by out in the field. We tend to use these, like electric vehicles, as something that would be used domestically on a base to substitute for gasoline- powered vehicles or driving materials around delivering material, doing work at a base. It isn't something that we're prepared to deploy in a combat environment as such.

As Al says, we're also looking at ways of reducing the demand that's associated with those tactical and combat vehicles that are deployed as well as the energy footprint of our installations. There are lot of initiatives at the Army. And I know the Navy, they're pursuing in terms of demonstrating capabilities at those installations, be they solar, be they geothermal, wind power to substitute for demand that's on the grid that's using hydrocarbon- based fuels really as an energy source today.

ADM. CARR: It's not a the fuel question --

REP. SMITH: If you could -- if the two of you could do it fairly quickly. We're bit over time here, so -- (inaudible) -- go ahead, but do it just quickly if you could.

ADM. CARR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I was just going to say it's not just a fuel question of course, it's I'm an -- (inaudible) -- I come from the fleet, so I think in terms of my beloved kill-chain, but it is that whole chain from generating, to storing, to distributing and how you use them. And to just pluck one ship application we've developed with the Naval Sea Systems Command a device to recover energy from the reduction gears in DDG-51 class ships.

And what this allows you to do is store a little bit energy so you don't have to run the same number of generators all the time to get you through those spike voltage demand periods. And by turning off a generator now you've just reduced your fuel consumption. So there are many things across that whole chain that we're looking at. And I work closely with Rear Admiral Phil Cullom who chairs the -- (inaudible) -- Task Force Energy for the Navy. We work very closely together with him.

REP. SMITH: Mr. Jaggers.

MR. JAGGERS: In 20 seconds or less, in Air Force we have three major things going on. One is $75 million of the economic stimulus that's devoted towards energy and energy projects. We have hundreds of millions in the core S&T budget. And we also have a 6-4 effort to certify the synthetic fuels in our fleet and all engines in our entire fleet.

We have two main strategic goals. One is to increase the supply of alternative sources of fuel, synthetic fuels being one, but also batteries and power storage devices and that sort of thing.

And the other piece of that strategy is to reduce demand. Making our engines more efficient, making our aircraft's lift-to-drag ratio higher and improving -- and lighter aircraft to making it more energy efficient at flight -- (off mike.) Thank you --

REP. SMITH: Thank you very much. We will back through -- I have one general question. You know, much has been made at the transition towards counter-insurgency, irregular warfare way from the traditional big conventional fights. I am big believer in that. I think that is where we're headed, and that has many implications.

Certainly some of them which were mentioned in your opening testimony in terms of ISR, cyber security, different issues. Can you give us an example, as you've been putting together your budgets over the course of the last two or three years? And you looked at this issue. We need to do more on non-conventional threats.

What you've plussed up and what you've plussed down, stuff you've started doing, stuff you said you know and we're going to move out for this, and we're going to move in this direction. Can you give us some concrete good examples of how that shift has affected all of your budgets and your approach?

MR. SHAFFER: I'll start. But again I'm going to turn to my --

REP. SMITH: Sure.

MR. SHAFFER: -- colleagues, because they also have the day-to- day tactical view.

About two years ago then DDR&E John Young called the S&T execs, and myself, and Dr. Van Tilborg together. And we sat down and looked at given the new realities of the QDR irregular warfare where do we want to invest more in? As I said, that's led to about a 10% shift in our investment over the last three budget cycles.

Where we have given things up, first off, any inflation adjustments went to the irregular warfare. We have decreased some of our research into platforms and to conventional weapon systems. In fact our warriors from time to time may have gone too far with conventional weapon systems, so we stood up another deep dive team just to make sure we have that right.

In effect, we are trading in some of the more -- the larger conventional type things for non-kinetic effects across the board. And I would turn it over to the gentleman in my left to give specific examples.

MR. KILLION: Now, your comment about conventional is an interesting one because in speaking to the vice chiefs of staff of the Army, General Chiarelli, he will tell you that there is nothing like an M1 to provide a sense of peace on a street today. And then --

REP. SMITH: I mean, that's standard.

MR. KILLION: So that -- it certainly has an influence --

REP. SMITH: And if I may say about that, just quickly. You know, it's -- there are lot of, you know, old, traditional technologies that could in fact be absolutely critical to a counter- insurgency approach. So I understand that.

It's not so much about, you know, is it snazzy and new versus old and tired. It's a matter of, you know, would you need to spend the money to actually fulfill this mission?

MR. KILLION: And actually if you look at how our budget has shifted over the last decade, I would tell you significantly more enforced protection which is critical in those environments, particularly for tactical vehicles, things like the MRAP and so on where we've invested to provide better protection to our troops than we traditionally had. And in C4ISR.

So we're monitoring what's going on in those environments, and new investments in areas like network science and neuroscience where we're really developing basic research that enables us to do better understanding of what's going on in the environment, understanding the social and cultural behavior in the environment, preparing our troops more effectively through training mechanisms and through mission rehearsal capabilities that we didn't have before, providing the kind of language translation capabilities that Dr. Leheny was talking about.

Those are all investments that I've seen revised over the last decade that are really supportive of operating in those environments.

REP. SMITH: Yeah.

ADM. CARR: We already have -- one of the 13 Navy focus areas has been irregular warfare for about two years. So we've already -- we're looking very closely at that. And one of my five departments is dedicated to this particular area as well. So already had significant focus there because of our linkage with the Marine Corps and support to them. We're thinking in many ways in this direction.

REP. SMITH: And you -- within your department do you do stuff to support SOCOM as well and certainly the Navy, both in terms of the SEALs and the Special Boat Teams, they do a lot of work in this area?

ADM. CARR: We do. It's not dedicated support. We all support SOCOM in our different ways of concern.

Social networking is an important element that has increased recently. We're looking very closely at understanding the mechanisms there, autonomy and trying to get unmanned autonomous systems forward that can provide that persistent surveillance, push decisions forward, for sort of irregular warfare in reverse. And we have the infantry immersion trainer that helps train Marines for combat in Iraq and in those usual scenarios which has been very successful.

And -- in fact we're looking to expand another one --

REP. SMITH: The danger of the five-minute question period when you have five witnesses is that it always takes more than five minutes. We have votes coming up here quickly. I want to make sure that I give others a chance here. I'm sorry, but Mr. Miller take it in your round.

REP. MILLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Three votes coming up. I have some more questions I would like submitted for the record. And I will yield my time to Mr. Conaway.

REP. CONAWAY: Well, thank you.

Playing back on the energy thing. Dr. Killion you mentioned, and maybe the admiral did it as well that you're working to reduce the footprint on the bases and forts and other places, seems to me that that's -- commercial research is being done around the world to try to actually get that done.

So to the extent that we're spending money on that we're telling the rest of the world that we've got every other research program fully funded, that we don't need to spend those dollars there.

MR. KILLION: Let me be clear about that. When I talked about it a lot of the work in bases is actually not funded in S&T per se. It's taking advantage of that commercial technology and applying it --

REP. CONAWAY: Okay. Now, that's fine.

MR. KILLION: -- installation environment and looking at how that can benefit us.

REP. CONAWAY: Okay. One of the strategic risks of energy is supply. And while crude oil is a nasty word in some parts of the world, in Texas it's not. Reservoirs typically have after the initial production sector sweeps, tertiary productions with CO2. So about 50 percent of the reserve is left in place.

We've got extensive oil shale reserves in this country, and extensive oil sands in Canada, as well as coal.

Are there -- are you guys doing any research in, let's say how do we exploit those given resources that are under our control to be able to use them while we develop whatever that algae-based jet fuel that's going to fly our jets in the 23rd century will do? Are you guys doing any basic research on how to -- how do you get additional oil out of that rock in Pennsylvania and in Texas where half of it is still in place?

MR. SHAFFER: Sir, we're not doing any research into how to get more of the oil out. But we are working with Department of Energy to understand where they are going, and how they are making progress.

A more important question for the Department of Defense is what the Air Force has done. It's certifying our engines because we have alternative fuels, fuels derived from other sources, because each fuel has a slightly different make up. And you have to make sure that all the seals and the pistons and rings and the moving parts work okay.

So what the Air Force has done, to me, is quite remarkable, is certify their jet engines and their aircraft using synthetic fuels.

REP. CONAWAY: Synthetic based on -- from what, coal?

MR. JAGGERS: In a number of areas, coal -- this is actually -- what Mr. Shaffer is talking about is Fischer-Trope process that is really a --

REP. CONAWAY: Is It -- still fossil fuel based?

MR. : Yes.

MR. JAGGERS: It is a blend, a 50/50 blend --

REP. CONAWAY: And the Section 526 restrictions will allow you to purchase that fuel once you get your fuel -- oil sand fuel from Canada, you can't buy it, can you?

MR. JAGGERS: And we're trying to characterize that right now. We know we have the fleet certified on the 50/50 blend, the Fischer- Tropes. The environmental footprint sources for this particular 50/50 blend is all being evaluated at this time.

REP. CONAWAY: Okay. But you couldn't buy it if you had it -- if it was done, could you? (Laughter.)

MR. JAGGERS: You could buy it overseas. But you can't buy it in fullness --

MR. SHAFFER: So Section 526 does present some restriction on what we can do.

REP. CONAWAY: Okay. Thank you everybody.

Mr. Chairman, thank you.

REP. SMITH: Thank you, Mr. Conaway. Does anybody else have any follow up, gentlemen?

REP. MURPHY: I do.

REP. SMITH: It's all yours. Mr. Murphy.

REP. MURPHY: Gentlemen, in my district -- I represent the 8th district of Pennsylvania which is Bucks County in Northeast Philadelphia, and a small size of Montgomery County. We have several large landfills. And we are already seeing great success in our waste energy conversion projects. Produce enough energy to power 70,000 homes in my region.

Waste energy conversion could be partially -- particularly important for military bases, especially in the deployed settings in war zones. And not only is waste disposal a logistical hurdle at many of these locations, but the use of generators and supply lines for the fuels they require is one more target for the enemy to attack.

Does the Department of Defense have any waste to energy research and development funding in FY 2010 budget. And you know, if you are any more interested I love to bring you up the Bucks County and give you a tour of it because we're very proud of what we do.

MR. SHAFFER: Sir, we will send up -- one of my team up to Bucks County and take a look at your company's capabilities.

I don't know if there is any specific money within the FY '10 budget for waste to energy. I do know that in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act the Energy Security Task Force coordinated, you know, $300 million worth of R&D across the department.

Embedded in that is, I want to say it was $7.5 million. And if that's not right we'll get back to you. But $7.5 million to advance -- it's called tactical ways to -- or garbage to oil or something like that -- advance that capability, that investment is through Defense Logistics Agency.

But it follows an investment that we made last year though the Power Surety Task Force which operates out of Fort Belvoir in the Army.

We actually deployed two of these tactical systems forward to Iraq. They are not robust enough yet. They didn't have the waste stream, we want the efficiency. Yeah, we do have research. And if your folks have something to bring to the table that would be huge.

MR. JAGGERS: Sir, and I don't know what the total amount is. Mr. Shaffer is going to get that for you. But $6 million for sure is in the Air Force portion of the stimulus, and that's going to an anaerobic bioreactor that basically does that, converts the landfill into energy sources. In the broad area announcement, the solicitation for ideas and proposals is going out very soon. It hasn't gone out already, -- (inaudible) -- we'll be looking for great proposals from Pennsylvania.

REP. MURPHY: Gentlemen, thank you.

Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back the remainder of my time.

REP. SMITH: I've just one other -- one more area before we adjourn. We've done some work as is mentioned on human terrain teams, cultural development, sort of understanding the enemy, if you will, or if actually that's not so true, understanding the areas where we're working counter-insurgency.

And then there are also communications issues around that, so to develop the message and then deliver it. This is a major issue in Afghanistan and in Pakistan right now that we are losing the PR war. I know some efforts have been implemented here recently. I know Ambassador Holbrooke is very focused on this issue.

But can you sort of pull this together for me in terms of who -- how close will you work with the various different other agencies in different groups, whether it is, you know, CENTCOM, Ambassador Holbrooke's people, in terms of how you are providing, first of all, the cultural training and development in that area.

And then on the messaging piece, looking at technologies, I know there's been a lot of technology to help us better use bandwidth, which has a lot of different implications. But in particular making sure that our troops have the communications equipment.

For instance, in Afghanistan frankly that's shortwave radios as I understand it. Most of the folks there can't read. And that's where they get most of their information, and that's where the Taliban -- you know, they are on the radio even before the incident happens, putting out, you know, the line of propaganda.

How do you pull all of those things together and who are you coordinating with on that?

MR. SHAFFER: Yes, sir. I will start this. But again I know that all of my colleagues have some work in the area. I don't think that you have seen, so we will make sure I hope, and I wish you would have seen, but in April we sent out a very detailed report under Department of Defense efforts and strategic communication.

REP. SMITH: I have not seen that. I'll track that down.

MR. SHAFFER: I will -- we will get that you to -- to the staff and get that to you.

REP. SMITH: Okay.

MR. SHAFFER: Now, that effort was pulled together by an organization in DDR&E called Rapid Reaction Technology Office. RRTO works with all of the services, but more importantly works with the intelligence agencies, works with USAID, works with Department of State, works with the combatant commanders to focus our S&T efforts to see how we can best make a difference in strategic communication.

And that -- it really was a whole -- basically a beginning-to-end look of how do we shape the message, how do we get the message out there, how do we measure the impact. And it is an S&T focus area and an area of incredible importance to CENTCOM.

When I --

REP. SMITH: And are you --

MR. SHAFFER: -- the CENTCOM --

REP. SMITH: Are you satisfied that that work is being implemented, that the people in the field who are going to use it are following up and making the best use of what you developed?

MR. SHAFFER: I can't look you in the eye and tell you that. The answer to that is yes, sir. What I know is there is a huge demand signal from CENTCOM and the commanders in the field. I can't tell you they are all using it correctly, but part of the package and part of the S&T effort is training and making sure that our troops understand how to use strategic communication. We're all growing in this together.

REP. SMITH: Okay.

Any answer, comment in this area from --?

REP. : Just a quick question.

REP. SMITH: Sure.

REP. : Just a clarification, pages one and two of the report -- thank you. Mr. Chairman.

Next to the last paragraph it says, on page one, "Another unique feature of DARPA is that the Agency has very limited overhead and no laboratories or facilities." Yet on page two, it then talks about, "In addition to technical offices, DARPA has staff offices, which includes facilities, informations, and security."

So I'd like someone to clarify whether you have offices and facilities or not, since we have two contradictory statements, and if so where they are located.

MR. LEHENY: It'd be helpful if you could --

REP. SMITH: Which report are you talking about?

REP. : The strategic plan, the one on top. I'll pass it out to you, one second.

MR. : -- that's fine.

MR. : This is your publication, sir.

MR. LEHENY: Let me just find out, the language is fuzzy, that I don't answer the wrong question. On page two, you say --

REP. : Yeah.

MR. LEHENY: What I think we're trying to do is point out the fact that we don't have laboratories or facilities associated with actually conducting research. Obviously we have a building in which our program managers reside. And within that building we have space set aside that is secure. So --

REP. SMITH: But you contract out the research.

MR. LEHENY: We contract out -- about 97 percent of our budget is contracted out. I believe that you may find described in this report. I just don't know what page. I'll get back to you.

REP. : Are you permitted to say where your office is?

MR. LEHENY: Sure. We're in Arlington, just across from the Virginia Square metro center.

REP. : Okay. So -- (inaudible) -- having no facilities or you don't have facilities of your own to do the research?

MR. LEHENY: We may need to correct the way we describe what we do.

REP. : Okay.

REP. SMITH: That's right.

MR. LEHENY: The idea is we --

REP. SMITH: They don't just meet in Starbucks every morning. We don't want to see now; take that contracting out to its contract -- (inaudible) -- extension, yeah.

MR. : -- yeah.

REP. : Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. SMITH: Thank you all very much. Thank you for your work. We look forward to working with you on mark-up this year and as we go forward.

We are adjourned. (Sounds gavel.)

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