Hearing of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee - National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015

Hearing

Rep. Mike Rogers (AL), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, made the following opening statement as prepared for delivery at the Subcommittee Markup of H.R. 4435, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015.

All Subcommittee Marks can be found on the Committee Repository; the committee is no longer providing paper copies of Marks. Additionally, a live video feed of the markup can be seen on the Committee website.

"Welcome to our markup of H.R. 4435, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015. Before I begin, let me express my gratitude for my partner here on Strategic Forces, the gentleman from Tennessee and our ranking Member, Mr. Jim Cooper.

"It has been a pleasure working with Mr. Cooper for the past year and a half, and I look forward to continuing to work with him as we see this bill through the process. We haven't agreed on everything in this mark today, but we have run a transparent process that all the members of the panel should be proud of as they vote today to send the Mark to full committee. Let me briefly highlight just a few parts of the mark.

"In missile defense, we will support the Israeli Cooperative and Iron Dome programs and ensure the requested increase is fully justified while also continuing to make progress on U.S.-based co-production and strengthen our ally, Israel. For Ground-based Missile Defense, we support fully funding the redesigned kill vehicle and the new long-range discriminating sensor. And we will take steps to ensure the system gets overdue support for reliability and maintenance.

"Finally, we also provide increased investment for directed energy (and other next-generation technologies) for missile defense--these future capabilities are the long-term solution and we need to accelerate progress towards their development. For nuclear weapons activities at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the Mark will strengthen NNSA's focus on finding the efficiencies it simply must find to redirect money and deliver on its commitments to the military.

The Mark will also ensure robust oversight of major nuclear weapons modernization programs and arrest the chronic slips to the schedules for life extension programs and nuclear weapons infrastructure projects.

"Regarding space programs, the Mark initiates the development of a competitively sourced next-generation liquid rocket engine to transition from the use of non-allied space launch engines to a domestic alternative. The mark also states that a fully-developed multi-faceted space security and defense program is needed to deter and defeat any adversaries' acts of space aggression and it requires a review of the ability and options to deter and defeat space aggression.

"We continue our oversight of the vital Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program to maintain the required mission assurance, reduce costs, and provide opportunities for competition to certified providers.

"Finally, I'm pleased that the Chairman's Mark will contain an important new reform regarding how this nation procures commercial satellite communications services. Thank you to all of our Members for their engagement in this year's process. I look forward to another successful NDAA. With that, let me turn to Mr. Cooper for any remarks he would like to make."

Source