▶ 0:14:51Chair Wicker: The hearing will come to order. I think our witness test and guest -- witnesses and guests for being here today and thank you to our nominees and their families for their willingness to serve our nation. This is a dangerous threat environment and we need people like them to step up and serve. We thank you for your willingness. Mr. michael powers is the nominee to serve as the deputy under secretary of defense in the office of the controller.
▶ 0:15:20Chair Wicker: If confirmed, he would oversee the department's financial information. Efforts to a clean audit ensuring taxes are allocated properly. Mr. powers will face challenges, including an audit deficiency, and will need to modernize the department's budgeting system.
▶ 0:15:45Chair Wicker: The congress has set the statutory deadline for the audit and the reconciliation bill provides an historic bucket of funding to accelerate our efforts. I look forward to hearing Mr. powers' plans to implement that finding and to assist in modernizing the pentagon's budgetary process. Dr.
▶ 0:16:08Chair Wicker: Amy henninger has been nominated to serve as the director of operational test and evaluation, this critical role ensures our weapons systems are effective and reliable for field operations. Two months ago, secretary hegseth issued a reorganization of this office with the goal of rightsizing the workforce. Some of my colleagues questioned that decision. We will talk about that today.
▶ 0:16:33Chair Wicker: I believe it probably refocused the office on its original statutory purpose rather than the bureaucratic obstacle it that it evolved into. The committee understands the need to modernize the test and evaluation process. Our dea provides an agile pathway for more oversight during the systems lifecycle while at the same time preserving the independent test and evaluation office. I look forward to hearing Dr.
▶ 0:17:04Chair Wicker: Henninger's vision for navigating this transition. Mr. david denton has been nominated to be general counsel of the department of the navy. He currently serves as the principal deputy performing duties of the undersecretary for this policy. He has had a distinguished career serving as counsel and the, assistant U.S.
▶ 0:17:26Chair Wicker: Attorney for the southern district of new york, and an associate law firm sydney austin. I look forward to hearing his perspectives about what the navy's office of general counsel is like and what he may do differently, is confirmed. Finally, Mr. benjamin kohlmann has been nominated to serve as the assistant secretary of the navy for manpower and reserve affairs.
▶ 0:17:52Chair Wicker: And, if confirmed, he would play a key role in retaining and supporting high-quality sailors and marines. This committee has worked hard to expand the tools and authorities needed to improve quality of life, health care, and ways. Mr. kohlmann will be expected to build a network and deliver measurable improvements that strengthen the force and enhance the quality of life for those who serve. These are critical to retention and readiness across the fleet.
▶ 0:18:21Chair Wicker: I look forward to hearing his vision for supporting our service members, civilians, and family. We began 15 minutes earlier than we usually do, because quite a number of our members have other committee responsibilities to attend to at the top of the world, and so people will be coming and going. But with that, I turned to my colleague and friend, ranking member reed.
▶ 0:18:50Sen. Reed: Thank you very much, Mr. chairman, and thank you for beginning to hearing early. I'm one of those who have to go to appropriations. We are considering them among other things, the defense appropriations bill, so I think my presence over there is justified. The morning to our witnesses, and congratulations on your nominations. I would like to welcome you and your family members also. And I would like to welcome representative rob wittman, who just arrived.
▶ 0:19:21Sen. Reed: He will be introducing Dr. henninger. Mr. powers, you have been nominated to be the executive -- deputy of defense for the office of the comptroller, entering the resources that congress provides are allocated to troops efficiently and effectively. Additionally, the comptroller is a key player in the department of justice to achieve a clean audit and to modernize its financial management system. Mr. powers, if confirmed, there are significant challenges you would need to address.
▶ 0:19:54Sen. Reed: This is to deliver a budget request that was nearly half a year late and is assumed incorrect amounts from reconciliation funding, created large discrepancies and shortfalls across many programs. In your previous experience, I would like to know how you would to direct the department from traditional appropriated funds.
▶ 0:20:17Sen. Reed: And additionally, implementing reforms which planning, programming, budgeting, and execution process and is working to achieve a clean audit. I would ask that you share your plans to meet these challenges at this important moment at the department of defense. Dr. henninger, you are nominated to be director of a law test and evaluation, or d.o.t.e. For decades, d.o.t.e.
▶ 0:20:45Sen. Reed: Has played a vital role in managing defense systems. Unfortunately, in may, the secretary of defense announced his plan to significantly reduce d.o.t.e. Office and slash its budget.
▶ 0:21:15Sen. Reed: With drastically reduced resources, d.o.t.e. May not be able to provide critical programs, risking operational readiness and taxpayer dollars. Dr. henninger, if confirmed, you will be responsible for providing oversight of testing conducted in vital areas that are often overlooked, such as software development and cybersecurity.
▶ 0:21:43Sen. Reed: As well as integrating new tools such as artificial intelligence and machine learning to help the test enterprise become more effective, and I look forward to hearing how you will address these challenges. Mr. denton, you are nominated to be general counsel of the department of the navy. This position is responsible for providing legal services in a vast array of fields, including acquisition-related law, arms control, business and commercial law, and national security related law, among many others.
▶ 0:22:15Sen. Reed: The general counsel also assists in efforts, intelligence, criminal investigations, and law enforcement activity. In recent years, there have been several damaging ethical crises, including investigations of bribery, corruption, and violation of criminal conflict of interest. The navy's culture is critical to its cohesion and effectiveness, and these failures must be corrected. Mr.
▶ 0:22:40Sen. Reed: Denton, I expected to always exercise independent, professional judgment and to give your best as secretary of navy -- best as general counsel to the secretary of the navy, even or especially if that advice is not what they want to hear. I expect you to represent all navy personnel with the professionalism they deserve. Finally, Mr. kohlmann, you are nominated to be assistant secretary of the navy for manpower and reserve affairs.
▶ 0:23:07Sen. Reed: If confirmed, he would be the principal adviser to the secretary of the navy with overall supervision of a number of areas, including military and civilian personnel policy, military readiness, quality of life come care programs. Our naval forces maintain an extremely operationally hyatt temple across all areas -- high tempo across all areas.
▶ 0:23:32Sen. Reed: In particular, you will need to manage the impact from recent widespread cuts to senior officers and defense civilians throughout the department of the navy come and smartly manage additional cuts that the administration has directed in future years. Mr. kohlmann, I would like to know how you would plan to oversee such reductions while minimizing the impact on readiness and ensuring all sailors, marines, and a civilians are treated with the respect they deserve.
▶ 0:23:59Sen. Reed: However, rebounds to these cuts will go a long way to determine if the ability to meet mission demand in the next decade and beyond. Thank you, again, to our nominees in their families, and I look forward to testimony. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 0:24:10Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, senator reed. We are joined by our longtime friend and colleague from the house of representatives, chairman rob wittman of virginia. I understand, rob, you will be introducing Dr. henninger this morning, so we welcome you, and you are recognized at this point.
▶ 0:24:31Rep. Wittman: Thank you, Mr. chairman and ranking member read, thank you all so much for the incredible job that you all do here at the senate armed services committee could we appreciate the compliment that you provide and the coordination with the house component of armed services, these days more important than ever, so we deeply appreciate that. It's my honor today to be here to introduce Dr.
▶ 0:24:52Rep. Wittman: Henninger in her confirmation hearing, therefore the director of operational test and evaluation at the department of defense. An incredibly talented individual. Dr. henninger has been a proud resident for five years. She originally hails from illinois where she grew up and remained until taking her first job as an engineer at mcdonnell douglas, now today boeing in st. Louis, missouri.
▶ 0:25:19Rep. Wittman: That job eventually took her to the space coast in florida, where she moved to a software development position at saic, now lighthouse, and continued her investigation culminating in computer engineering with a dissertation in artificial intelligence from the university of central florida. Upon graduation, Dr. miniter founded the orlando satellite office for a short technology, a small ai startup company headquartered in ann arbor, michigan.
▶ 0:25:48Rep. Wittman: It was spun off from the ai lab at the university of michigan for during this period, she also taught undergraduate university courses in artificial engineering and artificial intelligence. After 9/11, like thousands of people across the country, Dr. henninger felt a calling to mow work closely support the federal government generally and national security sector specifically.
▶ 0:26:15Rep. Wittman: Leaving the corporate world to pursue a career in corporate service -- government service, she moved to northern virginia where she joined the institute for defense analysis paid she never looked back. The last 20 years of service and commitment to our national security has been the most rewarding of her career, and she will say that every day, the rewards and challenges that she has helped create and find solutions to fit since moving to virginia the last 20 years, Dr.
▶ 0:26:42Rep. Wittman: Henninger's career has gone between the nonprofit sector and government sector, as we see they continue to intertwine over the years and are more interconnected today than ever. Her noble contributions include serving a detail in the office of existing secretary of defense for research and engineering.
▶ 0:27:00Rep. Wittman: She went on to serve as the army's modeling and simulation executive and provided leadership, vision, and oversight for the army's 10 billion-dollar simulation portfolio while leading the army's simulation and modeling office. She served as intelligence senior leader at the defense and intelligence agency, leaving a cross agency team.
▶ 0:27:32Rep. Wittman: Dr. henninger was the first senior advisor for software and cybersecurity to the director of operational testing and evaluation. She they are served at the pentagon's final technical authority in the assessment of cybersecurity on major department of defense programs. More recently, Dr. henninger has established a new research enterprise in adversarial and counter ai at dhs. Dr.
▶ 0:28:01Rep. Wittman: Henninger's extensive experience and unwavering dedication to national security make her an exceptional candidate for the role of director of operational test and evaluation. Or proven leadership, technical expertise, a commitment to innovation will undoubtedly serve our nation well and its critical position. As we know, ai is the emerging, both opportunity and threat for the united states. Having somebody of Dr.
▶ 0:28:33Rep. Wittman: Henninger's capabilities, her vast experience, I cannot think of anybody better to be in this position, to lead this office in a time of both great opportunity but great challenge. So with that, Mr. chairman, I strongly support Dr. henninger's nomination, and I thank you so much for your time.
▶ 0:28:52Sen. Reed: It occurs to me that Dr. henninger may actually overqualified. [laughter] we will delve into that. Since the house is not in session, you will probably want to stay here for the entirety of this hearing. [laughter] but then again, perhaps there are other duties that you could perform, so we do thank you very much. You are free to go at your discretion, with the thanks of the committee.
▶ 0:29:19Rep. Wittman: Mr. chairman, thank you so much, and thank you to all the members of the committee. Y'all are doing great work here, and we wish that you continue on that great path to success.
▶ 0:29:31Chair Wicker: Well, thank you very much. Now, at this point, let's just go down the line, Dr. henninger, you are recognized for your opening statement. Welcome.
▶ 0:29:43Dr. Henninger: Chairman wicker, ranking member read, and esteemed members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to attend before you today and for your consideration of my nomination to serve as the director of operational test and evaluation. I'm deeply honored by this opportunity and grateful to president trump and secretary access for their confidence in me. I'm also grateful to vice chairman whitman for his generous introduction.
▶ 0:30:12Dr. Henninger: We are the best trained, best equipped, and most capable war fighting force in the world, yet technological innovations stand to reshape the conflict and mastery of becoming a traditional force. In this era, strength, dominance will no longer be measured exclusively by the sizable fleet or the range of a missile but also the coherence of our response, by the confidence we place in our system.
▶ 0:30:43Dr. Henninger: And the speed by which we turn emerging technologies into operational readiness to it in such a landscape, operational test and evaluation's should not merely evaluate programs convey should add celery advantage. Our war fighters are incredibly innovative. They don't need perfection, they need confidence in the capabilities of their gear, where it works and where it does not work.
▶ 0:31:10Dr. Henninger: Operational test and evaluation is where that confidence is forged and where the range of the possible is established. If confirmed, I will leave with the conviction that operational test and evaluation's must be both independent and rigorous, driven by war fighting relevance, but also forward leading and agile jail, enabled by the tools of the 21st century.
▶ 0:31:34Dr. Henninger: To make the moment, we must modernize and streamline how we test, how we model, and how we integrate tests and evaluations across the acquisition lifecycle. I bring to this role the breath of experience and technical depth required to lead in this moment. The systems we are testing now and increasingly in the future are highly software intensive, ai enabled, cyber contested, complex, distributed system to system, that evolve rapidly, even after building.
▶ 0:32:06Dr. Henninger: With 30 years of experience both in the private sector and the public sector, my expertise in software, ai, cybersecurity, interoperability, distributed computing, said environments, among many other competing technologies, aligns directly with these realities.
▶ 0:32:26Dr. Henninger: Over many special government executive leadership positions, I worked across the entire lifecycle, including in test and evaluation, where I served as the senior advisor for software and cybersecurity to the director of operational test and evaluation. In that role him I was proud to contribute to the office's mission, building strong working relationships, assessing the acquisition program, and strengthening the test and evaluation workforce.
▶ 0:32:54Dr. Henninger: More recently, I've established a new research enterprise and counter ai can a prime example of how quickly our threat space is evolving and how it must be just as dynamic. A company made today, our friends and former colleagues I've been blessed to work with over the course of my career, including some from osd, the army, and d.o.t.e. I'm grateful for their support and humbled by their presence.
▶ 0:33:24Dr. Henninger: My sweetheart and biggest cheerleader, Dr. todd boric, is traveling for his job today. I'm disappointed he could not be here, but breathing -- bring any positive thoughts, I know. If confirmed, I will ensure test and evaluation is equipped to meet today's challenges and tomorrow.
▶ 0:33:45Dr. Henninger: I will test for speed and operation everywhere I can come a caution when necessary, and clearly always, but most of all, I will support the president, this congress, the department, the american taxpayer, and especially our war fighters in assuring the safety and security of our great nation. Thank you again for your consideration of my nomination. I look forward to answering your questions.
▶ 0:34:09Chair Wicker: Thank you, ma'am. Mr. powers, you are now recognized for an opening statement.
▶ 0:34:20Mr. Powers: It looks like it is on now. Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, distinguished members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today as the nominee to serve as the deputy under secretary of defense comptroller. It is an honor to be considered for this role, and I am deeply grateful for the trust and confidence placed in me by president trump.
▶ 0:34:48Mr. Powers: I would like to begin by acknowledging my family and their support. My wife, colleen, we've been married 46 years, and she too has had a long federal civilian career, 25 years as a contract specialist for dod, and our children, brian, conor, neil, and megan, for their unwavering support as we moved around the world from a installation to military installation.
▶ 0:35:18Mr. Powers: And during my absence is when I volunteered to deploy to iraq and afghanistan. Their sacrifices enabled me to grow professionally and develop the depth and breadth of financial management experience. Skills and knowledge that I will bring to this job. I also want to thank the men and women who wear the uniforms of the united states, past and present, whose courage and dedication should inspire all of us every day.
▶ 0:35:44Mr. Powers: They have inspired me, and I would be remiss if I did not also express my appreciation for our civilian workforce and their families, without whom we cannot do the job demanded of us, either. My relationship with the department of defense started early. I was born at a U.S. army hospital in france. Both of my brothers were also born at army hospitals overseas.
▶ 0:36:09Mr. Powers: We were a dod family, led by the example set by my father, who quit high school to join the air force during the korean war, eventually retiring as an army master sergeant during the end of the vietnam war. I did not start out looking to spend most of my life working as a civilian for dod, but when fate intervened, it seemed like the natural thing to do.
▶ 0:36:33Mr. Powers: I spent 38 years in the federal civilian service, eight years primarily in budget, 30 years in and around audits, and then another eight years after I retired as a contractor, supporting audits.
▶ 0:36:49Mr. Powers: The vast majority of that experience gives in dod come and it was earned at every commanded echelon and management level in audit and management budget, from installation, divisions, cores, major commands, to the assistant secretary of the army comptroller and the osc comptroller previously, including two deployments to iraq to manage the $18 billion iraq relief and reconstruction program budget, and to afghanistan to manage the $21
▶ 0:37:21Mr. Powers: Billion afghan national security forces program budget. And lastly, to my second tour at the U.S. army comptroller office, where I was the army's principal deputy for financial management and comptroller and served as the acting comptroller and chief financial officer for the army, responsible for the army's entire $177 billion budget at the time.
▶ 0:37:44Mr. Powers: These experiences have prepared me for this moment, to reform and improve the dod budget process, to support robust budgets, capability, for filling the president's goal of peace through strength, and to deliver the first clean audit opinion on the department of defense's consolidated financial statement.
▶ 0:38:07Mr. Powers: I believe the depth and breadth of my experience has given me the tools to be successful as the deputy under secretary of defense comptroller, and, if confirmed, I look forward to applying these tools to address any challenge presented. These are big jobs, but we can get big jobs done. In closing, I would like to thank the committee for its consideration of my nomination, and I look forward to answering your questions. Thank you.
▶ 0:38:36Chair Wicker: Thank you very, very much. Mr. denton, you are now recognized.
▶ 0:38:41Mr. Denton: Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, distinguished members of the committee, good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and for your consideration of my nomination to be general counsel of the department of the navy. I'm deeply honored that president trump has nominated me for the role, and I'm grateful to secretary thelen for his trust and toughness could I've been lucky in my life to have the support of many extraordinary people but none more so than the family whose join me here today.
▶ 0:39:10Mr. Denton: My mother, judge rena reggie, who recently elevated 38 years on the federal bench. My wife karen and daughter elizabeth. Like many, they've borne the brunt of sacrifice but have always give me unflagging support. I also want to thank my late father, david benson senior, who we lost to brain cancer far too soon.
▶ 0:39:37Mr. Denton: He showed me the wisdom that the real great man is the one who makes everything and feel great. I try everyday to make my dad proud of the man I've become. Senators, for 250 years, the navy and marine corps team has been america's first line of defense, proving time and again its critical role in every aspect of our national security. The department of the navy today stands in an unbroken line with those who have come before, to answer the nation's call with honor, courage, and commitment.
▶ 0:40:08Mr. Denton: That mission has led me to join the navy twice, first in uniform as a navy reserve intelligence officer, and then again as a career civilian attorney. I feel truly blessed that the president has given me the opportunity to continue that service, if confirmed, service, if confirmed to be general counsel.
▶ 0:40:26Mr. Denton: But the navy now faces a critical inflection point in president trump, secretary hegseth, secretary thelen, and the members of this committee have recognized that translational change is necessary for the department of the navy to continue to meet both the tests from adversaries old and new and the challenges of a rapidly evolving landscape.
▶ 0:40:48Mr. Denton: The navy and marine corps now and in the future must be so confidently assured of victory in battle that our adversaries do not even seek to test our resolve. That is the demand of the warrior ethos and the promise of peace through strength.
▶ 0:41:04Mr. Denton: Every aspect of that effort will require the support of the intellectual rigor, the creativity, and the tireless dedication of the department of the navy's office of general counsel, to ensure that the objectives are set and achieve in the manner consistent with the laws of the constitution of the united states. If confirmed, I would hope to bring to that serve as a combination of education, experience, perspective, and commitment.
▶ 0:41:29Mr. Denton: Many of my teachers and mentors had their own careers in public service, and from then I learned not only the skills but also the value of a government attorney. I've applied those lessons in my experience as an assistant U.S. attorney, senior trial counsel, and civilian counsel in the navy.
▶ 0:41:47Mr. Denton: I'm very proud of the work we've done to end of a creative legal tools, to bring justice to adversaries strengthening american citizens and interest, work that has given me a balancing's perspective on a challenging national security environment. While I know my background will stand me in good stead, if confirmed, most important is my commitment.
▶ 0:42:09Mr. Denton: I grew up in new york city could I will never forget the sight and smell of the ash and debris covering a roof on 9/11 I don't victims of crime and terrorism and the law enforcement and military professionals who risk their lives and sometimes loss them to see justice done for protecting our nation's needs not just a professional charge of it's a personal calling.
▶ 0:42:36Mr. Denton: You have my total commitment that if confirmed, I will leave it alone the field every day, to ensure the department of the navy has the best possible legal advice to meet the challenges of this moment, and that includes working closely with this committee and with congress as a whole. It has been my privilege on several occasions now to raise my right hand and ask for god's help to support and defend the constitution of the united states. It will be the owner of a lifetime to do so again, if confirmed to the general counsel of the navy.
▶ 0:43:04Mr. Denton: Thank you for having me today, and I welcome your questions.
▶ 0:43:07Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, sir. Mr. kohlmann, your recognize.
▶ 0:43:12Mr. Kohlmann: Chairman wicker, ranking member reed, distinguished members of the armed services committee, it is an honor and a privilege to appear before you as president trump's nominee to be assistant secretary of the navy for manpower and reserve affairs. If confirmed, I will once again serve the department of the navy and the american people. I'm deeply grateful to president trump, secretary hegseth, and secretary thelen for their confidence and trust.
▶ 0:43:42Mr. Kohlmann: I want to thank my parents here today, michael and carrie kohlmann. All of their children have served and sacrificed for their country, including my brother, who is a navy officer currently living in africa, and my sister, who is married to a twice deployed army officer and active U.S. marshal. Most of all, I want to thank my wife and I were three elementary aged children who are here today. We are the earthly foundation of all that I do. Senators, america is worth defending.
▶ 0:44:12Mr. Kohlmann: That defense requires men and women who volunteer their vocation and their lives. This truth dawned on me as a young boy. I was enamored of world war ii and military aviation was in my blood. My grandfather was a carrier pilot who flew hellcats and corsairs off the uss watts and uss hornet in the pacific.
▶ 0:44:35Mr. Kohlmann: My great uncle flew from world war ii through the end of the cold war, including time as a prisoner of war. Their stories defined my childhood and sent me on an inevitable path. This led me to experience the highs and lows of active duty and reserve navy officer. As a pilot, I flew 32 combat missions over afghanistan.
▶ 0:44:59Mr. Kohlmann: I was stationed for two years as an instructor pilot with the united states marine corps in san diego. I work closely with navy civilians and lab scientists at navy warfare development commander, when I was empowered to lead and build the rapid innovation's lp I saw the inner workings of the navy reserve for nine years when I helped the defense aviation in silicon valley and served in the voluntary training unit.
▶ 0:45:26Mr. Kohlmann: I experienced the paid of lost when people lost their lives flying her performance aircraft. I saw firsthand the burden on families as I wash my sister endure the first three years of her marriage be away from her husband when he was deployed. Most recently investing in founders, the national interest and re-industrialization.
▶ 0:45:56Mr. Kohlmann: The common theme in all those investors was -- endeavors was a of people, military, civilian commander families. If confirmed, I'm committed to leveraging this career service to ensure our sailors, marines, civilians, and families are ready for a confrontation with whatever threat we might face. Our goal is to deter conflict, but if necessary, to fight and win whenever our enemies send our way. Both cases require our best and most qualified to be ready to boldly lead.
▶ 0:46:25Mr. Kohlmann: To do so, our navy must reinvigorate our war fighting ethos, promote agile leadership, we must bolster the picture, showing the american people yc power is important to us flourishing.
▶ 0:46:41Mr. Kohlmann: Finally, if confirmed, I'm committed to finding ways to modernizing our reserve forces while creating streamlined pathways for civilian talent to serve. To paraphrase my favorite military officer, technology does not win wars, men and women do come and they use their lives to do so. If confirmed, I am committed to deter, fight, and win. America is worth defending.
▶ 0:47:12Mr. Kohlmann: In closing, I reiterate my appreciation for the chairman, ranking member from and members of this committee for their intentionality throughout this process. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:47:23Chair Wicker: Thank you, Mr. kohlmann. When was your great uncle imprisoned as prisoner of war?
▶ 0:47:31Mr. Kohlmann: He was in the hannah holmes for five years.
▶ 0:47:36Chair Wicker: Our state of mississippi lost a distinguished veteran of that prison. Just a few days ago. We honor the memory of all of those courageous warriors for the united states. Who is your philosopher?
▶ 0:48:00Mr. Kohlmann: Colonel john boyd, U.S. air force.
▶ 0:48:04Chair Wicker: Well, thank you very much of you. I now have the duty of asking some questions which we asked of all around civilian grounds, so I will ask you to answer at the same time, say yes or no. Have you adhere to applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest?
▶ 0:48:35All: Yes.
▶ 0:48:41Chair Wicker: Chair wicker: have you assumed any duties or take any action that would appear to presume the outcome confirmation process?
▶ 0:48:44All: No.
▶ 0:48:46Chair Wicker: The oversight committees makes it sure that congress will receive testimony, breathing, supports, records, and other information from the executive branch on a timely basis. Do you agree, if confirmed, to appear and testify before this committee when requested?
▶ 0:49:10All: Yes.
▶ 0:49:11Chair Wicker: Do you agree to provide documents in a timely manner when requested by this committee, subcommittee, and other committees of congress, and to comply with any good faith records?
▶ 0:49:28All: Yes.
▶ 0:49:29Chair Wicker: Will you ensure your staff complies with deadlines established by this committee and production of reports of the record and other information, including timely responding to hearing questions for the record?
▶ 0:49:39All: Yes.
▶ 0:49:40Chair Wicker: Will you cooperate and provide witnesses and reapers in response to congressional requests?
▶ 0:49:46All: Yes.
▶ 0:49:47Chair Wicker: Those witnesses and reapers protected for their testimony and briefings?
▶ 0:49:56All: Yes.
▶ 0:49:57Chair Wicker: Much of the findings of the defense reconciliation bill is unspecific and will technically be at the discretion of dod, though this committee has provided recommendations for the. A quick yes or no from each of you, do you commit to following congress' spending recommendations and defense reconciliation on equivalently?
▶ 0:50:20All: Yes.
▶ 0:50:20Chair Wicker: Thank you very, very much. Now, I would recognize myself for five minutes for questions. Mr.
▶ 0:50:34Chair Wicker: Powers, if you could briefly , and I guess you could spend an hour doing this, but if you could briefly tell us your specific plans to achieve a clean audit opinion by christmas time of 2028?
▶ 0:50:53Mr. Powers: Thank you, chairman. I have been around audit a long time in dod and outside. Things we absolutely have to do and continuing the confirmation, of course, is get senior leadership very actively involved in the process of setting milestones and holding
▶ 0:51:25Mr. Powers: The department and defense agencies to those milestones. And that goes on top of getting on top of a bunch of legacy systems, leveraging technology, ai, robotics, machine learning. A lot of things we can do to make it easier to audit the department more efficient, quicker, and at less cost.
▶ 0:51:53Chair Wicker: If you are confirmed, how soon do you think you might be able to establish that for a of milestones? -- first set of milestones?
▶ 0:52:04Mr. Powers: That is step number one, after I get the desk to agree, -- the officer to agree, which I'm sure he will. That's how it works. In weeks, we should be able to make a cut at what those milestones are. It's easy to see what the milestones would be a come and then the work is underneath how we get to a common system.
▶ 0:52:37Chair Wicker: Ok. I think we all agree, the 2024 ndaa, and dissipating to get is going to take a welcome and it is 3.5 years off, so I know it is something that has been a frustration for a long time, but we stand ready to give you the tools you need for that. Let me briefly ask Mr. kohlmann, recruiting is up.
▶ 0:53:07Chair Wicker: Based on that, do you think we need to get back to the stringent recruiting standards that we had earlier?
▶ 0:53:14Mr. Kohlmann: Senator, I think it is to the credit of what has been done to this point to get to the strong recruiting numbers. If confirmed, I would like to look into what has driven that recruitment opportunity, and if those are higher individuals. If we have the opportunity to increase the minimum standards, we should absolutely increase those standards, as long as we are meeting our recruiting goal.
▶ 0:53:39Chair Wicker: Ok. Well, it seems to me that there is sort of a renewed enthusiasm among young americans to sign up and be part of the cause. Let me ask you, in that regard, have you been informed what an enthusiastic supporter of junior rotc the chairman of the armed services committee is.
▶ 0:54:03Mr. Kohlmann: Mr. chairman, I have been.
▶ 0:54:06Chair Wicker: I hope you share that enthusiasm. And it is not just something that occurs to members who visit high schools, but this has been substantiated by scholarly study.
▶ 0:54:22Chair Wicker: Junior rotc, whether it is needy or the other opportunities, constitutes a subset of people who, in high school, are voluntarily agreeing, better discipline, more work, that other high school students don't have to have, and the result is clear in the navy.
▶ 0:54:45Chair Wicker: If they stay in school longer, they go on to better jobs, colleges, and universities at a higher rate. It is a winner, and just for everyone, when this committee and this congress has considered passing the ndaa, that says the floor of junior rotc units across the country should be raised, in other words, we should have more and more high school, that is not a
▶ 0:55:16Chair Wicker: Suggestion. It has been viewed as a suggestion several years back. That is a requirement. And we mean for junior rotc to be -- to become part of our citizenship building teh citizenship building tethos in the united states. Thank you very much for Dr. henninger, I will probably come back to you for some questions later on. At this point, I am happy to recognize senator king.
▶ 0:55:47Sen. King: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Mr. powers, you've been around for a welcome as he said, for many years. Why is it so hard? Why is this case the paradigm case for not being able to get to an audit? What is it at the pentagon that has created the obstacles to getting where we should get? A big organizations have audits every year. What is the history here?
▶ 0:56:15Mr. Powers: Senator, I appreciate that question. I know a lot of people ask that very question. We been doing this for 35 years, since the act was passed. In my opinion, it has not been as important as it is in the private sector.
▶ 0:56:36Mr. Powers: In the private sector, you cannot do business if you don't have a clean audit opinion, if you are not answering all of the compliance requirements.
▶ 0:56:48Sen. King: You cannot sell your stock. You cannot trade.
▶ 0:56:49Mr. Powers: Yeah. But in dod, really the prime mission is to, you know, defeat our enemies, and it is not a whole lot to do with a clean audit.
▶ 0:57:01Sen. King: Keeping track of the money.
▶ 0:57:03Mr. Powers: Keeping track of the money is important. We have not done the greatest job at that. I don't know that that is the worst thing we are feeling out when it comes to getting a clean financial statement. We have been -- it's a little bit of disarray. We have too many systems. They don't talk to each other.
▶ 0:57:27Mr. Powers: It's very difficult to -- it has been -- to get people interested. I think we are at our nexus and time right now, though, the administration behind doing the audit, the secretary of congress, obviously you guys are, you know, giving us some deadlines.
▶ 0:57:45Sen. King: You have a great opportunity and I think great experience, and as you point out, everybody is aligned behind this mission. So I look forward to your work. You are going to prove to the world that the term comptroller of the pentagon is not a contradiction of terms. [laughter] that should be your task. Ms.
▶ 0:58:06Sen. King: Henninger, you are, as the chairman noted come extremely well-qualified for this job. The problem is, the job seems to be going way before you even get there. 70% of the staff in the office you are designated to lead has been caught and yet -- cut, yet at the same time, the challenges of investing in a new technology, particularly the challenges of cyber and ensuring cybersecurity of the whole supply chain, have multiplied in recent years.
▶ 0:58:36Sen. King: How in the world are you going to do your job when you've only got 30% of the people who were there a year ago?
▶ 0:58:43Dr. Henninger: Thank you for the opportunity to expand on that, senator king. I have not been briefed on the details, the secretary of defense, his memorandum and decisions after the memorandum. I understand that there is a 60-day period, where they will be a reconsideration of any resources that might be necessary. I don't know where that stands right now.
▶ 0:59:16Dr. Henninger: The operational test and evaluation community spreads out responsibility, a number of entities, including the service ota's who actually do the cyber testing. Had dot, the office that you were talking about in your question, specifically provides analysis for a certain number of programs that were out the oversight list. And when I get into the office, I will do an independent analysis.
▶ 0:59:43Sen. King: I think this office is very important, particularly at this moment in time. Mr. kohlmann, I would modify your philosopher statement. Men and women empowered by the best technology. Genghis khan was able to conquer the world because of the invention of the stirrup, which enabled his warriors to be more fearsome.
▶ 1:00:07Sen. King: The english army defended the french, a four-times size army, because of the new technology of the longbow. So what you are doing is incredibly important, and I hope you will fight for the office, for the people that you need in order to do the job. I think that is what is especially important here. Mr. denton, legal divide -- legal advice and rule of law. You've done a lot of law work throughout your career.
▶ 1:00:34Sen. King: You know one of the important jobs as a lawyer sometimes is to tell their client things they don't want to hear. Are you willing to do that to the secretary of defense, to the president of the united states, if you feel about the law is moving in a direction, or the log requires a direction that is not consistent with the policy direction that they want to pursue?
▶ 1:00:55Mr. Denton: Senator, that is always a lawyer's first obligation, to tell the client what the law is, what their obligations are. I look forward to providing that advice to secretary thelen, if confirmed, and to working closely with colleagues and general counsel at the defense office, and if necessary, the white house counsel's office, on any broader legal issues we need to collaborate on.
▶ 1:01:18Sen. King: Thank you very much. Mr. kohlmann, I have questions for you about manpower for the record.
▶ 1:01:25Chair Wicker: Thank you very much, senator king. Senator scott, you rushed in here breathlessly to take your place. Have you caught your breath?
▶ 1:01:36Sen. Scott: Yes.
▶ 1:01:37Chair Wicker: You are recognized, sir.
▶ 1:01:40Sen. Scott: Thank you. First off, thank each of you for being here. So, for 6.5 years, I ran companies, it's actually hard to believe that our military cannot even get an audit done. So, in my business life, one, you cannot sell public stock. Nobody would buy your stock. You cannot raise money. The bank would foreclose on you.
▶ 1:02:12Sen. Scott: So, what is frustrating is no one has ever been held accountable. I don't know anybody who hasn't been promoted, I don't know how anybody has been let go. They have no accountability. You have to admire the marines. They testified about, you know, a couple of weeks ago, they make their audit, but nobody else gets it done. So, Mr. powers, if confirmed, you're going to oversee the dod and finances budget.
▶ 1:02:42Sen. Scott: How long will it take you to deliver a clean audit?
▶ 1:02:44Mr. Powers: Easy question. December 30 first, 20 28, senator.
▶ 1:02:49Sen. Scott: You think it will take that long?
▶ 1:02:52Mr. Powers: Yes, I do. There's a lot to be done. What the marine corps did come a part of it was, they did it because they are marines, and they did it the hard way. They did not have great systems. They do not have good total controls, but they audited through that, meaning instead of sampling 100 items, they would sample thousands of items to get to the point where they could assure the reader of the financial statement that they were correct, and the auditors.
▶ 1:03:24Mr. Powers: It will take some time. I mean, we've got to consolidate systems, we've got to get rid of a bunch of legacy stuff, we've got to start leveraging ai.
▶ 1:03:32Sen. Scott: So, in the meantime, are we going to get audit reports with exceptions?
▶ 1:03:39Mr. Powers: Senator, we get those every year, but we've been making progress. We've got 12 financial statements from last year, organizations within dod, clean audit opinion. An effort was made to get the government's checkbooks, unbalance the treasury come out of it, cleaned up. That was a material weakness. Gao had identified.
▶ 1:04:11Mr. Powers: Quite a number of them did that, improved. But there is a lot to do. We just have not been serious enough about it. I believe that now is the time here we are all kind of on board. I refer to this as a nonpartisan exercise, because we all know it needs to be done, and it only makes sense, and, you know, what's going on? Why can't we do it? We haven't done it because we have not had the will.
▶ 1:04:42Sen. Scott: So do you think it takes new people?
▶ 1:04:45Mr. Powers: Excuse me?
▶ 1:04:47Sen. Scott: Does it take new people? In my business life, if you rank them if you are a cfo, and you did not get an audit done, you lost your job. No cfo could keep their job. Does it take new people? The people there are, it must not be important to them.
▶ 1:05:05Mr. Powers: Certainly it will take new people. We have not delivered with the people we have, you know, to the extent that that needs to be looked at and analyzed and reconfigured, I will say, you know, we need to get the train pointed in the right direction, and we need to execute.
▶ 1:05:31Mr. Powers: We need to have leadership that is all over making this very important. In business, when the boss says something is really important, you do it, because you might lose your job.
▶ 1:05:45Sen. Scott: Do you think the buses are saying that?
▶ 1:05:48Mr. Powers: I don't think there was a lot of that previously. There was some. Some people were more interested than others. Some people just thought it was an impossible task. Some people are more interested in executing, you know, against the broader mission of the department. I think it needs to be important, and it needs then people like the comptroller, need to be accountable.
▶ 1:06:17Mr. Powers: It's not just one person commits the entire organization. But, if confirmed, I would like to put together a plan that involves senior leadership, managing comptroller's for the departments and agencies.
▶ 1:06:35Sen. Scott: I appreciate come after you get confirmed, if you could give us, like, in writing a quarterly update of how you're doing. A lot of us here really care about this, and we will do whatever we can to make sure it is a priority. Thank you.
▶ 1:06:49Mr. Powers: I would be happy to do that.
▶ 1:06:50Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator scott. Mr. powers, let me just pick up on what the senator justice said. I heard you say you are going to come in within weeks, if you are confirmed, and I think you will be, that you will establish benchmarks, markers.
▶ 1:07:15Chair Wicker: If you come back and testified before us in early january of next year, do you think you will be able to say that you will have achieved those benchmarks and milestones that you are going to set out very soon?
▶ 1:07:37Mr. Powers: I think I can come back and tell you what those benchmarks and milestones are and when we expect to get those checked off. Not getting them actually completed by january. That is not going to happen.
▶ 1:07:51Chair Wicker: Ok. I see. We will explore that further. Thank you very much for that. Senator kaine, you are recognized.
▶ 1:07:59Sen. Kaine: Thank you, Mr. chairman. This is a great panel. All of you are highly qualified for your positions. Mr. kohlmann, you said in your testimony, "the united states is worth defending," and it made me think of eighth united states is was defending come and we all believe it is, then public public service to the united states is worth defending.
▶ 1:08:19Sen. Kaine: I found it interesting a common theme in all of your opening testimonies, you all emphasize the deep connections that both you and family members have had to the service of the united states, in civilian capacities, military capacities, judicial capacities, each of you walked through your life and chose to allocate a lot of your five minutes to talk about your justified pride in serving the country.
▶ 1:08:50Sen. Kaine: I've got an awful lot of public servants in virginia who are right now feeling like they've just been cast aside. And this is not about any of you, but in the same way that you feel pride in having served the country and excitement about this next opportunity for service, in the same way that a whole lot of people in this room come a whole lot of people behind me up here feel pride that they've chosen to serve their country by being U.S.
▶ 1:09:17Sen. Kaine: Public servants, tens of thousands of public servants have been ripped, doge kicked out, fired, locked out of their office, placed on administrative leave with virtually no process to analyze the merits of their service. The productivity of the office they worked in or their own careers. A whole lot of them have been fired for the simple reason that they are probationary, that they can be fired.
▶ 1:09:45Sen. Kaine: If they are in their first year of service, and they have little recourse, because the federal civilian service is about 30% veterans, compared to the public sector being in the single digits veterans some of the victims of this mass firing of federal employees in the last eight months have been disproportionately veterans. Overwhelmingly veterans.
▶ 1:10:10Sen. Kaine: Dod civilians, usaid employees, because veterans serve long periods of time, and then when they transition to civilian workforce, even if they have been in the military for 25 years, it in that first year, you are a person of great expertise, but you are a probationary employee, just like a 23-year-old, you can be cast aside like you are trash. So I am glad that each of you in your own way decided when you have five minutes before the committee, the thing he really wanted to tell us about yourself was your pride in serving this nation.
▶ 1:10:42Sen. Kaine: In a whole variety of different ways. And I want everyone who serves this country to feel proud of it, to want to do it, and to feel respected and appreciated for having done it. Mr. kohlmann, I appreciated our visit in the office a lot, and this is a really important post, as all of your posts are important. I'm the lead democrat on the seapower subcommittee, so the navy is very important for virginia.
▶ 1:11:11Sen. Kaine: One of my kids as a marine reservist. Employees who are in the deferred resignation program on the voluntary early retirement authority, how can you manage that in a smooth way while maintaining operational readiness?
▶ 1:11:27Mr. Kohlmann: Senator, thank you for the question. The civilian workforce is critical to the national security and the department of the navy. This is not something I took part income of a future and transitions that individuals come and if we do need to make, you know, right side adjustments in a data-driven way to make sure we are making right decisions for the department of the navy.
▶ 1:11:50Mr. Kohlmann: One opportunity we could explore is something from the past program that the active-duty military has, to look at what options, transitions are, shipbuilding, workforce is a critical thing that we have to think about in the private sector. There could be opportunities to take folks about adjacent expertises and help make those seamless transitions happen for them, but I look forward to diving in deeper and understanding the problem more deeply.
▶ 1:12:21Sen. Reed: You and I talked in my office, and I will not go further into it come about the brand and, enacted that I helped get passed, for those throughout the enterprise, really important that those resources be available, that they would be no stigma attached to seeking mental health services. I know that you share that goal. The last thing is, you were also a reservist. Talk about the way to make sure that I reservistsa that I reservists are really fully integrated into the navy mission.
▶ 1:12:49Mr. Kohlmann: Senator kaine, thank you for the question. There is an immense coming to the chairman's points, eagerness to serve our country with their ink skill sets. -- varying skill sets. To bring a new members are very targeted skill sets, so we can put them into roles so they can have an immediate impact. I think of people who are in banking or consulting or are on the front lines of manufacturing that we need direct insight into in the service.
▶ 1:13:20Mr. Kohlmann: . I think we can find a way to make their skills very quickly.
▶ 1:13:21Sen. Kaine: Thank you for that. I go back, Mr. chair.
▶ 1:13:30Chair Wicker: Thank you very much. Mr. turberville.
▶ 1:13:31Sen. Tuberville: Thank you very much, congratulations, and thank you for your service. Huntsville, alabama is a major help for qantas computing, just to name a few. I don't need to tell you we are already years behind our adversaries in these critical technologies. What will you do to accelerate the testing and evaluation of critical technologies, especially as threats from adversaries like china continue to mature?
▶ 1:13:53Dr. Henninger: Senator turberville, thank you for the opportunity to answer this. I'm very familiar with huntsville. I've been there very many times. I work with the cyber red team there. I agree, it is a hotbed of innovation for the country. I appreciate all of the smart people down there.
▶ 1:14:20Dr. Henninger: Speed is very important, and speed with vigor is even more so. Dod can encourage the operational test agency to employ. They increase things like taking advantage of training exercises or operational experimental exercises, they include things like laymen and others.
▶ 1:14:45Dr. Henninger: The issue, in my view, is that those things are are becoming or those things are are becoming oo those things are are becoming oo for surge and they should be every day baseline in every test we do. I would like to see us move beyond searching with manpower and find other ways, automation, more automated t&e, more digital modeling to speed and facilitate our processes.
▶ 1:15:13Sen. Tuberville: Our f-35 program seems to take two steps forward and one step back. How do we fix that?
▶ 1:15:20Dr. Henninger: Thank you for the question. I've been out of the office for four years and I'm not tracking exactly what is going on with the f-35. I have not been briefed on it. I know the block four is coming up and there is a lot of classified work on that.
▶ 1:15:37Dr. Henninger: I am slightly familiar with it because I worked on it previously, but one of my first steps back into the office would be to come up to speed on all of these weapons systems, especially the classified ones that I have missed the last four years, and understand where our baseline is and what we are doing.
▶ 1:15:53Sen. Tuberville: You will find out pretty quick. It is a great machine. Mr. kohlmann, dod civilian workforce numbers have exploded in the last two decades while the service in strengths have declined, eating the tooth, an o declined, eating the tooth, an enormous burden to the american taxpayer.
▶ 1:16:20Sen. Tuberville: There were additional protections put in at the request of labor unions to make it harder to fire underperforming employees. What is your plan to fix this bloated bureaucracy?
▶ 1:16:32Mr. Kohlmann: Coming from the private sector, there were many opportunities when we had to reassess our workforce to understand if it was the correct size. I think it's appropriate for the government confirmed I will undd where the core priorities are and we have to re-shift allegations of civilian workforce from one area to the other or re-right size areas as well, I think holding civilians and military personnel the high standards and accountable for performance is critical to driving the change we need.
▶ 1:17:03Sen. Tuberville: A lot of our military bases are brick-and-mortar and are a disgrace. You won't be able to brick and mortar, but we will need your help to fix a lot of that. We are behind.
▶ 1:17:16Mr. Kohlmann: The state of how our service members live is critical to retention and recruitment and I look forward to working with the secretary of navy, it is a priority of his, to make sure our service members have the right place to live.
▶ 1:17:29Sen. Tuberville: Quality of life should be better than it is for a lot of our families. That is important for recruiting. Mr. denton, the previous administration flouted the law to advance a political agenda. As the navy's top lawyer, can you commit that the navy will follow statute and advise senior leaders in an apolitical manner?
▶ 1:17:54Mr. Denton: Absolutely, senator. Do you see any problems --
▶ 1:18:01Sen. Tuberville: Do you see any problems?
▶ 1:18:04Mr. Denton: My most important priority if confirmed will be supporting shipbuilding and getting the battle for specter where it needs to be. That will be a full life cycle effort throughout the entire acquisition and sustainment process, making sure that we are receiving value for dollar from industry, but at the same time ensuring we have the right authorities and resources deployed to sustain the fleet and make sure we have the capabilities that our sailors
▶ 1:18:34Mr. Denton: And marines need to deter and if necessary win any fight that might come our way.
▶ 1:18:38Sen. Tuberville: I like to hear that word, shipbuilding, don't we, senator?
▶ 1:18:44Chair Wicker: I don't think we could have had a finer answer to that question. Senator blumenthal.
▶ 1:18:52Sen. Blumenthal: Thank you all for being here and thank you for your service, your willingness to serve in the future as well. Mr. kohlmann, one of the real challenges in today's military, including the navy, is the critical shortage of personnel in key places. It isn't just a manpower issue it is readiness and retention.
▶ 1:19:22Sen. Blumenthal: You know the army's future soldier preparatory course has demonstrated success by bringing in thousands of previously ineligible recruits and setting them up for long-term success in the army. That course has, in effect, overcome some of the disadvantages that new potential recruits have.
▶ 1:19:47Sen. Blumenthal: I wonder what steps you would contemplate to address the shortages of recruiting, which have become problems from time to time and whether the navy should pursue a similar kind of preparatory program?
▶ 1:20:04Mr. Kohlmann: Thank you for the question. It has been heartening to see the navy and army meet the recruiting goal but in the past years that has been a deep challenge. If confirmed one of the first things I want to do is understand what has driven that uptick. If we can reinforce those areas of success ensuring we can replicate that effort.
▶ 1:20:28Mr. Kohlmann: Individuals who wanted to serve and maybe fell short for waiver reasons, medical reasons, or physical fitness reasons, if we can look at options to bring them in through similar programs like the army program, I am open to exploring that. On the shipbuilding front, I think there's an opportunity for individuals who may not meet the physical requirements of the navy to consider options making them available to industry and opening the trades for them to go into if they are looking for great-paying jobs in support of our nation.
▶ 1:21:02Sen. Blumenthal: In a previous congress I championed a measure named after young man who committed suicide from connecticut to provide more off ship, on and off base, better living conditions when ships are undergoing maintenance so they don't have to live on the ship while it is being repaired, for whatever reason, or undergoing maintenance.
▶ 1:21:29Sen. Blumenthal: I like your commitment that you will look at that program and make sure the navy is fulfilling its obligations in the memory of xavier sander, whose father, john, is dedicated to his cause. I know the previous administration championed it as well.
▶ 1:21:51Mr. Kohlmann: If confirmed I will gladly look into it. I commit to looking into it more deeply.
▶ 1:21:58Sen. Blumenthal: Ms. henninger, unmanned aerial and undersea warfare, is this an area where you feel you have a responsibility to advance the technology and practical uses?
▶ 1:22:15Dr. Henninger: Senator blumenthal, thank you for that question. From the perspective of operational testing evaluation, if confirmed, it would be my role to ensure that those systems were properly tested, adequately tested in an operational environment in combat credible conditions with realistic threats.
▶ 1:22:37Sen. Blumenthal: Are we testing them now adequately?
▶ 1:22:41Dr. Henninger: Sir, yes. There are a number of systems in those spaces. Perhaps not fully autonomous, but semi-autonomous that we do test.
▶ 1:22:54Sen. Blumenthal: Let me ask you, do you think we are keeping pace with the technologies that other countries are developing in unmanned warfare?
▶ 1:23:05Dr. Henninger: Thank you for that question, sir. Because I am not in the dod right now I am not privy to the intelligence reports that would give me the baseline to understand our comparison. But if confirmed, I would commit to of course getting briefed quickly by the intel community to understand where our near peer adversaries are.
▶ 1:23:29Chair Wicker: Senator budd.
▶ 1:23:32Sen. Budd: Congrats to each and every one of you. I know that your families, loved ones, and supporters are very proud. Mr. kohlmann, 10 years ago the navy times wrote an article about your contributions to the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of the navy, to jacob how the navy grows, manages, and maintains its most valuable resource, its people.
▶ 1:24:04Sen. Budd: There are a lot of valuable ideas in thisthe navy has openef
▶ 1:24:39Sen. Budd: The opportunities. They now do more zone promotions in addition to redirecting the linear order for folks when they were in their year group they would respect those and give them more opportunities for more promotions. I understand there are more opportunities and they open trade-offs with industry programs to get some real world experience.
▶ 1:25:02Sen. Budd: One of the things if confirmed I'm here to look into is what the ratios are of the quality spread of individuals we are retaining. One of the challenges I saw in retention studies in aviation was some of the top performers were choosing to depart to do other things. It seems if we face economic conflicts in the future we will want some of the most creative thinkers to stay in the service.
▶ 1:25:26Sen. Budd: I understand why we are losing them if we can retain them and bring in more talent from the outside if necessary and augment the talent we already have.
▶ 1:25:37Sen. Budd: Dr. henninger, I enjoyed the conversation in my office. You mentioned that we need to modernize and streamline the evaluation process and better integrate it with the acquisition lifecycle. How might we do that without sacrificing quality or cutting corners?
▶ 1:25:54Dr. Henninger: Thank you, sir. I also appreciated the opportunity to talk with you the other day. So, our testing and evaluation processes, as our acquisition processes, were started a long time ago in a different era when we were hardware-centric.
▶ 1:26:17Dr. Henninger: The tnt the tn&e portfolio is software-centric. Only 10% is hardware. We have been involving an old process, trying to make it work, and we have been doing work to do that. That only scales with people, we can only surge with more manpower. Using more software to automate software testing is where we need to go.
▶ 1:26:46Dr. Henninger: If confirmed, that is what I would want to bring to the position.
▶ 1:26:49Sen. Budd: In this software-centric environment, how far can modeling and simulation take us an operational test and evaluation? Is there going to be a day, soon, when live open-air testing is no longer required?
▶ 1:27:05Dr. Henninger: Thank you for that question. As a rule of I believ -- rule of thumb, I believe it is to model things we know and live test things we don't know. I don't ever foresee a day when we will have no life testing.
▶ 1:27:26Sen. Budd: I want to switch the technology discussion to you, Mr. powers. Can you provide an example of how the use of legacy finance and accounting systems -- I think you mentioned legacy systems being one of the challenges. There is a lot of opportunity ahead with ai and newer systems, but how do they impact the ability of auditors to fully account for dod resources?
▶ 1:27:51Mr. Powers: Thanks for that question, senator. Right now we have the disparate financial management systems across the department, they don't really talk to each other. We don't acquire. We don't acquire information the same way. We don't store it at the same way.
▶ 1:28:19Mr. Powers: We cannot analyze it in a way that allows us to leverage what we need to do for financial processes and the data that is required to do the analytics to get us the numbers we need to have on the financials.
▶ 1:28:39Sen. Budd: Are there off-the-shelf systems to be adapted for dod usage?
▶ 1:28:45Mr. Powers: I am certain there are off-the-shelf systems. If confirmed, I fully intend to get involved or have the right experts at hand to get involved and come up with a solution that leverages technology in a way we have not done. It gives us the data analytics piece.
▶ 1:29:13Mr. Powers: It gives us the claim processing of the financial data to get -- clean processing of the financial data to get us the audit.
▶ 1:29:26Sen. Warren: Thank you and congratulations to all of our nominees. In 1980 three congress created the director of operation testing office to provide the secretary of defense and congress with the weapons that we buy and whether they actually work.
▶ 1:29:44Sen. Warren: The reason for that bill was because the military had been caught trying to cover up major problems, like that the bradley fighting vehicle would burn its crew to death if it were hit by a single soviet antitank missile. Dr. henninger, if you're confirmed to lead the testing office, it would be your job to make sure that similar problems are brought to light and fixed.
▶ 1:30:13Sen. Warren: It is important, because service members' lives are at stake. Secretary hegseth has issued a memo reducing the staff by 74% and its budget by 80%. This is a dangerous decision, and I have serious concerns about whether you will have the resources that you need to accomplish your safety mission. Dr.
▶ 1:30:35Sen. Warren: Henninger, will you promise to come to this committee and tell the public if your test results show that a system is unsafe or doesn't work? Or if you don't have the resources to tell one way or the other about whether a system is safe and operational or not?
▶ 1:30:56Dr. Henninger: Thank you for that question, senator warren. Our reports will always reflect any limitations or assumptions that we encountered in operational testing and evaluation. Of course, I will always come before you and tell the truth. All those things taken together, that is an affirmative yes.
▶ 1:31:19Sen. Warren: I appreciate that. Having the courage to speak truth to power is a big part of what this office is all about. This is very personal for me, Dr. henninger. This office is the one that raised the alarm about safety concerns on the b-22. Those warnings were ignored and two of my constituents died. You need to be the watchdog that barks.
▶ 1:31:48Sen. Warren: One of your major tools is your annual report. Under the biden administration there was pressure on the testing office to hide problems through designations like controlled unclassified information. The information is not classified, but the blank spots, blackouts in the report keep the public in the dark about a tank that gets so hot that it burns the soldiers' hands, or the risk that a pilot ejecting from an f-35 will have their neck
▶ 1:32:22Sen. Warren: Snapped. If you are confirmed, do you promise to ensure that the testing office's reports inform the public as much as possible about the problems that we need to fix in order to make sure that our weapons are safe?
▶ 1:32:37Dr. Henninger: Yes, senator. To the maximum extent possible.
▶ 1:32:41Sen. Warren: I will hold you to that. One of the other tools is the oversight list which identifies which programs should receive scrutiny from your office. Congress plays a key role in providing oversight of these programs as well, as you know. In the past, your office has agreed to add programs that congress identifies to your list so they would be sure to be scrutinized.
▶ 1:33:08Sen. Warren: If you are confirmed, will you commit to continue to support your office conducting oversight on programs that congress requests?
▶ 1:33:19Dr. Henninger: Thank you, senator warren. I will always conform with all of the laws and regulations that govern my role if confirmed. If congress legislates the oversight list, I will absolutely --
▶ 1:33:33Sen. Warren: That is the wrong answer. This is not one where the question is will we legislate, yes, that should be a given. I don't think that I should have to ask that. The question is, if we request oversight of a particular company or a particular effort that is going forward, our constitutional responsibility is oversight. In many ways you are our eyes and ears.
▶ 1:34:03Sen. Warren: I want a commitment from you that if we are requesting oversight that you will, in fact come up with that company or program on your oversight list. Can I get that commitment?
▶ 1:34:14Dr. Henninger: We all want the oversight list to reflect the programs and records that will best serve our missions and keep our war fighters safe and our taxpayers apprised. I will take all suggestions with a wide net. I will cast a wide net and take everyone's suggestions who have something to offer and do an analysis of what should be on the oversight list, yes.
▶ 1:34:38Sen. Warren: That is a better answer than the first one, but not a great answer. Look, ensuring the safety of our service members means standing up for transparency against any pressure that would compromise the integrity of the testing process. That is all I'm looking for here. The senate natural defense authorization act goes a long way to push back on misguided efforts to reduce the central oversight.
▶ 1:35:05Sen. Warren: I look forward to working with the chairman and all of my colleagues on getting that done. We really need you committed to overseeing and being transparent about what you have seen in the testing programs. Thank you, Mr. chairman. I apologize.
▶ 1:35:25Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator warren. Let me say, there may have been some misunderstanding of the question. Each of these witnesses has already assured that they will cooperate with the congress and this committee in exercising our legislative and oversight responsibilities, which this committee, its subcommittees, and appropriate committees
▶ 1:35:56Chair Wicker: Receive testimony, briefings, reports, and records on a timely basis. Each of these witnesses has agreed, if confirmed, to testify before this committee when requested, records, documents, electronic communications provided in a timely manner. This is something that, Dr. henninger, you have agreed to before we even began the questions by certain members.
▶ 1:36:27Chair Wicker: I hope you understand the importance of that question, and that should give you some satisfaction, senator warren.
▶ 1:36:34Sen. Warren: I do appreciate the general statement, but a lot of people come in and tell us they will be transparent. Administration after administration. We end up with problems like how much information it gets blacked out in the reports, which is the reason why I ask with more specifically than simply asking, will you be transparent and responsive? That was the reason for my questions.
▶ 1:36:58Chair Wicker: Well, we will let that statement stand. I do believe that all of these witnesses have solemnly assured this committee that they will cooperate with requests for information and provide us the whole truth. So, thank you very much. At this point, the chair recognizes senator shaheen.
▶ 1:37:29Chair Wicker: >> Mr. powers, thank you for taking the time to meet with me a couple of weeks ago. The challenges that dod has had for decades now passing an audit. I think it's high time we institute fiscal responsibility to our defense spending rubric as well as how we budget.
▶ 1:37:50Chair Wicker: Some of that is on us and some of it is on you, but the reality is we need to make sure the nearly trillion dollars a year we are spending on our military is being spent wisely and we are not having fraud, waste, and abuse in the system. We are also spending, in some cases, billions of dollars on external auditors to come in and audit the pentagon, yet we are not passing audits.
▶ 1:38:13Chair Wicker: We are paying people to give us audit opinions, private audit firms making billions off of auditing our government, yet we are not passing our audits. I would like to hear what your plan is to stop paying external consultants billions of dollars to not help us pass audits, and how we pass audits to make sure we are being responsible stewards of taxpayer dollars.
▶ 1:38:34Mr. Powers: Thank you for that question, senator sheehy, and I appreciate you taking the time to talk a few weeks back. We are spending a lot of money, and we have spent a lot of money over the years getting ready for audit and being audited. The majority of that money is on the getting ready to audit side. If confirmed, I really want to dig in -- well, I will have to.
▶ 1:39:06Mr. Powers: The department will have to meet the goal of december 2028. We need to have an organization, a structure, we need leadership to be very engaged, senior leadership. I think that's one of the keys. Another key is addressing our technology issues.
▶ 1:39:33Mr. Powers: Our systems don't talk to each other, they are not auditable in some cases, we don't leverage technology. There is a lot of stuff out there that we could take advantage of that would make our books a lot cleaner and data analytics that are required to identify problems, that would make that something that we could take advantage of. The audit has not been important. The audit is important now.
▶ 1:40:05Mr. Powers: I might have mentioned this earlier, but we are at a point in time where everyone kind of agrees on the same thing, which is, there is no excuse for dod not having a clean audit opinion, and we need to get in line and get it done.
▶ 1:40:22Sen. Sheehy: I think having some of our senior leaders at the pentagon coming from a business background will help. Secretary fienberg and many others can bring some of that business acumen. It's interesting that dod contractors have to abide by d caa accounting standards, pca ob accounting standards. I'm familiar with how that works. Get the pentagon itself doesn't have to abide by those.
▶ 1:40:50Sen. Sheehy: Not only is it the right thing to do, it is an operational criticality. We have china building ships 230 times faster than we do. Russia builds artillery shells about 10 times faster than we do for about 10% of the cost. It is beyond just fiscally responsible, it is an operational necessity we will have an industrial base that keeps up with our adversaries. We have to make sure that our money is on target. Dr. henninger, thank you for the meeting the other day.
▶ 1:41:18Sen. Sheehy: The 21st century battlefield will be characterized by spectrum warfare. Each phase of war in the last hundreds of years, we have seen different weapons systems and domains be dominant from air, to undersea, as you are seeing in ukraine and as you are seeing in conflicts with iranian proxies, spectrum will be the spectrum of the 21st century, and we need to adjust our operational test and valuation rubric to more thoroughly allow for testing and training in the contested
▶ 1:41:51Sen. Sheehy: Spectrum. I want to hear thoughts on how you will make that happen.
▶ 1:41:52Dr. Henninger: Senator sheehy, thank you for that question and for the opportunity to meet with you the other day. I agree with you. Contested congested spectrum is the new normal and our systems will need to be able to prove that they can jam, spoof, and recover. We have some capabilities that our range is now, but I don't think that we have the comprehensive capability that we will need to going into the future when this will become a bigger part of our battlefield.
▶ 1:42:24Dr. Henninger: I would want to work very closely, if confirmed, with my counterparts in research and engineering and the test resource management center especially to look at solutions going forward. Perhaps new testing and training range is focused specifically on that capability.
▶ 1:42:41Sen. Sheehy: One last point for Mr. denton, a quick statement. I look forward to a thorough review of how we implement our r o ease as a veteran of the iraq and afghan war -- roes, as a veteran of the iraq and afghan war. I hope going forward we can review those and how we implement those across the board. Thank you for being willing to serve again and thank you to your families.
▶ 1:43:09Chair Wicker: Senator sullivan.
▶ 1:43:12Sen. Sullivan: , thank you,. Thank you for your willingness to serve and all of the families behind you, supporting you. They are often serving as well. Sometimes those jobs are even harder than what you are getting ready to do. Thank you, everyone here.
▶ 1:43:30Sen. Sullivan: I want to get a commitment from all of the nominees here that if confirmed to come up to alaska to see what billy mitchell, the father of the U.S. air force, called the most strategic place in the world.
▶ 1:43:47Sen. Sullivan: We are home to three pillars of america's military might, the cornerstone of missile defense, the hub air combat power for the arctic and asia-pacific with over 105th generation fighters in alaska and the platform for expeditionary forces like the 11th airborne division of the U.S. army. Go anywhere in the world in a moments notice. Can I get a commitment from all of you to come to alaska?
▶ 1:44:18All: Yes.
▶ 1:44:21Sen. Sullivan: It doesn't have to be in the summer, it can be in the winter when it is 40 below zero and you can see our missile defenses. The russian and chinese like to come to alaska. We had another russian incursion last week where our military scrambled f-22's and f-16's to intercept the russians. They are up there all the time. So are the chinese.
▶ 1:44:47Sen. Sullivan: They are doing joint strategic bomber and navy ops, and a lot of the times -- our military is great on this, but a lot of the times down here people don't know what is going on. A busy place with our front adversaries taking a lot of interest because of our strategic location and the build up of our military forces. I wanted to switch to another topic.
▶ 1:45:15Sen. Sullivan: In alaska, particularly with regard to the army and the air force, all our forces, we have had a state of active duty suicides, particularly in the army. Very, very high spikes in suicides. I want to get your thoughts. Some of you, Mr. kohlmann, you will be very focused on this issue.
▶ 1:45:48Sen. Sullivan: On the general counsel side, Mr. denton, maybe not so much, but it is a big issue that impacts all of the forces. And, of course, families. I want to get a sense from any of you if you have thoughts on how to address that and focus it. My view has always been you get units that train hard, that know what their mission is, those kinds of challenges often subside.
▶ 1:46:17Sen. Sullivan: There are other aspects to it, but it's a big deal. Not just for alaska troops, but for all of our military troops. May be, Mr. kohlmann, I can start with you if there are any thoughts. Others too if you about this.
▶ 1:46:31Mr. Kohlmann: Thank you for the question. Suicide is a scourge for military and active-duty veterans. It has been persistent and we have had a hard time making headway. The numbers of the past 10 years have stayed pretty persistent. I think that there are some emerging efforts on the civilian side that are showing some good promise. I went to an event in february where a new approach was being used by some in the space for a while.
▶ 1:47:01Mr. Kohlmann: If confirmed, I look forward to understanding what the current state of the programmatic efforts are. This committee has been committed to that through the brand and act and others. And figuring out what is working with groups at the v.a. And other nonprofits to see what we could augment to the already existing work. I will emphasize to your point, meeting and -- meaning and purpose goes a long way. If we can infuse meaning and purpose into what all of our sailors, marines, and civilians are doing, that is a first step.
▶ 1:47:31Mr. Kohlmann: Not the only step, but an important first step.
▶ 1:47:34Sen. Sullivan: One final topic. It is the small business contracting program. We have companies in alaska that have done a very good job on that. The report cards that they keep coming back are for the dod that it makes it more efficient, more lethal.
▶ 1:47:55Sen. Sullivan: This program, we think, has worked well to help underserved communities in my state get a chance at business with the federal government, but it has made the pentagon a lot more efficient and lethal. There are elements to that program that provide flexibility for the department of defense to pursue contracts in a way they don't often exist with other federal contracts because they are very burdensome and full of red tape.
▶ 1:48:22Sen. Sullivan: Can I get your commitment, and I will ask for more details to be a strong supporter of the program as it regards to the small businesses, contracting, and the pentagon. Go ahead.
▶ 1:48:38All: Yes, senator.
▶ 1:48:43Sen. Sullivan: Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:48:46Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator sullivan. One more thing. I think that we are ready to close the hearing. There will be an opportunity for questions for the record. When will questions for the record be due? Two business days from today. Let me go to Dr. henninger.
▶ 1:49:16Chair Wicker: Obviously, there are people on this committee who are -- who question the decision of the secretary of defense to reduce the staff of d.o.t.e., but what we need to realize is, as senator warren mentioned, this was created in fy 19 83 in the
▶ 1:49:51Chair Wicker: National defense authorization act. By statute it is required to conduct oversight of only the largest programs, which are called "major defense acquisition programs" and there are roughly 90.
▶ 1:50:08Chair Wicker: The position that I would take, and I think probably the secretary took, is the remaining programs on the oversight list over time have been added by the director and that it amounts to mission creep. We will continue to have that discussion among members of the senate and the house. Dr.
▶ 1:50:35Chair Wicker: Henninger, the ndaa has been reported from this committee for next year. Have you had a chance to look at that with regard to your function?
▶ 1:50:51Dr. Henninger: Thank you for that question, senator. I have not seen the ndaa rollout . Some of the previous work --
▶ 1:51:04Chair Wicker: I realize we are not supposed to take any action which presumes you will be confirmed, and we ask that question of everybody, but I think it is ok for now to go ahead and familiarize yourself with the provisions of a proposed piece of legislation that has been reported from a full committee. I would suggest that bit of homework for you as we proceed.
▶ 1:51:38Chair Wicker: It looks like we possibly may not have a vote of this committee before the august recess, if there is, in fact, recess. Confirmation of each of you may not come until september. Just guessing, but it is an educated guess.
▶ 1:52:00Chair Wicker: You will find in the proposed ndaa an alternate test and evaluation pathway for software, which seeks to leverage industry practices. Of course, you mentioned the act that I proposed and much of which is contained in the ndaa proposal. With regard to software programs , it emphasizes data collection.
▶ 1:52:32Chair Wicker: Sort of a lifecycle process across the program lifecycle rather than a singular graduation point. Familiarize yourself with that, if you will.
▶ 1:52:48Chair Wicker: We hope to get the confirmation votes of quite a few nominees in short order, but there have been some delays that we did not expect from some of our friends on the other side of the issue. At this point let me make sure that I have stated things correctly. This concludes today' is hearing.
▶ 1:53:17Chair Wicker: I would like to thank our witnesses for the testimony. Questions are due to the committee within two business days of the conclusion of this hearing. With the thanks of the committee, we are adjourned. [gavel falls]