Angus King Asks DoE Official About The Ongoing Hiring Freeze Amid Nuclear Modernization Efforts

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At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) questioned David A. Hoagland, the Acting Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs, about the hiring freeze.

Transcript

00:00Thank you. Edwin Wolf, you used a term I've never heard before, stable on-time funding.

00:08What does that mean? Let's hope that we can make that happen. That's certainly the goal,

00:18and I understand how debilitating it is to not have stable on-time funding. Dr. Van,

00:24I just understand that you're leaving federal service shortly after 15 distinguished years,

00:30and I just wanted to congratulate you and thank you for your extraordinary service to our country.

00:37Let me start with a question for you, Dr. Van. The prior organization that preceded where you are now

00:44included chemical and biological defense and threat reduction. I don't think that's in the new job

00:50description. Where has that gone? Is that still being attended to somewhere?

00:55So it actually is still a part of the implementation plan of the nuclear deterrent and chem-biodefense

01:03policy and program. So it will be all pulled together into an organization.

01:08It's going to stay in the current, the new organization.

01:12That is the hope in the current plan based off of the legislation.

01:17Mr. Hoagland, if you were listening to the first panel, you won't be surprised by this question.

01:24You mentioned the phrase, the foundation is our workforce. How is your workforce? Do you have

01:30sufficient workforce? Did you have to go through rifts and fork in the road and people leaving?

01:37Where are you compared with where the organization was in terms of staffing on January 1st of this year?

01:43Thank you, Senator King. We did recover. We have brought back all the terminated employees that

01:54were lost in February. The people I speak to and work with in NSA, in particular in the weapons

02:02activities portfolio, are here for the mission. They're motivated by the mission. They recognize the

02:09multi-generational inflection point we're experiencing in the nuclear deterrent and they're laser focused

02:15and they're delivering. With some losses from the deferred resignation program, we undertook a process

02:23to identify critical needs, either from those absences or because of emergent requirements in the

02:30program. And we've shifted staff around to attend to the most important needs and we continue to deliver.

02:37One of my questions is, is the hiring freeze still in effect?

02:43By and large, the hiring freeze is still in effect.

02:47That's what worries me is, if people are taking deferred, whatever you call it, fork in the road

02:52retirement, and the hiring freeze is in effect, you end up with, could end up with some pretty

02:57important vacancies.

02:58That's very true. With the Secretary's support, we have exempted the hiring freeze for the Office

03:06of Secure Transportation. And we're very pleased to note that we've been able to offer job opportunities

03:13and we are starting a new class for Office of Secure Transportation this month to continue

03:19the pipeline into that particular mission space.

03:22Thank you. General Bosia, good to see you again.

03:26Same here, Senator.

03:26And thank you for the service that you're providing. We had some discussion in the Armed Services

03:31Committee this morning about Air Force availability. Do you have a figure for availability of your

03:38strike force? In other words, well, you know what I mean. What's the percentage of your force

03:44that's available at any given moment?

03:46From a bomber perspective, Senator?

03:48Correct. So, between the B-1, B-2, and B-52 force, we hover around the 50s for aircraft

03:57availability, just because of spare parts and the legacy weapons system sustainment.

04:04In terms of spare parts, one of the things the committee is looking at is when we're acquiring

04:10new platforms that we also acquire the intellectual property so that we can make our own spare parts.

04:16I believe there should be a 3D printer in every depot and on every naval ship. Right now, is spare parts

04:23a bottleneck for you? Because, to be honest, 50% availability, the commercial aircraft is 98%

04:30availability. They'd be long out of business if they had a 50% availability.

04:34It's not necessarily unique to the bomber fleet.

04:36No, I understand. That was the number we had this morning for the Air Force generally.

04:40The bomber fleet is challenged by what we call is legacy vendors that don't actually make the parts

04:49we need. So, that's a challenge for the acquisition community to get those contracts put on order.

04:57As you know, the B-52 is 70 years plus old. The B-2s in its 30s, the B-1s in its 40s and 50s,

05:08depending on the year the aircraft was made. And we're using them a lot. So, the demand signal for

05:16our bombers is at the highest level that I've seen it in my career, while we're also challenged to get

05:21the sustainment parts on the shelf for the legacy fleet.

05:25I hope that could be a priority in terms of sustainment and maintenance and maintaining a

05:30higher level of availability. That's a better deal for the taxpayers, and it makes your service

05:34all the more lethal if it's available.

05:38Without a doubt. And that's obviously the reason why we're going to be fielding the B-21 Raider

05:44platform to replace the B-1 and the B-2s, because of the age and the legacy fleet and modernizing

05:50the B-52H to the B-52J model.

05:53Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.

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