During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) questioned President Trump's nominees for various posts in the U.S. Army.
00:00Thank you Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much Senator Rounds. Senator Hirono. Thank you Mr. Chairman.
00:05Welcome to each of you. So I start with asking the following two I consider foundational
00:14questions of every nominee for before any of the committees on which I sit to ensure the fitness
00:20of the nominee to serve. So I'll start with a response from Mr. Hurst and we'll just go right
00:28down the line. Since you became a legal adult have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual
00:35favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature? No Senator.
00:42No Senator. No Senator. No Senator. No Senator. No Senator. Have you ever faced discipline or
00:52entered into a settlement relating to this kind of conduct? No Senator. No Senator.
00:58No Senator. No Senator. No Senator. For Dr. Gillis. Dr. Gillis the lack of affordable housing remains a perennial basically
01:10and a persistent problem in Hawaii where housing costs are extremely high and affordability of
01:17housing is a huge challenge and I believe that the DOD can play a bigger role in helping to address
01:24this issue by basically creating housing for the personnel so some 50 percent of 40 percent of military
01:37personnel currently live off base. So would you would you deem this to be an issue that you would like to do
01:49something about to alleviate the housing shortage by creating housing for your personnel?
01:56Senator. How would you go about doing that? Senator. First I can't take the promotion to doctor.
02:02I am merely merely an honorable or former assistant secretary but to your question I absolutely agree and
02:10uh and uh and if confirmed I would commit to looking at what the balance is between on installation housing
02:17uh and if we can bring more soldiers and families onto installations uh would would take measures to do that certainly.
02:22So would you commit to working with the Hawaii delegation to address the issue of more housing provided by the Navy for your personnel?
02:32Senator. Senator I do not just on housing but with Army land leases in Hawaii.
02:38Um it was on a trip to Hawaii where I got to sit next to you at the ribbon cutting at the uh Schofield generating
02:45station that I really learned to appreciate the importance of of Hawaii to Army operations.
02:50So I do commit to work with you and your staff.
02:52Yes needless to say and I know that you um you know you acknowledge the importance of all of our leases
02:57particularly Pohokaloa. For Mr. Kao, the Navy is currently building a critical new dry dock at Pearl Harbor
03:07uh to support Virginian class submarine maintenance and I know that maintenance of uh of our ships is a
03:14as a priority for you. And this construction project is the largest in DoD history at nearly 4.5 billion dollars
03:22but it has faced significant cost overruns including uh in in the first year of construction a cost increase of 834 million dollars in just one year.
03:39How do you plan to ensure dry dock construction remains on time and on budget?
03:45And will you consider this construction to be a critical priority for you should you be confirmed?
03:55Senator, thank you very much for that question. It is uh near and dear to my heart the workforce in Hawaii has is unmatched
04:02right now of all the uh public shipyards that we have. And so you have my commitment that when uh if confirmed
04:09I will go in and look at uh the cost overruns and keep the uh the cost overruns under control.
04:17I was at the the opening really of um this construction and uh and I had said in my remarks that I hope that this project can
04:25come in on time on budget and before I could practically blink there was a 800 million dollar increase.
04:32So this is going to require I would say uh oversight from you to uh make sure that things are on time and on budget.
04:42For Mr. Gillis, army installations in Hawaii have a number of infrastructure related problems
04:48from fragile electrical grids and water systems to aging barracks and other facility related maintenance issues.
04:57And uh we we know that 50 percent of army facilities in Hawaii are categorized as failed or failing
05:04with a backlog cost to repair of 5.6 billion dollars.
05:12So these issues negatively impact military readiness and quality of life for our soldiers and their families.
05:19So what will you do um in terms of the infrastructure needs in Hawaii to prioritize these needs?
05:27Senator I agree with you uh about the importance of this issue.
05:31I think that this is what is beginning to be a good news story and and if you could just spot me a few seconds Mr. Chairman.
05:38The uh for for instance the army is working to privatize the electric infrastructure uh in Hawaii in partnership with uh with HECO with Hawaii Electric.
05:47And Kalailoa I know.
05:49Exactly exactly right and I think that that approach is a good way forward uh to get folks whose core business it is
05:55to to maintain and plan for the improvements necessary for that infrastructure.
05:59Uh I will hold you to uh especially the the that is Kalailoa formerly Barbara's point that was a BRAC.
06:05Uh I will hold you to making sure that we get that done project done.
