During a House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) questioned witnesses about Pentagon spending priorities and drone incursions into US military bases.
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00:00Thank you, Chairman. Thank you for bringing up this very important topic that's very timely.
00:06And thank you, thank you, Admiral, especially for your service and those in uniform behind you for what you do to protect and serve our country.
00:15It occurs to me that we're discussing this issue, but it seems to me like it's as much a system of some of the bigger issues we've seen at the Pentagon
00:23in regarding our stance just on the world stage.
00:28In the sense that, you know, I wish we were talking today about how advanced we are and how forward-thinking we've thought about this
00:37and that we've invested in these new technologies and that we're leading the world in it when we look at drones and drone incursions.
00:47But yet, for me, you know, I've considered that funding our defense is our number one constitutional duty in Congress.
00:54My biggest concerns have been that sometimes we are funding legacy systems that are outdated
01:02as opposed to investing into where the puck is going, so to speak.
01:06And while the funding for this is in lots of different buckets, my analysis, looking through a bunch of this,
01:15it seems like we're spending about $22 billion-ish in the last budget on fighter jets
01:22and maybe a billion dollars on drone and counter-drone technology together.
01:29It may be off a bit because, again, it's in a lot of different pockets.
01:33But it's that that concerns me in the sense of, you know, we're talking about military incursions over our base.
01:39We're talking about one drone coming and what we can or can't do about it.
01:43I think from the American taxpayer who's sitting at home going,
01:47we're spending $800 billion roughly on defense and we can't shoot a drone down,
01:53it's just a frustrating experience because we want to think that we can do that.
01:58So, as has been mentioned, us needing to do our job to make sure that you have the capabilities to do it.
02:05But I would also wonder how much of this is a little bit of a reactive stance in command,
02:12being more concerned about CYA, so to speak, as opposed to protecting the assets and the intelligence
02:18and the information that is available on that base.
02:24You mentioned that you recently developed the SOP, I guess about a month ago.
02:31That was news to me.
02:33Could we get a copy of that sent to this committee?
02:39Yes, sir.
02:39I don't see a problem with that.
02:40I'll coordinate with Commander U.S. Northern Command.
02:43Okay.
02:44That would be much appreciated.
02:48And, you know, we all remember the, what I would call Biden's balloon blunder,
02:54where we had this balloon gum across.
02:56We sat here and watched it for days.
02:58I went to a meteorologist at one of the local news stations,
03:03and he was tracking it and predicting where it was going to go,
03:06and yet we were watching it go over bases and not doing anything about it.
03:11How much is this is just not the will to act versus legitimately you being prohibited legally from doing things?
03:19There's a difference between not having a clear authority and being prohibited from doing something,
03:29I guess is what I'm trying to drill down.
03:31Yes, Congressman.
03:31That's a great question.
03:33For us on the policy side, we seek to clarify the authorities for base commanders
03:37so that they understand exactly what they are able to do.
03:41And as you pointed out, sometimes there may be a little bit confusion because of how the language is given out
03:49or guidance is pushed down to the lower levels.
03:52During our review of counter-UAS policies as prescribed in Section 925 of the FY25 NDA,
04:00we've gone back and we've reviewed all of our counter-UAS documentation.
04:04For example, Section 130I, it was at about 130 pages.
04:09We've cut that down to 20 pages now.
04:11So we're looking to streamline our processes as much as possible so commanders understand what they have for authorities.
04:19That's certainly very helpful.
04:20And I guess, you know, if I could convey kind of the angst to the American people,
04:24we're looking at this and thinking, okay, there's drone incursion into the United States.
04:29You know, there's bad actors within our borders now who have the ability to even attack infrastructure.
04:35I mean, we're talking military bases, but it could be electric power lines.
04:38It could be pipelines.
04:39It could be anything at this point.
04:41And we seem very, like we're approaching this from a very bureaucratic standpoint
04:45as opposed to something that literally could be a problem next week.
04:49And I'm wondering what we can do and what we can help you do in the sense of the sense of urgency that could be needed.
05:00You know, we, again, we have bad actors even at state level within our borders
05:05because, you know, we had open borders for the last four years.
05:08So the terrorist activity that's now in our country, bad actors from other states
05:14that don't have the best interest of our country in mind are here with this kind of capability.
05:21And what can we do to speed up this process so that it's handled with the urgency
05:25as opposed to kind of like this curious bureaucratic question that needs to be resolved?
05:30That's a question.
05:35What can we do to speed it up, both from DOD and from Congress's standpoint to support what you need?
05:42Thank you for the question, Congressman.
05:44We have a legislative proposal working through the Pentagon right now focused on three areas
05:49where we could improve Section 130I.
05:51In the Department's opinion, we don't want this provision to sunset.
05:55We want to make sure that the authorities continue forward.
05:58There is an expiration date on 130I authorities next year.
06:03We also want to expand the locations and missions covered under 130I.
06:08As we've discussed today, the bases are not all covered.
06:14Not all installations qualify as one of the nine mission areas under 130I.
06:19So we'd like to expand that to cover all installations.
06:23And then we'd also like to facilitate data sharing.
06:26Because right now, data sharing from the DOD side is limited only in the pursuit of a legal case
06:34against a particular individual or group.
06:37We're not able to share data with our interagency partners to improve our tactics, techniques, or procedures.
06:44And to your point, Congressman, earlier about driving cost efficiencies,
06:49being able to share data to produce better technology would help us be more efficient with taxpayer money.
06:54Thank you for that. The gentleman's time has expired.