During a Senate Armed Committee hearing last week, Sen. Tim Sheehy (R-MT) questioned Vice Admiral Scott W. Pappano, nominee to be Principal Deputy Administrator National Nuclear Security Administration, about the U.S. nuclear triad.
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00:00Oh no. Senator Sheehy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll start with you, Admiral. You talked about
00:07the Manhattan Project in your comments, and I think, you know, that was an era when the
00:11government was oftentimes the hotbed of innovation, and I think we can all agree that's not the case
00:15anymore. So as we're looking at, you know, I was reading about China having a salt-based
00:22fission reactor online just recently, which of course is a huge leap in technology. How are you
00:27going to incentivize private industry innovation to make sure that we stay, either regain or stay
00:32in the lead for nuclear innovation around the world? Yeah, thank you for that question, Senator.
00:37Obviously, our national labs, our strategic labs, they are really leading edge on some of this
00:42innovation and technology, and really a national treasure for all of us. So I want to make sure
00:47we continue that science-based approach that we have at our national labs, but also making sure
00:51that we take the opportunity to coordinate with other business and other academic
00:56institutions to go leverage what other innovations are going on across the country.
01:02So for example, there's a number of smaller companies innovating in micro-reactors, and they're
01:06having a very hard time getting access to processed fissionable material so they can proceed with
01:11their, not just their development, but actually the production of these items. How can you streamline
01:15the access of this material? Of course, it has to be controlled, and we have to vet these companies,
01:20but many of them are vetted and are capable of receiving this material, yet they'll wait years on a very
01:25simple approval. How can you expedite that? I'm not fully apprised, Senator, on all of the details
01:30within NNSA on the processes for that, but I commit that I will work with the NNSA administrator and the
01:36Secretary of Energy, and as necessary, the Department of Defense to make sure I look at those processes
01:40and find ways to streamline those as appropriate.
01:43You know, our triad is from a bygone era. You know, our B-52s are coming up on 70 years old,
01:50as far as the airframes. You know, our silos in Montana for the Minuteman, you know, those are
01:55half a century old technology, if not older. And, you know, luckily our undersea leg of the triad is
02:00pretty healthy, but we can't build those subs fast enough, as you know. So how are you going to
02:05contribute to a revitalization of that triad to make sure we are competing with and leading China and
02:10other near peers? Yeah, thank you for the question, Senator. Obviously, I'm completely aligned with
02:15you on the need to recapitalize all legs of our nuclear triad right now. If confirmed, NNSA's key
02:21role in that is making sure we maintain the nuclear stockpile stewardship as we move into production of
02:26new weapons. Also look for, obviously, innovative technologies or innovative ways to design weapons
02:32or weapons materials through advanced technologies to get after weapons production more quickly going
02:38forward here. And Mr. Katanazi, regarding acquisition reform, you know, I think in the past 25 years
02:45since the global war on terror started, we've all seen every lab accelerator, you know, innovation
02:50unit, lots of little tents are stood up saying we're going to change innovation for acquisition,
02:56we're going to accelerate acquisition, we're going to get geared to the warfighter. And all we hear is
03:00a lot of offices stood up, a lot of money spent, but very little progress is made.
03:04It's time for real progress. As we've seen across the world in Israel, in the war in Ukraine,
03:11defense acquisition has to turn a page and be fundamentally restructured. So we can buy things
03:16faster, we can welcome more suppliers to our industrial base, welcome them, not scare them
03:21away with unneeded regulation and burdensome compliance requirements like Senator Hirona just
03:25mentioned. So what are the top three things you're going to do as fast as you can do besides ask for
03:29more money to actually change the defense acquisition paradigm to broaden our industrial base and
03:35strengthen it? Senator, I appreciate the question. It was a pleasure to talk to you last week. Thank
03:41you for the time. So when it comes to the acquisition reform process, I think former Secretary Kendall
03:47said it best that there's no such thing as acquisition reform, there's just acquisition improvement.
03:51And I think that holds true that there's a lot to be done. My particular focus in this area is
03:56centered on a couple of particular things. One is to more fully leverage the available authorities like
04:03middle tier of acquisition, other transaction authority, through education of the acquisition
04:07workforce. I think the new executive order captures that. We need to move that into law and make sure
04:12that that becomes something that's driven in a more actionable way by the department. Two is
04:17predictable, stable budgets will allow us to go ahead and mitigate some of the risks associated with
04:21how the industrial base and the programs respond. They make plans, budgets change, and then
04:26necessarily their activities in the industrial base alignment around them have to change as well.
04:30And then third is anything we can do to sort of decrease the level of regulation, the level of
04:35difficulty in getting access to work. So you mentioned new vendors, new companies. We want that.
04:41We now have a time when there's a lot of new interest in the defense department and serving it. We should
04:45take advantage of that in every way we can. If confirmed, I'm excited to work with you and the
04:49committee on that issue.
04:50Well, our acquisition structure usually fights the last war. And in my era, it was the MRAP,
04:56the Mine, Resistance, and Armored Protect Vehicles. Bob Gates pushed those through. We got it done. It
05:00saved a lot of lives, including a lot of folks I know.
05:03Hear, hear.
05:03But it came too late. And instead of innovating after our 17, 18, 19-year-old kids are dying on the battlefield,
05:09let's innovate beforehand because they're the ones that are going to pay the price for our failures. So
05:12for both of you, I ask you, you focus heavily on the reforms we need because we need to be ready next
05:17time. Thanks.