Mike Rounds Grills Lloyd Austin On DOD Oversight Of ‘Electromagnetic Spectrum’ Sharing

5 months ago

Earlier this month, Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) questioned Department of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on the distribution of the electromagnetic spectrum during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

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Transcript

00:00 Thank you, Senator Hirono. Senator Brown, please.

00:03 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:04 Secretary Austin, Secretary McCord, General Brown,

00:07 thank you for your service to the nation at such a time in history.

00:11 Close coordination between Congress and the administration

00:16 is critical to making sure that our troops are resourced

00:20 and postured in a way that deters conflict

00:23 and enables them to dominate our enemies if deterrence fails.

00:28 Mr. Secretary, the--Secretary Austin,

00:34 the assessment of the DOD NTIA-led study on the electromagnetic spectrum,

00:41 which was completed last fall,

00:43 was that the adoption of dynamic spectrum sharing

00:47 is the only way that the DOD can share the portions of the critical bands

00:53 it uses to defend our country and our forces.

00:57 Developing that capability is one of my highest priorities.

01:01 I'm aware of coordination between this committee and the DOD CIO,

01:05 which is centered around a demonstration project

01:09 to investigate dynamic spectrum sharing being executed sometime at the end of 2025.

01:17 I applaud the effort, but I am also aware of a simultaneous

01:23 transmit and receive capability, or STAR,

01:28 that is ready for test and evaluation right now.

01:32 Can you give me your commitment that you will investigate the STAR capability

01:37 and accelerate testing and evaluation if you discover that it is promising?

01:43 I can assure you that I would work with you and the committees of jurisdiction

01:48 to address any hurdles that need to be overcome to fund such an acceleration.

01:54 Senator, you have my commitment that we will investigate

01:58 and make sure that if there's capability there,

02:01 then we will work to take advantage of it.

02:04 But I just want to reemphasize a point that you made,

02:10 and that is that it's really important that we have access to the spectrum

02:17 so that we can continue to provide security for this country

02:22 and that we have the capability to enable all of our platforms here.

02:29 And so I understand that there will continue to be a demand from the commercial sector

02:37 to access more of the spectrum, but we have to do everything that we need to do

02:44 to make sure that we have the provisions to protect this country.

02:49 And so I appreciate your support, and I'm also committed to working with the Secretary of Commerce

02:54 and with anybody else that can create a capability to enable that dynamic sharing.

03:00 So thanks for your efforts on that.

03:02 Well, thank you, sir.

03:03 And once again, I think this new capability may very well be a key to addressing this issue

03:09 in an expedited basis, and I appreciate your agreement to work with us on that.

03:14 Thank you, sir.

03:15 General Brown, the B-21 Raider and the NextGen Air Dominance Platform

03:19 will be critical in a fight against a near-peer adversary.

03:23 Can you briefly share why these platforms are so essential to the Joint Force

03:27 when it comes to fighting a capable enemy in a contested environment?

03:33 Well, we have an advancing threat.

03:35 If you think about the areas we've been operating in over the course of the past several decades,

03:40 we did not have an advanced threat.

03:42 It was mostly violent extremists or other countries without advanced threats.

03:46 What I see going forward is that with that advancing threat,

03:49 we have to modernize and bring in capabilities that will not only match that threat

03:54 but exceed that threat and stay ahead of the threat,

03:56 and that's why these particular platforms are so important.

03:59 I think it says without question that both of these two programs need to move forward fully funded.

04:04 Right now I think we've identified that we're going to purchase a minimum of 100 B-21s.

04:11 I suspect that you would agree with me that that number may very well have to go up

04:16 if we appropriately take care of the needs that our men and women in uniform require.

04:22 I know in my last job as the Air Force chief we did talk about the aspect that we may need to go above 100.

04:29 I'll defer to the Air Force, but I'll just say that I am focused as a chairman

04:33 to make sure that we have the joint capabilities for the force

04:36 and making sure that we are working very closely together with all the services to bring that capability forward.

04:41 And how important is it that NGAD be fielded as a full program of record?

04:45 That is also important, but as you're aware,

04:49 the Air Force is also looking at a collaborative combat aircraft as well

04:54 to increase capacity at a cost and create more dilemmas for our adversaries.

05:00 Thank you. I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

05:04 Thank you very much, Senator Rowne. Senator Kaine, please.

05:07 Thank you to our witnesses for your service. I want to return to the

05:10 heartbreaking tragedy.

Mike Rounds Grills Lloyd Austin On DOD Oversight Of ‘Electromagnetic Spectrum’ Sharing

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