Washington, D.C. – U.S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Air and Land Forces, today released the following prepared remarks for the subcommittee’s hearing on the Administration’s Fiscal Year 2011 budget request for equipment for the Army and Air Force National Guard and reserve components:
“Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our witnesses for being with us. We are very fortunate to have each of you serving our country, and we are very fortunate to have you here today.
“As you know Mr. Chairman, the Reserve Component is no longer considered a ‘strategic’ reserve and is now considered an ‘operational’ reserve. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses as to how this transition is going and what if any the long term impacts might be. From an equipment perspective, I absolutely agree that if we are going to continue to expect so much from our Reserve forces, then not only must we properly equip them, but we also must equip them with modern equipment. While I have some concerns regarding modernized equipment for the Army Guard and Reserves, I have major concerns with our Air Guard.
“The Air Force proposed major changes to force structure along with the Fiscal Year 2010 budget request. I, along with most of the other members on this committee, were very concerned that those force structure changes were solely the result of a budget exercise and failed to account for the actual military requirements needed to address the security challenges of today and the future. Seeing the short-term perspective of the QDR and the 30-year aviation plan has only added to my concern.
“In this past week, we received the final of three reports required by last year’s legislation—one on the Combat Air Force Restructuring, one on the fighter force structure, and one on the potential to meet fighter shortfalls by procuring new F-15s, F-16s, and F-18s. Those reports, which are unfortunately classified and can’t be fully discussed here, did little to change my belief that the budget is driving the force structure requirements instead of the other way around.
“The Fiscal Year 2010 budget request targeted the fighter force structure, and it appears the 2011 budget targets the tactical airlift force structure in a similar manner. The proposed movement of C-130s from the Air National Guard to the active component is very troubling to me. C-130s play a key role in the Guard’s Title 32 responsibilities, and are critical assets for the nation’s ability to respond to most any type of domestic event such as a natural disaster or terror attack. It is unclear to me how we arrived at a point that the active Air Force has to take aircraft from the Air National Guard if what we’ve been told about the budget is true. In my mind, if the military requirements were in fact being met by the budget request then this attempt at robbing Peter to pay Paul would not be taking place. I also believe that these shortfalls in tactical airlift could have been mitigated if we had stuck to the plan to procure 78 Joint Cargo Aircraft. But, unfortunately, that program was cut as well.
“I find this all very troubling and I hope our witnesses today can help us understand just how much additional risk we’ve been asked to take.”
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