Ranking Member Wasserman Schultz Statement at Fiscal Year 2024 Budget Request for Air Force and Space Force Military Construction and Family Housing Hearing

Congreswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Ranking Member of the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following remarks at the Subcommittee's hearing on the fiscal year 2024 budget request for air force and space force military construction and family housing:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning. It's good to see you all again. Thank you so much for joining us. We're so thrilled to be able to welcome Air Force and Space Force officials – Under Secretary Chaudhary, Mr. Hollywood, and Brigadier General Hartless.

We appreciate you all being here today and for your service to our country.

Military construction is pivotal to ensure the mission readiness of our Airmen and Guardians and also for the quality of life of our servicemembers and their families.

The fiscal year 2024 budget requests a total of $3.6 billion for the active and reserve Air Force components and the construction and operations and maintenance of Air Force family housing.

While this is a decrease from the total FY23 enacted level, it is at least a significant increase over last year's budget request.

But it feels disingenuous for the Department of Defense to year after year ask for a level of funding that does not meet the true needs of the Department of the Air Force and then expect Congress to bail you out. I do appreciate that this year's request is at least getting closer to the real needs.

And I have said this at every hearing, because this is a bipartisan continued trend from successive administrations. We have a serious infrastructure problem in the military, and the budget requests never seem to reflect that seriousness. And it is frustrating, especially as we embark on travel to go see our military infrastructure around the world. And we talk with frustrated military servicemembers who show us decrepit aging, unsafe infrastructure that they have to try to piece together with wax and spit. So that they can protect our national security interests.

It's difficult to understand why we continue to hear lip service from successive administrations about the importance of our national security interests and keeping our servicemembers safe and prepared, and then the budget requests don't reflect that.

So as you said in your written testimony, every Department of the Air Force mission starts and ends on an installation. These installations are home base, and they are vital to the DAF's mission.

Military Construction is so much more than just building bases. It's providing modern, efficient facilities that can weather increasingly destructive natural disasters. It's reducing our carbon footprint through energy resilience. It's building child development centers so servicemembers don't have to worry about the safety and security of their children. It's remediating contaminants left behind by our Services, such as PFAS. It's providing quality housing for our servicemembers and their families.

We must continue the targeted investments we have made over the past several years in these areas to support our Airmen, Guardians, and their families the best way we can on this committee.

And I am confident that we will do that.

Building new facilities is necessary to meet mission requirements, but it's also so important that we do so resiliently.

We need to continue to invest in resilient infrastructure to help protect our facilities from climate change and natural disasters. We know a little bit about that in my home state of Florida, especially as it relates to the air force facilities. And it is our duty as stewards of taxpayer dollars to make sure what we build today will still be standing tomorrow. And also accountability to the American people that we don't continually rebuild structures that get knocked down again by natural disasters and other hazards. That's fiscally irresponsible.

We need to continue to prioritize clean and safe housing and dormitories for our servicemembers and their families and especially ensure proper oversight over our privatized housing providers.

It is unacceptable for anyone – especially our servicemembers and their families – to be living in mold, lead or rodent infested, dilapidated housing, which they have been, or to not even have timely responses to their maintenance requests. We must be better for them.

And to that end, we must work to expedite the cleanup and removal of PFAS, including the elimination of AFFF. I understand the Air Force is working hard on this, and I look forward to discussing this further during my questioning.

But, we cannot do all this – support critical mission requirements and simultaneously take care of our servicemembers and their families –without adequate funding.

Even worse than insufficient budget requests, Republican proposals to cut back spending levels to 2022 would devastate the progress we have made these past four years to better support our Airmen, Guardians, and their families.

Cutting back to 2022 levels would force the Department of the Air Force to choose between mission critical infrastructure or infrastructure that benefits the quality of life of our servicemembers.

In a time when recruitment and retention is struggling, not investing in quality barracks, homes, gyms, cafeterias, and child development centers will only exacerbate the issue.

We have a lot of ground to cover today, and I look forward to hearing from you all how the Air and Space Force plan to address all of these things and more.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.