‘Our Triad Is From A Bygone Era’: Tim Sheehy Presses DoD Nom About Revitalization Of U.S. Nuclear Triad

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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.

Transcript

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.

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