{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/tuberville-speaks-to-trump-defense-nominees-about-streamlining-efficiency-national-defense-strategies/", "Tuberville Speaks to Trump Defense Nominees About Streamlining Efficiency,\u00a0National\u00a0Defense Strategies", "2025-10-28", "2025", "2025-10", "Republican", "Senate", "AL", "Tommy Tuberville", "T000278", "www.tuberville.senate.gov", "tuberville", "https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/press-releases/", "scraper", "WASHINGTON \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) participated in a U.S. Senate Armed Services (SASC) Committee hearing to consider the nominations of Marc J. Berkowitz, Joseph S. Jewell, James R. Caggy, and Brendan P. Rogers, President Trump\u2019s nominees to be Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Science and Technology, Assistant Secretary of the Defense for Mission Capabilities, and Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, respectively. Senator Tuberville spoke with Mr. Berkowitz about the need to review our current space strategy to ensure it meets today\u2019s current national security demands.\n\nExcerpts from Senator Tuberville\u2019s conversation with these nominees can be found below, or viewed on YouTube or Rumble.\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cGood morning, gentlemen. Thanks for your service. Mr. Rogers\u2014our military construction process is a disaster. It\u2019s plagued by poor initial planning cost overruns, delays that do nothing but cost taxpayers money and readiness for our troops. I\u2019ve seen it big time in my state of Alabama. You know, a quarter of the 598 MILCON projects underway in 2023 were delayed for a year or more. Something is clearly broken. If confirmed, as regards to the Navy, do you have any answers to this disaster?\u201d\n\nROGERS: \u201cSenator Tuberville, MILCON\u2019s obviously a critical program. We\u2019re spending billions of dollars to support the infrastructure and as we\u2019ve talked about, the installations are the area in which we power project and so getting that right is important. I mentioned in my opening statement the concept of fiduciary responsibility. I think that applies here for the dollars that are spent. There\u2019s a collective interest in getting the most out of those dollars. So, if confirmed, certainly we\u2019ll be looking into this. The specific areas of interest are a couple of things. One, what is really driving the premium that we are always paying in MILCON certainly relative to commercial opportunities? I understand some of the drivers of that. I\u2019d like to understand that more and also welcome Congress\u2019 help in potentially changing some of the elements of the Unified Facilities Criteria to maybe lower that cost. That\u2019s number one. Number two is schedule and with schedule comes cost come from the commercial side. If you\u2019re building in the commercial side, you care about schedule, cost, and your reputation, and you manage those very, very closely and specifically around how do you manage the risk of projects. So, if confirmed, I look forward to spending more time with NAVFAC and CNIC on these issues.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cYeah. We\u2019ve visited with the Secretary of War and several other secretaries and chief of staffs in the military, and they all agree. There is a huge problem. So, hopefully, we can rectify that and help our troops and save some money. I know in our state of Alabama, we have gone to more privatization instead of MILCON, and so it\u2019s worked well in terms of speed and cost. Mr. Berkowitz, in 2020, the department released the defense space strategy, the first and last report of its kind. While other reports have come out of the DOD on space-related topics such as the 2024 report on commercial space strategy. It has been over five years since we\u2019ve seen a department-wide strategy report. Are you aware of the strategy released in 2020 and do you believe the strategy should be updated?\u201d\n\nBERKOWITZ: \u201cThank you for raising this topic, Senator, and I must say I appreciated the time to meet with you and your staff in your office. Given the time that\u2019s passed, I think it is entirely appropriate to review and update the department\u2019s commercial strategy. In fact, I would note that there are three commercial strategies, one for the defense department, one for the Space Force itself, and one also for U. S. Space Command, and if confirmed, I would want to review them and ensure that they are appropriate to today\u2019s security environment.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Mr. Jewell, Huntsville, Alabama\u2019s major hub for innovations, hypersonics, space warfare, quantum computing, just to name a few. I don\u2019t I don\u2019t need to tell you we\u2019re already years behind our adversaries in a lot of these critical technologies. What will you do to accelerate the testing and evaluation of critical technologies especially if threats from adversaries like China continue to mature?\u201d\n\nJEWELL: \u201cSenator, that\u2019s absolutely correct that our peer and near peer adversaries have invested heavily in this kind of technology. We have a number of programs in the United States such as MACH-TB, which seek to increase the pace of flight test opportunities to close that gap. But I think that we need to be vigilant with that and if confirmed, I will seek to ensure that those investments continue to be made.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Mr. Caggy, the most important part of the national defense is the warfighter. I think most of us agree with that. Most of us joined this panel to ensure the men and women who put their lives on the line every day are provided with nothing short of the best to dominate their enemy. The junior enlisted service members will be the ones working every day hands on with the capabilities that you give them. What emphasis will you put on the feedback from these young warfighters?\u201d\n\nCAGGY: \u201cSenator, I completely agree with you. The feedback we get from our junior enlisted, our NCOs, is really the most important because they\u2019re the ones that have to take the capabilities that we give them into combat and if confirmed, I\u2019m fully committed to ensuring that all service members are represented in how we gain feedback on prototypes and experiments and that the concepts and capabilities that we deliver to them are ready to go for combat.\u201d\n\nTUBERVILLE: \u201cThank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.\u201d\n\nSenator Tommy Tuberville represents Alabama in the United States Senate and is a member of the Senate Armed Services, Agriculture, Veterans\u2019 Affairs, HELP and Aging Committees.\n\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:32:54Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.tuberville.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/tuberville-speaks-to-trump-defense-nominees-about-streamlining-efficiency-national-defense-strategies/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.779210589826107, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}