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At Appropriations Hearing, Hyde-Smith Asks Assistant Secretary to Reconsider Decision that Blocks Access to Infrastructure Grant Funding
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) on Thursday made the case that the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) in Vicksburg is a mission-critical military installation and should be eligible for community infrastructure grants.
Hyde-Smith serves on the Senate Military Construction and Veterans Affairs (MilCon-VA) Appropriations Subcommittee that today conducted a hearing to review the administration’s FY2027 budget request for military construction and family housing. Dale Marks, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment, was among the witnesses.
During the hearing, Hyde-Smith asked Marks to explain why ERDC isn’t defined as a military installation and is thus ineligible for Defense Community Infrastructure Program (DCIP) grants. The competitive DCIP grants are intended to address deficiencies in community infrastructure that support a military installation’s mission.
“Secretary Marks, U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center over in Vicksburg, which we refer to as ERDC, supports core Department of Defense missions, houses one of the Department’s major supercomputing capabilities, and manages the DOD High Performance Computing Modernization Program that supports advanced modeling, simulation, artificial intelligence, and weapons development efforts across the force,” Hyde-Smith explained.
“Vicksburg was recently told ERDC is ineligible for the Defense Community Infrastructure Program because the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation has reportedly determined it does not qualify as a military installation for DCIP purposes,” the Senator continued. “Mr. Secretary, please explain how the Department is interpreting that definition, and whether you believe facilities like ERDC should qualify for DCIP support?”
Marks told Hyde-Smith that his office and legal counsel are reviewing statues and engaging the Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC) to determine whether its interpretation of the eligibility criteria regarding ERDC is correct.
“ERDC is vital, and the work that it does is incredibly important, and the people there, knowing what they do and the work that that does and how that helps us, especially through the Army Corps, is vital to our mission, and I appreciate that,” Mark said. “What I’d like to do though, is be able to come back and follow up and let’s have a deeper conversation about how we look at that, look at the statutes, so that we can further understand that together, as this was made aware to me just recently.”
At the hearing, Hyde-Smith also welcomed the renewed the focus in the budget request on improving barracks conditions for single, unaccompanied servicemembers. She encouraged the Defense Department to use other authorities like Enhanced Use Leases, Intergovernmental Support Agreements, and public-private partnerships to help expand and modernize living quarters for servicemembers.
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