Last year, President Barack Obama and the secretary of defense released a new National Security Policy and strategic direction to the armed forces. How do the Engineer Regiment and USACE support the priorities outlined in those documents?

The Corps’ military missions support the Army as a central component to our nation’s defense – prevent, shape, and win. We prevent by delivering facilities and infrastructure worldwide to help Soldiers maintain readiness, and the Army to achieve modernization goals. We shape through our support to combatant commanders, which include military-to-military assistance and humanitarian response for partner nations and global interagency development assistance. Finally, we win through research, development, and engineering to equip and protect our Soldiers. Additionally, USACE does not work alone; we are part of a larger organization, the Engineer Regiment. The Regiment is 110,000 strong who win on the battlefield. Of those, 75,000 are combat engineers who provide four lines of support: mobility, protection, expeditionary logistics and force protection, and infrastructure and partner capacity.

Our engineers in uniform assure joint force mobility on the battlefield – finding improvised explosive devices [IEDs]; clearing minefields; building roads, bridges, airfields, and base camps; and visualizing the battlefield through geospatial engineering.

The Engineer Regiment and USACE offer incredible capabilities to the armed forces and the nation including:

• strong partnerships with engineers in our brother services and allied forces;

• well-established relationships with international governments, federal, state and local agencies, non-government organizations, tribal nations, academia and industry;

• first-rate research and development capabilities and advanced geospatial technologies;

• modernized mobility, counter-IED and counter-mine capabilities; and

• extensive knowledge in sustainability and energy security.

• COCOM support. USACE is a global organization. At any time, USACE is engaged in more than 130 countries around the world, supporting the Department of State, allied armed forces, NATO, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the ambassadors and embassies and many others, especially the combatant commanders.

We have completed more than $5 billion of construction in Afghanistan and about $10 billion remains to complete.

For example, I spent some time earlier this year in the Pacific Command area of responsibility where we are delivering high impact, low-cost projects that provide technical assistance for contingency response, international capacity development, and project execution in Indonesia, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Palau, Thailand, Mongolia, and Bangladesh. We’re similarly engaged with other COCOMs around the globe.

Overseas Contingency Operations. Our overseas contingency operations constantly evolve as the U.S. mission changes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Transatlantic Division provides program oversight, allowing Middle East District (MED) and two Afghanistan districts to focus on project execution.

Iraq. The MED Iraq Area Office in Baghdad continues the work of the past eight years. Most of today’s construction missions are foreign military sales projects funded by the government of Iraq. MED’s Iraq Area Office has about 60 projects, either in progress or planned, valued at $700 million.

Afghanistan. USACE has two districts in Afghanistan [Afghanistan Engineer District-North in Kabul and Afghanistan Engineer District-South in Kandahar] with about 900 deployed civilians. We have completed more than $5 billion of construction in Afghanistan and about $10 billion remains to complete. Our 2012 construction mission of more than $3.7 billion is focused on four areas – Afghan National Security Forces, U.S./coalition forces power projection, counternarcotics/border management, and strategic reconstruction.

 

Energy security and sustainability are hot topics these days. What role does USACE play in helping the Army and the nation meet their goals?

Sustainability is an umbrella concept that incorporates multiple strategies related to energy, climate change, and the environment. We are adapting to changing needs, practices, and priorities to achieve sustainability in all we do. Sustainability has been an increasingly important part of the USACE culture since March 2002 when we adopted our Environmental Operating Principles. We are using these principles, reinvigorated in August, to bring together a wide range of independent sustainability-related actions in a focused, comprehensive way.

USACE is a steward for some of the nation’s most valuable natural resources. We must ensure our customers receive products and services that provide sustainable solutions that address short- and long-term environmental, social and economic considerations.

The Corps’ sustainability program focuses on two lines of operation – meeting our enterprise energy, water and waste reduction targets on USACE owned and operated facilities; and assisting our customers, including the Army, in meeting their targets and advancing the Army’s net-zero policy. USACE provides assistance in areas such as advanced metering, innovative financing methods, identifying methods to reduce potable water consumption, recycling grey water and retrofitting sites for low-impact development, which when all put together leads to being more sustainable.

While energy security and sustainability have long been considerations in the projects we build for our customers, they are now key drivers.

While energy security and sustainability have long been considerations in the projects we build for our customers, they are now key drivers. Since 2008, USACE has built 31 Army facilities meeting the LEED^® [Leadership in Energy and Environment Design] gold standard, and 22 that met the silver standard. Our Engineering Support Center in Huntsville, Ala., leads the USACE effort to design “green” buildings for the armed forces.

We are also reducing the Army’s energy requirements on contingency bases overseas, reducing the need for vulnerable fuel convoys and thus, lowering risks to the warfighter. The 249th Engineer Battalion (Prime Power) has installed initial power plant and electrical distribution at sites across Afghanistan resulting in an estimated savings of more than $195 million in fuel annually and the removal of more than 12,000 fuel trucks from the road each year.