Congressional Testimony
Congressional Testimony
Here's a look at documents involving congressional testimony and member statements
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NASA Administrator Isaacman Testifies Before House Science, Space & Technology Committee
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Committee issued the following testimony by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman from an April 22, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request:* * *
Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Lofgren, and Members of the Committee, I am honored to speak before you today to provide an update on the state of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and to present the President's Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2027.
On July 29, 1958, NASA was created to undertake and achieve the near impossible, and on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrong ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Committee issued the following testimony by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman from an April 22, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request: * * * Chairman Babin, Ranking Member Lofgren, and Members of the Committee, I am honored to speak before you today to provide an update on the state of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and to present the President's Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2027. On July 29, 1958, NASA was created to undertake and achieve the near impossible, and on July 20, 1969, when Neil Armstrongand Buzz Aldrin walked on the Moon, that is exactly what we did. In the decades since, American ingenuity was on display as the Space Shuttle program took flight, the International Space Station was constructed, and telescopes, probes and Martian rovers were launched to help unlock the secrets of the universe.
The last two decades are a different story. The GAO's 2025 assessment of major NASA projects identified roughly $15 billion in cost overruns since 2009. As an example, Dragonfly, was initially proposed six years ago at $850 million for development. We are optimistic it will launch in 2028 at a cost of $3.4 billion. Our flagship X-plane, the X-59, was conceived eight years ago as a $468 million program with a first flight in January 2022. The program to date is close to $800 million, and first flight occurred in late 2025, only recently resuming operations.
The future enhancement to the SLS rocket, Block 1B, which is a performance upgrade to comanifest cargo that industry is already capable of supporting at lower cost, required the Mobile Launcher 2 and the Exploration Upper Stage. ML2 was awarded in 2019 on a $383 million contract for delivery in March 2023. The ML2 program cost was on track to $1.8 billion with years more to go. Similarly, EUS began with a contract value of $962 million; it has grown to over to $2 billion. GAO assessed it would likely reach $5.7 billion.
Of course, we are riding a high at this moment. The nation, and the world, paused as four brave astronauts on Artemis II flew around the Moon. NASA made the headlines we were supposed to make. We showed the world the Moon again, and we showed humanity Earth again. I want to congratulate the crew of Artemis II, the NASA workforce, our contractors and partners for delivering this moment, and for all that will inevitably come next. As President Trump so correctly said when speaking to the crew, "Today, you have made history and made all of America really proud . . . you really are modern-day pioneers."
That pioneering spirit, championed by the President, has breathed new life in our country's effort to master the stars. But for all the Artemis II mission accomplished, how we arrived at it was far from perfect, and the decisions of previous administrations that led to these deficiencies deserves careful reflection.
Almost the entirety of SLS is repurposed decades-old Space Shuttle hardware. I understand why, the Shuttle program was ending, and it was important to look after the industrial base. I will also say that was at a time when we did not have a geopolitical competitor challenging America in the high ground of space, but perpetuating the past does not help us realize a better future.
Even after over $100 billion of taxpayer funding to date, and this most recent and successful Artemis II mission, we would not have launched again until late 2028 with the aim of putting astronauts on the Moon under the previous plan. A plan with no hope of achieving this national imperative. You do not fly rockets like this every three plus years and expect success. Further, you do not make each vehicle a work of art by materially changing the configuration. You also do not build a base in orbit above the Moon, when the scientists, the engineers, the astronauts, and certainly the space-loving community want to be on the surface of the Moon, which is hard enough to achieve.
Like many, I want to see more missions of science and discovery. Under the previous Administration, NASA, with the support of Congress, rightfully canceled a Mars Sample Return mission that was conceived to cost up to $4 billion and in just a few years ballooned to over $10 billion, with $2 billion in taxpayer funds already spent. This is not good capital allocation or execution, and adding dozens of other in-formulation or life-extended science missions alongside it does not make things better.
American exceptionalism is being challenged in the high ground of space. To win, we cannot establish programs designed to be "too big to fail," but at the same time "too costly to succeed." Nor should it be throwing more money at the problem, but rather fixing the problems, concentrating resources on the mission and delivering outcomes.
The President's FY27 Budget, alongside the resources in the Working Family Tax Cut Act, focuses the agency on these priorities:
* Return to the Moon, increase launch cadence, and land American astronauts on the surface by 2028, consistent with the directive laid out in Executive Order 14369, Ensuring American Space Superiority, which was issued by President Trump last December.
* In parallel, build with industry a Moon base. This includes landers, rovers, power and communications, tech demonstrations so we can master the skills needed for future crewed missions to Mars, alongside all the scientific payloads those systems can carry.
* Ignite the orbital and lunar economy. Work alongside industry to expand commercial astronaut, payload and monetization opportunities on the Space Station, send demand signals for landers and rovers in support of a Moon base, and transition to one or multiple commercial space stations by 2030. We have awarded private astronaut missions 5, 6, and 7.
* The budget supports the Nancy Grace Roman telescope that will launch at the end of 2026 - 100 times the field of view of Hubble and 1,000 times the scan rate. We will launch Dragonfly, the nuclear-powered octocopter to Saturn's moon Titan, in 2028, along with a nuclear power and propulsion demonstration that includes a scientific payload - bringing billions in taxpayer investment from decades of failed programs into real capability in space - and by 2030, deliver fission surface power to the Moon.
* We presently inhabit one planet, and understanding Earth science is paramount for agriculture, industry, and natural disaster response. We value this science and intend to work with industry to get after this data more affordably.
* The President's Budget supports investments in aeronautics that will advance civil, commercial, and national security aviation, especially next-generation air transportation systems for safer air traffic control.
* We are rebuilding core competencies at NASA, moving the work of thousands of contractors to civil servant roles, freeing up hundreds of millions in resources in support of NASA objectives.
* Inherent in everything we do at NASA is inspiration. It does not come from pamphlets or flyers, but from missions like Artemis. Landing astronauts on the Moon, X-planes, and breathtaking images from space telescopes and rovers--moments that inspire children to dress as astronauts for Halloween and grow-up to contribute to humankind's great adventure.
I have communicated to the NASA workforce across every center I have visited, in town halls and letters. If we can concentrate the resources entrusted to us on the needle-moving objectives, why we exist as an agency, while clearing away needless bureaucracy, obstacles, and policies that impede progress, and unleash the brilliant minds at NASA; then returning to the Moon and building a lunar base will pale in comparison to what we can achieve in the years ahead.
Thank you.
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Original text here: https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/b/d/bd4222ca-1bcb-4bf7-81fc-099fbcb043b4/5BE37E3EA231D55FD784FD60FD75613C487846BCE9905CFA2E7C07FD8D5067DD.04.22.26-nasa-budget-hearing---administrator-isaacman-testimony.pdf
House Transportation & Infrastructure Subcommittee Chairman Ezell Issues Opening Remarks at Hearing on Maritime Industrial Base
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Mike Ezell, R-Mississippi, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, released the following opening remarks, from an April 22, 2026, joint hearing with the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces entitled "Revitalizing Shipbuilding and the Maritime Industrial Base":* * *
The United States needs more ships in its public and private fleets, and those ships must be built here -- in the shipyards of this nation.
I applaud everything President Trump and his administration ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Mike Ezell, R-Mississippi, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, released the following opening remarks, from an April 22, 2026, joint hearing with the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces entitled "Revitalizing Shipbuilding and the Maritime Industrial Base": * * * The United States needs more ships in its public and private fleets, and those ships must be built here -- in the shipyards of this nation. I applaud everything President Trump and his administrationare doing to reinvigorate the American maritime industrial base and United States shipbuilding. The President has been clear about his goal of investing billions of dollars in United States shipyards to bolster American shipbuilding and make the United States a leading producer of ships for the world. As the President said, "We want them built in America."
The need to exceed current shipbuilding capacities and capabilities is not abstract. Threats to American security are global and many come from the sea. Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan, has rightly urged shipyards to "...'act like we are at war' when it comes to production and readiness."
The Maritime Action Plan provides a clear vision and a navigable path for how the United States can be a consequential maritime power beyond deploying unequaled military capabilities on the sea. Shipbuilding is the keystone of the Maritime Action Plan.
The President's fiscal year 2027 budget request seeks funding for the construction of 41 new vessels for government use. We should move forward with each of these projects, and we should procure many more government-owned ships that can be used to protect our national security, explore our oceans, and guard our shores.
Building ships is an expensive enterprise, and the United States government must get smarter about how it procures new vessels. Cost overruns, delayed deliveries, and quality control issues must be recognized, addressed, and remedied. I am certain we can make shipbuilding dollars go further if we implement design, contracting, and project management reforms we will hear about today.
I am particularly interested in hearing how the Coast Guard can improve its ship design and acquisition programs. The Coast Guard is in the initial phase of a vessel recapitalization program that is unprecedented in cost and scale.
Previous Coast Guard vessel acquisition programs can charitably be described as "needing improvement." We cannot afford -- either in time or cost -- for the Coast Guard to repeat decisions or adhere to policies that have previously resulted in projects exceeding budgets, experiencing delays, or being canceled altogether.
Congress has already provided important tools for the Coast Guard to use in cutter acquisitions, including block buy authority, and most recently in the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2025, the use of a "best value" standard when considering major acquisition programs. I am prepared to consider other legislative measures that would bring appropriate, but beneficial, structure and discipline to Coast Guard acquisitions.
The United States must be able to project power globally while simultaneously protecting its own shores. We need vessels of all types capable of conducting these missions. The potentially significant number of ships the United States government will need to buy in the coming years means the Navy and Coast Guard must become smarter, more organized, and better-prepared customers.
Shipbuilding is critical to the United States, and it is critical to the Fourth District of Mississippi. I will do everything I can to support the President in building more ships, and I am very interested in hearing from our Congressional Budget Office and Government Accountability Office witnesses on how we can do just that.
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Original text here: transportation.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=409450
House Science, Space & Technology Committee Chairman Babin Issues Opening Statement at Hearing on FY 2027 Budget Request for NASA
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Brian Babin, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, released the following opening statement from an April 22, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request for NASA:* * *
Just three weeks ago, the world watched as Artemis II lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. Over the course of nearly 10 days, the mission carried four astronauts around the Moon and back--taking them deeper into space than any humans have traveled before.
I was proud to be in Florida for this awe-inspiring launch. I was also honored to be in Houston to ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Brian Babin, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, released the following opening statement from an April 22, 2026, hearing on the fiscal 2027 budget request for NASA: * * * Just three weeks ago, the world watched as Artemis II lifted off from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center. Over the course of nearly 10 days, the mission carried four astronauts around the Moon and back--taking them deeper into space than any humans have traveled before. I was proud to be in Florida for this awe-inspiring launch. I was also honored to be in Houston towelcome the crew home.
This mission was the result of years of planning and was almost flawless in its execution.
For more than two decades, this Committee has advocated for continuity of purpose, specifically to enable NASA to carry out programs of this size and complexity.
In February, this Committee unanimously reported a bipartisan NASA reauthorization bill to the House that maintains that continuity of purpose across the agency. I look forward to working with Ranking Member Lofgren and our counterparts in the Senate to get a bill to the President's desk soon.
Last month, NASA hosted an event called "Ignition," where the agency made several announcements regarding changes to the Artemis architecture and other agency initiatives. Among these announcements was a commitment to develop a crewed base at the Moon's south pole, to significantly increase the cadence of robotic lunar missions, and to conduct a nuclear demonstration mission to Mars.
Several of these initiatives represent an exciting future for our space program. But we would not fulfill our role as authorizers if we did not gain an understanding of the purpose and price of such missions, as well as their impacts on other programs within the NASA portfolio.
During NASA's Ignition event, the agency announced its intention to build and install a new government module on the International Space Station. It would then encourage commercial companies to attach to this new module.
This is a significant departure from the Commercial Low Earth Orbit Development program that NASA has pursued to date. This new proposal must be supported by budget, technical, and policy analysis, as well as discussions with international and commercial partners. We also must understand the timeline over which this new approach will unfold, and how that impacts NASA's presence in low Earth orbit.
The Office of Management and Budget's proposed budget for fiscal year 2027 requests $18.8 billion for NASA, roughly a 23% cut from amounts appropriated by Congress in fiscal year 2026. Many of the proposed budget cuts were rejected by Congress previously, and I am confident they will be rejected again.
Both the President and Congress have provided explicit direction for NASA to undertake a range of activities, from exploration and science to aeronautics research. We must ensure that NASA is funded at a level that allows it to pursue those missions.
I simply do not believe this budget proposal is capable of supporting what President Trump has directed the agency to accomplish over the course of his two terms, nor what Congress directed by law.
To be clear, I am a budget hawk. Our nation is nearly $39 trillion in debt, and we must address this alarming situation soon. But we must be smart in how we do so. Shortchanging NASA is simply not smart.
We face competition from China across all aspects of space activity. China aims to send astronauts to the lunar surface before the end of the decade. If we do not carefully address the future of NASA's activities in low Earth orbit, the Chinese space station could become the only human-tended platform--and the only option for countries seeking to collaborate on microgravity research. China also conducted several impressive science missions and plans for more. We must ask whether this proposed budget maintains United States civil and commercial space dominance, or if we risk ceding that leadership to China.
Only through Congress, our commercial space sector, and the Administration working together can we ensure continued U.S. leadership in space.
I look forward to learning more about the Administrator's plans, including what he discussed at NASA's Ignition event last month.
I thank you for appearing before us today, Administrator Isaacman, and look forward to your testimony.
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Original text here: https://science.house.gov/2026/4/opening-statement-of-chairman-brian-babin-at-nasa-fy27-budget-hearing
House Science, Space & Technology Committee Chairman Babin Issues Opening Statement at Hearing on Advancing Leadership in Manufacturing
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Brian Babin, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, released the following opening statement from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation":* * *
Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Obernolte, for convening today's hearing. I also thank our witnesses for joining us to discuss the state of robotics research in the United States.
Robotics is not a new field. American engineers have built industrial robots since the mid-20th century, and today those machines are the backbone ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- Rep. Brian Babin, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, released the following opening statement from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation": * * * Good morning. Thank you, Chairman Obernolte, for convening today's hearing. I also thank our witnesses for joining us to discuss the state of robotics research in the United States. Robotics is not a new field. American engineers have built industrial robots since the mid-20th century, and today those machines are the backboneof U.S. manufacturing.
What is new is the convergence of artificial intelligence with robotics--opening the door to machines that can perceive, adapt, and operate in unstructured environments far beyond the factory floor.
This convergence matters for two reasons. First, it represents an enormous economic opportunity. From warehouses and logistics to agriculture, construction, and healthcare, intelligent robots have the potential to boost American productivity, fill labor gaps, and create entirely new industries.
Second, robotics is a domain of intense strategic competition. The Chinese Communist Party made robotics a national priority, committing over $100 billion to technologies including robotics and supporting roughly 140 firms focused on humanoid robots alone.
American companies are already driving innovation in robotics. Firms across the country are developing robots for everything from last-mile delivery to elder care and disaster response. Standard Bots' industrial robots, Tesla's Optimus humanoid, Boston Dynamics' Atlas platform, and a growing ecosystem of startups show that American industry recognizes the opportunity at hand.
The question for Congress is whether our federal research and policy infrastructure is keeping pace with that private-sector ambition.
But we should also be clear-eyed about where our supply chains stand. Too many of the components that go into American robots--sensors, actuators, and chips--are sourced from abroad, including from adversary nations. If we want to build a strong domestic robotics industry, we need to understand where those vulnerabilities are and take steps to address them. The Trump Administration's convening of robotics companies last month was a good start, and I look forward to hearing what came out of those discussions.
Furthermore, agencies within this Committee's jurisdiction are already doing important work. The Administration's AI Action Plan noted the link between AI, robotics, and American manufacturing. The National Institute of Standards and Technology researches collaborative robots, autonomous vehicles, and robotic perception and manipulation.
In fact, as robots move from controlled factory settings into less predictable environments--homes, hospitals, and public spaces--the need for safety standards will become even more critical. Getting the standards right early will help American companies lead globally rather than play catch-up to foreign regulatory frameworks, making NIST's work all the more important.
These are encouraging steps from this Committee's agencies. But as these technologies advance, so must our workforce. Building, programming, and maintaining intelligent robots requires skills spanning mechanical engineering, computer science, and AI. Our universities and technical colleges will be central to preparing the next generation of American workers for these jobs--and federal research partnerships with academia are a key part of that pipeline.
I'm interested in hearing from our witnesses about whether current training programs are keeping pace with what employers actually need on the factory floor.
But Congress must understand where the gaps are--in research, workforce development, standards, and policies that will determine whether the next generation of robotics is built in America or imported from abroad.
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses about the most promising areas of U.S. robotics research, the challenges facing innovators, and what role Congress should play in ensuring American leadership in this field.
I thank Chairman Obernolte for his support and efforts in advancing American robotics. Thank you, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Original text here: https://science.house.gov/2026/4/opening-statement-of-chairman-brian-babin-at-robotics-hearing
Case Western Reserve University Economics Professor Helper Testifies Before House Science, Space & Technology Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology released the following testimony by Susan Helper, Carlton professor of economics at the Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation":* * *
Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member Stevens, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on a matter of national importance.
American manufacturing faces two distinct ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology released the following testimony by Susan Helper, Carlton professor of economics at the Case Western Reserve University Weatherhead School of Management, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation": * * * Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member Stevens, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today on a matter of national importance. American manufacturing faces two distinctbut related crises, and robotics -- deployed thoughtfully -- could address both simultaneously. The first is a labor supply problem. The second is a competitiveness problem. They are connected because the same technological and organizational transformation that could attract workers back to manufacturing could also make American firms much more competitive in global markets. These technologies would allow improved wages and working conditions that would attract workers to the jobs that firms are unable to fill at current wages, and would improve the competitiveness of U.S. firms, promoting onshoring and entry into new markets, by reducing direct labor costs and facilitating greater precision.
The degree to which robotics delivers on this promise depends enormously on how we develop and deploy these technologies. Gains are far more likely to materialize if automation is designed to augment worker skill rather than replace it.
Done right, the U.S. could see a virtuous cycle, in which a stronger manufacturing base supports a more vibrant automation equipment industry, which in turn strengthens overall manufacturing --and both of these developments lead to more and better jobs in manufacturing.
I will elaborate on each of these points below.
I. ROBOTICS CAN ADDRESS WORKER SHORTAGES
In recent years, manufacturers have persistently complained that they can't find sufficient workers.
To take one of many examples, in 2024 the Manufacturing Institute, a nonprofit aimed at developing America's manufacturing workforce, and Deloitte, a consultancy firm, surveyed more than 200 manufacturing companies; more than 65% of them said recruiting and retaining workers was their No. 1 business challenge.1
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1 For additional examples, see Agentic AI in Engineering and Manufacturing: Industry Perspectives on Utility, Adoption, Challenges, and Opportunities Kristen M. Edwards, Maxwell Bauer, Claire Jacquillat, A. John Hart, Faez Ahmed MIT Working Paper, March 2026.
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As an economist, I find this puzzling: why are supply and demand not coming into balance? To answer this question, it's important to note that the manufacturing wage premium that once made factory work a path to a middle-class life has eroded substantially over the past three decades. A Federal Reserve study finds that the premium has disappeared entirely when measured by hourly wages.2 The median wage for an American production worker is now lower than the national median wage. In 2024, a quarter of the 9 million production workers earned less than $18 per hour -- the starting wage at Walmart.3
For many workers, a manufacturing job means harder physical conditions, less pleasant surroundings, and greater occupational health risk -- for wages that no longer compensate for those disadvantages. Manufacturers complain that they cannot find workers, but the more precise diagnosis is that they cannot find workers at the wages they are currently offering, and their productivity does not yet support higher wages. This is a wage shortage as much as a skills shortage. However, given their thin margins, many manufacturers can't simply raise wages and stay in business -- they must transform their business models.
Robotics and smart manufacturing offer a path out of this trap -- but only if the productivity gains they generate are shared with workers. When automation handles the most physically demanding, dangerous, and repetitive tasks, it can improve working conditions directly while also raising output per worker. Higher output per worker makes higher wages sustainable. The challenge -- which I will return to in the next section -- is that this virtuous cycle is not automatic. It requires deliberate choices about how automation is implemented and how the gains are distributed.
Some fear that robots will in fact lead to massive job loss, but this is unlikely. While automation means that labor per unit of output falls, automation is likely to raise demand for total output, as prices fall and incomes rise. Careful studies, such as those summarized in Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds (2022) find support for this view. The experience of Germany, Japan, and South Korea -- all of which have high robot density alongside high manufacturing employment and wages -- demonstrates that the pessimistic displacement scenario is not inevitable.
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2 Bayard, Kimberly, Tomaz Cajner, Vivi Gregorich, and Maria D. Tito. "Are Manufacturing Jobs Still Good Jobs? An Exploration of the Manufacturing Wage Premium." FEDS Working Paper No. 2022-011R1, March, 2022. https://ssrn.com/abstract=4077451 or http://dx.doi.org/10.17016/FEDS.2022.011r1
3 Armstrong and Liu, 2026. "The 'New Manufacturing' Workforce," MIT Working paper.
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While job quantity is unlikely to decline, job quality may well be at risk. Although the new technology almost always creates enough new wealth to leave everyone better off, actually distributing this income widely sometimes takes a very long time. For example, the Industrial Revolution in England meant the mechanization of industries such as agriculture and weaving, leading to dramatic increases in output. However, wages stagnated for half a century, from about 1790-1840, and workers' living standards declined. The Enclosure Movement removed small farmers' and grazers' access to land, enabling agriculture to be mechanized on the resulting large holdings; the mechanization also reduced the skills needed for farming. Similarly, skilled handloom weavers were replaced by unskilled factory workers (including children), and the weavers' wages fell dramatically. Eventually, wages did grow at a rate commensurate with (and sometimes exceeding) productivity growth, thus enabling workers to share in prosperity. But these changes did not occur automatically; they depended upon the rise of new institutions, such as unions, public education, and universal suffrage.4
II. ROBOTICS CAN ADDRESS COMPETITIVENESS GAPS
On the competitiveness side, the strategic stakes are high. China has deployed a coordinated industrial strategy combining massive subsidies, state-directed investment, and explicit policy requirements designed to accelerate robotics adoption and capability-building at scale. As a result, China now operates more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined.5
The consequences of falling further behind extend beyond any individual factory. The capabilities required to produce sophisticated goods underpin the defense industrial base, the ability to surge production in a crisis, and the feedback loops between users and developers that sustain long-run technological leadership. We experienced this vividly during the COVID-19 pandemic when we lacked the domestic capacity to rapidly produce essential medical supplies, and again with semiconductors, when dependence on foreign-made chips cascaded into disruptions across dozens of industries. An adversary that dominates the global robotics supply chain will exercise leverage not just over commercial markets but over our own military readiness.
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4 Groshen, Erica L, Susan Helper, John Paul MacDuffie, and Charles Carson. "Preparing U.S. Workers and Employers for an Autonomous Vehicle Future." W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, February 27, 2019. https://research.upjohn.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1039&context=up_technicalreports
5 Tobin, Meaghan and Keith Bradsher. "There Are More Robots Working in China Than the Rest of the World Combined." The New York Times, September 25, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/business/chinafactory-robots.html Bradsher, Keith. "An Army of Robots Is China's Weapon in Trump's Tariff War." The New York Times, April 23, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/business/china-tariffs-robots-automation.html
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Robotics adoption also offers a path toward onshoring production that has been lost to low-wage competition. By reducing direct labor costs and enabling greater precision and consistency, automation can shift the competitive calculus in favor of domestic production for a broader range of products. The path, however, is not easy; adoption rates in the U.S. remain low, as Figure 1 shows.
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Figure 1: Industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers, 2022
Source: International Federation of Robotics, cited in Robert D. Atkinson, Meghan Ostertag and Trelysa Long. "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry." Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, July 18, 2025. https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/#_edn11
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The Barriers Faced by Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturers
The promise of robotics for American manufacturing will not be realized if only large firms can afford to adopt it. Small and medium-sized manufacturers (SMMs) -- which account for the overwhelming majority of manufacturing establishments and much of employment -- face at least three daunting barriers to adoption6:
1. Designing a desired future state (integrated new product/process plan). Successful adoption of robots means more than simply bolting them on to an existing process As economist Erik Brynjolfsson has observed, "the biggest gains from a powerful general-purpose technology usually arrive only after firms invest in the complements: reorganizing workflows, retraining workers, redesigning processes and building the intangible capital needed to use the technology effectively."7 Making these investments requires marketing knowledge and/or relationships with customers, as well as intelligence about technologies, and the ability to integrate these into a product/process plan. Most small manufacturers lack the dedicated technical staff to identify, evaluate, and implement appropriate robotics solutions, and the risks of a bad hire or a failed implementation can be existential for a firm operating on thin margins.8
Gaining this knowledge benefits greatly from talking with others, i.e., building a community of practice, that would include peer-to-peer elements, improved supplier-customer relationships, and one-on-one technical assistance. These are discussed below.
2. Finding workers who can implement, operate and improve that process. As noted above, the U.S. faces a wage shortage as much as a skill shortage. To enable firms to have the margins to raise wages, many will need an organizational transformation -- they can't just fix the workers, but need new investment in equipment and software (e.g., in sensors, data collection), new structures (to give workers the incentive and the capability to participate in analyzing all the data that will be generated).
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6 For examples, see: Colombari, Ruggero, et al. "The interplay between data-driven decision-making and digitalization: A firm-level survey of the Italian and US automotive industries." International Journal of Production Economics 255 (2023): 108718; Berger, Suzanne, and Benjamin Armstrong. "The puzzle of the missing robots." (2022).
7 Erik Brynjolfsson, quoted in Torry, Harry. "The Economy Is Growing, Jobs Aren't. Why That Might Be OK." The Wall Street Journal, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/economy/jobs/the-economy-is-growing-jobs-arent-why-that-might-be-ok-5c50a535
8 Helper, Susan, Elisabeth Reynolds, Daniel Traficonte, and Anuraag Singh. "Technology, Skills, and Digital Innovation at Large Manufacturing Firms." Factories of the Future, Research Brief 19, January 2021. https://workofthefuture-taskforce.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021-Research-Brief-Helper-ReynoldsTraficonte-Singh4.pdf
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Successful adoption of robotics and smart manufacturing is difficult under a traditional "Taylorist philosophy that "brain work" and "hand work" should be separated. Many small manufacturers operate with management practices and organizational structures developed for a different era, in which tasks were fixed, hierarchies were clear, and the division of labor between humans and machines was stable. Instead, what is needed is a modern organization in which shop-floor workers have the skills, authority, and incentive to engage with data, solve problems, and suggest improvements. Making that transition is hard, and carries real risks for firms that lack the bandwidth to experiment.9 More on this below.
Financing the investments needed/providing demand assurances. Small firms often cite a "lack of access to capital" as a barrier, with the implication being that they could offer investors a good rate of return if only they could get a loan or some equity. In some cases, this is true: U.S. investors frequently rely on "hard" financial metrics and cannot easily assess "soft" operational indicators -- the quality of a firm's workforce, its delivery reliability, its investments in R&D.10 Small manufacturers may be caught in the middle -- large banks find it too expensive to do due diligence for a small loan, while community banks and CDFI's have loan limits that are too small (manufacturing investments even for a small firm can easily exceed $1 million).
However, in many other cases the issue is that the firm in its current state would not offer an attractive return to investors. Fixing the problem depends on understanding why that lack of ROI exists. Frequently the issue is that their foreign competition is subsidized or benefits from labor and environmental practices that would not be legal here, which suppresses prices and compresses margins. With thin margins, firms lack the retained earnings to self-finance major technology investments. In this case, it is important to address the underpricing problem, rather than to offer loans that a firm can't pay back.
Another issue that is often conflated with capital access barriers is demand-side uncertainty. A small supplier considering new automation faces a fundamental problem: the productivity gains from that investment often depend on whether its customers will commit to volumes sufficient to justify the capital outlay. Without that demand-side certainty, even a clearly beneficial investment may be too risky. Conversely, if investors believe that demand will be forthcoming, they will be happy to invest, resolving capital access problems. This coordination failure -- where individually rational caution produces collectively irrational under-investment -- is a classic market failure that government policy must address.
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9 Helper, Susan, Raphael Martins, and Robert Seamans. "Who profits from industry 4.0? Theory and evidence from the automotive industry." Theory and Evidence from the Automotive Industry (January 31, 2019). NYU Stern School of Business (2019).2021-Research-Brief-Helper-Reynolds-Traficonte-Singh4.pdf; Berger, Suzanne, and Benjamin Armstrong. "The puzzle of the missing robots." (MIT Working Paper, 2022).
10 The White House. "Building Resilient Supply Chains." Economic Report of the President, April 2022, Chapter 6. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ERP-2022.pdf
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III. THE CASE FOR WORKER-CENTERED AUTOMATION
The gains I described in the previous section -- better wages, stronger competitiveness, onshored production -- are not the automatic result of deploying robots. They depend critically on how automation is designed and implemented. The evidence strongly and consistently favors a worker-augmenting model over a worker-substituting one, both for firm performance and for workforce outcomes. This is not merely an ethical preference; it is a finding about what actually works.
When automation is designed primarily to replace workers performing specific tasks -- and when firms lack the organizational capacity to redeploy affected workers into higher-value roles -- displacement is the likely outcome, and productivity gains are often smaller and less durable than anticipated.11 When automation is designed instead to augment worker capabilities -- handling dangerous, repetitive, or physically demanding tasks while expanding workers' scope to exercise judgment, solve problems, and contribute to process improvement -- the outcomes are better for both the firm and its employees. Workers with meaningful roles in problem-solving catch errors early, identify process improvements, and adapt quickly when products or customers change. That flexibility is enormously valuable.
Research on worker-centered robotics design is exploring several promising directions:
1. Systems that allow workers themselves to program and adapt robots -- rather than requiring specialized engineers for every modification -- give shop-floor workers ownership of the technology and allow faster iteration. Robots and other automated equipment generate a lot of data. Making this data available on the shop floor (where workers can combine it with the experiential knowledge they gain from physical proximity -- knowledge that engineers don't have) yields the potential for faster problem-solving, more satisfying and higher-paid work.
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11 See: Simon, Ruth. "An Ohio Factory's Test: Will Higher Wages Help More Than They Hurt?" The Wall Street Journal, August 6, 2021. https://www.wsj.com/articles/ohio-factory-jobs-pay-raise-small-business-ppp-11628202983
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2. Collaborative robots ("cobots") are designed to work alongside humans rather than in segregated cells that exclude them; they are often -- but not always -- adopted in a worker-augmenting way. An example of a non-enhancing cobot use is where the worker's job becomes simply to hand a part in the correct orientation to a cobot, who then performs the operation. A better (more productive and more fulfilling) option would be that the worker would program the cobot (especially now that "low code" or "no code" options are available) to proactively support a worker (for example, anticipating their needs and procuring things, like an assistant in a manufacturing setting), as Professor Mike Hagenow at UW Madison is exploring.
3. Robotic exoskeletons that reduce physical strain, enabling workers to perform overhead or heavy tasks without the cumulative injury that shortens manufacturing careers, represent a third frontier.12 The broader principle is that technology design choices are not neutral. The degree to which automation benefits workers rather than displacing them is partly a function of choices made by engineers and managers -- choices that policy can shape.
IV. STRATEGIC SYNERGY: WHY BUILDING A U.S. ROBOTICS INDUSTRY REINFORCES OVERALL MANUFACTURING COMPETITIVENESS
The development of a competitive U.S. robotics manufacturing industry13 is not merely a separate goal alongside stronger manufacturing competitiveness -- it is synergistic with it, in ways that compound over time.
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12 Harvard Biodesign Lab. Soft Exosuits research program. biodesign.seas.harvard.edu/soft-exosuits. Ford Motor company is applying them in some assembly plants.
13 This statement applies to robots and automation broadly defined, as in the proposed legislation for a National Robotics Commission, whose remit would include "Machines that--
(i) can sense their environment;
(ii) have the capacity to process the information they sense; and
(iii) are organized to act directly upon their environment." - which would seem to apply to most advanced manufacturing equipment. "National Commission on Robotics Act." HR7334.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7334/text
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The first synergy runs from users to developers. A vibrant domestic user base for robotics -- manufacturers who are actively deploying, adapting, and pushing the limits of robotic systems in real production environments -- generates the kind of specific, practical feedback that drives innovation. Problems that only become visible on a factory floor, in the hands of a maintenance technician or a line operator, are precisely the problems that separate good robotics from great robotics. When the user base is domestic and the developers are domestic, that feedback loop is tight, fast, and commercially productive. When the user base is abroad -- as is increasingly the case -- those signals flow to foreign developers, and the innovation they drive strengthens foreign competitors.
"For us to be good builders of robots in America, we first have to be good users of robots and right now we are severely lacking in the adoption of robotics much more than we are lacking in the production of robotics," Samin Farid, CEO of Formic wrote to me in an email on April 17.
"Lots of examples of this. Most recently for example, we've been able to cut the cost of robot deployment by about 60%. Most of that came from our experience deploying robots across 100+ facilities, we learned about all of the operational and mechanical similarities and differences between these sites, as well as all of the different common failure, modes of the robots, places where the grippers would have issues, or the vision systems would have issues, and by consolidating all of that experience, we were able to design and build our own version of this robot that was significantly cheaper and much more capable.
Another area where this experience is super helpful, is around training data for the robots themselves. And having lots of robots deployed in the field, we were able to generate lots of training data, in particular, lots of training data about the places where the robots fail, how they fail, and how they are recovered by humans -- and combining all of that, we were able to train new AI models for the robots that perform much better across the fleet as well."
V. A HIGH-ROAD STRATEGY: ENSURING ROBOTICS SERVES WORKERS AND COMMUNITIES
The central policy challenge is to create conditions in which robotics adoption follows what researchers call a "high-road" or "good jobs" strategy: one in which highly-skilled workers produce innovative and high-quality products, their productivity enables wages sufficient to attract and retain talent, and firms compete on quality, precision, and responsiveness rather than on a race to the bottom on labor costs or environmental standards.14
A high-road strategy in manufacturing typically involves several mutually reinforcing elements.
Workers with broad skills and meaningful roles in problem-solving and process improvement generate productivity gains that support higher wages. Those wages attract better workers, reducing turnover and its associated costs. Flexible equipment and broadly skilled workers allow firms to compete on customization, fast delivery, rapid product ramp-up, and resilience -- dimensions of competition where cheap-labor strategies cannot easily follow. Supply chains built around collaborative relationships between anchor firms and suppliers, rather than pure price competition, invest more in shared problem-solving and reduce the coordination failures that slow innovation.
A high-road strategy requires that workforce training be redesigned to address not merely skill acquisition, but the organizational structures that allow workers to use those skills. Greater worker voice in process improvement, clearer career ladders, compensation tied to productivity gains -- these are the organizational complements that determine whether technology investments actually pay off. Training programs that prepare workers for jobs defined entirely by employers, without attention to how those jobs are designed, will not reliably produce the outcomes they are after.
On the demand side, government procurement -- including advance market commitments for domestically manufactured robotic systems -- can provide the demand certainty that allows domestic manufacturers to invest in capacity and capability-building.15 Procurement standards that incorporate job quality conditions -- requiring that firms receiving federal contracts meet standards for wages, benefits, safety, and worker voice -- can create market incentives for highroad strategies that individual firms cannot easily create on their own.
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14 Helper, Susan, and Raphael Martins. "The High Road in Manufacturing." (2020), in Osterman, Paul ed MIT Press; Ton, Zeynep. The good jobs strategy: How the smartest companies invest in employees to lower costs and boost profits. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2014.
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Occupational health and safety deserves particular attention in any robotics strategy. The potential of robotics to reduce occupational injury is substantial. Many of the most dangerous tasks in manufacturing -- heavy lifting, exposure to toxic substances, repetitive motions that cause cumulative injury -- are tasks that robotic systems can perform. OSHA, NIOSH, and NIST should be resourced to develop standards and guidance for worker-safe robotics implementation.
Programs that support robotics adoption should condition funding on demonstrable improvements in health and safety outcomes.
A word on market shaping versus passive market response. The most effective industrial policies do not simply correct market failures after the fact; they actively shape the markets in which firms and workers make decisions.16 This includes defining product and process standards that promote safety and interoperability, promoting competition on quality and cost while protecting against races to the bottom on labor and environmental standards, and attending to barriers to entry that prevent competitive markets from working. Government convening, technical assistance, and information-sharing -- not just subsidies -- are essential tools. And conditions attached to public support -- requiring that firms that receive grants and loans provide good jobs and meet environmental standards are essential to ensuring that public investment produces public value.
It is important that an industrial strategy address both supply and demand in the sector it aims to promote. Some examples of policies that fail to do this are the Jones Act (which mandates demand for U.S. shipping, but does not provide a program to supply such ships in a modern way), tariffs when implemented without complementary policies (see more below). Conversely, supply-only policies can falter when demand is not forthcoming, as in the delayed plans of the CHIPS act, and of PPE facilities subsidized by the government but not benefiting from a procurement policy17.
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15 The White House. "Building Resilient Supply Chains." Economic Report of the President, April 2022, Chapter 6. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ERP-2022.pdf
16 Mazzucato, Mariana, and Josh Ryan-Collins. "Putting value creation back into "public value": from market-fixing to market-shaping." Journal of Economic Policy Reform 25.4 (2022): 345-360.
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Below are thoughts on specific policies. They are organized by the three barriers to SME robot adoption mentioned above, followed by thoughts on coordination across the policies.
1. Policies to build a community of practice and provide technical assistance.
To build the user community, and the synergy between robot users and robot makers described above, developing a community of practice is key. In such an environment (both physical and virtual) stakeholders can come together to engage in design and implementation of worker-centered automation, and achieve the user-builder synergies described by Formic above.
One way to do this is to create a physical place for people to come together, such as a test bed. Ray Boeman of the Startup Research Facility suggests a testbed that would "seek to integrate smart and secure technologies in, for example, digitalization, advanced sensors/sensing, AI/Machine Learning, and engage established capabilities and expertise of Manufacturing USA Institutes, National Labs, and leading academic universities, working with key industry associations, to reduce individual investments. It is envisioned that the testbed would serve as the physical validation site, accessible by all the aforementioned stakeholders as well as their collaborators and industry directly." Other kinds of facilities with shared equipment would allow SMEs to try out equipment before they buy it.
A crucial need identified above is to design worker-centered robotics, to achieve the twin goals of better jobs and more competitiveness. Congress could fund small grants that bring together researchers, engineers, and labor representatives to design more of the kinds of robots mentioned above, and to adopt them in ways that achieve both firms' and workers' goals. Effective participatory design requires understanding and compensating it as work-- giving workers voice and sufficient training to participate meaningfully. Government facilitation of tripartite participation (through grants and demonstration projects in the public sector) can help stakeholders achieve these goals18.
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17 For examples of efforts to link supply and demand analysis, see Building-Resilience-through-a-Made-in-AmericaIndustrial-Strategy.final_.pdf
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The Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) is the most important existing vehicle for reaching small and medium-sized manufacturers. MEP centers provide technical assistance, technology assessment, and process improvement support to firms that cannot afford these services on their own. However, its current configuration has limitations that Congress should address.
MEP centers vary significantly in their technical depth on advanced technologies like robotics, and many centers need investment to build the expertise necessary to guide manufacturers through complex automation decisions. MEP should be explicitly resourced to provide hands-on robotics assessment and implementation support, not merely information and referrals. Perhaps the robotics efforts could be guided by a national center(s) of excellence chosen on a competitive basis -- but the "boots on the ground" advantages of state-level offices should be retained. MEP should explore ways to involve lead firms and to serve their supply chains, even when they cross state lines. The national centers of excellence could be organized to enable greater investment, firms should pay lower (but not zero) co-pays, longer planning horizon, more national coordination (but state operations are still important) - e.g., set up supply chain centers of excellence with involvement by lead firms.
Some policies to promote awareness do not have to cost very much. For example, Chinese policies include not just subsidies, but also efforts to focus company investment in developing capabilities, such as requiring automakers to provide videos showing how they might use robots in assembly, and races in which robots compete with humans to run a marathon. In 2025, the Beijing municipal government held a half-marathon for 12,000 runners and 20 humanoid robots. Only six robots finished the race, and the fastest of them took nearly three times as long as the fastest runners. But the event helped draw attention to robots.19 Progress since then has been swift: In this year's race, held April 19, the fastest humanoid easily beat the world record for humans, and 40% of the humanoid entrants completed the course autonomously.20
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18 See Friedler, Sorelle, Serena Booth, Andrew Schrank, and Susan Helper. "A people-first vision for the future of work in the age of AI." Brookings Commentary, March 25, 2026. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-people-first-vision-for-the-future-of-work-in-the-age-of-ai/ ; Mindell, David A. The New Lunar Society: An Enlightenment Guide to the Next Industrial Revolution. MIT Press, 2025.
19 Bradsher, Keith. "An Army of Robots Is China's Weapon in Trump's Tariff War." The New York Times, April 23, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/business/china-tariffs-robots-automation.html
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Tax breaks for individual firms are often mentioned as a way to bring down costs of adoption.
However, these "tax expenditures" reduce funds available for the kinds of information provision and community-building; they do not promote cross-stakeholder problem solving. While general tax breaks for equipment purchases (such as those in the OBBBA) may be useful, a robot-specific tax break in addition leads to complexity for both taxpayer and tax adminstrators; the funds may well be better spent on information provision.
2. Workforce Policies
Many commenters argue that the key problem in manufacturing is its image, as offering "dumb, dirty, dangerous, work"; the solution that flows from this analysis is an image campaign.
The argument presented in section II above about manufacturers' hiring difficulties suggests a different set of solutions: to improve the reality of manufacturing, by improving pay and to in fact upgrade production processes.
The Department of Energy's Battery Workforce Initiative offers an instructive model for what more ambitious programs can accomplish.21 By bringing together employers, unions, researchers, and training providers to jointly design standardized occupations and training curricula, the initiative demonstrates that it is possible to design new technologies and new jobs simultaneously -- rather than simply asking workers to fit themselves into job definitions that employers set unilaterally. This collaborative approach should be replicated for robotics and smart manufacturing more broadly.22
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20 https://www.nbcnews.com/world/china/humanoid-robots-race-humans-beijing-half-marathon-showing-rapidadvanc-rcna340842
21 U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy Technology Laboratory. "Goals and Progress of the Battery Workforce Initiative (BWI): September 2022-November 2024." 2024 Interim Report. December 2024. https://netl.doe.gov/sites/default/files/2024-12/Final%202024%20BWI%20Interim%20Report.pdf
22 For additional examples in an AI context, see Friedler, Sorelle, Serena Booth, Andrew Schrank, and Susan Helper. "A people-first vision for the future of work in the age of AI." Brookings Commentary, March 25, 2026. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-people-first-vision-for-the-future-of-work-in-the-age-of-ai/
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A specific program that would address robotics is being developed at MIT, to define and train for an occupation called a "technologist." "Given the technologist's critical role to collaborate with technicians, engineers, and management, TechAMP develops essential leadership skills tailored for technical professionals. Through lectures, discussion, and simulated activities, they learn to communicate effectively, foster collaboration, manage conflict, provide feedback, and influence different stakeholders through structured frameworks and hands-on activities."23
Ontario, Canada operates a program that subsidizes small firms to work with and train students and recent graduates on innovation-related projects, thereby reducing the risk of bad hires in technical areas where the firm has little experience.24 A U.S. equivalent could help small manufacturers build internal technical capacity in robotics and related fields without requiring them to make permanent hires before they have assessed whether the technology is right for them.
I would be remiss not to mention apprenticeship, which is a key way that German SMEs achieve high robot density. Due to long-standing and widespread availability of this training, which is designed in part by employer and worker representatives, and combines instruction in general principles with real-world applicability, small firms do not face the barriers to identifying and hiring skilled workers that U.S. firms do. Over half of Germans enter apprenticeships, many in combination with college.25
3. Finance/Demand Policies
The U.S. currently lacks financial institutions that can provide medium scale ($1-5 million) loans of medium complexity. One possibility is that the Export-Import Bank could also play a larger role in supporting domestic manufacturing competitiveness. Due diligence on small loans is nearly as expensive as that on large loans; perhaps there are lessons to be learned from the German development bank, KfW (which in turn learned from the U.S. Depression-era Reconstruction Finance Corporation).26 Among the reforms worth considering: removing the requirement that borrowers must export during the term of the loan, which is too short a horizon for rebuilding a manufacturing base that was neglected for decades; managing the bank's loan portfolio as a portfolio rather than requiring each individual loan to carry low risk; measuring job quality, not merely job quantity, in program performance metrics (for example, counting only jobs that pay above 125 percent of the county median wage); and expanding the bank's target industries to include energy infrastructure and grid modernization.
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23 "The 'New Manufacturing' Workforce," by Ben Armstrong and John Liu, MIT Working Paper, March 2026.
24 Ontario Centre of Innovation. TalentEdge Internship Program (NGNP).oc-innovation.ca/program-nav/talentedge-internship-program.
25 Niranjan, Ajit. "What is Germany's dual education system?" DW, June 4, 2018. https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-germanys-dual-education-system-and-why-do-other-countries-want-it/a-42902504
26 "Robots and Humans in the Loop: Revitalizing Industrial Ecosystems," by Anna J. Waldman-Brown, PhD dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, September 2023.
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As mentioned above, issues of capital access are significantly eased by more certain demand. Some ideas to do this:
* A program that offered grants to a lead firm and its suppliers applying together for funding (to be matched by the larger firm) would provide several benefits. The large firm's support would demonstrate that it is committed to these suppliers and believes these suppliers are viable and strategic. It would also ease a key problem that small firms face: providing them with crucial demand-side certainty greatly reduces the danger they face in making investments in new products or processes since they don't have the profits to place bets that might go bad. This arrangement would also reduce the government's vetting costs of small suppliers, since the large firm would have already done some vetting and would be sharing the risk. Ontario, Canada has a program that is a bit like this (though it is more aimed at startups than established small- and medium-sized enterprises).
* The AM Forward initiative, developed during the Biden Administration, addressed several interrelated market failures at once -- lack of capital, inadequate information about new technology, and insufficient customer commitment -- by building on supply-chain relationships between large manufacturers and their smaller suppliers.27 The core insight was that a large firm's co-investment and endorsement of a small supplier's technology adoption provides information and demand-side certainty that government alone cannot replicate.
* * *
27 Council of Economic Advisers, The White House. "Using Additive Manufacturing to Improve Supply Chain Resilience and Bolster Small and Mid-Size Firms." May 9, 2022. Available at: https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/cea/written-materials/2022/05/09/using-additive-manufacturingto-improve-supply-chain-resilience-and-bolster-small-and-mid-size-firms/ See also AM Forward program page: astroa.org/project/am-forward.
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Programs modeled on this approach -- should be extended to robotics.28
* Government procurement -- including advance market commitments for domestically manufactured robotic systems -- can provide the demand certainty that allows domestic manufacturers to invest confidently in capacity.29 Procurement standards that incorporate job quality conditions -- requiring that firms receiving federal contracts meet wage, benefits, safety, and worker voice standards -- can create market incentives for high-road strategies that individual firms cannot sustain on their own against competitors who externalize those costs.
The government has promoted purchase of advanced equipment by its suppliers. For example, the Department of War's Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment program (IBAS) uses mechanisms such as Other Transaction Agreements (OTAs) (e.g., the Cornerstone OTA) and the Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III to incentivize contractors to acquire capital equipment and modernize manufacturing.
On tariffs: robotics adoption by domestic manufacturers in the near term depends partly on affordable access to robotic equipment, much of which is currently imported. Tariffs that significantly raise the cost of robots could slow adoption by the very small manufacturers we are trying to support, even as those tariffs are intended to build a domestic robotics industry. A thoughtful approach would phase in requirements for domestic content over time -- clearly signaling the long-run policy direction while giving manufacturers sufficient runway to build U.S. supply chains. Tariffs could be higher on nations such as China that pose issues of national security and offer large subsidies to their manufacturers. However, such tariffs would significantly disadvantage U.S. manufacturers who import significant amounts of Chinese equipment.
A tariff on imports from China on a narrow definition of robots could potentially slow the application of the Chinese playbook of developing industry dominance through massive subsidies, without increasing costs too much for U.S. robot adopters. According to the International Trade Commission in 2024 almost 65% of robotics imports came from Japan, Germany, and South Korea; Mexico contributes another 5.6%. Imports from China are only 4.2% of total robotics imports, or $29.7million.30 However, much study should go into the timing, phase-in and phaseout, and HST definition of tariffs, because some industries depend heavily in imports from China of certain types of machinery.
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28 Department of Defense, Office of Acquisition & Sustainment https://www.acq.osd.mil/#:~:text=Since%20mid%2D2023%2C%20the%20Department%20of%20Defense%20has,o ther%20supply%20chains%20key%20to%20national%20defense
29 The White House. "Building Resilient Supply Chains." Economic Report of the President, April 2022, Chapter 6. https://bidenwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ERP-2022.pdf
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4. Policy coordination
The market failures impeding the production and adoption of robots in the U.S. are multifaceted and intertwined. Thus, they would benefit greatly from the creation of an expert body such as the proposed National Commission on Robotics,31 that could carefully design a set of synergistic policies ideally aimed at both the manufacturing and adoption of leading-edge robotics in the United States in a way that improves both job quality and U.S. competitiveness.
CONCLUSION
The hearing this Subcommittee has convened asks whether the United States can lead in robotics and advanced manufacturing. My answer is yes -- but only if we are as deliberate and as strategic as our competitors. China's robotics strategy did not succeed by accident; it succeeded because it combined capital, demand, workforce development, and coordination among firms in a coherent framework. The United States has the research institutions, the innovative firms, and the workforce potential to compete. What we have lacked is comparable coherence and commitment.
The policies I have described above -- building a community of practice, creating joint grant programs that align lead firms and their suppliers, redesigning jobs and workflows to promote organizational transformation, reforming EX-IM to better serve domestic manufacturers, attaching job quality conditions to public support, and using procurement strategically to create demand certainty -- are not novel. What is needed is the political will to pursue them together, at the scale and with the sustained commitment that the competitive stakes require.
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30 Public Comment by the National Association of Manufacturers on Section 232 National Security Investigation of Imports of Robotics and Industrial Machinery https://nam.org/wp-content/uploads/securepdfs/2025/10/NAM-Section-232-Robotics-and-Industrial-MachinerySubmission_-Final_Final_October-17-2025.pdf Atkinson, Robert D., Meghan Ostertag and Trelysa Long "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry." Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, July 18, 2025. https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/
31 "National Commission on Robotics Act." HR7334. https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-bill/7334/text
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I welcome the Subcommittee's questions and thank you for your interest.
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Original text and figure here: https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/f/6/f669ddff-f505-482d-9f55-626feb4d898a/54E89A240CD15A01E1D7B43790BA9AF0AD1A87065220CB71B40A87551555FC31.04.21.26-robotics-hearing-testimony---dr.-susan-helper.pdf
Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International President Robbins Testifies Before House Science, Space & Technology Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology released the following testimony by Michael Robbins, president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation":* * *
Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member Stevens, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Michael Robbins, and I am President and Chief Executive Officer of the Association ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Science, Space and Technology Subcommittee on Research and Technology released the following testimony by Michael Robbins, president and CEO of the Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Robots Made in America: Advancing U.S. Leadership in Manufacturing and Automation": * * * Chairman Obernolte, Ranking Member Stevens, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. My name is Michael Robbins, and I am President and Chief Executive Officer of the Associationfor Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International, or AUVSI, the world's largest trade association for robotics, uncrewed systems, and autonomous technologies. Our members build and deploy advanced systems across the air, ground, and maritime domains in sectors ranging from manufacturing and logistics to agriculture, public safety, and defense. Because the stakes for U.S. competitiveness are so high, AUVSI recently launched our Partnership for Robotics Competitiveness to help strengthen American leadership in robotics and physical AI while addressing the cybersecurity, supply-chain, and national-security risks tied to connected robotics systems./1
The central point AUVSI wants to leave with the Subcommittee is simple: robotics is no longer a narrow industrial toolset. It is becoming a foundational layer of modern economic power. The next era of manufacturing competitiveness will not be determined by software alone. It will be determined by which countries can combine AI, hardware, production capacity, deployment, and real-world operational learning into a durable industrial advantage. As Matthew Malchano from Boston Dynamics noted at a House Committee on Homeland Security hearing last month, advanced robots are the physical embodiment of artificial intelligence./2
That is exactly right. If AI is the brain, robotics is increasingly the body through which AI creates value in the real economy. This race is already visible in the market: Last year, China installed 80% of all humanoid robots, while in 2023, China installed 276,288 industrial robots, compared with just 37,587 in the United States, and more than the rest of the world combined./3,4
The United States stands at a pivotal moment in the evolution of robotics and physical artificial intelligence, a moment defined not by speculative future potential but by the rapid, ongoing integration of these systems into the fabric of the modern economy. While robotics of some form have been deployed in a range of applications for decades, a new generation of robots, physical artificial intelligence, or embodied AI, is poised to have a transformational impact.
This new generation of robotic systems is already being deployed around the world: across manufacturing facilities, semiconductor fabrication plants, logistics networks, agricultural operations, energy infrastructure, and public safety environments. They are no longer confined to controlled industrial settings; rather, these systems are increasingly deployed in dynamic, realworld environments where they directly influence productivity, resilience, and operational effectiveness.
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1 Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Partnership for Robotics Competitiveness White Paper, 2026: https://www.auvsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/AUVSI-PFRC-Whitepaper.pdf
2 Testimony of Matthew Malchano, Boston Dynamics, Before the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee on the topic of "DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics: Examining the National Security Risks of PRC Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Autonomous Technologies and Building a Secure U.S. Technology Base," March 17, 2026: https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Subcommittee-on-Cybersecurityand-Infrastructure-Protection-Hearing-Testimony.pdf
3 Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry," July 28, 2025, https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/
4 Iris Deng, "China Dominates Global Humanoid Robot Market with Over 80% of Installations," South China Morning Post, April 12, 2026, https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3340142/china-dominates-global-humanoid-robot-market-over-80installations
* * *
With this sophistication has also come versatility: the robots of today - general purpose humanoids, intelligent collaborative robots, and other multifunction robots - are capable of an ever wider and more complicated set of tasks. The utility this brings, and what it can mean for the global economy, cannot be overstated. Comparing the robots in development today to the robots prior to the diffusion of artificial intelligence technology would be akin to comparing a simple word processor to an AI chat agent.
AI is giving modern robotics and autonomous systems far greater capability in perception, navigation, and decision-making. And that is what makes this strategically important: leadership in software alone will not ensure U.S. leadership in robotics if the systems themselves are designed, built, and deployed elsewhere. In this race, advantage will belong not only to those who lead in AI, but also to those who can manufacture at scale, integrate software with hardware, field systems widely, and improve them through real-world operation./5
The United States still leads in much of the underlying research, but our challenge is not invention; it is turning innovation into production, adoption, and scale. That matters not only for economic
competitiveness, but for national security, because the same robotics systems shaping the future of manufacturing will also shape supply-chain resilience, critical infrastructure, and the defense industrial base. Further, if physical AI systems tied to adversary-controlled ecosystems are deployed in sensitive sites, they do not just pose a market risk; they can create real vulnerabilities for surveillance, disruption, and even physical harm.
This is where robotics becomes a matter of national competitiveness and national security.
Physical AI cannot scale on software alone. It requires factories, components, supply chains, and the ability to deploy systems in the real world. The countries that lead will be those that can align research, industrial capacity, and deployment at scale. The United States still has major strengths in innovation, but we are not converting those strengths into production and adoption fast enough. The Information Technology & Innovation Foundation reports that only 8.3 percent of U.S. manufacturing firms have incorporated robots at all./6
That dismal statistic should be a call to action, because the upside for productivity, competitiveness, and resilience is still very much ahead of us.
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5 Deloitte, "Physical AI and Humanoid Robots: The Future of Adaptive Robotics," December 10, 2025, https://www.deloitte.com/us/en/insights/topics/technology-management/tech-trends/2026/physical-ai-humanoid-robots.html
6 Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry," July 28, 2025, https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/
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Robotics and Physical AI as a Driver of U.S. Manufacturing Competitiveness
As AI-enabled robotics systems become more capable and more widely deployed, they are increasingly shaping the future of advanced manufacturing and industrial competitiveness, particularly in the context of strategic competition with China. These systems are now operating across factory floors, semiconductor fabrication facilities, logistics networks, and industrial supply chains, where they directly influence productivity, cost structures, and the ability to scale production. In these environments, robotics is not simply a tool for automation; it is a foundational capability that determines how efficiently goods are produced, how quickly supply chains respond to demand, and how effectively a nation can sustain and expand its industrial base.
In this context, robotics systems are not isolated machines. They are integrated, data-driven platforms that combine sensing, software, connectivity, and physical execution to optimize production in real time. They enable continuous monitoring of operations, adaptive workflows, and iterative improvement through data collection and machine learning. This integration of digital intelligence with physical production is what defines modern manufacturing competitiveness. It is also what creates a widening gap between nations that deploy these systems at scale and those that do not.
That is what makes the competitive stakes so significant: a factory equipped with advanced robotics does not simply produce more. It produces smarter, faster, and at lower marginal cost, while continuously improving over time. These systems generate operational data that refines processes, enhances quality control, and accelerates innovation, creating compounding advantages for firms and countries that achieve scale. China has recognized this dynamic and has pursued a coordinated strategy to dominate advanced manufacturing and robotics through statebacked investment, industrial policy, and aggressive scaling of domestic production. The result is not only increased manufacturing output, but also the potential to set global standards, control supply chains, and shape the future of industrial competition.
Because robotics sits at the intersection of manufacturing, data, and supply chains, leadership in this domain will determine where production occurs, who captures economic value, and how resilient industrial systems are in times of disruption. In this sense, robotics is not simply an efficiency tool; it is a strategic asset that underpins economic strength and national security capabilities. Without sustained investment and coordinated policy to support domestic deployment and scaling, the United States risks ceding leadership in the very systems that will define the next generation of manufacturing and global competition.
PRC Dominance: State-Backed Scale, Market Capture, and the Risk of U.S. Dependence
The People's Republic of China has recognized that robotics and physical AI will be central to the next era of economic, industrial, and military competition, and it has made leadership in this sector a core national objective. Through Made in China 2025, its 14th Five-Year Plan for Robot Industry Development, state-backed venture capital, subsidized financing, and coordinated provincial investment, Beijing is not simply supporting domestic robotics firms; it is executing a deliberate strategy to dominate the deployment, manufacturing, and supply-chain layers of embodied AI./7
This is not an abstract future concern. It is already visible in the market: China installed 276,288 industrial robots in 2023, compared with 37,587 in the United States, and in fact installed more robots that year than the rest of the world combined./8
Scale in robotics is not just a commercial metric. It drives cost reduction, deployment experience, data collection, supply-chain depth, and continuous iteration. Further, the competition in AI is moving beyond models alone and toward implementation in the physical world. The country that can deploy robots broadly across factories, logistics networks, ports, warehouses, and critical infrastructure will gain structural advantages in productivity, resilience, and national power. China is pursuing that advantage through state direction and subsidized scale, while the United States still lacks a specific, actionable, and fully funded national strategy for robotics and physical AI.
The United States has seen this playbook before. In the drone market, Chinese firms leveraged coordinated industrial policy, scale, and supply-chain support to capture global market share and erode U.S. domestic manufacturing capacity./9
The same risk now confronts the robotics sector. If heavily subsidized PRC-origin systems continue to suppress prices, absorb market share, and expand their footprint in American industry, the result will not simply be tougher competition for U.S. firms. It will be the gradual hollowing out of trusted domestic production, increased dependence on adversary-linked technology, and wider exposure of U.S. infrastructure and industrial environments to cyber-physical and data-security risks. This is exactly what happened to the drone industry.
The PRC is executing the same centrally planned playbook in advanced robotics that it used to decimate the U.S. commercial drone industry: flooding the market with subsidized, below-cost systems to drive American manufacturers out of business. Backed by Made in China 2025 and billions more in state investment funds, Chinese robotics firms are suppressing prices and starving U.S. companies of the revenue needed to scale domestic capacity and maintain technological leadership.
That strategy is being powered by state subsidies, preferential financing, industrial planning, and coordinated investment across the robotics stack. China's top economic planning agency has announced a Yen1 trillion yuan, or roughly $137 billion, venture capital fund for robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies./10
Local governments and state-backed funds are adding to that push, including a $14 billion robotics and AI fund in Beijing and a $77 million embodied AI fund in Shanghai. Meanwhile, China's state-controlled banks have increased industrial lending by roughly $1.9 trillion over the past four years to bankroll factory construction and robotic automation./11
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7 Congressional Research Service, "'Made in China 2025' Industrial Policies: Issues for Congress," updated December 12, 2024, https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10964
8 Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry," July 28, 2025, https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/
9 Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Partnership for Drone Competitiveness White Paper, 2025: AUVSI-Partnership-for-Drone-Competitiveness-White-Paper.pdf
10 Keith Bradsher, "China Has an Army of Robots on Its Side in the Tariff War," The New York Times, April 23, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/23/business/china-tariffs-robots-automation.html
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Robotics is also increasingly dual-use. Just as commercial drones rapidly became strategic military hardware on the battlefields of Ukraine, many commercial robotics and physical AI systems are already having implications for warfighting. The People's Liberation Army is already militarizing robotics, integrating robot dogs and other uncrewed ground systems into operational exercises and assault scenarios, which reinforces that these are increasingly dual-use technologies with clear defense implications. That is why "making robots in America" is not just an economic issue - it is also about ensuring the United States retains trusted industrial capacity, resilient supply chains, and control over technologies that can shape future defense and national security outcomes.
Recognizing this, the United States must act with urgency to lead in the next robotics race rather than respond after the market is already lost. We cannot afford to repeat in robotics what happened in small drones, where a strategic competitor took advantage of failed U.S. policy and used scale, state support, and supply-chain leverage to entrench itself before the United States mounted a coherent response. In robotics and physical AI, the stakes are even higher: this is not just about one product category, but about the systems that will shape manufacturing capacity, industrial resilience, and long-term economic and national security. Leadership will not be decided by software alone, but by who wins on implementation, deployment, and the broader ecosystem that supports both. The United States is underperforming in both robotics adoption and production, and while the window to act is still open, it will not stay open indefinitely.
AUVSI therefore commends the Committee for holding this hearing and for focusing on the policy actions needed to strengthen American leadership before PRC dominance becomes more deeply embedded in global markets and U.S. supply chains.
Deployment: The Decisive Battleground
Deployment is one of the central hurdles in this competition. The United States continues to produce world-class advances in robotics and AI, but too often we fail to turn that innovation into scaled production, broad adoption, and lasting industrial advantage. Other countries are doing a better job of connecting research to manufacturing, workforce, financing, and market deployment.
That matters because deployment is not just an outcome; it is a strategic asset. Robotics systems improve through real-world use, not design alone. Every deployment generates data, integration experience, and operational feedback that improve future systems and expand the lead of the firms and countries that scale first. The real contest is not just over innovation in software, but over implementation, deployment, and the broader ecosystem that turns technology into durable advantage. And when adversary-linked systems are deployed in the United States, that deployment is not neutral. It generates revenue, data, and learning that can strengthen those firms globally over time. That is why the United States must do two things at once: accelerate adoption of trusted robotics here at home and take a far more disciplined approach to foreign adversary-linked systems in critical sectors.
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11 Ibid
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A central feature of this challenge is the persistent gap between research and deployment. The United States continues to produce world-leading advances in robotics and artificial intelligence through its universities, national laboratories, and private-sector innovation ecosystem. However, these advances are not necessarily translated into scaled production or widespread
implementation and adoption. Instead, manufacturing capacity and deployment ecosystems often develop in other countries, where coordinated industrial strategies support scaling and integration. Illustrative of this point, China leads in humanoid robot installations by a massive margin, with over 80% of global installations./12
This, coupled with China's sustained lead in installation of industrial robots, indicates a sustained lead in installing not only legacy systems but also the leading edge of the technology./13
This dynamic reflects structural fragmentation in U.S. policy, where research funding is not always connected to industrial policy, workforce development, or market adoption. The result is a disconnect between where innovation occurs and where its economic value is ultimately realized.
The importance of deployment cannot be overstated. Robotics systems improve through use and iteration, not merely through design. Each deployment generates data that informs system performance, refines foundation models, and enhances operational capability. This creates a feedback loop in which deployment drives improvement, and improvement enables further deployment. Over time, this cycle produces compounding advantages for firms and countries that achieve scale. Access to real-world data and operational environments has been identified as a critical driver of progress in embodied or "physical AI" systems, reinforcing the importance of deployment as a strategic asset./14
This dynamic introduces a key consideration for policymakers. The deployment of robotics systems is not neutral. When systems developed by foreign adversary-linked firms are deployed within the United States, they do more than provide a service. They generate revenue for that industry, collect data, and contribute to iterative system improvement that may strengthen those systems globally. In a domain where scale drives performance, widespread deployment can translate directly into competitive advantage. This raises important questions about how the United States approaches both domestic adoption and the role of foreign systems within critical sectors, with significant implications for geopolitical competition and national security.
* * *
12 Iris Deng, "China Dominates Global Humanoid Robot Market with Over 80% of Installations," South China Morning Post, April 12, 2026, https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3340142/china-dominates-global-humanoid-robot-market-over-80installations
13 Information Technology & Innovation Foundation, "A Time to Act: Policies to Strengthen the US Robotics Industry," July 28, 2025, https://itif.org/publications/2025/07/18/time-to-act-policies-to-strengthen-us-robotics-industry/
14 World Economic Forum and Boston Consulting Group, Physical AI: Powering the New Age of Industrial Operations, 2025, https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Physical_AI_Powering_the_New_Age_of_Industrial_Operations_2025.pdf
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Cyber-Physical Risk, Supply Chain Vulnerabilities, and National Security Implications
As robotics systems become more deeply embedded across industry, they must be understood not only as tools of productivity, but as connected cyber-physical systems that introduce a distinct and consequential category of risk. These systems integrate sensing, computation, connectivity, and physical actuation, enabling them to interact dynamically with real-world environments.
While this integration is the source of their value, it also expands the attack surface in ways that differ fundamentally from many traditional information technology systems. Cyber-physical systems link digital and physical processes, meaning that vulnerabilities in software or connectivity can manifest as real-world operational disruptions, safety hazards, or infrastructure failures./15
A useful way to understand these risks is through three interrelated dimensions: data exposure, remote disruption, and persistent access. Robotics systems continuously generate and process large volumes of operational data, including environmental mapping, facility layouts, workflow patterns, and human-machine interactions. Over time, this data can provide a highly detailed picture of industrial processes and infrastructure operations. In aggregate, such information can reveal sensitive insights into supply chain dependencies, production capacity, and operational vulnerabilities. In this sense, robotics systems function not only as tools of automation, but also as persistent data collection platforms embedded within critical environments.
The risks associated with this data are compounded by the connectivity required for modern robotics systems to function effectively. Many platforms rely on cloud-based architectures, remote diagnostics, and over-the-air updates to maintain performance and incorporate improvements. While these features enhance capability, they also introduce pathways through which systems may be accessed or manipulated. If vulnerabilities exist within software, firmware, or communications infrastructure, unauthorized actors may be able to gain access to system controls or data streams. Because robotics systems operate physically within environments, such access can translate into tangible consequences, including operational disruption or safety risks./16 Documented vulnerabilities in commercially available robotics platforms, including instances where unauthorized users were able to access control interfaces and video feeds, illustrate how these risks can materialize in practice./17
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15 National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), "Cyber-Physical Systems," https://www.nist.gov/el/cyber-physicalsystems
16 Testimony of Matthew Malchano, Boston Dynamics, Before the U.S. House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Protection Subcommittee on the topic of "DeepSeek and Unitree Robotics: Examining the National Security Risks of PRC Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, and Autonomous Technologies and Building a Secure U.S. Technology Base," March 17, 2026: https://homeland.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Subcommittee-on-Cybersecurityand-Infrastructure-Protection-Hearing-Testimony.pdf
17 Dave Lawler, "Threat Spotlight: Backdoor Found in Chinese Robots," Axios, April 1, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/04/01/threat-spotlight-backdoor-in-chinese-robots-future-of-cybersecurity
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Persistent access represents a third and often underappreciated dimension of cyber-physical risk.
Robotics systems are rarely static; they are continuously updated, maintained, and monitored through vendor-managed systems. These ongoing relationships create long-term access points that, if not properly secured, may be exploited over time. Unlike traditional equipment that may operate in isolation, modern robotics systems often remain connected throughout their lifecycle, increasing both their capability and their exposure.
In parallel with these cyber-physical risks, supply chain dependencies introduce an additional layer of vulnerability. Robotics systems rely on complex, multi-tiered supply chains that include critical components such as sensors, actuators, batteries, power electronics, and rare earth materials. Many of these components are difficult to substitute and require specialized manufacturing processes and long development timelines.
One of the clearest examples of how strategic dependence can become a national security vulnerability is critical minerals and rare earths. China's dominance over the processing and production of key inputs, including the neodymium-iron-boron magnets used in high-performance motors and actuators, creates a chokepoint over the materials that power robotics, autonomy, advanced manufacturing, energy systems, and defense applications. The United States remains too dependent on imports in this area, leaving key sectors exposed to disruption from export controls, market manipulation, or geopolitical pressure.
The good news is the United States has begun to move. The Defense Department's 2025 public-private partnership with MP Materials is aimed at accelerating an end-to-end U.S. rare earth magnet supply chain,/18 while the government has also backed Vulcan Elements and ReElement with a $1.4 billion commitment to expand domestic separation, metallization, and magnet production for a fully domestic rare earth magnet supply chain./19
In January 2026, USA Rare Earth announced a U.S. government letter of intent covering up to $1.6 billion to help build out a domestic heavy rare earth and magnet value chain./20
The next step is to build on that momentum through innovation, recovery, recycling, allied coordination, and greater use of robotics itself as part of the solution, including in domestic mining, processing, and materials recovery, where automation can improve safety, efficiency, and scale. These actions on rare earths are exactly the kind of playbook the United States should be using across the robotics stack: identify a strategic dependency, use public-private partnership and targeted federal support to help trusted domestic capacity scale, and do it before adversary-controlled supply chains become even harder to unwind.
Further, these supply chain dynamics are particularly challenging because hardware systems cannot be easily reconfigured. Unlike software, where updates can be deployed rapidly, changes to hardware components often require redesign, recertification, and adjustments to system performance. This makes diversification and resilience more difficult to achieve, and it underscores the importance of proactive investment in domestic and allied manufacturing capacity.
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18 MP Materials: https://mpmaterials.com/news/mp-materials-announces-transformational-public-private-partnership-with-thedepartment-of-defense-to-accelerate-u-s-rare-earth-magnet-independence/
19 Vulcan Elements: https://vulcanelements.com/vulcan-elements-forges-1-4-billion/
20 USA Rare Earth: https://investors.usare.com/news-releases/news-release-details/usa-rare-earth-announces-letter-intent-usgovernment-access-16
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These dynamics point to a broader shift in how technological competition should be understood.
As noted, leadership is not defined solely by innovation, but by the ability to deploy systems at scale, secure supply chains, manage data, and integrate technologies across real-world environments. When viewed through this lens, the presence of foreign adversary-linked robotics systems and components within the United States is a matter of long-term strategic positioning.
Systems that are widely deployed generate data, improve over time, and shape the standards that define global markets. In this sense, scale itself becomes a form of power, determining who leads, who follows, and who sets the terms of competition.
Another particularly important aspect of this risk landscape is the role of advanced sensing technologies, especially Light Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR. These systems are integral to many robotics platforms, enabling high-resolution, three-dimensional mapping of physical environments. This capability allows robots to navigate complex spaces, avoid obstacles, and perform tasks with precision. However, it also enables the creation of detailed digital representations of the environments in which these systems operate. In sensitive settings, such as industrial facilities, infrastructure sites, or military and intelligence-community facilities, this data can reveal spatial layouts, equipment configurations, and operational patterns. Over time, the aggregation of such data can provide a comprehensive understanding of how critical systems function. Recent efforts by Chinese intelligence to use this technology to surveil U.S. military installations in the Philippines underscores the potential for these technologies to be leveraged in ways that extend beyond their intended use./21
LiDAR uniquely crystallizes the challenges faced here. In June 2025, AUVSI wrote to New York state and city officials warning about potential security risks associated with LiDAR sensors manufactured by Livox, a Chinese company owned by DJI, after such sensors were observed deployed at JFK International Airport and Penn Station in New York City./22
As described in that letter, LiDAR sensors can collect detailed real-time spatial data that could reveal sensitive information about transportation infrastructure, security postures, and crowd flow patterns if compromised or accessed by adversaries. In this case, these sensors were deployed in a static setting, affixed to certain points at these facilities; deploying them in a dynamic setting, such as on a robotic platform, further compounds the threat.
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21 Jack Burnham and Johanna Yang, "Philippines Busts Chinese Spy Ring Targeting U.S. and Allied Military Infrastructure," Foundation for Defense of Democracies, February 3, 2025, https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/02/03/philippines-busts-chinesespy-ring-targeting-u-s-and-allied-military-infrastructure/
22 Association for Uncrewed Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI), Letter Regarding Security Risks of Livox LiDAR Deployments at JFK Airport and Penn Station, March 2026, https://www.auvsi.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/AUVSILivox_JFK_PennStation.pdf
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At the same time, PRC-made LiDAR sensors dominate the global market, thanks to China's same playbook of unfair economic practices, with an overwhelming majority of the global market based on the most recent statistics./23
And LiDAR sensors are widely being used in modern robotics, often in irreplaceable use cases. Altogether, this presents not only a supply chain chokehold for American industry but also potential dependence on a highly unsecure product from an adversarial country that occupies a dominant market position achieved through a range of unfair economic practices.
PRC Law and the Structural Risk in Connected Robotics
These technical and supply chain risks must be understood within the legal and regulatory frameworks in which they exist. In the case of firms based in the People's Republic of China, national laws impose obligations that are fundamentally different from those in market-based systems. China's National Intelligence Law requires organizations and individuals to support and cooperate with state intelligence efforts, while related laws governing cybersecurity and data security establish broad authority over data flows and networked systems./24,25,26
Taken together, these laws create a structural environment in which commercial entities may be compelled to provide access to data or systems upon request by state authorities as well as to comply with and serve as an instrument of the PRC's economic, national security, and geopolitical objectives.
In the context of robotics, this creates a form of jurisdictional risk that extends beyond individual vulnerabilities. Even in the absence of a specific technical flaw, the legal framework governing a company can introduce potential exposure. Robotics systems rely on continuous data collection, connectivity, and remote management, meaning that access to systems and data is often built into their operation. When those systems are subject to legal regimes that mandate cooperation with state intelligence services, the risk is not hypothetical; it is structural.
This dynamic creates a fundamental asymmetry in global competition. Firms operating under market-based legal systems are generally constrained by regulatory frameworks, contractual obligations, and privacy protections that limit access to user data. By contrast, firms operating under state-directed legal systems may face obligations that supersede these constraints. This asymmetry has implications not only for security, but also for market competition, as it affects trust, transparency, and the perceived reliability of systems deployed in sensitive environments.
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23 Dhruva Gogoi, "BriefCASE: Chinese Suppliers Gain Strong Foothold in Global LiDAR Market," S&P Global Mobility, June 26, 2024, https://www.spglobal.com/automotive-insights/en/blogs/2024/6/briefcase-chinese-suppliers-gain-strong-foothold-lidarmarket
24 People's Republic of China, "National Intelligence Law of the People's Republic of China (2017)," https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/national-intelligence-law-of-the-p-r-c-2017/
25 People's Republic of China, "Cybersecurity Law of the People's Republic of China (2016)," https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/2016-cybersecurity-law/
26 People's Republic of China, "Data Security Law of the People's Republic of China (2021)," https://www.chinalawtranslate.com/en/2021-data-security-law/
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A Strategic Policy Framework for U.S. Leadership in Robotics and Physical AI
As robotics and physical AI become more embedded across manufacturing, industrial production, and advanced supply chains, they are becoming a key source of economic strength and competitive advantage. These systems will increasingly shape how efficiently goods are made, how resilient supply chains remain under pressure, and how effectively industrial capacity can scale to meet both commercial and national security demands. In this race, innovation alone will not be enough. The United States needs a coordinated strategy that connects research, manufacturing, deployment, workforce, and market demand into a durable industrial advantage.
That is why policymakers must act with purpose, and it is exactly why AUVSI launched its Partnership for Robotics Competitiveness.
Accordingly, AUVSI urges Congress to consider the following policy priorities:
* Congress should support the development of a coordinated national strategy for robotics and physical AI that includes robust workforce development as a core pillar. Robotics is rapidly becoming foundational infrastructure for modern economies and future military operations, yet the United States still lacks a comprehensive federal strategy to guide policy across research, manufacturing, deployment, workforce, and supply-chain security. Bipartisan legislation such as the National Robotics Commission Act, introduced by Chairman Obernolte and Congresswoman McClellan, would help align federal efforts, set measurable goals, and strengthen long-term U.S. leadership in this strategically important domain. That strategy should also prioritize workforce development by helping workers transition into higher-skilled roles in programming, system integration, and maintenance, addressing labor shortages, improving safety in hazardous environments, and supporting U.S. manufacturing competitiveness, including through tools such as workforce development tax credits.
* Congress should take action to address the threat posed by adversary-linked uncrewed ground vehicles, including robotics, in federal procurement. Legislation introduced this Congress, such as the American Security Robotics Act (H.R. 8189 / S. 4235) would take crucial steps to protect against serious threats posed by foreign adversary-made systems. This would restrict government procurement of any uncrewed ground system - from small multipurpose robots to large autonomous vehicles. Beyond managing the serious risks posed by deployment of these systems by the federal government, federal procurement policies play a powerful role in shaping emerging technology markets. Accordingly, we urge Congress to take up this measure again as a standalone bill as well as in this year's National Defense Authorization Act.
* Other legislation, such as Sen. Cassidy's Humanoid ROBOT Act (S. 3275), would take similar action related to foreign adversary-made humanoid robots as well as other actions related to foreign adversary investments in humanoid robots within the United States.
* Congress should prioritize strengthening the U.S. robotics industrial base and building secure allied supply chains for critical technologies. Addressing the cyber13 physical risks requires not only restricting unsafe technologies but also accelerating the growth of trusted alternatives. Congress should support policies that expand and invest in U.S. robotics manufacturing, use federal procurement and demand signals to support trusted systems, and encourage private investment in domestic production to build resilient supply chains for critical robotics components, including sensors, batteries, rare earth magnets, and advanced electronics.
* Congress should support a national robotics adoption initiative led through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the Manufacturing Extension Partnership to help small and mid-sized manufacturers evaluate, pilot, and deploy robotics systems, including through shared test environments and best-practices demonstration projects.
* Congress should increase funding for NIST's Manufacturing USA program, including the ARM Institute, and support regional robotics centers that connect research, workforce training, and industrial deployment.
* Congress should support the development of trusted robotics data infrastructure and test environments, including efforts to improve data collection, sharing, and standards for physical AI systems operating in real-world environments.
* Congress should pursue a broader industrial strategy for the robotics stack, especially for critical inputs such as rare earth magnets, sensors, power electronics, and advanced components. The recent federal actions supporting MP Materials, Vulcan Elements and ReElement, and USA Rare Earth show the right model: treat these as strategic industrial inputs, use targeted public-private support to scale trusted domestic capacity, and reduce dependence before adversary-controlled supply chains become even harder to unwind. That same playbook should extend across robotics through investment tax credits for domestic production, low-cost financing for equipment, support for first-of-a-kind qualification runs, procurement and domestic-content incentives, and permitting reform that helps American production scale faster.
* Congress should continue advancing risk-based restrictions on adversary-linked technologies deployed in critical infrastructure and other sensitive environments, including key enabling technologies used in robotics and autonomous systems.
Technologies such as LiDAR are foundational to modern robotics, but their ability to generate detailed spatial and environmental data also creates serious security concerns when deployed in sensitive settings. Legislation such as the Securing Infrastructure from Adversaries Act (H.R. 4802 / S. 4000) and the SAFE LiDAR Act (H.R. 6576) reflects the real risks posed by foreign-adversary-made sensors and related technologies embedded within operational environments, including surveillance vulnerabilities, data exposure, and persistent access pathways. Congress should establish clear authorities to evaluate and restrict adversary-linked technologies in critical infrastructure while promoting greater transparency across the robotics technology stack.
Conclusion
Robotics and physical artificial intelligence are becoming foundational to the U.S. industrial base, shaping manufacturing systems, logistics networks, supply chains, and advanced production environments. As these technologies are deployed more broadly, they are not only improving productivity and efficiency but also redefining how and where economic value is created. Leadership in robotics will determine which countries control the next generation of manufacturing, how resilient industrial systems are to disruption, and how effectively nations compete in an increasingly technology-driven global economy and geopolitical landscape.
The competitive challenge posed by the People's Republic of China underscores the urgency of this moment. Through coordinated industrial policy, sustained state-backed investment, and deliberate efforts to scale domestic production, China is working to establish dominance across key segments of the robotics and advanced manufacturing ecosystem. This approach is designed not only to capture market share, but also to create long-term dependencies that can weaken domestic U.S. industries and constrain the ability of U.S. firms to compete globally.
For the United States, the stakes are both economic and strategic. Ensuring that robotics systems are developed, manufactured, and deployed within a resilient and trusted industrial ecosystem will be critical to maintaining long-term competitiveness and national security. This requires aligning innovation with deployment, strengthening domestic manufacturing capacity, securing supply chains, and supporting a workforce capable of operating and scaling these technologies. It also requires recognizing that deployment itself is a source of competitive advantage, shaping the data, experience, and market position that define leadership in this domain.
With deliberate and coordinated action, Congress can help ensure that robotics and physical AI strengthen U.S. industrial capacity rather than erode it. A clear policy framework that supports domestic production, accelerates deployment, and reinforces trusted supply chains will position the United States to lead in the next generation of manufacturing and compete effectively in a rapidly evolving global landscape. AUVSI and its members stand ready to work with Congress and federal agencies to advance that effort.
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Original text here: https://republicans-science.house.gov/_cache/files/4/d/4de5c690-938f-4d16-a9bc-077f69b65403/6B2EA35B4358D67F144AC9B48CFCEB5D39E4A7EBF4170430E3D0CB5745B73377.04.21.26-robotics-hearing-testimony---mr.-michael-robbins.pdf
Acting Principal Deputy Under Secretary of VA for Benefits Sirhal Testifies Before House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs released the following testimony by Tim Sirhal, acting principal deputy under secretary of Veterans Affairs for benefits, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Examining VA Benefits: Pension and Fiduciary, and VA Life Insurance Options":* * *
Chairman Luttrell, Ranking Member McGarvey, and other Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to discuss the administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pension, Fiduciary, and Insurance programs within the Veterans ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, May 1 -- The House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs released the following testimony by Tim Sirhal, acting principal deputy under secretary of Veterans Affairs for benefits, from an April 21, 2026, hearing entitled "Examining VA Benefits: Pension and Fiduciary, and VA Life Insurance Options": * * * Chairman Luttrell, Ranking Member McGarvey, and other Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for inviting us to discuss the administration of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Pension, Fiduciary, and Insurance programs within the VeteransBenefits Administration. Joining me is Ms. Jennifer Bover, Executive Director, Pension and Fiduciary Service, Veterans Benefits Administration. VA takes the protection of our most vulnerable beneficiaries very seriously, and we are grateful for the opportunity to share with the Subcommittee our commitment to safeguarding those served by these programs.
Pension Program
Pension is a tax-free, income-based monthly benefit paid to eligible Veterans or survivors of Veterans. Pension also considers non-service-connected disabilities for Veterans, net worth, wartime service, and in the case of survivors, dependency requirements. Pension payments are designed to supplement a beneficiary's income by helping with daily living expenses and improving overall quality of life.
Continued eligibility for Pension is regularly assessed to ensure the accurate payment of benefits. VA relies on Federal data sharing agreements and information reported by beneficiaries to ensure payment accuracy. Once benefits are approved, VA continues to use this information to adjust benefits in a timely manner and avoid overpayments.
VA is committed to working with beneficiaries to provide a better understanding of the Pension program. Specific efforts include improvements to forms, letters, and customer experience by providing an electronic submission method through VA.gov for certain claims. Over the past year, we have also made significant progress in modernizing and accelerating the processing of Pension claims. Since January 20, 2025, the average processing time for Veterans Pension claims and Survivors Pension claims has been reduced by 113 days and 99 days, respectively. As of March 31, 2026, it is currently taking approximately 57 days to complete a Veterans Pension claim and 73 days to complete a Survivors Pension claim.
Fiduciary Program
VA's Fiduciary Program protects over 104,300 Veterans and other beneficiaries who are unable to manage their own VA benefit payments because of injury, disease, advanced age, or being under the age of majority. VA protects these vulnerable beneficiaries by appointing and overseeing fiduciaries who manage a beneficiary's VA benefits. The VA Fiduciary Program has undergone significant modernization focused on expediting processes while ensuring the well-being of beneficiaries remains protected.
These modernization efforts include improvements to letters, technology, and overall customer experience. Examples include sending automated annual written contact letters to every beneficiary in the program to remind them of their rights and that a Fiduciary is managing their VA payments; the August 2020 release of the Fiduciary Accountings Submission Tool, which streamlines the review of financial documents; and the establishment of a dedicated Fiduciary Contact Center, which has handled all fiduciaryrelated calls since April 2024.
VALife Insurance
VA administers and provides oversight of several life insurance programs that provide financial security for Service members, Veterans, and their families. Programs that are open to new applicants include Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (SGLI), Family Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance (FSGLI), Servicemembers' Group Life Insurance Traumatic Injury Protection (TSGLI), Veterans' Group Life Insurance (VGLI), and Veterans Affairs Life Insurance (VALife). Prudential administers SGLI, FSGLI, TSGLI, and VGLI under contract with VA. VA administers all other insurance programs available to Veterans, including VALife.
Established under P.L. 116-315, VA launched VALife on January 1, 2023, as a guaranteed acceptance whole life insurance program for Veterans with service-connected disabilities aged 80 and under. The maximum amount of coverage per applicant was and remains at $40,000, with lesser amounts available in $10,000 increments.
VALife is a self-funded program for service-connected Veterans who may have difficulty obtaining commercial life insurance coverage due to their medical conditions.
When implementing VALife, a key objective for VA was to provide a streamlined application process for Veterans. VALife applications take an average of 11 minutes to complete, and more than 90% of all applications are fully automated.
VA is proud to share that implementation of the VALife program has been a tremendous success. As of March 1, 2026, there are 78,053 active accounts totaling $2.5 billion in coverage. On January 1, 2025, policyholders first became eligible to receive full coverage following their initial waiting period, and VA has paid out 269 such claims. While VA is always looking for ways to improve, customer satisfaction with VALife has been strong. According to VSignals, a survey and data analytics tool that collects and analyzes customer experience data and insights, VALife has an average survey score of 4.53/5 for new insurance applications, which means 82.6% of respondents are highly satisfied.
Service recovery efforts have shown that Veterans who were not highly satisfied primarily indicated two primary concerns: that VA does not offer enough coverage, or that the cost of coverage was too high. In response, Insurance Service has focused on increasing education around the differences between whole life and term life coverage to help Veterans make informed decisions.
Conclusion
Chairman Luttrell, Ranking Member McGarvey, and Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for your oversight of these critical programs and for the opportunity to testify today. I look forward to your questions.
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Original text here: https://docs.house.gov/meetings/VR/VR09/20260421/119185/HHRG-119-VR09-Wstate-SirhalT-20260421.pdf
Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy Sutton Testifies Before House Armed Services Subcommittee
WASHINGTON, April 30 -- The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation released the following testimony by Katherine Sutton, Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy and Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of War, from an April 21, 2026, hearing on Cyber Posture:* * *
Chairman Bacon, Ranking Member Khanna, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to testify to discuss the Department of War's (DoW) cyber posture and how we intend to operationalize the Department's priorities in cyberspace. I am pleased to testify ... Show Full Article WASHINGTON, April 30 -- The House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation released the following testimony by Katherine Sutton, Assistant Secretary of War for Cyber Policy and Principal Cyber Advisor to the Secretary of War, from an April 21, 2026, hearing on Cyber Posture: * * * Chairman Bacon, Ranking Member Khanna, and distinguished members of the Committee, thank you for the invitation to testify to discuss the Department of War's (DoW) cyber posture and how we intend to operationalize the Department's priorities in cyberspace. I am pleased to testifyalongside the new Commander of U.S. Cyber Command (USCYBERCOM), General Rudd; his immense experience especially in the Indo-Pacific theater will prove invaluable as we posture to implement the priorities outlined in the National Defense Strategy (NDS).
In my role as the Assistant Secretary of War (ASW) for Cyber Policy and the Principal Cyber Advisor (PCA) to the Secretary of War, I oversee the Department's cyberspace operations policy and work with USCYBERCOM and the Services to ensure our cyber forces are organized, trained, and equipped to meet the ongoing and emerging threats to our nation. I come to this role with more than two decades of experience advancing our national security interests in the cyber domain, and from my time as a professional staff member, I have a deep appreciation for the importance of Congressional oversight. I look forward to a close and continuing partnership with the Committee to ensure we maintain the world's most elite cyber force, capable of achieving the President's vision of securing peace through strength.
Threat Environment
Cyberspace remains central to our way of life, proving essential for communication, global connectivity, economic prosperity, and innovation. As many of you are aware, the cyberspace domain is also defined by persistent, sophisticated, and aggressive cyberspace campaigns waged by malicious actors, including nation-states and criminal organizations. In cyberspace, this means we must operate every day to defend the Homeland and seek to continuously shape the battlespace on our terms.
Artificial Intelligence:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fundamentally reshaping the strategic environment by acting as a powerful force multiplier to increase the speed, scale, and sophistication of cyberspace operations. This is both an opportunity and a challenge. This is a decisive era where first movers who rapidly adopt AI will achieve comparative and competitive advantages over fast followers. Already, we are witnessing the advent of AI-enabled cyber effects and must seize the initiative to adopt, integrate, and leverage AI to its full potential across the range of cyber operations - to outpace our adversaries who seek to employ AI for asymmetric gain across our free and open society.
In the last six months alone, industry threat analysis has demonstrated that threat actors in China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are operationalizing AI for cyber. In February 2026, Google reported that threat actors are leveraging Gemini for all stages of the cyberspace operations lifecycle. It is imperative we adopt and integrate frontier AI at speed, putting the tools of AI into the hands of our cyber warriors to defend sovereign interests, deny adversary freedom of maneuver in cyberspace, and defeat malicious cyber effects that hamper Joint Force primacy, mobilization, or operational impunity.
As we integrate AI into critical infrastructure and national security systems, we must also prioritize securing AI models and the underlying "AI stack" from attack and misuse. AI models are vulnerable to compromise at every point in their supply chains, from the potential poisoning of initial training data to the manipulation of final deployment. As we adopt AI, we must ensure the security of models, agents, and data are assured. A multi-layered approach is necessary to build trustworthy and resilient AI that enhances human-machine teaming to meet the complexities of AI-enabled cyber warfare.
As we focus on building domain mastery in our cyber force, AI will allow us to economize and automate cyber activities in lower risk areas that cyber warriors currently do - and refocus cyber warriors on the exquisite, specialized skills they require to achieve mission agility for the cyber battlespace.
China:
China represents the most significant and multifaceted cyber challenge to the United States. Far beyond traditional espionage, China's cyber strategy focuses on the pre-positioning of disruptive capabilities within our most sensitive critical infrastructure. This marks a strategic shift from traditional cyber espionage, indicating preparation for potential future conflict by enabling China to disrupt military logistics, delay deployments, and exploit dependencies that DoW, our national security enterprise, and economic centers of gravity rely on.
Two distinct but equally concerning hacking groups that are state-sponsored by China, Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, have executed tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs) to that end - with broad implications. Their persistence, even after discovery, poses significant challenges to vulnerability assessments, mitigation, eradication, and resiliency efforts due to the magnitude of cyber exploits across the shared critical infrastructure space between the public and private sector. The sophistication of these cyberspace operations, which include exploiting both known and zero-day vulnerabilities, exemplifies the undeterred nature of China's state-sponsored intent, capability, and capacity in this domain.
China continues to invest heavily in its technology sector and cyber workforce and will leverage AI, its command over its technology sector, and its talent base to accelerate and scale capabilities to conduct cyberspace operations against U.S. critical infrastructure and government networks. China will not waver in its strategic commitment to developing capability to project power and achieve its geopolitical objectives through sustained and sophisticated cyberspace operations that traverse traditional notions of sovereign borders.
Russia:
Russia remains a formidable cyber adversary, adept at integrating its digital capabilities with military operations and geopolitical coercion. Russia employs a range of cyberspace operations, from espionage to cyber-enabled influence campaigns, to project power and sow discord within the United States and against our allies and partners. While Russia's cyber efforts are heavily focused on its military operations in Ukraine, it persistently maintains campaigns against North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) members.
These operations serve not only to destabilize and gather intelligence but also to refine Russia's cyber warfare tactics. Although enhanced cyber defenses in Ukraine, supported by the United States and private sector partners, have successfully mitigated some of the most destructive attacks on Ukraine's critical infrastructure since the invasion began, the threat remains potent.
It is imperative that the United States and its allies and partners continue to strengthen collective defense and increase burden-sharing to counter Russia's malicious activities in cyberspace.
Other Malicious Actors:
In addition to China and Russia, a diverse array of additional state and non-state actors leverage cyberspace to threaten U.S. interests. Despite the setback to the Iranian regime caused by prior and ongoing U.S. and Israeli military operations, Iran continues to employ its cyber capabilities to target the United States and our regional allies and partners. In addition to amplifying anti-Western sentiment, Iran regularly uses proxies and front companies and has demonstrated a continued capability to maintain a breadth of simultaneous, campaign-like cyberspace operations to further its regional political and military objectives. Noting current operations, it remains to be seen the impact that Operation EPIC FURY will have on the regime's employment of cyber operations against the United States and key allies and partners in the region.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) uses its cyber program as a critical economic tool, primarily to fund its weapons programs through large-scale cryptocurrency theft.
According to Chainalysis information, in 2025, DPRK hackers stole more than $2 billion worth of cryptocurrency, bringing the cumulative amount of cryptocurrency assets it has stolen to over $6 billion. The DPRK can additionally raise funds by embedding IT workers within global firms. The DPRK has successfully leveraged AI to create convincing fake identities, thereby bypassing security and gaining insider access to Western firms.
Concurrently, the cybercrime ecosystem has rapidly industrialized, posing a significant threat to U.S. critical infrastructure. The proliferation of Ransomware-as-a-Service (RaaS) has lowered the barrier to entry for less-skilled criminals, allowing them to lease sophisticated malware and execute highly targeted strikes against high-value organizations. This evolution has shifted the landscape from opportunistic attacks to precise, damaging intrusions. Furthermore, the weaponization of AI is a growing concern across the spectrum of these threat actors, as it enables the automated development of malware, more effective victim selection, and the creation of hyper-realistic phishing campaigns that are increasingly difficult to detect.
Role of the ASW Cyber Policy & Principal Cyber Advisor
The Assistant Secretary of War (ASW) for Cyber Policy is assigned by statute, Title 10, U.S. Code (U.S.C.) Section 138(b)(9) (10 U.S.C. Sec.138(b)(9)), to have as a principal duty "the overall supervision of policy of the Department of [War] for cyber," and as such is responsible for advancing the Department's strategic priorities in cyberspace. A key element of this responsibility is building a cohesive strategy for the Department in cyberspace; we work in close collaboration with other DoW components, our interagency partners, and a growing network of technology partners to take a collaborative approach to ensuring the Department's enduring advantages in cyberspace.
In addition to establishing the principal duty of the ASW for Cyber Policy, 10 U.S.C. Sec.138(b)(9) also designates the ASW for Cyber Policy as the Principal Cyber Advisor (PCA) to the Secretary of War. As the PCA to the Secretary of War, the ASW for Cyber Policy, as provided in 10 U.S.C. Sec.392a, is responsible for the overall integration of Cyber Operations Forces activities relating to cyberspace operations, including associated policy and operational considerations, resources, personnel, technology development and transition, and acquisition; and as provided in 10 U.S.C. Sec.167b, exercises authority, direction, and control over the Commander of USCYBERCOM, with respect to the administration and support of USCYBERCOM, including readiness and organization of Cyber Operations Forces, cyber operations-peculiar equipment and resources, and civilian personnel, but does not exercise authority, direction, and control of operational matters that are subject to the operational chain of command of the combatant commands or with respect to personnel, resources, equipment, and other matters that are not cyber-operations peculiar and that are in the purview of the armed forces.
After completing a review of the organization during my first 90 days, I have re-focused the priorities and organization of my office to strengthen strategic oversight of cyberspace operations, improving accountability and policy execution across the Department.
To adapt to the evolving threat environment, we have refined our office by prioritizing engagements with industry to advance our competitive edge through innovative capabilities.
This focus is especially critical at the intersection of AI and cyberspace operations, which presents both profound opportunities and significant risks. We are committed to working with our partners at the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) and the Chief Information Office (CIO) to ensure that the Department stays ahead of adversary threats by integrating frontier AI capabilities urgently, yet with the appropriate safeguards. We are ready to implement the Department's AI Acceleration Strategy to incorporate frontier AI into every mission area to preserve military dominance.
Priorities & Strategic Vision to Implement the National Defense Strategy
The release of the 2026 National Defense Strategy (NDS) makes clear the Department's prioritization of achieving peace through strength by defending the U.S. Homeland, deterring China in the Indo-Pacific region through strength not confrontation, increasing burden sharing with allies and partners to address the myriad of threats facing the United States, and supercharging the defense industrial base. To meet the challenges of this era and to implement the strategic direction of the Department outlined in the NDS, my office is focused on three core priorities that will guide our efforts and investments. These priorities--Integrate Across All Domains, Gain Strategic Advantage in Cyberspace, and Organize to Dominate--are designed to ensure the Department's preparedness to deter conflict, protect our national interests, and win our nation's wars.
Integrate Across All Domains:
First, we must Integrate Across All Domains. Cyber is no longer a separate operational domain; it is the connective tissue of all-domain warfare. Cyberspace operations can achieve strategic effects without boots on the ground. It can disrupt adversary decision-making and create windows of opportunity for the Joint Force to exploit. Our objective is to seamlessly integrate and leverage cyber forces and capabilities across every warfighting domain to complement kinetic effects through non-kinetic options that buy down risk to mission and forces in conflict. The Department must continue to build our capabilities in cyberspace to provide the President and the Secretary increased optionality across the conflict continuum - options to respond to adversary threats in crisis so the United States can negotiate from a position of strength and ensure the Joint Force has every advantage in conflict to fight and win our nation's wars. There is no better example than what the U.S. military achieved in Venezuela by layering multiple effects to accomplish the mission with zero American lives lost.
We are building a cohesive cyber strategy that translates NDS priorities into activities and warfighting concepts that deliver lethal advantage. Success requires outmaneuvering and outpacing our adversaries in cyberspace while complementing the full suite of non-kinetic and kinetic capabilities in the U.S. arsenal. This cannot be done by the government alone. We are cultivating outcome-focused partnerships with increased burden sharing from our allies and partners, and with industry to generate measurable capability gains and ensure our collective defense.
Gain Strategic Advantage in Cyberspace:
Second, we must deny our adversaries freedom of movement in cyberspace. Our adversaries are persistently targeting our military, government networks, data and devices, defense industrial base (DIB), and critical infrastructure, and we will not let these actions go unchallenged. To do this, we will render our mission-essential networks as hostile terrain. This is the way we will secure our networks, through a whole-of-government effort and deep partnerships with the private sector. We will drive mission effectiveness by rapidly deploying cutting-edge technologies and delivering advanced cyber capabilities to our Combatant Commanders at the speed and scale required to deter and deny aggression, with a particular focus on the Indo-Pacific region.
However, a resilient defense, while one of the bare necessities, is only the foundation. A purely defensive posture is no longer sufficient in the current threat environment. To secure our interests, we must empower our world-class cyber operators across the full spectrum of cyber operations, signaling our resolve to contest active aggression in cyberspace that threatens U.S interests, our national security, and our way of life. We will enable our Combatant Commanders with a wider range of options that will be fully integrated with all other instruments of national power. Ultimately, our willingness to project power in and through cyberspace is essential to achieving peace through strength that will enable the Nation to preserve stability, U.S. military comparative advantage, and our national interests in an increasingly contested domain.
Organize to Dominate:
Third, we must Organize to Dominate. Our strategies are only as effective as the force that executes them. We are laser focused on forging a world-class cyber force capable of delivering superior lethality and warfighting outcomes. Through precise force design, generation, development, and employment, we are building a team of the most talented cyber operators in the world. This involves not only recruiting, training, and retaining elite talent, but also cultivating a culture of domain mastery, building specialized skills, and driving the mission agility required to deliver outcomes at the speed of cyber. True domain dominance requires us to translate this mission agility into action by shifting to a more dynamic force employment model, one where we can create and deploy purpose-built teams to meet any mission need.
Ultimately, these priorities work in concert to achieve a clear end state: to build and sustain robust cyber capabilities that enable the President and the Secretary of War to deter war, gain strategic advantage, defend our networks, and defeat adversary aggression, consistent with the NDS.
Private Sector Capability & Development:
To maintain our nation's competitive advantage in an era of accelerating strategic rivalry, our defense enterprise must be postured to move at the speed of innovation, not the speed of bureaucracy. This is especially true in the cyber domain, where the private sector is leading the way in developing the disruptive technologies that will define the future battlefield. The 2026 NDS clearly articulate that our current acquisition and development systems are too slow and must be reformed to keep pace with the rapid technological advancements emerging from the private sector.
We must continue to champion and implement historic acquisition reforms that cut red tape, empower program leaders, and lower the barriers for commercial and non-traditional companies to contribute to our national security. By prioritizing the adoption of commercial-off-the-shelf solutions and streamlining the cumbersome requirements process, we will ensure the Department is a preferred option for innovators and that we deliver cutting-edge capabilities to the warfighter on a timeline that is relevant to the threat, not one dictated by rigid processes that buy-down rather than accept risk.
Looking Ahead
Our People - Forging a More Lethal Force with CYBERCOM 2.0:
As I recently testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee Cybersecurity Subcommittee, for several years, the Department has recognized that our approach to building cyber talent has not been keeping pace with the rapidly evolving and increasingly contested cyberspace domain. This misalignment has created significant challenges for the Department in recruiting the right people with the right aptitude and skillsets, retaining our most skilled and experienced operators in the face of lucrative private-sector opportunities, and providing the specialized, agile training needed to win against our nation's adversaries.
To address these systemic challenges, last fall the Secretary of War approved CYBERCOM 2.0, a fundamental reimagining of how the Department builds and manages our cyber forces. As he stated during his remarks at the Reagan National Defense Forum in December 2025, this represents the most comprehensive overhaul of USCYBERCOM since its inception 15 years ago. This initiative is not merely an incremental adjustment, but a deliberate and comprehensive overhaul designed to deliver greater operational outcomes for the Joint Force. CYBERCOM 2.0 efficiently synchronizes Commander, USCYBERCOM's authorities, as provided in 10 U.S.C. Sec.167b, with the authorities and activities of the Military Departments. The core principles of mastery, specialization, and agility are indispensable for meeting our strategic objectives, irrespective of which organizational model ultimately emerges. At its core, CYBERCOM 2.0 is founded on these three fundamental principles that will drive the Department's cyber forces for years to come.
CYBERCOM 2.0 is the beginning of a necessary journey to build the cyber forces our nation demands. As a cornerstone of the Department's broader strategy, we will leverage this effort to re-imagine our cyber force design and employment models to deliver decisive operational outcomes for the Joint Force. At its heart, CYBERCOM 2.0 is a commitment to our cyber warriors, providing them with the careers, training, and support they deserve. By addressing critical force generation challenges, CYBERCOM 2.0 will significantly increase the lethality and effectiveness of our cyber forces. Its purpose extends beyond cyberspace; it is a critical Joint Force capability that must be integrated across all warfighting domains, sending a clear message to our adversaries of our commitment to maintaining cyber superiority in support of our national interests.
Department of War Cyber Strategy & Action Plan:
To guide our efforts and ensure we are postured for the challenges of tomorrow, my office is leading the development of the 2026 Department of War Cyber Strategy and accompanying Action Plan. The singular objective of this strategy is to deliver the most capable, lethal, and agile cyber force in the world. This force will provide the President and the Secretary of War with a full range of options to deter conflict, achieve strategic advantage, defend our critical networks, and, if necessary, defeat adversary aggression decisively. This strategy will be fully aligned with the 2025 National Security Strategy, the 2026 National Defense Strategy, and President Donald J. Trump's forthcoming Cyber Strategy for America, ensuring our departmental efforts are nested within a clear, national vision, and move to action on NDS imperatives. Upon release, I welcome the opportunity to brief and partner with Congress on its implementation.
Conclusion
As I conclude, I would be remiss if I did not recognize the nexus of special operations and cyberspace operations. The synergy between these two communities is a powerful example of the future, creating an asymmetric advantage by presenting our adversaries with compounding dilemmas in both the physical and virtual worlds.
This partnership is critical because we are facing an unprecedented revolution in the speed and character of warfare. Cyberspace is our adversaries' preferred attack surface now and for the foreseeable future, and the 2026 NDS's imperatives highlight the exigency of this threat.
Therefore, our response must be equally revolutionary. We must re-orient the entire cyber enterprise--our force design, force generation, and force employment--by integrating AI and shedding a purely defensive posture to seize the initiative. Our approach must be grounded in harnessing the engine of American industry, embedding lead-angle innovation directly into our operational architectures to secure our warfighting advantage.
Let there be no doubt: the Department of War's commitment to the defense of the nation is absolute. We have a solemn duty to ensure our Joint Force is equipped to dominate across all phases of conflict, to deter harm, and, when demanded, be prepared to answer any aggression with strength and resolve.
We will act as responsible stewards of the authorities you have entrusted to us, and I want to emphasize that the support of this Committee is not just appreciated, but it is fundamental to our mission success. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
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Editor's note: President Trump, by executive order on Sept. 5, 2025, said he wanted to call the Department of Defense the Department of War. However, only an act of Congress can change the name of the agency, and Congress has not acted. Targeted News Service will use the designations presented on the agency website going forward.
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Original text here: https://armedservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2026-04-21_sutton_testimony.pdf