Senate Foreign Relations Committee to hold AUKUS hearing with Defense, State department officials

Defense and State department officials will appear before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee next week to testify on the AUKUS security partnership, according to an announcement on the committee's website.

Scheduled for Sept. 6, the hearing will include Mara Karlin, who is serving as the acting deputy under secretary of defense for policy and the assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities.

Jessica Lewis, the assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs and Kin Moy, the principal deputy assistant secretary of state for east Asian and pacific affairs, will also testify before the committee.

The hearing, titled “AUKUS: A Generational Opportunity to Deepen Our Security Partnership with Australia and the United Kingdom,” comes as lawmakers return to Washington from their August recess and resume consideration of annual defense authorization and appropriations bills that include several proposals that will shape the execution of AUKUS.

Legislative provisions moving through Congress include proposals to provide multiyear procurement authority for Block VI Virginia-class submarines, enable the eventual sale of submarines to Australia and grant the U.K. and Australia exemptions from International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR).

A group of GOP lawmakers have also called on the Biden administration to deliver a supplemental spending package to support AUKUS, citing concern for the U.S. submarine industrial base.

In May, both Karlin and Lewis appeared before the House Foreign Relations Committee, with Lewis outlining a new State Department regulatory framework intended to streamline technology transfers under the fledgling security partnership.