Bill LaPlante, then the Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Acquisition, answers questions after the announcement of the award of the long range strike bomber contract on Oct. 27, 2015. (U.S. Air Force photo/Scott M. Ash)

WASHINGTON: If confirmed as the Pentagon’s top acquisition official, Bill LaPlante’s “day one” priority will be expediting the flow of weapons and equipment to Ukraine, he told lawmakers today.

But during his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, LaPlante highlighted an even more ambitious goal, telling lawmakers multiple times that he hopes to boost existing production lines for munitions and drones that will need to be replenished due to the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.

“I believe we need multiple hot production lines, whether that be munitions, [unmanned aerial systems] and the like,” he said. “They — up by themselves — are a deterrent, and we need to put much more focus on that across the board.”

Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe, the committee’s top Republican, remarked that US munition stocks are already “too low in priority theaters,” and that that the defense industrial base does not have the capacity to replenish key munitions in the allotted timeframe.

“For example, we’re sending thousands of Stingers to Ukraine and we don’t even have a hot production line,” Inhofe said. “Do we need to make some investments this year so we can expand production of key munitions?”

“Yes, we do,” LaPlante said.

LaPlante was announced as President Joe Biden’s pick for the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment job in November, months after Mike Brown, the Defense Innovation Unit head who was previously nominated from the job, dropped out from the running in July.

RELATED: Biden defense nominations: A Disappointing First Year Status Report

However, even though industry has had to wait over a year for a Biden appointee to take the reins of the Pentagon’s acquisition apparatus, LaPlante’s goal of boosting munitions buys could be welcome news for defense companies.

LaPlante did not specify which munitions or drones could see expanded production, but the White House’s previous weapons packages sent to Ukraine may offer hints.

The Biden administration has made the transfer of Javelin anti-tank missiles and shoulder-mounted Stinger air defense systems a major pillar of its security assistance effort to Ukraine. In addition, the administration approved the transfer of 100 armed Switchblade drones — a type of loitering munition made by AeroVironment — as part of an $800 million package to Ukraine announced last week.

The FGM-148 Javelin — made by a Lockheed Martin-Raytheon consortium — is still being bought en masse by the Army, which requested 376 units in fiscal 2022. However, the Raytheon-made Stinger is out of production for US services.

Last week, the two top lawmakers on the House Armed Services Committee sent a letter urging Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to begin development of a new short-range air defense (SHORAD) system that could replace Stinger.

“The committee urges focus on the most rapid possible development, testing, and fielding of a more capable SHORAD system and would favorably consider an appropriate reprogramming request to get this started,” wrote HASC Chairman Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., and the committee’s ranking member Mike Rogers, R-Ala. “We believe this is a matter of the highest urgency.

Outside of Ukraine, LaPlante also spoke about the need to shepherd new technologies from the nascent science and technology stage to production, and to ensure that even existing programs benefit from continued technology updates.

“We do have a lot of initiatives over the last several years — thanks to this committee, using your authorities— to rapidly contract and to do prototypes. That’s very good. We’ve got to get those capabilities rapidly into the weapon systems, and sometimes bridge what they call the valley of death.”