The summit brought together Army leaders, government officials and industry representatives to discuss modernization, emerging technology, acquisition and readiness.
Speaking to government and industry leaders, Waksman outlined the broad role of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, known as ASA (IE&E), and how the office supports Army priorities across installations, energy, environment, safety and occupational health. VIEW ORIGINAL
The summit brought together Army leaders, government officials and industry representatives to discuss modernization, emerging technology, acquisition and readiness.
Speaking to government and industry leaders, Waksman outlined the broad role of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, known as ASA (IE&E), and how the office supports Army priorities across installations, energy, environment, safety and occupational health. VIEW ORIGINAL
RESTON, Va. — “Army installations are central to readiness, quality of life and the Army’s ability to project power,” said Dr. Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, during remarks at the 2026 Army Summit on June 18th .
The summit brought together Army leaders, government officials, and industry representatives to discuss modernization, emerging technology, acquisition, and readiness.
Speaking to government and industry leaders, Waksman outlined the broad role of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, known as ASA (IE&E), and how the office supports Army priorities across installations, energy, environment, safety, and occupational health.
“What we’re going to talk about is installation, energy, and environment, and first of all, what do we do all day?” Waksman said. “What are we actually doing?”
Waksman said ASA (IE&E)’s work is tied directly to the Army’s focus on modernization, lethality, readiness, and auditability. The portfolio includes installation infrastructure, housing, partnerships, energy resilience, sustainability, environmental planning, safety, and occupational health.
As part of the discussion on Soldier quality of life, Waksman pointed to ongoing barracks improvement efforts, including the Secretary of War’s Barracks Task Force. He said the Army is focused on making barracks more livable by addressing issues such as mold, aging infrastructure, and broken air conditioning systems.
“We’re getting at how to make the barracks more livable,” Waksman said. “How do you clean the mold? How do you fix air conditioning units?”
He said the Army has put significant resources toward improving barracks across the force and is also looking at new ways to build facilities faster and more efficiently.
Among those efforts are 3D-printed barracks at Fort Bliss, Texas. Waksman said the facilities are already in use there, with additional 3D-printed barracks planned at Fort Bliss and Fort Polk, Louisiana.
“This is the ability to build barracks faster than we had before,” he said.
Waksman said Soldier quality of life is not separate from readiness. Poor living conditions affect morale, readiness, and the Army’s ability to take care of its people.
“The Army is its people,” Waksman said. “We are not our technology. We are people, and so we need to give our people a better quality of life.”
Waksman also highlighted the Army’s efforts to accelerate infrastructure delivery through new contracting approaches. He discussed FORGE, a project at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, designed to bundle multiple smaller infrastructure projects into a single contracting action.
He said the approach could allow the Army to move faster, reduce bureaucracy, and attract contractors capable of executing larger, more complex projects.
“If this is a success, we will look to replicate this FORGE model across the force,” Waksman said.
Energy resilience was another major theme of Waksman’s remarks. He said energy dominance is a major priority, and installations must be able to continue operating during disruptions to the commercial grid.
“We have a recognition that installations are not fortresses unto themselves,” Waksman said. “We are part of the community, the town, the county, the state, and we need to make sure that everybody has that sort of resiliency.”
Waksman said the Army is working to bring more power resources online, not only for military purposes, but also to support broader community and national energy resilience.
As part of that effort, Waksman discussed Janus, the Army’s next-generation nuclear microreactor program. He described Janus as one of his personal priorities and said the Army is preparing to make a major announcement about the program.
“We are bringing next-generation nuclear power to bring energy resilience to our installations,” Waksman said. “You’re going to see some big announcements on Janus coming out in the next few weeks.”
During the question-and-answer portion, Waksman said Janus is intended to help move advanced nuclear energy from individual science projects toward a commercial product that can support military and civilian energy needs.
“This is about transitioning nuclear energy from one-off science projects to an actual commercial product,” he said.
He said long-term success would mean creating a commercial advanced nuclear industry similar to how NASA helped nurture commercial space companies.
“We would like to do the same thing with advanced nuclear,” Waksman said.
When asked whether future reactors could be deployable, Waksman said the Army is starting with installations because they represent the most practical first step. He said the long-term goal is to continue pushing the capability forward.
“The Army’s going to start with the lowest-hanging fruit, which is installations, and provide resilience at places like Fort Bragg and Fort Benning that have critical needs,” he said. “But the intent, if we are successful, is to keep pushing that envelope.”
Waksman also connected energy resilience to contested logistics, particularly in the Indo-Pacific. He said history shows that major conflicts are often decided by logistics and supply chains, not weapons alone.
He said Janus is one part of a broader effort to address energy and logistics challenges, including coordination with the Department of Energy on projects that affect readiness in the Pacific.
The Army is also looking at other ways to use its land and partnerships to support national security priorities. Waksman discussed Army efforts related to data centers and critical minerals, including opportunities for companies to build on Army land in exchange for in-kind consideration, such as computing power, infrastructure improvements, or other services.
Waksman said the Army has already announced data center projects at Fort Bliss and Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. He said those projects could support both national security applications and quality of life by providing the Army access to computing resources.
On the environmental side of the portfolio, Waksman emphasized that environmental work is directly connected to the Army’s ability to train and operate. He said environmental requirements are sometimes misunderstood as separate from readiness, but they can determine whether the Army is able to conduct mission-essential activities.
“The environment is incredibly critical in operating,” Waksman said.
He pointed to training areas in Hawaii as an example, where the Army must balance live-fire training, wildfire risk, and endangered species protections.
“If we can’t do that, we would get shut down by the state of Hawaii,” he said. “It sounds like stuff that is not mission critical, but it’s actually mission critical.”
Waksman also discussed regulatory and policy reform, including the Army’s efforts to improve how it approaches the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process. He said the Army still needs to comply with environmental laws and protect historic and natural resources, but it can do so in a more efficient and sensible way.
“We’re still doing NEPA,” Waksman said. “We still want to be sensitive that we’re not damaging historic things, endangered species. We can do this in a much better way.”
As an example, Waksman referenced a traffic-impact section for the Guam defense system that he said was more than 150 pages long and cost more than $1 million to produce, with a recommendation to add one traffic light.
“We’ve decided that’s kind of stupid, and we’re going to do NEPA in a much more sensible way,” he said.
Waksman also highlighted reforms related to historic preservation. He said the Army has more than 120,000 historic buildings, and recent reforms will allow the Army to preserve historically important structures while giving it more flexibility to renovate, repair, and replace facilities in a cost-effective way.
“This will save us hundreds of millions of dollars a year,” Waksman said.
He also noted the Army is streamlining construction requirements and looking at commercial business practices to improve military construction.
Waksman closed by emphasizing that ASA (IE&E)’s work affects Soldiers, missions, and the future of the Army. “We’re focused on quality of life and mission readiness,” he said. “We’re trying to make real, large, practical impacts to allow us to do things better, cheaper, faster.”
For Waksman, installations remain a critical foundation for Army readiness. From barracks and infrastructure to energy resilience and environmental reform, he said the Army must continue finding practical ways to improve how it builds, powers, sustains, and protects the places where Soldiers live, work, and train.
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