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| And now to a hearing on the Navy's 2025 shipbuilding program, looking at the costs of expanding its fleet of battleships over the next 30 years. | ||
| This hearing held by the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power and Projection Forces. | ||
| If someone will push that door to you, please, we'll get started. | ||
| The subcommittee will come to order. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare a recess at any time without objection so ordered. | ||
| I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Garamindi be allowed to participate in today's hearing after all subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask questions. | ||
| Is there an objection? | ||
| Seeing none, without objection, non-subcommittee members will be recognized at the appropriate time for five minutes. | ||
| Good morning and welcome everyone to the first hearing for the Sea Power and Projection Forces Subcommittee this Congress. | ||
| We have many familiar faces on the subcommittee as well as some new ones. | ||
| I look forward to working with everyone to address pressing national security issues within our jurisdiction. | ||
| Perhaps the biggest issue is the one we are discussing today, which is our struggles with designing and building ships. | ||
| The United States is a maritime nation, and we cannot fulfill our historical role in the maritime domain without our surface ship and submarine fleet. | ||
| Unfortunately, China and our peer competitors have also studied Mahan's work. | ||
| They show the value of maritime strength and have made significant leaps in the size of their commercial fleet as well as their naval strength. | ||
| If we expect to deter or defeat any peer adversary, we must maintain America's command of the world's oceans. | ||
| We have a requirement for 381 ships based on the most recent Battle Force ship assessment and requirement report of 2023. | ||
| Unfortunately, the most recent 30-year shipbuilding plan lays out a path where we wouldn't meet that mark until 2050. | ||
| That plan also makes assumptions on procurement costs and the rate of ship delivery that may no longer be viable. | ||
| The results of last year's 45-day shipbuilding review showed many programs were significantly behind schedule. | ||
| Some of the expected delays are alarming. | ||
| For example, delivery of the Constellation-class frigate is expected to be delayed for three years. | ||
| However, it is unclear what lessons we have learned from that review, and President Trump is right to order another. | ||
| These problems are why I'm so excited about the President's plan to stand up a dedicated shipbuilding office in the White House. | ||
| This is a critical step towards ensuring that shipbuilding remains a national priority and that we take a whole-of-government approach to strengthening our industrial base. | ||
| Interaction is not an option because our shipbuilding struggles are more than just schedule delays. | ||
| Our witnesses from GAO and CBO have published several reports detailing severe cost overruns and extreme increases in unit costs for many programs. | ||
| If this trend continues, we may not be able to recapitalize our fleet without sacrificing other budget priorities. | ||
| To address these challenges, we need more than just small adjustments. | ||
| We need a bold and comprehensive commitment to rebuilding our shipbuilding industrial base. | ||
| That is why I introduced the Bipartisan Ships Act in the 118th Congress and am working to reintroduce it this Congress. | ||
| Investments in modernizing shipyards, strengthening workforce development, and stabilizing supply chains, as outlined in the SHIPS Act, will be a key to ensuring that we can sustain a modern, capable Navy while reducing dependence on foreign suppliers. | ||
| It will also create thousands of good-paying American jobs and strengthen communities. | ||
| To say this plainly, we must act now. | ||
| Whether through changes to our procurement processes, stronger industrial base investments, or cultural shifts within shipbuilding program offices, we need to make these decisions sooner rather than later. | ||
| I look forward to having a frank conversation today and hope that we'll be able to examine our current problem through real transparency. | ||
| Thank you to our witnesses for your participation at the hearing, and I look forward to your testimony. | ||
| I now recognize the Ranking Member Joe Courtney, my friend, for an opening statement. | ||
| Thank you, Mr. Chairman. | ||
| And again, to our witnesses, this is obviously our leadoff hearing, which obviously I think speaks volumes about the priority that this subcommittee gives to this issue and actually the Armed Services Committee as a whole. | ||
| Article 1, Section 8, Clause 13 states: Congress shall provide and maintain the Navy, not the President, not the Navy. | ||
| So, obviously, the opportunity and mandate for us to move forward really rests with the Article I branch of government. | ||
| And again, I agree with Mr. Kelly's sort of strategic description of what we're looking at in terms of the need for strengthening the sea services and expanding the fleet size, whether it's Indo-Paycom, Europe, Northern Command, Southern Command, Central Command. | ||
| The combatant commanders' demand for Navy ships and Coast Guard ships for that matter outstrips obviously the size of the fleet, and we have to do everything we can to expand capacity and accelerate production cadence to meet the moment that's there. | ||
| I have a statement which I'm not going to read all the way through because, again, we have lots of testimony to hear, and I want to give also members an opportunity. | ||
| But I would just note a couple of things reviewing your testimony, which is that this subcommittee has not been a bystander over the last 10 years in terms of real meaningful changes that are happening and helping in terms of cost effectiveness and efficiency in the shipbuilding process. | ||
| The National Sea-Base Deterrence Fund, which again is on the books, created multi-year authorities for the construction of the Columbia-class submarine. | ||
| And again, we have the numbers, which shows the savings that that multi-year process has actually generated. | ||
| And again, the feedback, whether it's from the shipyards or the supply chain, have emphasized over and over again how valuable that change in terms of the procurement process has been in terms of getting what the Navy describes as the most important acquisition program in their portfolio, recapitalizing our ballistic submarine fleet. | ||
| Number two, the submarine industrial base funding, which started in 2018, again, originated on this subcommittee, a recognition by a lot of us who represent shipyards that investing in workforce, supply chain, and facility had to be basically increased outside of just the regular procurement line items. | ||
| The first year we did it in 2018 with Jim Langevin, it was a $20 million plus-up to the Navy's budget. | ||
| There was actually some resistance within the Navy in terms of doing that, but now we're $6 billion into this enterprise, which again has had extremely strong bipartisan results. | ||
| And again, I think that whether it's down in Alabama, where the strategic outsourcing is happening, at Austil Shipyard, now Philadelphia Shipyard is going to be, again, part of this process. | ||
| You can continue watching this on our website, c-span.org. | ||
| We take you live now to Capitol Hill, where Democratic lawmakers are talking about new legislation to help veterans here on C-SPAN. |