Ranking Member Joe Courtney

Opening Statement (As Prepared)

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Thank you, Chairman Kelly. Before we get started, I want to congratulate you for your outstanding leadership of this subcommittee, which has such a long history of bipartisan and cooperation. Indeed, from 1817 until 1947 the rules of the US House codified the Committee on Naval Affairs as a free-standing committee, which did great things for our country. I think you and all the members of the subcommittee are their heirs of that important legacy to advance and safeguard our nation’s maritime place in the world.

Mr. Chairman, I strongly support this mark, which builds on the steady increased investment, which this subcommittee has enacted over the last decade, in shipbuilding, sealift, and airlift. Once again, the shipbuilding account is $300 million higher than last year’s Fiscal Year 2023 level, which was the highest topline in US history.
   
Our mark recommends the authorization of 10 battle force ships with a strong emphasis on recapitalizing our undersea fleet. It authorizes a total of $16.5 billion in submarine procurement – continuing the two per year procurement cadence of the Virginia-class program and the first tranche of incremental funding for the second boat in the Columbia-class ballistic submarine program – the USS Wisconsin. As we have heard repeatedly from the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy – this program is te number one acquisition priority in the budget.

In order to speed up the production of Wisconsin, our mark makes prudent adjustments to the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund by adding additional components authorized for multiyear procurement. For the record, our panel created this multiyear authority in 2015 to reduce pressure on the Navy’s shipbuilding account and save taxpayer dollars, which we now know totals hundreds of millions of dollars.

The mark authorizes new multiyear procurement authority for the Virginia-class program, supporting the procurement of up to 13 Block VI Virginia-class submarines This proposal, coupled with unprecedented workforce and supplier development investments, sends a definitive message to our nation's industrial base, in the wake of the pandemic, that we are fully committed to restore the two per year production level and beyond. This is an especially crucial time as we strive to bolster our capabilities to meet our domestic needs and simultaneously support the trilateral AUKUS agreement to provide Australia with a conventionally-armed, nuclear-powered submarine program.

This mark also reflects bipartisan frustration with the Navy’s lack of clarity on our amphibious warship requirements. The budget paused amphib procurement despite the fact that Congress provided $250 million for advance procurement of this ship in last year’s NDAA. This goes against the requirement that this subcommittee authorized last year to have an inventory of at least 31 amphibious ships. Our mark will recommend the restoration of LPD-33, expressing clear congressional intent in support the statutory requirement of 31 amphibious warfare ships.

Our mark also exercises the independent judgment of our members and our expert staff regarding ship retirements. Specifically, the mark prohibits the decommissioning of 3 Whidbey Island-class dock landing ships and 2 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers before their expected service life. As Chairman Kelly can attest, these were not random decisions but rather the result of deliberate work by our staff to find the best value for the Navy and the taxpayer.

Finally, I remain frustrated with the Navy and Maritime Administration’s prioritization of used vessel acquisition to meet sealift requirements in a time of increased uncertainty of availability on the commercial market. I am increasingly concerned that the used market is insufficient to meet our needs, which is why our mark requires the Department of Transportation to provide an assessment on the availability of used commercial vessels over the next 5 years to provide this subcommittee with accurate data to assess the Navy’s request.

At the end of this month, the Philly Shipyard will celebrate the christening of the State-Class Training Ship, EMPIRE STATE, the first ship in the National Security Mutli-Mission Vessel, or NSMV, program. It was this panel that first authorized this program on a bipartisan basis to not just meet mariner training needs, but to invest in our domestic shipyard capacity.

As a result, MARAD and the Philly Shipyard will deliver a new US-built ship that is delivering nearly on time and on budget, thanks to the model this panel initiated in 2016. I firmly believe that we can and must follow this approach in addressing our broader sealift requirements, with a domestic new build program – and I expect to keep working with Chairman Kelly to address this as we move to full committee mark up.  

This mark today could not happen without the tireless work of our subcommittee staff. I want to thank Phil MacNaughton, our minority led, Ian Bennitt, native Nutmegger and majority lead, as well as Kelly Goggin and Ethan Pelissier for their hard work.
 
Thank you, and with that I yield back.