Opening Statement (As Prepared)
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Thank you, Chairman Kelly, and thank you to our panel of witnesses today. All three of our witnesses are accomplished professionals who bring a wealth of experience and knowledge to their portfolios. We all appreciate your service.
As our subcommittee meets today, we are less than four months away from the start of the next fiscal year and the Trump Administration has still failed to send the Congress an actual budget, with the necessary details to fund specific accounts and a five-year defense plan, which is required by law. A 30-year shipbuilding plan, which the law also mandates, should be submitted at the same time as budget submissions. This budget submission is now the latest in history.
As if the lateness wasn’t bad enough, the FY26 Budget Appendix that OMB released last week provided only toplines for accounts – with no funding line breakdown. It did include a requested $20.8 billion for Shipbuilding and Conversion, Navy, or “SCN”, which is a drastic reduction from last year’s FY25 SCN account that, as enacted, appropriated $36.6 billion. The math is simple: the SCN account, as submitted, is $15.7 billion lower.
We are now being told that the reconciliation bill – that still has not been enacted – will backfill this delta, since it included $33 billion for Navy shipbuilding. Only around half of this $33 billion is clearly marked for procurement of vessels that typically fall under SCN.
But how can we really assume that, given the reconciliation bill clearly states the funds can be obligated over a four-year period through September 30, 2029? Further, except for one Virginia-class submarine that the reconciliation bill states will be procured for Fiscal Year 2026, the rest of the Navy ships listed in that legislation have no specific year of procurement. It would be nice if OMB provided Congress with an actual schedule for all the ships listed in that measure, but so far, we have been given nothing.
This discrepancy begs the question of how deeply integrated the reconciliation process is with the Pentagon’s budget and how funding for platforms was prioritized. For example, despite consistently being named the Department’s #1 acquisition priority, the Columbia-class was not included in the reconciliation bill. No strategic rationale or explanation of any kind was provided when HASC was marking up our portion of reconciliation as to why certain platforms were included or excluded.
If the reconciliation shipbuilding was intended to be a one-time defense boost, why is it being used to backfill shortfalls in the president’s budget request?
Bottom-line, as of today, this budget process remains opaque and chaotic, and time is wasting. Last Congress, this committee did some excellent work, studying the shipbuilding industrial base and finding solutions to increase capacity and production cadence. One of the persistent themes we heard from both industry and outside analysis is the critical need for Congress and the Navy to provide procurement stability, so that long-term investments in workforce, facilities, and technology make sense. The uncertainty of this late, piece-meal budget process has had the opposite effect and ultimately leaves everyone guessing.
This panel has a long history of using its authorizing power to create procurement stability with multi-year contracts, robust funding, and timely decision making. We are facing a big challenge this year to achieve those goals, and I know Chairman Kelly, committee members, and I will work toward a sensible mark. Our witnesses today may not be able to fill in all the blanks we are faced with, but I look forward to their insights on their perspective on what the Navy and Marine Corps require.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.