Ranking Member Courtney's Opening Statement (As Delivered) at Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee

WASHINGTON D.C. -- Today, Congressman Joe Courtney delivered the following opening statement at the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing on the Navy's FY25 budget. Watch the remarks here.

Thank you, Chairman Kelly.

Again, I want to thank our witnesses - Assistant Secretary Guertin, Vice Admiral Pitts, and Lieutenant General Heckl - for being with us today. We had an opportunity to speak together recently and I thank you for your engagement ahead of today's hearing.

The Fiscal Responsibility Act, which passed in May 2023 to avert a default on the full faith and credit of our nation's currency and bonds, mandated a one percent increase in the Department of Defense's budget request for Fiscal Year 2025.

Given what's going on in the world, this is a very tight cap, and has created tremendous downward pressure on all the services, including the Navy and Marine Corps. At a time when there is a strong consensus about the need to strengthen our maritime and expeditionary forces, our subcommittee has perhaps its most difficult task in years.

It is important to note, however, at the outset of this hearing that the Navy's shipbuilding and conversion account cuts even deeper than the FRA's mandated budget cap. To be clear, the Navy's shipbuilding procurement request is not for only a 1 percent increase - rather it decreases that line item by 3.4 percent from the Fiscal Year 2024 enacted level that President Biden just signed into law last month.

This request includes six battle force ships, a sharp deviation from last year's Future Years Defense Plan and 30 Year Shipbuilding Plan. At the same time, 1[0] battle force ships are being decommissioned. Of particular note, it seeks to reduce procurement of the Virginia Class submarine program from 13 consecutive years of steady, two per year cadence, down to just one submarine in FY25.

This decision to cut procurement in the Virginia program contradicts our own combatant commanders that have emphasized the need for more attack submarines to deter the intensifying threats in the undersea domain. During our posture hearings in the last month, we have consistently heard from Combatant Commanders from INDOPACOM, EUCOM, and NORTHCOM -- Admiral Aquilino, General Cavoli, and General Guillot -- that their requirements for attack submarines are far higher beyond the number of boats in the Navy's inventory.

Equally concerning is that Congress has already appropriated in the last two budgets nearly 1 billion dollars in Advance Procurement for the second submarine that the Navy now seeks to eliminate. This unexpected change in demand signal has, and will, cause serious reverberations throughout the industrial base and friends overseas who, based on my conversations in those arenas, are frankly incredulous. I've already shared these concerns with you, and we will explore that in further depth today.

The Navy's public justification for dropping a submarine is that the sizable investments in the submarine industrial base known as the SIB in the budget will offset its cut in procurement and fleet size. As a member who has secured congressional increases in the SIB starting in 2018, I wholly support the Navy's embrace of that effort. However, I reject the ivory tower theory that SIB investment is a substitute for a consistent demand signal for orders and business. The two enterprises have to occur in tandem.

Over the Easter break, I had the opportunity to meet with several supply chain companies and the message was clear - submarine industrial base investments, as welcome as they are, don't pay the bills and are particularly for those firms that don't qualify for SIB assistance.

It is important to remember that cutting procurement going back to the 1990s is precisely the reason why the submarine industrial base has eroded over the last 30 years. Indeed, Under Secretary Robert LaPlante testified to that point before the Armed Services Committee a few weeks ago.

The decades of financial trauma the industrial base has experienced due to the Navy's consistently inconsistent procurement profiles is still deeply seared in the supply chain companies and metal trades unions that represent the welders, electricians, machinists, and pipefitters that are hard at work today as we sit in this committee room.

Mr. Chair, I request unanimous consent to enter into the record two letters from the International Association of Machinists and the Metal Trades Department of the AFL-CIO that was addressed to President Biden urging that we sustain the two-per-year procurement of the Virginia Class submarine program.

Mr. Chairman, I will end my remarks on a positive note which is that as someone who visits the shipyards on a frequent basis, who goes to the job training programs, who goes to the trade schools, who goes to the comprehensive high schools that are expanding career pathways in the metal trades, that goes to the job fairs, to me what I see is that our industrial base is recovering from COVID , that the numbers are going up, that the retention is going up, and the output is going up. Again, this chart which I brought with me shows that four Virginia class submarines have been delivered over a 14-month period starting last year with Rickover, Mr. Norcross' USS New Jersey, the Iowa, and the Massachusetts by the end of this calendar year. And USS Idaho was just [christened] a few weeks ago which Mr. Guertin was present for that.

This is not a stagnating industrial base, it is an industrial base that took a big hit during COVID like all of shipbuilding, but it is not stagnating, it is recovering and the hiring and the quality of the deliveries in terms of both Rickover and New Jersey were almost at the highest level over the whole course of the Virginia program.

So, again, I think we should be looking forward and not dwelling too much on the past in terms of what's needed which our combatant commanders have articulated to us and again we look forward to working with the witnesses over the coming days and weeks to get a good mark so that we can allow that positive momentum to proceed forward.

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