Ranking Member Courtney Raises Concerns to Secretary Austin on Consequences of Virginia Class Instability on Industrial Base, AUKUS

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), Ranking Member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, raised concerns to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on the Navy's request for only one Virginia Class submarine in FY25 and how that request will impact the submarine industrial base and AUKUS.

Transcript:

"One of the smartest actions, which Congress and your Department made, was, last year, enacting AUKUS authorities. I want to particularly complement your legislative team who worked with a number of us on the Committee to successfully steer a very complex package into last year's NDAA. As you laid out on page 16 of your testimony, it's not just an aspirational plan- AUKUS is moving out fast on many fronts.

"For example, I had the pleasure to welcome the first three Aussie Naval officers to sub school at the Groton Sub Base in Connecticut, where they learn efficiency in the operation of nuclear powered submarines, a key AUKUS pillar one goal. All three, by the way, graduated in the top five of their class and another 100 of their colleagues are going to be following in their footsteps.

"Mr. Secretary, having been on this Committee for quite a while, it was quite striking to me the amount of focus in your statement on the need to grow and strengthen our nation's defense industrial base. On page 20 of your written testimony, you highlighted the Department's publication last January, the National Defense Industrial Strategy, which was the first for the Department, to its credit, and that report honestly laid out warts and all, all the painful history of neglect of that base, which goes back decades and acknowledged particularly the damage that procurement instability from the Pentagon has done.

"Coming from a district with a submarine shipyard that was decimated by such instability from 1990 to 2010, I could not agree more. Over the past 13 years, however, Congress has led the way to stabilize that yard and other yards and their supply chains with steady two Virginia submarine per-year procurement and the workforce has rebounded from a low of 9,000 to 23,000 today.

"The COVID pandemic did slow down production, and it's undeniable that the recovering pace needs to continue to pick up. But I would note, contrary to the narrative coming out of the Department, starting last fall of 2023, four submarines have been or will be delivered to the Navy by the end of 2024: USS RICKOVER, NEW JERSEY, MASSACHUSETTS and IOWA, and IDAHO and ARKANSAS are slated to be delivered in 2025.

"The supply chain has rebounded as well with Congress' SIB investments going back to 2018. Those investments need to continue,but so does procurement stability. Unfortunately, the 2025 budget plan has injected unexpected new instability by cutting a sub-a direct deviation from last year's FYDP in the Navy Shipbuilding plan. I would argue it also contradicts the National Defense Industrial Base Strategy's warning about the need to maintain procurement stability. As the Wall Street Journal powerfully noted: US submarine technology is a crown jewel of America's military power and a true advantage over a rapidly expanding Chinese naval fleet. Buying only one boat is a terrible signal for capital investment, and it tells adversaries that the US is not serious about rearming. I don't totally buy that last comment, but I would say that having been home since the budget came out, I've talked to supply chain companies who are hitting the pause button on planned investments.

"This has a real ripple effect when that signal shows instability. One of the provisions of the AUKUS authorities that was in the NDAA, section 1352, is something that I think is really at the center of what we did last year, which is that it authorized the President of the United States to certify the sale of three Virginia class submarines starting in 2032, 2035, and 2038. That president has to certify, when that time comes, that those sales are not going to degrade our own fleet. Nobody in this room knows who the next who that president will be after the 2028 election. But to me, I want to make sure that that decision is as easy as possible to make sure that the goal of AUKUS is going to be achieved. Cutting a sub from the inventory, which is what this budget proposal unfortunately does, in my opinion, makes that decision harder.

"We're going to work hard on this Committee and my colleagues are already hard at work in terms of getting requests over to the Appropriations Committee. We did it in 2007, we did it in 2013 under the Obama Administration, and we did it in 2020 under the Trump Administration. Again, I think it is so important for the goal of AUKUS which, again, I think is going to be one of your hallmark achievements, that we maintain procurement and we, as I said, you know, make that decision in the early 2030s as early as possible."

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