[Senate Hearing 116-645]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


                                                        S. Hrg. 116-645

           UNITED STATES NAVY SHIP AND SUBMARINE MAINTENANCE

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                                SEAPOWER

                                  AND

                            SUBCOMMITTEE ON
                    READINESS AND MANAGEMENT SUPPORT

                                 OF THE

                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                     ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS

                             FIRST SESSION
                               __________

                            DECEMBER 4, 2019
                               __________

         Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
         
         
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                 Available via: http://www.govinfo.gov
                               __________

                    U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
                    
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                      COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                  JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi		JACK REED, Rhode Island
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska			JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
TOM COTTON, Arkansas			KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota		RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JONI ERNST, Iowa			MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina		TIM KAINE, Virginia
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska			ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia			MARTIN HEINRICH, New Mexico
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota		ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona			GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
RICK SCOTT, Florida			JOE MANCHIN, West Virginia
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee		TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri			DOUG JONES, Alabama                
                                                                          
                        John Bonsell, Staff Director
                   Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director

                               __________

                                Seapower

                     DAVID PERDUE, Georgia, Chairman
ROGER F. WICKER, Mississippi		MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
TOM COTTON, Arkansas			JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
JONI ERNST, Iowa			RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
THOM TILLIS, North Carolina		TIM KAINE, Virginia
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri			ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine                
                                     

                    Readiness and Management Support

                    DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska, Chairman
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska			TIM KAINE, Virginia
JONI ERNST, Iowa			JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
DAVID PERDUE, Georgia			MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
MARTHA McSALLY, Arizona			TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
MARSHA BLACKBURN, Tennessee		DOUG JONES, Alabama          
                                     

                            C O N T E N T S

                               __________

                            December 4, 2019

                                                                   Page

United States Navy Ship and Submarine Maintenance................     1

                           Members Statements

Statement of Senator David Perdue................................     1

Statement of Senator Mazie K. Hirono.............................     3

Statement of Senator Tim Kaine...................................     4

Statement of Senator Dan Sullivan................................    51

                           Witness Statements

Geurts, The Honorable James F., Assistant Secretary of the Navy       5
  for Research, Development, and Acquisition; Accompanied by Vice 
  Admiral Thomas J. Moore, USN, Commander, Naval Sea Systems 
  Command.

Maurer, Diana C., Director, Defense Capabilities and Management,     13
  U.S. Government Accountability Office.

Questions for the Record.........................................    77

                                 (iii)

 
           UNITED STATES NAVY SHIP AND SUBMARINE MAINTENANCE

                              ----------                              


                      WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4, 2019

                    United States Senate,  
             Joint Subcommittee on Seapower and    
                        Subcommittee on Readiness  
                            and Management Support,
                               Committee on Armed Services,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 10:00 a.m. in 
room SD-106, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator David 
Perdue (presiding).
    Members present: Senators Perdue, Fischer, Ernst, Sullivan, 
McSally, Hawley, Hirono, Shaheen, Blumenthal, Kaine, King, and 
Jones.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAVID PERDUE

    Senator Perdue. Good morning. The Joint Armed Services 
Subcommittees on Seapower and Readiness and Management Support 
convene this morning to examine Navy ship and submarine 
maintenance.
    We want to welcome our three distinguished witnesses today: 
The Honorable James F. Geurts, Assistant Secretary of the Navy 
for Research, Development, and Acquisition--good morning; Vice 
Admiral Thomas Moore, Commander of Naval Sea Systems Command--
good morning, sir; and Ms. Diana Maurer, Director of Defense 
Capabilities and Management at the Government Accountability 
Office (GAO)--I understand this is your first time testifying, 
so we'll try to be gentle; thank you very much for being here.
    I want to thank Chairman Sullivan and Ranking Members 
Hirono and Kaine for agreeing to hold this hearing jointly. I 
think it makes it much more efficient.
    The operating and support costs that come after a weapon 
system is produced can account for some 70 percent or more of 
the total ownership cost of the lifetime of a major asset. I 
think it's very important for our Subcommittees to work closely 
on sustainment issues, like ship and submarine maintenance, 
together.
    In September, I visited Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard with 
Ranking Member Hirono. She's been after me for the last 2 years 
about this. This is a major issue with her, and she's exactly 
right, not just for that shipyard, but for all shipyards. I 
want to thank Hirono for that invitation. I walked away with a 
better appreciation of many challenges facing our naval 
shipyards, and ship maintenance more broadly.
    As I've dug into this a little bit deeper, I've personally 
got concerns, many of which are highlighted in our witnesses' 
testimony, today, which I look forward to discussing.
    Overall, maintenance delays continue to be a significant 
issue, as the GAO notes, totaling more than 33,000 days across 
fiscal years 2014 through 2019, for aircraft carriers, surface 
ships, and submarines. One effect of these delays is fewer 
ready ships, which places a greater stress on our fleet to meet 
all of its operational demands. For example, according to Ms. 
Maurer's testimony: in fiscal year 2019, maintenance delays 
alone resulted in the Navy losing the equivalent of 19 service 
ships. Of our 292-ship fleet, 19 were not available to 
commanders.
    The ship depot maintenance account also appears to be 
chronically underfunded, with large reprogrammings needed each 
year. In fiscal year 2019, the budget was $9.8 billion. By the 
middle of the year, the Navy announced shortfall of nearly $1 
billion. However, less than $300 million was available to 
address this shortfall, which led to a deferral of nearly $700 
million in maintenance that continue--that, combined with the 
$814 million of the Chief of Naval Operation's (CNO) unfunded 
priority list, resulting in well over a billion dollars of 
unfunded maintenance in the current fiscal year, in 2019. To my 
earlier point on schedule delays, even if the Navy had this 
money, the Navy doesn't seem to have the shipyard capacity 
readily available to handle this incremental work.
    These are challenges the Navy is facing today with a fleet 
of 292 ships. By the end of the fiscal year, the Navy will 
have, hopefully, 301 ships. The fleet is growing, but it's far 
from clear that we can maintain the fleet we have, much less 
the fleet of 301 ships, and let alone a future fleet of 355 
ships.
    It's important to recognize that we did not get into this 
situation overnight, and correcting this underlying issue will 
require a long-term commitment. As highlighted in the 
witnesses' statements, a number of systemic factors need to be 
addressed, including accepting ships with serious deficiencies, 
ship deployments extended beyond planned durations, poor 
facility and equipment conditions, cumbersome contracts, a 
green workforce, and an insufficient drydock capacity.
    Secretary Geurts, the Committee recognized the importance 
of improving accountability for maintenance outcomes and gave 
your position the additional principal duty of sustainment, 
including maintenance, in last year's NDAA. We're looking to 
you for leadership and follow through to restore the balance 
between fleet size and its sustainment.
    There are four specific areas that I look forward to 
discussing today, in partnering with the Navy:
    First, what size Navy can we predictability maintain, now 
and in the future? How do we increase that ability as we 
increase the size of the fleet?
    Second, the implementation of the Navy's $21 billion, 20-
year Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, or SIOP, it is 
clear to me that Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard needs to be 
brought to the 21st Century. Is the SIOP the right plan and its 
implementation being effectively carried out?
    Third, private shipyard capacity and the ability of these 
shipyards to meet the forecasted future surface ship 
maintenance workload.
    Fourth, the extent to which continuing resolutions and 
budget stability affect the ability to plan and execute 
maintenance.
    In conclusion, in this era of great-power competition, 
there's no question that our Navy needs to grow larger and 
become more capable. My fear is that, as the Navy grows, 
maintenance capacity will not keep pace. The end result will be 
a larger fleet, but fewer ships ready for operational tasking.
    I look forward to our witnesses' testimony today and thank 
them again for their attendance.
    In order for opening remarks--the order for opening remarks 
will be Ranking Member Hirono, Chairman Sullivan, when he gets 
back from his Judiciary responsibility of introducing a 
nominee, and then Ranking Member Kaine, and then our witnesses.
    I understand Secretary Geurts will give one opening 
statement on behalf of himself and Admiral Moore. Is that 
correct?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
    Senator Perdue. Thank you.
    With that, we'll get started, and I recognize Ranking 
Member, Senator Hirono.

              STATEMENT OF SENATOR MAZIE K. HIRONO

    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your very 
complete opening statement. I thank you and Chair Sullivan for 
holding this hearing.
    Of course, I want to thank all of the witnesses joining us 
today. We certainly appreciate the time that you took to 
prepare for today's hearing, and also for the work that you all 
do every day for our country.
    I'll keep my remarks brief so we can get on with the 
hearing.
    Last year at about this time, we held a similar joint 
hearing to discuss Navy and Marine Corps readiness. Many of the 
same challenges we talked about then remain before us today. 
Senator Perdue and I have worked together in the Seapower 
Subcommittee to ensure the Navy has the resources it needs to 
build a larger, more capable fleet of ships and submarines. 
But, as noted by the Chair's opening statement, we have a ways 
to go. We all know that these platforms require necessary 
timely maintenance to keep them operational. It's not enough to 
build new ships, of course. We need to invest in their 
maintenance and modernization to keep them afloat.
    I'm particularly concerned about shipyard modernization and 
how the Navy intends to implement its Shipyard Optimization 
Plan. This plan requires focused attention as well as 
sufficient and stable resources. In Hawaii, we are all proud of 
the contribution Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard makes to our 
fleet's readiness, and I want to be sure that the yard receives 
the resources it needs to keep our fleet in fighting shape.
    In addition to modernizing our shipyards, I'd also like the 
witnesses to address how we would--we should improve the 
timeliness of ship availabilities. Once ships reach the yard, 
fewer than 40 percent of them are completing their maintenance 
availabilities on time. Fewer than 40 percent. That means that 
the majority of those ships do not come out of maintenance in a 
timely manner. I know that it is--this is not the fault of the 
workers that we have at our shipyards. There are other issues 
that we need to address to enable them to do their work. We 
need to do better for the sailors who operate these ships, for 
the combatant commanders who rely on their capabilities, and 
for the taxpayers who expect wise use of their dollars.
    Again, I thank you for being here this morning.
    Senator Perdue. Thank you, Senator Hirono.
    With that, Senator Sullivan and Senator Kaine will be here 
momentarily. I think----
    Senator Kaine. I'm ready.
    Senator Perdue. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was looking the 
wrong direction. Good morning.
    Senator Kaine. Good to be with you, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Perdue. I'll recognize our Ranking Member from the 
Readiness Subcommittee, Senator Kaine.

                 STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM KAINE

    Senator Kaine. Great. Thanks so much.
    Welcome, to the witnesses.
    I want to thank the Chairman, Senator Sullivan and Senator 
Perdue and Senator Hirono. It's good to have this hearing. It's 
good to have it as a joint hearing between the two 
Subcommittees.
    I had an opening statement, but it's far less powerful, 
actually, than the first paragraph of Ms. Maurer's prepared 
testimony, so I'm just going to read this into the record and 
make a couple of other comments.
    The testimony that she has given to us, ``What GAO Found. 
The Navy continues to face persistent and substantial 
maintenance delays that affect the majority of its maintenance 
efforts and hinder its attempts to restore readiness. From 
fiscal year 2014 to the end of fiscal year 2019, Navy ships 
have spent over 33,700 more days in maintenance than expected. 
The Navy was unable to complete scheduled ship maintenance on 
time for about 75 percent of the maintenance periods conducted 
during fiscal years 2014 through 2019, with more than half of 
the delays in fiscal year 2019 exceeding 90 days. When 
maintenance is not completed on time, fewer ships are available 
for training or operations, which can hinder readiness.''
    That's the reason that we're having the hearing today. That 
set of statistics paints a stark picture about how we make 
improvements to improve readiness.
    We have a series of challenges that we're going to grapple 
with in the hearing today. Let me just put two first.
    Infrastructure. I support the Navy Shipyard Optimization 
Plan, and I want to thank, Ms. Maurer, and your team, because 
you recently completed a review of naval shipyards, I guess, 
last week, and you're going to highlight what actions remain 
for improvement. This is a long-term issue. One of the 
questions I hope that we'll address today is, how do you fund 
the Shipyard Optimization Plan in any reasonable timeframe? The 
estimated cost is $20 billion over 20 years. How can the Navy 
possibly get there in time with a--with measurable impacts in 
the improvement of readiness? That is, when that $20 billion is 
spent at the same time as you're doing all kinds of other 
things--modernization, focusing on workforce, et cetera. So, 
that's the infrastructure challenge, writ large.
    There's a particular infrastructure issue that is important 
in Virginia, but really elsewhere, and that deals with climate 
change in extreme weather. Hurricanes and flooding continue to 
wreak havoc on military installations along the eastern coast 
and elsewhere, costing taxpayers several billion dollars in 
reconstruction and repair. In Virginia, it's hurricanes and 
flooding; but in other military installations, it's drought, 
it's extreme heat, it's wildfires. We're seeing this all over 
the country. The GAO has previously found what many of us 
already know about our military installations. A quote from the 
GAO, ``The potential impacts of weather effects associated with 
climate change pose operational and budgetary risk.'' I note 
that the fiscal year 2020 budget request includes, for the 
first time, drydock flood protection improvements for Norfolk 
Naval Shipyard. Our military is being--trying to be proactive 
in making these resilience investment proposals. I appreciate 
that.
    We all want to make sure that the Navy gets to the highest 
level of readiness. We're not going to be able to do it 
overnight, but this hearing will help us identify how we can 
improve. We look forward to your testimony.
    Senator Perdue. Thank you.
    With that, we'll move to our witnesses' testimony. We'll 
start with Secretary Geurts.

STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE JAMES F. GEURTS, ASSISTANT SECRETARY 
    OF THE NAVY FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACQUISITION; 
 ACCOMPANIED BY VICE ADMIRAL THOMAS J. MOORE, USN, COMMANDER, 
                   NAVAL SEA SYSTEMS COMMAND

    Secretary Geurts. Thank you. Chairman Perdue, Chairman 
Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking Member Kaine, 
distinguished members of the two Subcommittees, thank you for 
the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the 
Department of the Navy's ship and submarine maintenance.
    I'm joined today by Vice Admiral Tom Moore, Commander of 
Naval Sea Systems Command.
    With your permission, I intend to do one brief opening 
remark for the two of us.
    Admiral Moore. Yes, sir
    Secretary Geurts. U.S. naval forces continue to be in high 
demand in an ever-changing and complex geopolitical landscape.
    Across the globe, our strategic competitors attempt to 
influence, disrupt, and undermine regional stability and free 
access to the seas. Properly maintained, equipped, and manned 
ships are critical in ensuring the Navy is ready to respond 
when called.
    Today, we're here to discuss one critical aspect of 
readiness. That's how do we properly maintain and sustain our 
ships and submarines? Since 2017, with the strong support of 
Congress, the Navy's made steady progress in our ability to 
properly and effectively carry out the required maintenance to 
ensure our sailors have the most capable and effective 
operational platforms available. Although we've made steady 
progress, there's still much more to be done. We continue to 
work across the entire maintenance enterprise, both the public 
and private sectors, to develop and deliver a comprehensive 
approach focused on delivering ships and submarines out of 
maintenance, on time and in full. We've done this by 
implementing measures that are focused on better planning, 
better materiel management, increased capacity, better 
workforce training, and investments in our facilities. As a 
result, since 2017 we're seeing positive indications that the 
maintenance initiatives are making a difference. For instance, 
the on-time maintenance completions of our DDG-51-class 
destroyers have improved from 29 percent in fiscal year 2018 to 
43 percent in fiscal year 2019, and we're projecting 71 percent 
on-time in fiscal year 2020. Similarly, the average days of 
maintenance delays in our public sector submarine 
availabilities have improved from 176 delays in fiscal year 
2017 to 23 days in fiscal year 2019, and we've reduced the 
workload carryover by 58 percent since fiscal year 2017.
    Although the vectors are moving in the right direction, the 
biggest threat to achieving the necessary sustained performance 
is budget instability. In 2019, Congress provided the Navy an 
authorization and an appropriation that was on time for the 
first time in 10 years. I cannot overemphasize the importance 
and the positive impact that had on our ability to maintain our 
maintenance plans as we have them planned.
    This year, although we're well into the first quarter of 
fiscal year 2020, we're on our second continuing resolution. 
From a ship maintenance standpoint, this has already negatively 
impacted our planning and contracting for ship maintenance. Our 
plan--our ship maintenance plan is only as good as the 
resources that back it up. A full-year continuing resolution 
(CR) would be a devastating blow to ship maintenance. It would 
reverse all the gains we've made over the last 2 years and 
create another huge maintenance backlog that would take years 
to reduce.
    Although we've made gains since 2017, significant and 
steady investments over a long period of time will be required 
to recapitalize the public shipyards, incentivize the private-
sector shipyards to increase their capacity and capabilities, 
and ensure a workforce is available to adequately meet our 
ultimate goal, delivering every ship and submarine from 
maintenance, on time and in full, as we expend the fleet to 355 
ships.
    We look forward to working closely with Congress to achieve 
that goal. Thank you for the strong support these Subcommittees 
have provided the Department of Navy and the opportunity to 
appear before you today. We look forward to answering your 
questions.
    [The prepared joint statement of Secretary Geurts and 
Admiral Moore follows:]

 Prepared Statement by The Honorable James F. Geurts and Vice Admiral 
                              Thomas Moore
    Chairman Perdue, Chairman Sullivan, Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking 
Member Kaine, and distinguished members of the Subcommittees, thank you 
for the opportunity to testify on the Department of the Navy's ship and 
submarine depot maintenance. The Department recognizes the need to 
deliver lethal ships and submarines to the combatant commanders on 
time, and is approaching ship and submarine maintenance with a sense of 
urgency.
    The Navy faces high-tempo operations, budget pressures, and a 
fragile industrial base that has resulted in a maintenance backlog and 
reduced readiness of Navy ships. In the 1980s, the Navy had nearly 600 
ships in the Fleet and kept roughly 100--or 17 percent--deployed at any 
one time. Today, our Battle Force stands at 290 ships, of which 81--or 
28 percent of the Fleet--are at sea, increasing readiness challenges. 
Though our warships are more capable and more mechanically reliable 
than those of previous generations, maintenance and sustainment are 
critical to ensure that those Fleet assets remain ready to deploy.
    Having a stable and predictable budget is crucial to the Navy's 
ability to execute contracts and maintenance actions required to keep 
our Navy in the fight. Beginning fiscal year 2020 under a continuing 
resolution (CR) introduces uncertainty, as the Navy attempts to execute 
work planned for the current year with funding based on last year's 
budget. The Navy has already had to postpone two availabilities planned 
for the first quarter of fiscal year 2020--USS Bainbridge (DDG 96) and 
USS Gonzalez (DDG 66). Delaying these planned activities has drastic 
downstream impacts--injecting instability in the industrial base and 
creating large cost impacts and inefficiencies that can extend beyond 
the duration of the uncertainty. In most hearings we are asked what 
Congress can do to support our efforts--the answer is simple, support 
and pass the President's Budget on time.
                       increasing accountability
    Recent on-time performance trends in both the public and private 
sectors are improving; however, challenges remain. To address these 
challenges, the Navy has undertaken a multipronged approach focused on 
increasing accountability and improving productivity in both public and 
private shipyards. In our public yards, we are growing the capacity of 
the shipyards to meet the workload demand, improving the training and 
productivity of the workforce, and making the needed investments in our 
shipyards to ensure they can support our growing needs. In the private 
shipyards, we have focused on improving the completeness, accuracy, and 
timeliness of planning; working with the Fleet to adjust maintenance 
schedules to level load the ports, revising acquisition strategies to 
improve stability and predictability, and streamlining Navy inspection 
points to improve efficiencies.
    The Navy is preparing the second Long-Range Plan for Maintenance 
and Modernization of Naval Vessels to forecast maintenance workloads 
for all in-service ship classes over the next 30 years. This plan 
complements the Navy's Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval 
Vessels and establishes the framework to effectively sustain our 
investments in today's fleet. The intent is to build a culture of 
continuous evaluation of the industrial base capacity and capability 
and provide the industrial base with stable and predictable workloads. 
This will better enable the Department to support the shipbuilding 
plan, and adapt to any surge demand if necessary.
    Finally, the Department has established a Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of the Navy (DASN) for Sustainment to improve our ability to 
plan, program, budget and execute the Navy's sustainment mission. DASN 
Sustainment will have oversight of sustainment funding across the DON 
(Department of the Navy) and will oversee and manage Navy and Marine 
Corps sustainment and life-cycle management policies. This will allow 
the Department to improve and align the complex drivers of maintenance 
and modernization completion--that in turn will increase our output to 
the Fleet.
                            public shipyards
    In the four public shipyards, the Navy is focused on several key 
lines of effort: growing the capacity of the shipyards to match the 
workload demand; improving the training of the workforce; improving the 
productivity of the workforce through innovation and improvements to 
our business processes in both planning and execution; and making 
needed investments in our shipyards to ensure a 21st Century shipyard 
to match our 21st Century workforce.
    The Navy's four public shipyards have seen over a 25 percent 
increase in their planned workload since 2010. To match the growth, the 
Navy has increased the size of our public shipyard workforce by more 
than 9,000 people, from 27,368 employees in 2010 (measured in End-
Strength) to 36,696 employees in 2018.

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    This growth was achieved approximately 1 year ahead of schedule and 
is enabling us to stop the growth in the backlog of work and begin 
working off that backlog earlier than planned. However, the rapid 
growth of the workforce has resulted in a less experienced workforce 
where 50 percent have less than 5 years of experience. To get new hires 
trained more efficiently, the shipyards have transformed how they train 
their new employees through learning centers that use both virtual 
learning tools and hands-on work. The Navy has carried that innovative 
concept to the waterfront by developing ``safe-to-fail'' areas where 
artisans can experiment with new and innovative techniques to improve 
throughput or save time during an availability. The net result of these 
learning centers is that the shipyards have cut the time to create a 
productive worker from the time they are hired by more than 50 percent 
over the past 4 years. Additionally, the Navy is working to create 
efficiencies in workforce training by standardizing and reducing 
regional variability in processes across the public shipyards. 
Developing Navy-wide procedures in areas such as welding will enable 
authorized welders to work in different locations without the need to 
be requalified.
    To improve productivity, the Navy is testing innovative processes 
to reduce the time and cost of maintenance availabilities. New 
technologies such as cold spray and hull crawling robots have the 
potential to produce significant results. Cold spray is a technology in 
which metal powders are accelerated at high speeds and sprayed through 
a nozzle, impacting and mechanically bonding to a surface. This 
produces high performance coatings that can extend the life of legacy 
weapon and hull mechanical systems, and reduces the time to accomplish 
valve repair from 10 months at a vendor site to three days. Cold spray 
is currently in use at three of our naval shipyards and will be 
delivered to a fourth in fiscal year 2020. Hull crawling robots are 
able to carry a variety of test equipment to conduct hull inspections, 
non-destructive testing and biofouling removal. This obviates the need 
for scaffolding or lifting equipment and is estimated to reduce dry 
docking periods by up to two weeks while improving worker safety. Hull 
crawlers have been ordered for each maintenance activity with an 
anticipated delivery of tooling suites in March 2020. The innovation 
project team at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard accomplished a complete 3D 
imagining of a submarine, USS Cheyenne (SSN 773). This 3D imaging will 
be used to plan and execute maintenance, reducing cost and schedule by 
limiting the need for travel, excessive interference removal and lost 
material.
    The Navy is also leveraging the recent successes of the Naval 
Sustainment System (NSS)--Aviation that has increased the mission 
capability rates of its F/A-18 E/F fleet by creating a NSS--Shipyards. 
Similar to NSS-Aviation, the NSS-Shipyards has brought in outside 
business process experts to improve productivity and identify areas for 
long-term improvement at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and Puget Sound Naval 
Shipyard. This includes a mobile passive Radio Frequency Identification 
(pRFID) system, which is similar to a GPS that tracks material 
throughout the shipyard. This creates a way for material targeting to 
record the distance items under maintenance travel. It will also 
eventually reduce costs by eliminating lost material and work hours 
associated with locating misplaced material. The Navy will expand that 
effort to all four public shipyards in fiscal year 2020.
    The Navy is now in its second year of the planned 20-year, $21 
billion Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program (SIOP) that will 
fully transform shipyards originally designed and laid out to support 
building ships of sail and coal into 21st Century shipyards dedicated 
to executing complex maintenance availabilities on the Navy's nuclear-
powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Fully executed, SIOP will 
deliver required dry-dock repairs and upgrades to support both current 
and future classes of ships, optimize workflow within the shipyards 
through significant changes to their physical layout, and recapitalize 
obsolete capital equipment with modern machines that will dramatically 
increase productivity and safety.
    The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has recently reviewed 
the SIOP plan and identified opportunities for the Navy to enhance 
reliability through improved cost estimating and better defining the 
roles and responsibilities of the shipyards. The Navy is taking steps 
to implement these recommendations, executing modeling and simulation 
efforts to inform area development plans at specific shipyards and 
provide a more complete cost estimate for executing SIOP. Additionally, 
the Navy will continue to refine the roles and responsibilities for all 
stakeholders to better execute projects at each of the four naval 
shipyards.
    In 2 years the Navy has delivered or started a series of SIOP 
projects and begun the delivery of new capital equipment across the 
four shipyards:
    For Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility 
(PHNSY&IMF), the Navy has delivered 150-ton heavy lift transporters to 
support Virginia-class availabilities. More importantly, the Navy and 
its industry partner tracked every aspect of the recent USS Asheville 
(SSN 758) maintenance availability to build a ``digital twin'' of the 
shipyard. This dynamic virtual shipyard will enable the Navy to 
manipulate data and measure the impact of moving certain shops and 
workspaces to different areas within the existing footprint. Once the 
full capability is delivered in February 2020, the Navy will use this 
data to reimagine the shipyard to improve productivity, safety, and the 
quality of life of our shipyard personnel. PHNSY&IMF will also be the 
first shipyard to receive a Dry Dock Production Facility (DDPF) which, 
as currently envisioned, will enclose multiple dry docks and move much 
of the production work to the waterfront.
    Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility 
(PSNS&IMF) will be the second naval shipyard to have a digital twin 
built. To ensure the Navy properly understands the complex workflow, it 
will track both aircraft carrier and submarine availability. Work 
started on this effort on October 15, 2019 and final delivery is 
expected in fall 2020. PSNS&IMF received the first 55-ton mobile crane 
this year which will allow the shipyard to more effectively execute 
maintenance work.
    Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) replaced an obsolete and 
maintenance-intensive lathe with a computer operated Horizontal Turning 
Center. The center will improve productivity at PNSY and reduces the 
maintenance burden on our workforce. Work has also begun on Dry Dock #1 
in preparation for refueling selected Los Angeles-class submarines. 
Efforts include building a super flood basin and P1074 which will be 
dedicated to the Los Angeles-class Service Life Extension. Work on 
PNSY's digital twin is scheduled to begin in 2020.
    Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY) has seen a number of military 
construction efforts begin or deliver in the past year. On June 14, 
2019, the renovated Waterfront Operations Support Facility (Building 
1735) located near Pier 3 re-opened. This two-story structure houses 15 
shop spaces and allows for work to be executed near to the ships, 
reducing travel time and increasing efficiency. On July 1, 2019, the 
Navy broke ground on a new Production Training Facility which will host 
most of the training classes and shops for the entire shipyard. 
Further, the Navy is in negotiations to award a contract to build a new 
defueling and inactivation complex that will replace a 25-year old 
facility. The new M-140 Complex will alleviate frequently required 
repair work and support the increase in submarine inactivations planned 
for the 2020s. The Navy also awarded a contract for a horizontal boring 
mill for NNSY's Navy Foundry and Propeller Center in Philadelphia, PA, 
to support Columbia-class and Virginia-class propulsor manufacturing. 
NNSY took possession of a Bridge Mill which replaces two obsolete and 
less effective machines to support aircraft carrier and submarine 
shaft, rudder, and fairwater plane work. The Navy plans to begin NNSY's 
digital twin effort in early 2020.
    The net result of all these integrated efforts is that the Navy is 
seeing positive results across the naval shipyard enterprise. This 
includes completing nine of the last ten CVN availabilities on time or 
early including the recent early delivery of USS Nimitz (CVN 68), the 
Navy's oldest combat ship, from a docking availability at Puget Sound 
Naval Shipyard. The four naval shipyards have reduced the amount of 
workload carryover from one fiscal year to the next by nearly two-
thirds between fiscal year 2017 and fiscal year 2020, from a total of 
603,400 work days carried over between fiscal year 2016 and fiscal year 
2017 to a projected 287,500 work days between fiscal year 2019 and 
fiscal year 2020. Additionally, the Navy has reduced delayed 
maintenance by half, from 1,734 total days delayed in fiscal year 2018 
to 894 total days in fiscal year 2019.

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    This has resulted in three aircraft carriers and one submarine 
delivered on time or early, along with the majority of our current 
maintenance availabilities scheduled on time or earlier as well. 
Currently, 13 submarines and two aircraft carriers are undergoing CNO-
level maintenance at the four public shipyards. Of those, eight 
submarines and both aircraft carriers are on track to deliver on time.
                           private shipyards
    Similarly, the Navy is focusing on several lines of effort in 
private sector maintenance. This includes improvements in planning, 
improvements in forecasting availability durations, working with the 
fleet to adjust maintenance schedules to level load the ports, and 
acquisition strategies that are designed to improve the long term 
stability and predictability of private sector surface ship maintenance 
planning and execution--a key ask of our private sector industry 
partners. There are 45 CNO surface ship availabilities in execution at 
private shipyards across the country, and over 100 ships in planning.
    Successful execution of complex ship maintenance and modernization 
availabilities requires solid planning. Accurate assessment of the 
ship's maintenance needs, early identification of the scope of 
modernization, and timely procurement of Long Lead Time Material are 
all key tenets of solid planning. The Navy is accelerating its planning 
milestones to drive earlier identification of availability scope, 
ordering material earlier and soliciting contracts earlier--ultimately 
leading to earlier contract awards. The migration to earlier milestones 
is enabled by improvements in the Navy's ability to use maintenance 
data coupled with engineering analysis to determine lifecycle 
maintenance requirements and accurately estimate the scope of future 
repairs. Navy's goal is to award all contracts 120 days prior to the 
start of an availability (vice 60 days), which gives industry double 
the time they previously had to develop planning products and buy 
materials. This initiative was informed by industry's feedback, and has 
proven successful. The first ship in this pilot program, USS Shoup (DDG 
86), undocked 10 days early from BAE Systems' Pride of California dry 
dock in San Diego.

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                   swrmc supports uss shoup undocking
    USS Shoup's (DDG 86) early undocking from BAE Systems' Pride of 
California drydock on August 28, 2019.
    The Navy understands the importance of workload stability to a 
healthy and efficient industrial base. The method of contracting that 
workload is evolving from a complete one ship availability at a time 
strategy that did not provide long term workload predictability to a 
strategy that groups ship availabilities both horizontally and 
vertically to provide longer term predictability to incentive industry 
to grow the needed capacity. Vertical groupings for ships with similar 
start dates will include multiple overlapping availabilities within a 
single solicitation. The Navy awarded the first three-ship vertical 
grouping contract in February 2019 for USS Arleigh Burke (DDG 51), USS 
Bulkeley (DDG 84) and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44). Horizontal groupings 
for ship availabilities occurring in a series will include multiple 
sequential availabilities within a single solicitation. The first 
horizontal grouping contract was awarded on September 25, 2019 for USS 
Chosin (CG 65) and USS Cape St. George (CG 71) to Vigor Marine, LLC, 
providing stability in the workload in the Pacific Northwest. Based on 
industry feedback on ways to improve, the Navy also recently awarded a 
double docking availability for the USS Stethem (DDG 63) and USS 
Decatur (DDG 73). By awarding multiple availabilities, industry gets a 
backlog of work that creates confidence in hiring and retaining a 
skilled workforce and investment in infrastructure.

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    Informed by strong dialogue with the ship repair industrial base, 
the Navy has implemented multiple initiatives that are improving 
performance in contract execution. Initiatives include utilizing pre-
priced changes to eliminate previously-required approvals for small 
dollar changes, which typically account for 70 percent of growth work 
schedule delays. The approval cycle time was reduced to two days as 
compared to the historical average of 31 days. The Navy and industry 
also worked together to implement an initiative to right-size quality 
assurance checkpoints, reducing the number by 50 percent by eliminating 
overlapping or duplicative requirements. The Navy has worked to become 
more proactive in availability planning by increasing directive 
maintenance strategies to improve the forecasting model for ship 
availability durations and port industrial capacity. All five of the 
fiscal year 2019 availabilities that incorporated this model have 
delivered on time. With better estimates of projected availability 
durations and capacity to accomplish the work, the Navy has been able 
to reduce workload peaks and valleys at each port to create a more 
balanced and executable schedule for the industrial base. The net 
result has been a 21 percent improvement in the number of on-time 
deliveries for availabilities that completed in fiscal year 2019 as 
compared to fiscal year 2018.
    The Navy is working with our industry partners to improve cost and 
schedule performance for submarine maintenance in the private sector. 
Cost overruns and delays in schedules on USS Helena (SSN 725) at 
Newport News Shipbuilding Huntington Ingalls Industries and USS 
Montpelier (SSN 765) at General Dynamics Electric Boat in fiscal year 
2019 have resulted in the deferred maintenance for USS Boise (SSN 764) 
and USS Columbus (SSN 762). The Navy will need to balance the workload 
across the public and private sectors to support future maintenance and 
modernization as well as ensuring new ship construction efforts are 
adequately supported.
    The biggest risks to execution of this plan are continuing 
resolutions and lack of an on-time budget. Under a CR, the Navy has 
less cash available than requested which limits decision space for 
maintenance and operations. As a result, the Navy is forced to make 
hard decisions about what to fund and what to defer or cancel. Due to 
the first fiscal year 2020 CR, the Navy delayed award of maintenance 
contracts for USS Gonzalez (DDG 66) and USS Bainbridge (DDG 96), 
creating instability in the industrial base. The Navy also has plans to 
award five additional ship maintenance contracts before December 20, 
2019, which may be adversely impacted by the second CR. This 
uncertainty significantly undermines our efforts to provide greater 
stability and predictability to industry, and limits industry's ability 
to plan for future work by hiring workers, ordering materials, and 
investing in maintenance and infrastructure upgrades. The Shipbuilders 
Council of America recently highlighted the impacts of a long-term 
continuing resolution in a November 13, 2019, letter to the 
congressional defense committees. A survey conducted by the Council 
found that 94 percent of companies will have to stop hiring if the 
Department continues to operate under a CR. The impact will be felt 
even more strongly by small businesses, which may face a five to 50 
percent workforce reduction and a 15 to 35 percent reduction in annual 
revenue according to the survey results. These effects will become more 
pronounced if the CR extends further into the year, significantly 
impacting planned work on both coasts.
                               conclusion
    The Navy fully understands that the on-time delivery of ships and 
submarines out of maintenance availabilities is a national security 
imperative. The Department is taking a holistic approach to ensure both 
our public and private yards have the information, people, and 
equipment needed to maintain the world's greatest Navy. The Navy will 
continue to work with Congress and our industry partners to address our 
challenges and to efficiently maintain and modernize the Navy's growing 
fleet by growing the capacity and capability of the industrial base.

    Senator Perdue. Thank you, sir.
    Ms. Maurer.

        STATEMENT OF DIANA C. MAURER, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE
          CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, U.S. GOVERNMENT
                     ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE

    Ms. Maurer. Good morning, Chairman Perdue----
    Senator Perdue. Good morning.
    Ms. Maurer.--Ranking Member Hirono, Ranking Member Kaine, 
and other members and staff. I'm pleased to be here today to 
discuss the Navy's efforts to maintain the ships and submarines 
that are vital for our country's national security interests.
    As was clear from your opening statements, you're well 
aware of the significant challenges the Navy continues to face 
maintaining the fleet. We share your concern. As Ranking Member 
Kaine already pointed out, we found the Navy was unable to 
complete scheduled ship maintenance about 75 percent of the 
time, leading to over 33,000 days of maintenance delays. Those 
are days that surface ships, submarines, and aircraft carriers 
were unavailable for operations and training. As you can 
imagine, these persistent and substantial delays hinder the 
Navy's efforts to rebuild readiness.
    My statement for the record today highlights several 
interrelated factors that have contributed to those delays. 
First, extended deployments and decreased crew levels mean 
important maintenance is often deferred, leading to more time-
consuming and costly depot-level repairs. The high tempo of 
operations has also increased the maintenance strain on the 
fleet. Ships are being used more intensively, which means, in 
practice, declining ship conditions. Once planned maintenance 
is underway, the Navy is hindered by the conditions of the 
public shipyards. The conditions of the facilities at the four 
public yards is poor, and the average age of equipment is 
beyond its expected life.
    The Navy has also faced challenges recruiting, training, 
and retaining a skilled workforce. In recent years, the Navy 
has hired thousands of workers to help turn ships around 
faster, but fixing a submarine or an aircraft carrier requires 
advanced technical skills, which can take years to achieve, 
and, at many shipyards, more than half of the employees have 
less than 5 years of experience.
    Further, drydock capacity is extremely limited. The Navy 
lacks sufficient dry docks to support a third of its planned 
maintenance periods. Many of the dry docks it currently has are 
not large enough to support future submarines, and none are 
capable of supporting the Ford-class carrier.
    To help with these and other challenges, my statement today 
discusses 17 recommendations we've made to the Navy over the 
past few years; and the Navy, by and large, agrees with us and 
has started taking actions to address our recommendations. 
That's encouraging.
    We are also encouraged by the Navy's increased leadership 
attention to sustainment issues and the development of a plan 
to improve and modernize the public shipyards. Under this plan, 
the Navy will upgrade dry docks, facilities, and equipment to 
meet the future planned maintenance needs. The Navy has also 
created a program office to bring unity of effort and 
bureaucratic clout to what will be a 20-year undertaking.
    So, all in all, a good start. But, it is still too early to 
tell if the plan is going to work. The Navy still has to 
develop the all-important details of what needs to be done, and 
determine how to keep the shipyards running while also 
rebuilding and enhancing them. Further, the current estimated 
price tag of $21 billion is, essentially, notional and likely 
to be billions more, because it does not include major costs 
for inflation or improving underlying infrastructure. The Navy 
agrees with our recommendations to address these issues, and 
has plans in place to do so.
    The Navy has also made important progress on increasing 
crew size and is exploring an enhanced approach to maintenance 
planning. Although it will take years to fully implement these 
efforts, we are encouraged by the increased commitment to 
address the many contributors to maintenance delays. However, 
this will need to be sustained for years to address the Navy's 
significant and persistent maintenance challenges and ensure 
the Navy can reliably provide modern, ready naval forces to 
meet our national security needs.
    Chairman Perdue, thank you very much for the opportunity to 
testify this morning, and I look forward to your questions.
    [The prepared statement of Ms. Maurer follows:]

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    Senator Perdue. Thank you very much.
    We'll try to do--start this at 5-minute periods of 
questioning. We'll have second round if we need it.
    I'll start off very briefly.
    Secretary Geurts, you mentioned CRs, continuing 
resolutions. I have been--you know, Senator Hirono and I and 
Senator Kaine--Senator Kaine and I are on the Budget Committee. 
We've been arguing about--fighting this together. We all are 
like-minded about this. But, I'm not sure a lot of people in 
Congress understand how it affects you guys in a detailed way. 
Can you talk about and elaborate--first of all, the past 
Secretary of Defense said that--and each of the services now, 
at our request, has measured this, and we're talking about 
somewhere around $20 billion of--per year, if a full-year CR 
were impacted. It is $4 billion, alone, in the U.S. Navy, is 
the best estimate we've been given from the Navy. Can you 
elaborate, though, on the specific impact of postponing the 
Bainbridge and Gonzalez availabilities right now? I know there 
are actions that have been taken related to ship maintenance 
because of the current continuing resolution we're under right 
now.
    Also, as part of that, Ms. Maurer, you mentioned that 
workforce was an issue. I'd like the Navy--Admiral or 
somebody--tell me how many people we're able to hire right now 
under this current CR. New people. Specifically with regard to 
these shipyards.
    So, the first part of the question, please.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I mentioned in my opening 
remarks, a CR is devastating in a couple different ways. If we 
had a full CR, under the current rules, the Navy would lose 
$20.5 billion of its buying power this year alone. That's a 
combination of new programs that we couldn't start. We have a 
new helicopter trainer----
    Voice. Fiscal year 2020?
    Secretary Geurts. That is in fiscal year 2020, yes, sir--
$20.5. About $5 billion of that would be new programs we 
couldn't start. The new frigate program, we could not start. 
Helicopter training programs, which directly impact readiness, 
we couldn't start. Fighter aggressor programs we've got on the 
books, we couldn't start. Another $5 billion would be plans 
where we had planned to increase the number or quantity of 
buys, and we're held to last year's budget level. Then $10 
billion would be just in rate increases. What that means to 
Admiral Moore and myself is, we have to look at every activity 
where we have a great plan. As I think we'll talk about in the 
hearing, the key, especially on the maintenance side, is good 
planning and early planning. Now all those good plans and early 
plans, which we've been working really hard to put in place, 
all get thrown off. Then, if you're in private industry, and 
you don't know--you know, you don't know if the Navy's going to 
have $20 billion or not, you're not going to make investments, 
you're not going to hire folks, you're not going to do the 
things we need to do to increase capacity. All that instability 
will lead to us having to plan and replan and replan. Last 
year, when we had a full-year budget, we obligated 9 percent 
more than we did in the previous year, with 9 percent less 
contracts. So, you could see that efficiency in play.
    For the two maintenance availabilities you talked about, 
we--those were ones we had wanted to plan early. We had to put 
weeks and weeks of delay in that till we could figure out how 
to finance those initial availabilities. The shipyard that was 
going to do the work didn't know when the contract was going to 
come, and they're the ones that, to keep the ship going out on 
time, they have to absorb that risk of us not being able to 
award the contract when we wanted to. That will contribute to 
the risk of maintenance delays. One of the biggest factors in 
maintenance delays is late planning and late award. When we 
don't know what money is coming, in what sequence, at what 
time, all of our plans then have to be replanned and re-
executed.
    Tom can probably address the workforce issue.
    Admiral Moore. Yes, sir. A little bit of--the good news is, 
on the public-sector side, in our shipyards, they're mission-
funded, so they're--that bill's paid up front. It won't impact 
the workforce in the naval shipyards doing our nuclear work. 
The bad news is, the brunt of the impact to the people is going 
to be on the private-sector surface ship repair. This has 
really been our big challenge, frankly, over the last 2 years. 
I think we've kind of turned the corner on the public yards, 
but the private sector is looking for that long-term stability. 
Go ask any company president out there; if they don't know that 
they've got a stable plan and guaranteed work, they're not 
going to hire. That lagging in the hiring is going to then have 
a deleterious impact on our ability to complete those 
availabilities on time. So, from the people standpoint in the 
private sector, surface ship repair side, it absolutely has a 
major impact.
    Senator Perdue. So, you have a--I'm sorry--you have a test 
underway right now to--we--I think we passed this, this year. 
The past CNO--most recent CNO actually requested this. We made 
it happen, that you can extend this over multi years. I think 
we extended to 3 years, as a test, the maintenance allocation. 
How does that get impacted when you're under a CR like this?
    Secretary Geurts. Well, the first immediate thing is, since 
that's new, that we can't even start the pilot until--under the 
current rules. But, essentially, once we get to that point, 
that will give us a little bit more flexibility.
    Senator Perdue. But, you----
    Secretary Geurts. But, we haven't been able to start the 
pilot, because of the CR.
    Senator Perdue. That's the whole point. Thank you.
    Secretary Geurts. Yeah.
    Senator Perdue. I'm going to yield--oh, I'm out of time.
    If Senator Hirono is okay, I'm going to ask the Chairman of 
the other committee to make his opening remark, if you are 
ready.

               STATEMENT OF SENATOR DAN SULLIVAN

    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    To my Senate colleagues here, I apologize for being late. I 
was double-tasked with a Judiciary Committee hearing, where I 
was introducing Alaska's nominee for a Federal District Court 
position. So, it was quite important. So.
    But, I'm going to just--for efficiency's sake, I will 
submit my written statement for the record.
    [The prepared statement of Senator Sullivan follows:]

               Prepared Statement by Senator Dan Sullivan
    The Subcommittees meet today in a joint session to receive 
testimony on U.S. Navy ship and submarine maintenance. I am pleased to 
be co-chairing this hearing with my friend, Senator Perdue. This topic, 
like many others, touches on both the Readiness and Seapower 
Subcommittees, and I appreciate you agreeing to hold a joint hearing. I 
also want to thank our witnesses for being here and I am hopeful they 
will help us better understand the challenges associated with the 
current maintenance situation.
    Over the last decade amidst sequestered defense budgets, the United 
States Navy prioritized shipbuilding over ship maintenance in order to 
contend with the growing navies of our Great Power Competitors--Russia 
and China. Unfortunately, the operational need for a larger fleet drew 
our attention away from the equally critical need to maintain our 
current naval fleet. As result, we saw the overall readiness of our 
shipyards weaken. We are now scrambling to regenerate what we lost.
    As evidence of these issues, GAO estimated--in a 2018 report on 
``Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet,''--that over 
the last 10 years,
    ``the Navy has spent more than $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2018 
constant dollars to support attack submarines that provide no 
operational capability . . . [and] attack submarines will have incurred 
10,363 days of idle time and maintenance delays as a result of delays 
in getting into and out of the shipyards . . . [with] 8,472 days [of 
this total] due to depot maintenance delays.''
    What do these figures mean in simple terms? Well, due to 
maintenance delays, the Navy spent the equivalent of a San Antonio-
class LPD--$1.5 billion--to have attack subs sit idle in port, waiting 
for their own maintenance. Cumulatively, these subs sat idle for 8,472 
days--over 23 years--awaiting or undergoing heavy maintenance. That's 
OVER TWO DECADES of lost operational presence in places like the South 
China Sea, the Mediterranean, the Persian Gulf, or the Arctic.
    In another recent study, GAO found that since fiscal year 2014, the 
Navy fleet has spent over 33,000 more days in maintenance than 
expected. That's 91 years of delays. It's almost as if these delays are 
now so commonplace that they are just seen as a cost of conducting ship 
maintenance.
    So why are these delays happening? Last year, during a joint 
Subcommittee hearing on Navy and Marine Corps readiness, GAO listed 
shipyard workforce gaps and inexperience as key limiting factors to on-
time maintenance. In fact, GAO found that less than half of the skilled 
workforce at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and less than a third of the 
skilled workforce at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard had--at a minimum--5 
years of experience as maintainers. Just 5 years.
    Now we find ourselves in an untenable situation in which 
operational demands have increased and ship maintenance is keeping 
pace. I want everyone to understand that when this happens, our fleet 
and sailors cannot adequately train to the level needed to ensure they 
are ready for tomorrow's conflicts. This is unacceptable, and we need 
to do better.
    A key component of the National Defense Strategy is rebuilding 
military readiness while building a more lethal force. As we look to 
rebuild and maintain Navy readiness, we must also look at implementing 
sustainable operational schedules, something we cannot do if 
maintenance is not completed on time. I understand that the Navy is 
getting at some of those factors through its ``Shipyard Infrastructure 
Optimization Plan'' and ``Performance to Plan Initiative,'' but more 
must be done. As such, I encourage the Navy to look at other shipyards 
in the U.S. that might be able to help offset this dire maintenance 
backlog.
    Rebuilding and maintaining readiness is critical as the Nation 
faces an increasingly complex security environment, and it is crucial 
that we understand the scope of the issue and how Navy leadership plans 
on making big shifts before the damage is irreparable. I look forward 
to hearing from our witnesses on this important topic.

    Senator Sullivan. I want to thank the Chairman for--
Chairman Perdue for calling this important hearing. I will have 
questions that relate to my opening statement and other issues 
when my time for questions is up.
    Senator Perdue. Then we'll go to Ranking Member Hirono for 
her questions.
    Thank you.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    As we sit on the Armed Services Committee, there is no 
question that every single one of you, every time you testify, 
you talk about how the CR is an insane way to conduct anything. 
Yet, here we are. So, once again, I apologize for the fact that 
we can't seem to get our act together in Congress to move 
things along.
    I do have a question about Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard for 
Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. I'd like to ask you 
specifically about the plans for Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard, 
which the Navy has identified as the first project in the 
Shipyard Optimization Plan. I understand from your testimony 
that work on the modeling and simulation will be completed by 
February 2020, which will greatly inform the details of the 
projects and how best to align the shipyard. Unfortunately, 
time is not on our side, since the first Virginia-class 
availability is scheduled to come to PH--well, Pearl Harbor in 
fiscal year 2027. If we're going to be building dry docks, et 
cetera, to accommodate that, I mean, it takes a while for that 
to happen.
    I understand you're exploring options for a new graving dry 
dock to support the future workload at Pearl Harbor, but you 
also just released a request for information, RFI, to explore a 
floating dry dock. I want to support the best option for the 
shipyard to sustain its critical work for the Navy in the 
Pacific, but I am concerned with the reality of the situation 
we face regarding timeliness and cost. A graving dry dock would 
cost well over $1 billion, which would consume a significant 
portion of the Navy's entire military construction budget. It 
would also take 5 years to construct, and the Navy then needs 1 
year to certify the dry dock. A floating dry dock would provide 
a more near-term capability at a lower cost. But, is that what 
the--is that the right solution for the shipyard?
    Since we won't have the data from the modeling until 
February 2020, and that is well after the fiscal year 2021 
budget submission, can you detail for me how the Navy plans to 
budget for and execute the projects necessary to ensure Pearl 
Harbor is able to perform the planned workload, starting with 
Virginia-class in fiscal year 2027? Please provide a detailed 
timeline and what decisions need to be made, and when.
    Start with--well, either one of you.
    Admiral Moore. Yes, Senator. Thank you for the question.
    Absolutely, we can execute the work at Pearl Harbor 
Shipyard. Two of the three dry docks there today are fully 
capable of handling Virginia-class submarines. The one that 
we're looking to upgrade does not, that we need to fix.
    We are looking at two choices. We are looking at a graving 
dock, because, from the Navy's perspective, it's a--it's good 
for 100 years, it's a lot easier to do the maintenance in it, 
you don't have to take it out of service on a regular basis, 
like you do a floater, to do maintenance.
    But, we are looking at a floater, because it is--as you 
said there, it is less expensive up front. We've got a business 
case analysis going on in doing that concurrently with the 
modeling. I expect to be through that in the next couple 
months, and we'll be able to come tell you, you know, what do 
we think is the best solution, whether it's a graving dock or a 
floater.
    They each have some benefits to them, and they each have 
some downsides to it, too. The float--the reason we put the RFI 
out was because we felt like we--you know, we were obligated to 
the taxpayer to look at alternative solutions to the graving 
dock. That's why we did that. We'll come through the details of 
that, and we're happy to share that with your staff and with 
you when we get through that.
    Senator Hirono. I mean, the long-term approach would be to 
have a graving dock, but we are where we are with the 
resources. So--well, please keep me up to date.
    We recognize the current contracting strategy for surface 
ship maintenance is not delivering the ships back to the fleet 
in a timely fashion, and the lack of time to plan the execution 
of the availabilities or to the long-term of the long lead time 
items and speed of contract change adjudications are all 
contributing to delays. What are the top three things that the 
Navy and industry can work on to reduce the delay--delays in 
completing surface ship maintenance? You don't have to go over 
the CR problem.
    Secretary Geurts. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, ma'am.
    I think the first thing we are doing is making sure we're 
improving our planning. So, that is understanding the work and 
scheduling the work and budgeting the work the right way. Then, 
awarding that work, our goal is to do that 120 days prior to 
the work commencing. So, our goal is, for every one of these 
availabilities, to award the contract 120 days in advance so 
the performer has time to get ready for the ship to come in 
there, get all the staff, get all the materiel. That's not 
where we have been, traditionally. We're moving our way towards 
here, and some of our early pilots are showing real benefit 
there.
    The second piece, then, is, have the right contract 
structure. and so, the contract structure that can deal with 
changes as they occur, very rapidly. So, we have added clauses 
for small-dollar changes. We can negotiate those on the spot. 
For larger ones, have a streamlined process so we don't delay 
the work adjudicating, if there is an unplanned activity.
    Then, the third piece is making sure the government's 
oversight is as effective as it needs to be, but not over-
burdensome. Admiral Moore's team has done a pilot, where we've 
reduced the checkpoints and inspections by over 50 percent. 
That is actually allowing the work to get done much more 
fluidly and improving the efficiency.
    That's what we're doing, kind of, on the eaches. I would 
say, at the broader system level, making sure we balance the 
work right and we don't ask for more work than can be performed 
in an area or in a concentration area.
    Working with the fleet to get the work scheduled in a more 
balanced way, and then understanding the capacity and not over-
driving the system with more than they can execute.
    Senator Hirono. You're doing that across all the four 
shipyards, right, making those kinds of efficiency changes?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. This is mostly on the private 
side, so it's more in the private yards, so it's, you know, 
shipyards across the country. The other thing Admiral Moore's 
team has done is gone out proactively and certified--ask who 
has dry docks, certify those in advance to open up. We're 
opening up a broader competitive base now. We're getting more 
capacity across the country to absorb the work so we don't, you 
know, put an unrealistic demand on the workforce.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you.
    Mr. Chairman, I am going to want a second round. I have 
more questions.
    Thank you.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Sullivan.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I do want to say at the outset, you know, there's a lot of 
talk about the CR. We all think it's bad. This is a very 
bipartisan committee. I try to be very bipartisan in my 
approach to this job. But, it's not just the CR. It's the 
Defense approps, which is being filibustered right now by the 
Minority Leader. I've been in this body for almost 5 years. 
This the ninth time that the Minority Leader on the other side 
has decided to filibuster the Defense approps. It's 
inexcusable. Inexcusable. I wish we could fix that, because, 
you know, using political leverage, which is exactly what he's 
doing, the men and women in the military--because we all care 
about it--for other objectives, political objectives, I find to 
be outrageous. So, it's not just the CR. We could stop--we 
could fund the military right now by stopping the filibuster on 
the Defense approps today, and yet, my colleagues don't want to 
do it. So, sorry. I get a little upset about that issue.
    Let me ask Ms. Maurer. According to the GAO, the lack of 
capacity--that's what they say--is a major issue. But, could 
you talk in a little bit more detail on what that means, a lack 
of capacity, with regard to ship maintenance? Does that mean 
more skilled workers, more dry docks, new shipyards? I mean, 
what do we need to address this lack of capacity when we talk 
about reducing the maintenance backlog?
    Ms. Maurer. Thank you, Senator, for the question.
    When we talked about lack of capacity in my statement 
today, and an associated report, we're speaking specifically 
about dry docks and the inability, under the current set of dry 
docks the Navy has, to complete about one-third of the 
scheduled maintenance periods over the next 20 or so years. 
That's a major problem. We're talking specifically about 
maintaining nuclear submarines as well as aircraft carriers. 
So, as you can imagine, having the ability to do that 
maintenance is extremely important.
    Having this new plan to enhance and upgrade the shipyards 
is a good step in the right direction, and we are encouraged by 
the fact that the Navy has developed this plan. The Navy is not 
alone in, sort of, the sorry state of the infrastructure for 
depot-level maintenance. The other services are in the same 
boat, but the Navy is ahead of them, in terms of developing a 
plan. But, it's going to be a while before we see the all-
important details.
    The Navy is taking a very measured approach, which is the 
right way to go when you're talking about something that's 
going to take 20 years. But, it's still too early to say 
whether or not it's going to get them on track.
    Senator Sullivan. Let me ask----
    Ms. Maurer.--what they have on paper, it will, but it's 
still too early to know.
    Senator Sullivan. Let me ask another question that's 
related to that. The Navy, primarily, almost exclusively uses 
shipyards for maintenance that are at the homeport or near the 
homeport of current vessels. Of course, there's a huge 
important justification for doing that. But, yet, we still have 
a large backlog. Should the Navy explore the use of alternative 
shipyards for, say, smaller ships, not carriers or subs, like--
shipyards like those in the Great Lakes, or even those in 
Alaska? This is something I've been trying to get the Coast 
Guard to look at in Alaska, because they move their ships all 
the way down to Alameda, and yet we have shipyards that are in 
Alaska that are--for Coast Guard vessels that are home-ported 
in Alaska, that could do it much more cheaply. Would this be 
one area where the Navy could help reduce its maintenance 
backlog? I'll tee that up, not just for you, but also Admiral 
and Mr. Secretary. I think it's an important question for all 
of you.
    Ms. Maurer. That's a great question. It's, ultimately, 
largely a political one. So----
    Senator Sullivan. Why is it political?
    Ms. Maurer. Well, because it comes down to Congress making 
a decision on, potentially, appropriating funds to open up new 
shipyards to serve the Navy's public needs.
    Senator Sullivan. But--I'm--so, let's get rid of the 
politics. Do you think it is a good idea, or not? Do you think 
that's a good idea as it relates to the backlog?
    Ms. Maurer. I think it's definitely something that's a good 
idea for the Navy to consider. But, from a geo-perspective, we 
haven't--we don't have a position on whether or not there 
should be additional public----
    Senator Sullivan. What about you, Admiral?
    Admiral Moore. Well, I think it's a fantastic idea. I think 
we're already doing that. We've already--we're taking steps to 
try and improve--bring other people into the markets. I'll just 
use an example. We've gotten Vigor, in Portland, who had 
capacity to do littoral combat ship work. We're putting the--
work up there. We're exploring putting other work up there. We 
have a growing need for people that can do littoral combat ship 
work. So, the idea of reaching out and growing the capacity and 
bringing other people into the market's a good one. I think----
    Senator Sullivan. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with that?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I mean, I----
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Admiral.
    Secretary Geurts.--I come from a Special Ops background to 
plan for the unplanned. We're talking a lot about peacetime 
maintenance. I think a lot about wartime maintenance. If we had 
to surge and double and really geographically----
    Senator Sullivan. But, we need the surge now, don't we? I 
mean, I----
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'm just----
    Senator Sullivan. It's peacetime, but look at these----
    Secretary Geurts. I'm just----
    Senator Sullivan.--look at----
    Secretary Geurts.--I'm just saying there's a win-win here.
    Senator Sullivan.--these backlogs.
    Secretary Geurts. Yeah.
    Senator Sullivan. I mean, they're unacceptable.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I guess where I was going, that 
I think there's a win-win here. As we open up more, that also 
gives us an ability to surge more.
    Senator Sullivan. But, there--is there a legislative block? 
I tried to get a provision in the NDAA that wasn't accepted. It 
kind of addressed this. The House has something, I think, in 
this provision. But, there's no legislative prohibition, is 
there?
    Admiral Moore. Well, this--you know, there are rules on 
where we can put ships for taking them out of homeport that we 
have to follow. Availability has to be longer than 10 months to 
take it out of homeport. But, you know, that's something we 
could seek legislative relief on. There's nothing preventing us 
from looking to try and expand markets to do the work. Again, I 
use the shipyard in Portland as an example.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I want to offer the counter-position to my friend from 
Alaska on the reason the Defense appropriations bill is not yet 
done. We want to do a Defense appropriations bill, but we want 
Defense funds to be spent for defense. We don't want Defense 
funds to be treated as a personal piggyback and allow the 
President to take money out of MILCON projects that are serving 
our families to use on a nonmilitary priority at the 
southwestern border. That's the issue. We're having a debate 
about the Defense budget, but what we know from experience is, 
this President believes he can declare an emergency over 
something that's not military in nature, and rummage through 
the Pentagon Budget like it's a piggybank. Those of us who 
serve on the Armed Services Committee want to know, when we 
agree on a Defense appropriations bill, that the money will be 
used for national defense and will not be pirated away for pet 
political projects.
    Senator Sullivan. Nine times in----
    Senator Kaine. You had your opportunity----
    Senator Sullivan. Nine times in 5 years.
    Senator Kaine.--Senator.
    Senator Perdue. Regular order.
    Senator Kaine. If you, on your side, can agree with us that 
Pentagon money should not be pirated away for nonmilitary 
projects, we can get this done. But, until there is that 
agreement, that's what's holding this up right now.
    I'm going to battle for the best Defense budget I can, and 
I know my colleagues are going to do the same thing, but we 
don't want it spirited away for pet projects. When we had our 
military leadership at the table in Armed Services hearings, 
and we've asked them about the situation at the border, they've 
uniformly described it as a problem and challenge, but they've 
also uniformly agreed it is not a military emergency. Those of 
us on the Democratic side of the aisle just don't--just believe 
that Pentagon money should not be pirated away for nonmilitary 
purposes, because once that priority is established, any 
President can declare an emergency and go into the Pentagon 
Budget and take money away for nonmilitary purposes. That's the 
principle that we're trying to fight for that I think is in the 
long-term best interests of this Nation's defense.
    Let me focus now on our side of the aisle, the need to 
provide you budget stability. I commend to you--and I think 
Senator Perdue mentioned this--I commend to you a bill that the 
Budget Committee has recently passed which would try to do some 
significant reforms of our budget process to reduce the 
instability that you are experiencing.
    One element of the bill--it's a complicated bill, and it 
has some controversy connected with it, because it would really 
try to restore the budget process, sort of, as it was 
envisioned in the 1974 Budget Control Act--but, one element of 
this would be to switch our fiscal year to a calendar year. You 
know, there's good and bad cholesterol. I sort of think there's 
good and bad CRs, or at least acceptable and unacceptable CRs. 
We almost never get our budget done by October 1. Why? Well, 
often there's an election in the following month, and there's 
all kinds of reasons not to. When we get deals, it tends to be 
at the end of the calendar year. The fact that we're in a CR 
now is not a good thing, but if you just look at the history of 
the way Congress budgets, it's not an unusual thing.
    A friend of mine was a landscape architect, and he used to 
say, ``If you're designing landscapes, don't put sidewalks 
down. Put the landscape down, then see where people walk, and 
then put the sidewalks there.'' Congress tends to get deals, 
when we get deals, at year-end, not at the end of September.
    One of the features of the budget bill that Senator Perdue 
and I and Senator King and others on the Budget Committee 
worked on--and it was the first bill to come out of the Budget 
Committee with a bipartisan vote in 30 years--one of the 
features of that bill was to move us to a calendar year, where 
we're more likely to actually get the work done in a way where 
then you can count on it. I will say this. I say this to 
colleagues on both sides of the aisle. There is no excuse for 
us not getting a budget deal before we leave for Christmas. 
There is no excuse for us punting this into next year. I hear 
concerns expressed, or worries, on both sides of the aisle, 
that we may be into next year before we get a budget deal done. 
That would be malpractice. That would be malpractice of this 
body. So, I would say to the leadership, both parties, and--we 
should all do everything we can to get the budget deal done 
that we need to.
    I want to ask a question about this long-range maintenance 
plan that the Navy has. It was March 2019, and it cites a 
shortfall in private shipyard capacity to meet the forecasted 
future ship maintenance workload. The report states that the 
number of private shipyard dry docks presents challenges for 
future workload demands, and that may reduce the margin for 
schedule changes and delays. How does the Navy, sort of, 
develop forecasts of future workload on the maintenance side? 
How can we use that forecasting to help us do a better job of 
whittling down these backlogs?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Last year was the first year we 
kind of put a 30-year maintenance plan in there to go with the 
shipbuilding plan, kind of, to get to the earlier comment.
    Senator Kaine. Which was very innovative.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. That was the first-generation 
product. As we continue to mature that, I think that provides 
the overall, kind of, Rosetta Stone that we're tracking, in 
terms of our future needs. What we're also doing, as mentioned, 
is going out and looking where there's already drydock capacity 
we just haven't, for whatever reason, been able to either 
certify or leverage. We're working with MSC. They're doing 
some--Philly shipyard is doing maintenance work. They hadn't 
done that before. That's another dry dock that we can take 
advantage of. What we're doing is using that as a long-term 
forecast. Then, if we can show that site picture to industry, I 
think, I'm confident they will build infrastructure if they can 
get an understanding of the market potential out there. What we 
haven't done well in the past is shown them a clear and steady 
market signal for them to go make the investments they need to 
make either to maintain the equipment they have or improve 
their dry dock.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you.
    I'm over my time, and I'll save additional questions for 
written or a second round.
    Thanks, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Perdue. Thank you.
    Senator Hawley, I understand that Senator Ernst has yielded 
her slot.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you very much. Thank you, Chairman.
    Thank you, Senator Ernst. I appreciate it.
    Secretary Geurts, Admiral Moore, let me ask you how the 
maintenance challenges that the Navy has been facing is 
recommending--informing your recommendations on fleet size as 
you work through the force structure assessment.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. So, I mean, obviously we've got 
to have that in balance. You know, building new ships that you 
can't maintain is not tremendously useful, or not having the 
fleet size you need to operate globally is not useful. That's a 
constant discussion within the Navy. Admiral Moore and I have 
spent plenty of time, in the last 3 months as we're building 
the 2021 budget, trying to get that balance right. The manpower 
element is, I would say, the third piece of that triangle, so 
we've got to have, the availability, the capacity, and--both in 
terms of ships and people. I think, when you see the 2021 
budget, you'll see our latest view on how to get that balanced 
correctly.
    Senator Hawley. Admiral, do you want to add anything?
    Admiral Moore. Yeah, I would just say that the good news, 
on the public-sector side, we're where we need to be. So, as we 
go from 291 ships to 355, there's--you know, we're really at 
the 11 aircraft carriers we're at today. There will be a growth 
of about--a little over ten submarines over the next 40 years. 
But, we think, through Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization 
Plan and improved productivity in the shipyard, we can manage 
that.
    Most of the growth from 291 to 355 is going to be in the 
private sector, and that's going to be, really, the focus of 
our effort, which is--gets back to the importance of what the 
Secretary was mentioning--stable, predictable budgets--so a 
business out there will make the investments and grow their 
capacity to do the work, going forward. I'm convinced that I 
have the capacity in the public shipyards today to manage the 
slow--the slight growth that we're going to have in nuclear 
work. I think the bigger challenge is in the private sector, 
bringing other people into the market and providing them a 
signal so that they will make the investments necessary, and 
hire, so that we have that capacity necessary today. That's 
been our biggest challenge in surface ship maintenance today.
    Senator Hawley. Very good. Well, I look forward to seeing 
more of your work on this and as we look at next year's budget. 
It seems to me that we have a--we clearly have a resiliency 
problem right now, given the maintenance issues. We are in a 
position, it also seems to me, where resiliency and capacity 
are in some tension. Prioritizing resiliency, given the needs 
and the demands of the National Defense Strategy, particularly, 
again, in the Indo-Pacific, seems of great importance.
    Let me ask you this. Over the last 25 years, the Navy's cut 
a lot of its forward infrastructure relied on to maintain 
forces while they were deployed. So, to what extent do you 
think--we can start with you, Mr. Secretary--that the Navy 
needs to recapitalize some of that capacity--for example, in 
the form of tenders--so our ships can perform more of their 
maintenance duties while they are on deployment?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'd--the other balance that 
we're really looking hard at is, making sure we've got all the 
logistics squared away. That's all of the ready force, that's 
sealift, that's maintenance, that's oil, or that's tenders. We 
probably got a little bit out of balance with that, and that's 
been another focus, over the last couple of months, as we've 
looked at putting our budget priorities together. We absolutely 
need to make sure that we've got that balanced out.
    We are going to have to fight to get to the fight. That's a 
little different than what we've had to do over the last 20 or 
30 years. So, a lot of, kind of, heavy thinking in that, both 
in terms of operational planning, logistical planning. Then, 
what does that mean to materiel or logistics, whether it's 
expeditionary, forward-based, or geographically dispersed?
    Senator Hawley. Admiral, do you want to add anything to 
that?
    Let me ask you about crew sizes. The Navy's cut crew sizes 
for many of its platforms over this same time period, which 
left fewer trained hands available to perform maintenance 
duties while the ships are deployed. I understand the Navy has 
already restored some of those maintenance billets. Do you 
think it would be beneficial to restore additional billets? Do 
you need Congress's support to do so?
    Go ahead, Admiral.
    Admiral Moore. I think we have all the necessary decision 
space to do this without congressional help. I think it's 
always a balance when you--you know, the--one of the large 
life-cycle cost drivers for a platform is the number of people 
on board, because the cost of people has been getting more 
expensive. But, there's a balance. GAO's done some work on this 
to show that sailors actually do maintenance, and, when they 
don't do that maintenance, that maintenance then gets passed on 
to the depots, which costs more. Some of that work which you 
would catch early on if you did basic maintenance and corrosion 
control would not expand into more expensive maintenance later 
on. So, I think we're going to have to--as we get into these 
future platforms--littoral combat ship, future frigate--we're 
going to have strike the right balance between the desire to 
get minimal manning on the ship and--with a recognition that 
there's a downstream cost to pay associated with that. But, I 
think we have all the authorities that we need to fix that, 
sir.
    Senator Hawley. Very good.
    Last question. We've talked already today about capacity 
limitations in our shipyards for conducting ship and submarine 
maintenance.
    Let me go back to dry docks for a second. Mr. Secretary, if 
we implement the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan, 
will that get us to a place where we have enough drydock space, 
in your estimation, to perform the necessary maintenance work 
in a timely manner?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir, absolutely. We're going to take 
advantage--there's going to be a little downturn as the 
submarine numbers go down. That will give us a spot to 
recapitalize so that, as the numbers grow back up, we will have 
all the capacity we need.
    Senator Hawley. When do you anticipate we would get to that 
place under the plan?
    Admiral Moore. Oh, you know, it's ongoing. We're tracking, 
very closely, the dry docks. As Senator Kaine and I had talked 
about previously, we've got--you know, when we built the mixing 
bowl, here, we still had to get to work. We're still--we are 
going to build the dry docks, along with a maintenance plan, 
along with the growth of the fleet, to make sure that we get 
the maintenance done in time--or to get the dry docks done in 
time to support the maintenance that we're going to need down 
the road. It's an ongoing effort over, probably, the next 20 
years or so.
    Senator Hawley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, again, Senator Ernst.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Jones.
    Senator Jones. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thanks, to the witnesses, for being here.
    Kind of following up a little bit on the expansion of the 
maintenance. I know that the subs and the carriers are all 
done, you know, at these shipyards. Is there any value to 
exploring how expanding the market, so to speak, for our 
nuclear subs and carriers to private sector to perform non-
nuclear-type maintenance on these ships? Is that possible? Is 
that feasible? What's the risk? What's the reward? Secretary?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I'll start, and I'll ask 
Admiral Moore to provide some more of his perspective on it.
    We are already--we have sent some nuclear submarines to our 
nuclear submarine shipbuilders to do maintenance 
availabilities. Quite frankly, the performance there hasn't 
been exactly stellar, either. A lot of that is the same issues 
we have in the public yards. You've got to train the workforce. 
Doing maintenance is different than doing construction. We've 
got to--you know, it's taken us a while to get the training and 
proficiency level up there.
    I foresee, on the submarine side, always wanting to have a 
capacity to do some of that work in the private new 
construction yards, because that gives us, again, some surge 
capacity and gives us opportunities where we need to balance 
our workload. I see that going on, on the submarine side.
    We do some minor work on the carrier side. Admiral Moore 
can speak to that.
    Admiral Moore. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question.
    So, the work itself probably has to be done in the nuclear 
depots just because of the nuclear element. But, we've already 
taken steps to try and give some of the non-nuclear work, non-
skid tank work--you can go down the list--and, in particular, 
into small businesses. I think there is more opportunity to 
grow capacity by giving some of this work that the--in 
particular, small business can do, and free up the skilled 
artisans at our public shipyards to work on the really--the 
critical things that only they can work on.
    Senator Jones. All right. Well, great. Thank you.
    The--following up on that just a little bit, then, the 
workforce is obviously a real critical component to all of 
this. When we have these budgetary issues--and I'm--having been 
in this body, now, for about 20 months, I may not be as 
optimistic as my colleagues about any fix right now. I just 
don't see it happening in the real world that we're living in. 
With that, we have instability in the workforce. We get workers 
laid off, we get them hired back, you have to train. You know, 
what steps can we take--given just understanding that we're in 
an instable budgetary process here, what steps can we take, or 
are we taking, to help maintain that level of consistency 
throughout so that these workers--and that may be including 
transferring workers. I don't know. But, I'd like to have that 
addressed by each of you, if possible.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Maybe I'll take the, kind of, 
private-side maintenance.
    We are working hard within the Navy to, kind of, work the 
cash flow issues and prioritize keeping the availabilities on 
track. We've been able to do that, thus far, in these first two 
CRs. As that CR gets longer and longer and we're facing a $20 
billion shortfall in the Navy for a full-year CR, eventually 
that becomes untenable. We've kind of done the workarounds. I 
think the challenge is that uncertainty. If you're a business 
owner, it looks to be very problematic. What's really 
concerning is all the small businesses that are subcontractors 
to the larger shipyards. They're really the ones that take the 
hit, because if they--you know, if work doesn't show up for 2 
or 3 months that they had planned on, that can be devastating 
to a small business. Some of the larger private yards can carry 
through that. But, you know, we're looking at all the different 
opportunities we can to create as much stability as we can on 
the private side.
    Senator Jones. Great.
    Ms. Maurer. I think, on the public side, we issued a report 
last year looking at workforce challenges across the entire 
depot enterprise, including the public shipyards of the Navy. 
We found that there are a lot of innovative things happening 
down at individual depots, individual shipyards: retention 
incentives, pathways programs to encourage high school students 
to pick up these skilled trades, a lot of things of that 
nature. So, that's good. But, the recommendation we had to the 
Navy and to the other services was to take a high-level look to 
figure out what is actually working and really drill down on 
those efforts, because, in a lot of the--particularly in the 
public yards, there are competitions for these skilled trades. 
So, someone who is very skilled at repairing a ship, working at 
the Norfolk shipyard, can potentially go down the street and 
possibly make more money in the private yard. In the public 
sector, they need to figure out a way to make sure they retain 
that skilled workforce. Our recommendation, which the Navy has 
started to implement, will help them address that challenge.
    Senator Jones. Awesome. That's great. Well, thank you.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That's all I have.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Ernst.
    Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Thank you very much, to our witnesses today, and may--I 
think we've really gone over the budget issues quite 
thoroughly. Thank you all for sitting through this.
    We do have our own challenges in Congress. I would say that 
I did sit with Senator Perdue on the bipartisan, bicameral 
Budget and Appropriations Process Reform Committee. Mazie, you 
were part of that, as well. At the end of that process in 2018, 
we absolutely came up with nothing that would change Congress's 
behavior. It is on us, folks. So, thank you for bearing with 
us. We will have to work through that. Only four times in the 
past 45 years has Congress ever passed budget and 
appropriations on time and on process. Four out of the last 45 
years. We have to find the intestinal fortitude to work through 
this. It's not on you, folks. It's on us. So, thank you.
    The GAO has estimated that, since fiscal year 2008, the 
Navy has spent more than one-and-a-half-billion dollars to 
support attack submarines that provide no operational 
capability, because they're sitting idle, waiting on 
maintenance. I think we've gone through a number of those 
issues on how to mitigate that downtime--contract 
renegotiations, using private facilities. Of course, we have 
absolutely no coastline in Iowa. We have no shipyards in Iowa. 
So, we can't help you that way. But, we do have a number of 
businesses in Iowa that are active in supporting the Navy. I'd 
bet every single U.S. Navy ship has a Carver pump in it. Carver 
pump, out of Muscatine, Iowa. We do have interest in making 
sure that our ships are up and operational.
    I'm not going to dig into shipyards. That's not my area. 
But, what I would like for all of you to discuss, though, is 
other ways that we can mitigate some of these issues. 
Secretary, I think you and I have talked over AI before, and 
how that can be very helpful in some of our maintenance 
schedules. If you would dig in a little bit deeper, how can we 
use artificial intelligence, whether that's predictive 
maintenance, other areas? If you can talk through that a little 
bit, how would that be helpful for us?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I think the issue is one--
we've talked some of capacity, but there is also an 
affordability issue. Even if we had the capacity, we've got to 
drive down the cost of maintaining the ships, or we won't have 
the money. That's where we're seeing some amazing novel uses of 
technology. AI--we've got a process in the Navy called 
``perform the plan,'' where we're using heavy data analytics to 
really dig in and figure out where the levers are that we 
should invest in which will have the biggest payoff. That's 
already providing great benefit to us, and we're looking at 
bringing more performers in there. AI certainly can play in 
predictive maintenance and looking at some underlying 
activities going on.
    The other area we're using is, I'll say, nontraditional 
suppliers in maintenance--robotic corrosion, you know, 
ablation, taking off old paint, using novel techniques that 
would normally take thousands of hours of labor, that we may be 
able to do more effectively.
    Each of the shipyards has a really robust and, kind of, 
thriving innovation program right now, where they're bringing 
in folks from Iowa and everywhere else. My message is, if you 
have an idea on how to reduce costs or do things more 
effectively, we want to get you involved in the program. We are 
getting a lot of non-shipbuilder, ship-repair, traditional 
industry players that are making a huge difference for us.
    Senator Ernst. No, that's incredible. I'm glad that the 
Navy has really been an active participant using AI and other 
methodology to decrease cost to the taxpayers. It's really 
important that we have a strong force, but we're doing it 
responsibly with what tax dollars we have.
    One of the other areas that we've been looking at is 
reworking those existing contracts to make sure that future 
contracts are including technical data rights. Can you expound 
on that a little bit, as well, and where are we with that 
situation?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. A little bit less on the ship 
maintenance side as our other contracts, but it impacts 
maintenance, because if we don't have rights and we're locked 
to a specific vendor, or don't have the data to do the 
maintenance, then that can be an issue. A lot of hard work on 
the Navy. We've kind of got it dedicated now on data rights, 
industrial--intellectual property team-working to make sure 
each of our contracts has the rights we need, again, to go off 
and provide the full flexibility to find the most cost- and 
mission-effective solution.
    Senator Ernst. Yes. I appreciate it very much.
    Again, thanks, to all of you. You know, I was doing a 
visit, not all that long ago, where you--we made the point that 
you don't necessarily have to be a defense hawk or a fiscal 
hawk. You can be both. All of us on this committee support you. 
We support you. We just want to make sure our dollars are being 
used to the fullest extent possible, protecting those 
taxpayers, maintaining a strong force. So, we want to make sure 
that we're doing that. But, it is up to us, as Congress, to 
make sure we have our act in order, as well, so that we can 
properly fund you.
    Again, thank you very much for being here today. I 
appreciate your input.
    Thank you.
    Senator Perdue. Senator King. Another member of the 
infamous Budget Committee.
    [Laughter.]
    Senator King. But, I think there's a plan underway now 
that's a good one.
    Senator Perdue. Well, I just heard we're 90 percent--our 
late number is 90 percent, just in case you guys want to do a 
parallel. I hope you noted that. Four times in 45 years. Sorry.
    Senator King. There you go. Thank you.
    I want to pull back the focus on maintenance. Admiral, 
perhaps you can answer this question, 291 ships currently in 
the fleet. How many of those are either at sea or could go to 
sea tomorrow? In other words, what's--what percentage of the 
fleet is ready to go tomorrow?
    Admiral Moore. Well, I've got--doing quick math in my head, 
which is always problematic in public--I've got 53 ships in--
currently in maintenance availabilities, in public sector and 
the private sector. So, those 53 ships aren't available. Then 
there's probably another 50 or so that have just come out of 
maintenance, that are, we would say, early in their training 
cycle, that would--we probably would not deploy. I can take----
    Senator King. That's about a third. About 30 percent.
    Admiral Moore. About a third, and that's probably typically 
what we would see.
    Senator King. Now, my question is--I don't know how to 
analyze that figure. Are there any good benchmarks? What's the 
availability factor of Carnival Cruise Line or American 
Airlines with their large, bulky metal objects?
    [Laughter.]
    Admiral Moore. Yeah, well, I mean, Carnival Cruise Line is 
going to have a higher availability----
    Senator King. Or commercial shipping, generally.
    Admiral Moore. Commercial shipping, in general, just 
basic--because of what they use it for and the type of 
maintenance that they have to do to maintain the ship, and 
because of the fact that----
    Senator King. Well, I'm looking for a benchmark. I mean, 
I'm not suggesting----
    Admiral Moore. Okay.
    Senator King.--that's the right one, but, you know, I don't 
know how to analyze 30 percent. Is that a good number, a bad 
number? My sense is, that's a high number.
    Admiral Moore. Well, I think, historically, that's probably 
been--what it's been. I think the--you know, the Optimized 
Fleet Response Plan is designed or trying to provide more SIOP 
to the fleet from what we've had previously. If you look 
historically at aircraft carriers, for example, you know, we 
started in a 24-month cycle, back in around 2000, where the 
ship was in maintenance for about 6 months, and then it had 
about, you know, 10 months of work-up and then a 6-month 
deployment. So, you would say, ``Hey, it was only deployable 25 
percent of the time.'' Today, in a 36-month cycle, you know, 6 
months of maintenance, about 10 months to work up, and the 
ship's available, you know, almost 60 percent of the time for--
to----
    Senator King. I want to follow up on Senator Hawley's 
question, which I thought was a very good one. That is, How 
much can we do while the ship is underway? Has some serious 
analysis been done of that? Because one of the problems that's 
been cited here today is the high ops tempo, the longer 
deployments, the more active deployments. It seems to me if we 
do some really serious thinking about that, that's an 
opportunity to diminish the maintenance challenge if we can 
keep the ships in better shape while they're deployed.
    Ms. Maurer. We do a lot of maintenance when--while we're 
underway, but it's not the deep maintenance that you would need 
to keep the ship running.
    Senator King. Has the Navy, though, done a--an indepth 
analysis of this option, a think piece, if you will?
    Admiral Moore. Can I just take that for the record, sir?
    Senator King. I'd appreciate that.
    [The information referred to follows:]

    Admiral Moore. There are three echelons of Navy ship 
maintenance, which vary based on the significance of the work 
being carried out, the personnel and facility performing the 
maintenance, and the ship's operational status during repairs. 
The three echelons are Organizational Level Maintenance, 
Intermediate Level Maintenance, and Depot Level Maintenance.
      Organizational Level Maintenance (O-Level): 
Organizational-level maintenance is the lowest maintenance 
echelon. It consists of all maintenance actions within the 
capability and resources provided to the organization that 
routinely oversees equipment operation (e.g., ship's force). It 
is the first defense against allowing small defects to become 
major material problems, which could impact ship operations and 
mission capability.
      Intermediate Level Maintenance (I-Level): I-Level 
maintenance requires a higher skill, capability, or capacity 
than O-Level maintenance. I-Level work is carried out by 
centralized repair facility personnel such as Navy fleet 
maintenance activities, Regional Maintenance Centers (RMCs), 
battle group maintenance activities, or intermediate 
maintenance activities (IMAs). It is normally conducted during 
Continuous Maintenance Availabilities (CMAVs) throughout the 
training cycle.
      Depot Level Maintenance: Depot-level maintenance 
is the highest maintenance echelon. It consists of maintenance 
tasks that focus on repair, fabrication, manufacture, assembly, 
overhaul, modification, refurbishment, rebuilding, test, 
analysis, design, upgrade, painting, assemblies, subassemblies, 
software, components, or end items that require specialized 
facilities, tooling, support equipment, personnel with higher 
technical skill, or processes beyond the scope or capacity of 
the intermediate maintenance actions (IMA). For non-nuclear 
ships, depot level maintenance is conducted by private 
shipyards. The Navy conducted two studies on the Surface Force 
in the past 9 years: the Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force 
Readiness in February 2010 and the Comprehensive Review of 
Recent Surface Force Incidents in October 2017. Both studies 
highlighted the need for increased Organizational (O-Level) and 
Intermediate (I-Level) Maintenance to improve the material 
condition of ships in the Fleet. The Navy Maintenance community 
is addressing this by increasing the amount of I-Level 
maintenance that can be performed by sailors while underway and 
improving sailor training and certification so there are more 
qualified individuals capable of executing such maintenance. 
However, a significant amount of the maintenance and 
modernization work can only be executed during depot-level 
availabilities and thus cannot be performed while at sea. For 
example, much of the depot-level work requires dry-docking, and 
fuel and weapons to be removed from the ship. Other maintenance 
work requires systems to be taken off-line for an extended 
period of time, which is not possible while the ship is 
underway. In addition, some I-Level maintenance actions are 
linked to these depot level work packages, and therefore must 
be carried out during the depot level availability. The Navy is 
working to increase the amount of I-Level maintenance work 
performed by sailors shipboard and at the Regional Maintenance 
Centers (RMCs), reducing the work package during depot level 
maintenance availabilities. As a result of the Fleet Review 
Panel of Surface Force Readiness, the Navy reestablished I-
Level Maintenance as a competency of the RMCs and directed the 
RMCs to increase Active Duty personnel by 1,587 sailors in the 
Fleet Concentration Areas. The Navy now has 2,100 sailors 
supporting ship repairs and gaining valuable hands-on 
maintenance experience. Through execution of production work, 
these sailors participate in the Navy Afloat Maintenance 
Training Strategy (NAMTS) program and certifications so that 
when they return to sea duty they have the knowledge, skills, 
and ability to execute routine and emergent maintenance. 
Trained sailors who have the right technical documents, tools, 
and industrial plant equipment onboard are able to accomplish 
overhaul and repair of pumps, valves, engines, and motors and 
execute some welding work, as well as a significant amount of 
preventative maintenance. By developing journeyman skills, the 
Navy is developing the workforce necessary to conduct deep 
maintenance at sea and reduce the amount of contracting 
maintenance work. For submarines, class maintenance plans 
dictate what maintenance needs to be accomplished between in-
port maintenance periods. As part of the class maintenance plan 
process, NAVSEA and SUBMEPP update each hull's underway 
maintenance requirements based on hull specific conditions and 
previously deferred maintenance.

    Senator King. If they haven't, I would suggest that it--
it's--it would be a useful project to sort of approach it with 
a--as a blank sheet of paper and say, ``What--how much could we 
do without having to go into the dry dock?''
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. The only thing I would add is, 
we also do a fair amount of modernization at the same time. So, 
separately, we're doing----
    Senator King. Sure.
    Secretary Geurts.--a lot of activity to figure out, How do 
we streamline modernization, particularly with our IT systems, 
so we're not ripping out cable and ripping out computers, and 
be able to upgrade in place? That's another important 
difference than a commercial--they're not generally doing as 
much rip out and replace.
    Senator King. That's an upgrade, as opposed to painting and 
scraping.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. But, we do them in the same 
period. We talk about maintenance and modernization. We've got 
to work both, and we are working----
    Senator King. You have to do that with 40-year assets.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
    Senator King. I understand that.
    Secretary Geurts, you've been talking about--you gave us 
some good figures, at the beginning, about improved, sort of a 
momentum in this, sort of shorter delays, more availability. 
What are the bottlenecks? Is it money? Is it infrastructure? Is 
it management? Where do we need to target our attention? I say 
``our,'' including all of us here.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I think one of the real 
powerful things the committee did by putting under the RDA the 
responsibility for sustainment was ensuring and incentivizing 
that we're bringing a full set of the acquisition and 
contracting tool set to play, here. What I tended to see, 
coming in, was, we had a bunch of availabilities that we 
treated each as an individual product, you know, and we were--
competed each individually. We did--it tended to be very late, 
and it would be, kind of, akin to, you know, every Friday, 
calling for a painter to show up Monday, and doing that 52 
times, as opposed--and so, getting a more systematic look at 
it, and figuring out what's really creating the bottleneck--
part of it, on the private side, is not a line of sight or 
confidence in the vision that's coming, and so, if you don't 
have confidence in the work coming, you're not going to make 
the longer-term investments to have the right workforce and the 
right infrastructure.
    Senator King. I'm out of time, but I want to leave you with 
a quick suggestion. When you buy a ship, you should also buy 
the intellectual property to the parts so that the Navy can 
print, which is where it's going, its own parts, which I think 
would be a significant increase in efficiency rather than 
having to wait to order parts and get them in. I just--same 
thing--I've made this recommendation. You should not only buy 
the ship, but buy the rights to the--to make the parts, as 
necessary.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. Maybe in a followup I can--I 
mean, we have 3D printers we're deploying with ships now, so--
--
    Senator King. Good.
    Secretary Geurts.--I'd love to give you----
    Senator King. I could see them all--I could see 3D printers 
deployed on the ships.
    Secretary Geurts. They are. We already have them deployed 
on ships. I--and I'll give you an update on that, maybe 
separately, as a follow-up.
    Senator King. Thank you. Appreciate it.
    Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Shaheen.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you all very much for being here.
    I want to follow up on the 3D printer with respect to the 
impact on the submarine industrial base, because that's one of 
the challenges that I think we would all agree we face. Back 
during the Cold War, we had over 17,000 suppliers. Now we have 
about 3,500 active suppliers. As we think about what we need to 
do to ramp up production for the Virginia payload module for 
the Columbia-class, that's a challenge, which may be made worse 
if we no longer are looking for some of those suppliers to 
provide parts. So, I guess my real question is, What are we 
doing to support and grow that industrial base that we're going 
to need?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I talk a lot about the 
submarine--the generational production we're doing on the 
submarine side. One of the key enablers to that is the supply 
base--regrowing that, robusting it, and making sure it's 
capable of delivering. What we're trying to do is--we have an 
integrated enterprise plan, where we take all of our submarine 
work, all of our aircraft carrier work, look at it in total, 
and make sure the supply base sees that in total so they 
understand the marketplace. That's starting to bear some fruit. 
The Congress has been very helpful with a lot of the 
initiatives, in terms of funding, to get the supply base up to 
the ramp we need. When I think of the 3D-printed issue, I don't 
think of it displacing a supplier doing work. I think of it 
more, how can I do some expeditionary maintenance----
    Senator Shaheen. Yeah. No, I was sort of----
    Secretary Geurts.--in place----
    Senator Shaheen.--being facetious when I was----
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
    Senator Shaheen.--saying that. But--I appreciate those 
efforts, but what is the signal that the Navy sends when we 
have a contract for nine Virginia-class submarines with General 
Dynamics Electric Boat and we still haven't committed on the 
tenth submarine? Doesn't that send sort of a mixed message with 
our interest in seeing the industrial base do the ramp-up we 
need?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. Specifically to ensure that 
didn't cause an issue with the supplier, in that contract we 
have awarded all the materiel for all ten submarines. So, to 
the supplier, they're getting orders for the--all the materiel 
for ten ships. That's because we didn't want to cause 
disruption in their plans.
    Senator Shaheen. Great.
    Secretary Geurts. I think we've mitigated that risk in the 
supply base. The option is really for the construction element 
of the ship.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
    I want to go back to the Infrastructure Optimization Plan. 
I had the opportunity, a couple of weeks ago, to be at the 
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with a number of other members of the 
delegation to do the groundbreaking for the paint, blast, and 
rubber facility, and also for the Defense Logistics Agency 
Warehouse, which are critical pieces if we're going to continue 
to make the shipyard more efficient. As you know, one of the 
projects that is part of this effort is the Multi-Mission Dry 
Dock Project, which--can you confirm if that's still on track 
for the fiscal year 2021 budget request?
    Admiral Moore. Yes, ma'am. It's still on track. That's a 
key component of our overall strategy.
    Senator Shaheen. Good. Thank you.
    As you're looking at--you've discussed a number of things 
today with respect to what will increase the Optimization 
Plan--increase the costs of that Optimization Plan. Ms. Maurer, 
you talked about the 17 recommendations which could help 
address that. How is the Navy looking at those recommendations 
and implementing them?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I am in total agreement with 
the GAO, in terms of their identification that we need to 
continue to refine our cost estimates, have an independent cost 
estimate done. The way we're approaching that is, as you know, 
modeling the shipyards, building the digital models. That will 
then lead to, kind of, our area defense plan--or area 
construction plans. Then, that will allow us to get the 
refinement in there. Separately, and I think uniquely, we've 
put a combined program office team--we're going to run this 
like a program, not a collection of individual products--or 
projects. I think that's unique--I haven't seen that before in 
the DOD--given the importance of this. I think that, one, we 
have a dedicated team to it, with all the right discipline. 
We've got the recommendations on how to cost-estimate better. 
That will all come together and continue to give us more 
confidence that we've got the projects scheduled in the right 
way to do the right job with a budget that we understand and 
can execute.
    Senator Shaheen. Does that sound right to you, Ms. Maurer?
    Ms. Maurer. Yes, it does. We're very encouraged by the fact 
that the Navy concurred with our recommendations. It is--I 
don't think it is--it is also very important they set up this 
program office, because, up until now, to try to finance 
improvements at the yards requires pulling from multiple pots 
of money, wiring together in different parts of the Navy org 
chart. Pulling it all together in one piece is important.
    The last thing I'll say, though, is, since this indeed a 
20-year plan, it's very important for Congress to continue to 
keep its eye on it, as well as Navy leadership. Of course, with 
the GAO, we'll keep track with what's going on with the 
implementation of our recommendations.
    Senator Shaheen. Thank you.
    I'm out of time, but I just want to thank you, Secretary 
Geurts, for attending the USS Thresher Memorial ceremony at the 
end of September. As we all know, the Thresher was the worst 
submarine accident in naval history in the United States, and 
it took the lives of 129 men on board. To finally get that 
memorial meant so much to the families. To be able to recognize 
the SUBSAFE Program that grew out of that tragedy, and the 
difference that that's made to keeping our sailors safe, it's 
really important. So, thank you very much.
    Secretary Geurts. Thank you, ma'am.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Duckworth.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, to the witnesses, for being here today.
    I believe that, in any discussion on the readiness of Navy 
ships and submarines, we must include a discussion of 
logistics. Specifically, military logistics on transportation, 
I feel, is often overlooked. I would like to discuss the fact 
that Navy ships and submarines would not be complete without 
discussing the readiness of the strategic sealift fleet, as 
well.
    The sealift fleet is comprised of both Maritime 
Transportation Administration, MARAD, ready reserve fleet 
vessels, and Military Sealift Command surge vessels. If fully 
activated, the entire body of the strategic sealift fleet would 
be tested. This capacity is vitally important in getting to and 
sustaining a fight, especially when you're looking at places 
like Africa or the Asia-Pacific region. The time to focus on 
the readiness of this entire strategic sealift capability is 
now, and not during a national crisis or war.
    As you all know, the strategic sealift is managed by two 
organizations, the Sealift Command and the Maritime 
Administration. Given that we have two organizations in two 
different departments that are responsible for the U.S. 
military strategic sealift capability, I believe it's really 
important that we consider the readiness and maintenance needs 
of MARAD's ready reserve fleet when discussing the Navy's 
overall ship and submarine maintenance status.
    Mr. Geurts, Vice Admiral Moore, what are you currently 
doing to track and capture the maintenance needs of MARAD's 
ready reserve fleet? How do you balance and ensure their 
maintenance cycles are prioritized?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. It's a really critical 
element of our Nation's warfighting force and, to your point, 
sometimes gets overlooked. A lot of work over the last, I'd 
say, year and a half. We did a report to Congress in March of 
2018, kind of, outlining the need to have the sealift force the 
Nation needs, just like we need the Navy the Nation needs. We 
get daily updates from MARAD on the status of all of their 
ships, what--you know, their reliability, what their challenges 
are. They certainly have challenges. It is an aging fleet. We 
put together, kind of, a three-prong plan, in terms of service 
life, extending, perhaps replacing, a small number with used 
boats, and then having a recapitalization plan. We outlined 
that in March, and we're continuing to execute that right now.
    Senator Duckworth. Did you want to add anything, Admiral?
    Admiral Moore. No, ma'am.
    Senator Duckworth. Okay.
    Does the panel believe that the Navy appropriately values 
the ready reserve fleet and provides adequate funding for their 
maintenance? If not, what level of funding do you think they 
need?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I think we are, over the last 
2 years, renewing our commitment to that. We have been adding 
money in the budget every year to ensure we can extend those 
ships that are aging out, and then look for creative ways to 
recapitalize them. Probably opportunities to continue to work 
with Congress to come up with the best balance of that--kind 
of, those three levers to pull: extending current ones, 
replacing some of those with available used fleet, and then 
buying new, and we'll to continue to work with you on that. 
That's part of our 2021 budget discussion, is to make sure we 
have that balanced out the right way.
    Senator Duckworth. Okay.
    I'm deeply concerned about the abysmal status of the surge 
sealift--the Navy's surge sealift vessels. In total, it's--what 
I have is that two of the 15 vessels are currently not mission-
capable, 5 of the 15 are deemed unseaworthy and have now lost 
their Coast Guard certificate of inspection, and, basically, 
half of the Navy--almost half of the Navy's surge vessels can't 
even set sail.
    Admiral Moore, what is your maintenance plan to repair the 
Navy's surge sealift vessels and return them to a fully 
operational status?
    Admiral Moore. Yeah, ma'am, unfortunately, I don't--MARAD 
doesn't fall under me, so I can't give you a good answer on 
that, but I'm certainly happy to take that to record and get 
to--get that question to the right person and get you an 
answer.
    Senator Duckworth. Right, they don't fall under you, but 
you're going to be relying on them. What are you doing to nudge 
them along or--I mean, we can't be in these silos and say, 
``Well, they don't fall under us.'' But, half of them are not 
even seaworthy, and we're going to rely on them--the Navy's 
going to rely on them. So, what are we doing?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. So, again, for the current 
fleet, we have been increasing the funding to service-life-
extend the existing ships and then working on a 
recapitalization plan at, kind of, the Navy level. Admiral 
Moore doesn't own the maintenance of those. Those fall under 
the broader perspective. I think--I'd love to offer a commenter 
who would give you a detailed brief of how we see that laying 
out, the resources we're putting in towards this, and where we 
see the readiness now and growing in the future.
    Senator Duckworth. I definitely would like to get a 
briefing on that recapitalization plan. I do think that we have 
a silo problem, here. The Navy, overall--DOD, overall, is going 
to be relying on those ships. To say that, ``They don't fall 
under us'' is, I think oversimplification, because I think we 
need to be working jointly together when half of them are not--
I mean, they've lost the Coast Guard certification.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
    Senator Duckworth. That's unacceptable.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am.
    Senator Duckworth. Thank you.
    I yield back.
    Senator Perdue. I understand we're going to have a series 
of votes at--starting at 11:30, but we will go through a second 
round, here, very quickly.
    I just have one other followup question. I'll have other 
questions--I'll put them in the record--particularly with 
regard, Ms. Maurer, your report on the equipment. We didn't 
quite get to the equipment. But, this is shocking to me, as an 
ex-manufacturing guy. That some of our equipment is 15 years 
past its useful life is shocking to me, at--I believe that was 
at Norfolk, on page 13.
    Can you parallel--Ms. Maurer, can you parallel the 
aircraft? We've talked about surface ships. I know that's not 
totally within your--but I'd love to get a contrast between--I 
know you have a background in this. Where are we in--in 
beginning of 2017, about two-thirds of our F/A-18s really 
couldn't fly that night. They were waiting on--that day--they 
were waiting on maintenance. I know the Navy's made great 
progress in that. I know you just had a presentation on the F-
35, as well. Parallel for us the depot issues on aircraft that 
are coming off our aircraft carriers, as well--and briefly, if 
you don't mind.
    Ms. Maurer. Sure. Real briefly, big picture, the Fleet 
Readiness Centers, which are the--part of the Air Force that--
or part of the Navy, rather, is taking care of Navy aviation, 
faces some of the similar challenges in terms of 
infrastructure, similar challenges in terms of workforce, maybe 
not as acute as they see at the public yards, but, 
systemically, it is the same. We have some ongoing work right 
now that's looking at the current status of fixed-wing as well 
as rotary-wing aircraft, in terms of their mission capabilities 
and historical operation and sustainment costs. That'll be 
coming out early in the coming calendar year so we have some 
more information on those trend lines. But, essentially, 
readiness levels and mission capability levels are not where 
they need to be for Navy aviation or for the Air Force.
    Senator Perdue. Thank you.
    Senator Hirono.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you.
    In September, my colleagues in the Hawaii Congressional 
Delegation sent a letter to Secretary Spencer about the Navy's 
intent to cancel plans to construct a drydock waterfront 
facility, P-214, at Pearl Harbor Shipyard, and the impact that 
this would have on workforce morale, quality of life, and the 
Navy's ability to achieve efficiencies in maintenance and 
availabilities for the Pacific fleet. P-214 is a project that 
has been authorized and appropriated twice to address vital 
shortcomings at Pearl Harbor. In light of the GAO report, I'd 
like to reiterate my concern that cancellation of this project 
is premature and will have an undesirable and negative impact 
on the workforce at Pearl Harbor that has been asked, for 
years, to work in often substandard conditions. Despite these 
conditions, the workforce at Pearl Harbor has sacrificed and 
persevered to meet their mission of ensuring the readiness of 
the Pacific fleet. It is long past time to demonstrate to the 
workforce that new capital improvements to the infrastructure 
are on their way.
    I'm interested to learn--and this is for you, Secretary 
Geurts and also Admiral Moore--to learn why the Navy chose to 
do this, this cancellation, before the new proposed facility is 
fully analyzed and evaluated, designed, and costed, especially 
given the preliminary cost estimates of the new drydock 
production facility estimated to be between $1.5 and $2.0 
billion. I mean, don't get me wrong, I want to see a new--you 
know, the new drydock production facility, but I do have 
serious concerns with the Navy's ability to adequately budget 
for such a significant project.
    Really, timing-wise, the analysis that you're undergoing 
will be completed next spring to determine the feasibility, 
while the funding for the canceled project, P-214, is good for 
5 years. I think you understand why I'm concerned about the 
premature cancellation. So, will you explain to me why you 
needed to cancel P-214 while you're still undergoing an 
analysis process?
    Admiral Moore. A lot of--ma'am, thank you for the question. 
I mean, we're fully committed to the upgraded drydock 
production facility that's going to go in. This particular 
facility, at $45 million, was relatively small and a small 
portion of the yard. Our early analytical work showed that the 
return on investment was going to be small compared to what 
we're going to get with the drydock production facility that's 
going to go in there next. Rather than spend money there and 
then have to take that down when it gets superseded by the new 
production facility, we made the decision that it would be 
better to press on for the drydock production facility. You 
have my commitment, you're going to get a--either a new graving 
dock or a floater, and you're going to get a drydock production 
facility that's going to be state-of-the-art, that is going to 
set Pearl Harbor, first and foremost, ahead of everybody else.
    Senator Hirono. But, you're not spending this $45 million 
right now. It's good for 5 years. Why not leave that on the 
books?
    Admiral Moore. I believe the Navy's intent, because of 
some--was to use that to continue to work on the refueling 
facility that has to be completed at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. 
The money is going to be reprogrammed to do that necessary 
work, because that work has to be finished----
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I--again, I will make the 
same commitment. I'm also working very closely with our 
environmental and installations group to see how we can 
accelerate these larger facilities that we've talked about 
here, given their importance and the criticality of ensuring we 
have the right facilities for the workforce here. You're 
absolutely right, we need to demonstrate to all the workers in 
our shipyards that we care about them, we're going to invest in 
them and give them the world-class facilities they need.
    Senator Hirono. Well, apparently that message is still--you 
know, it hasn't assuaged the concerns about what is deemed. 
This is a concern shared by our delegation, that this is a 
rather hasty cancellation.
    The GAO testimony today is based on previously published 
work in 2015 and 2019 regarding ship maintenance and the whole 
slew of issues that have already been raised. The GAO made 17 
recommendations, and the DOD has concurred with most of them, 
and has fully implemented six. I don't know if this is 
something that, Secretary Geurts, you can respond to as to what 
the other--the remaining recommendations are, and where we are, 
and the status of meeting those recommendations, or if this is 
a question that should go to the Secretary of Defense.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, ma'am. I take the GAO's 
recommendations and our commitment very seriously. I agree with 
the analysis in the--at the end of Ms. Maurer's testimony, kind 
of, outlaid, kind of, status on those. A number of them are, 
kind of, longer-reaching recommendations, and we're going to 
work closely with the GAO to ensure they know where we are, and 
then, quite frankly, use their skills and perspective to ensure 
we are acting in the way we need to and get the best practices. 
It's got my personal attention. I've looked through each one of 
them, and hold me accountable to implementing them.
    Senator Hirono. Thank you.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Blumenthal.
    Senator Blumenthal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Thank you, Secretary Geurts, for speaking with me on the 
phone the other day before the signing of the Block 5 contract 
with Electric Boat. Thank you for your and other members of the 
panel's support for our submarine-building program there and 
elsewhere around the country. I think we're all agreed, in this 
room at least, that our submarines seem to be the most 
survivable leg of the nuclear triad, and that Russian 
advancement in this area underscores the importance of 
investing in this strategic advantage. There's no way around 
the need for investment and engagement, not only in the marque-
named builders, but also the suppliers, the defense industrial 
base, the supply chain, which need, as much as anything else, 
that investment.
    You and I talked a little bit about the capability of 
Electric Boat and other private contractors to meet the needs 
under that contract and others. The Block 5 contract has an 
option for a tenth submarine. I think we need an eleventh 
within that same time period covered by the contract. But, the 
question that we discussed is whether there will be the 
capability to do the Virginia-class building and Columbia-
class, an unprecedented challenge for our defense industrial 
base.
    The key to it, in my view, is workforce training. You 
alluded to it in your testimony, and you specifically 
mentioned, quote, ``improving the training of the workforce'' 
as a key-line effort in the public shipyards. I want to 
emphasize how important workforce training is in the private 
shipyards, and how important it is for there to be close 
collaboration between the Navy and private partners in meeting 
the training deficits that we face right now.
    You visited Electric Boat this August with Secretary Esper. 
You saw Electric Boat's active learning centers. They're doing 
all the right things. We just need to make sure they are scaled 
up. Instead of hundreds, we need to train thousands.
    Let me ask you, as well as Admiral Moore, do you believe, 
as I do, that proactively addressing these looming workforce 
shortfalls in the private yards is essential to ensuring on-
time delivery of the Columbia-class and the Virginia-class 
programs?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I would say workforce 
development for the Navy, even broader than all that, is the 
number-one issue, whether that's in training sailors, whether 
that's in training our maintenance teams, whether that's in the 
public yards, whether it's in the private yards, or whether 
it's new construction, whether it's repair. I'm very encouraged 
by a lot of the, I would say, innovative techniques, our 
Electric Boat, Newport News, HI, is using, as well as in our 
public yards, to get after that. We've lost a generation of 
vocational skilled training as a kind of core, and so 
rebuilding that is going to be one of the critical elements, 
not only for the Navy, but for the Nation. We are dedicated to 
ensuring that's a key thing that we stay focused on, in all 
regards.
    Senator Blumenthal. I assume, Vice Admiral Moore, you would 
agree.
    But, I really want to emphasize that it's--and you folks do 
a great job with training sailors. No question. But, the 
private manufacturers and shipyards need the investment. In the 
last budget, or in the one that's under consideration now, I 
think there's $10 million that I asked to be inserted for 
Electric Boat's training program. I think that, in future 
years, that number has to be much bigger than it--than that $10 
million, because the pipefitters, the welders, the 
electricians, the folks who actually put submarines together, 
they make the parts, they put those parts together, and they do 
it very well. But, as you've said very well, we're losing a 
generation.
    Thank you.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Sullivan.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    I just have one final question as, kind of, from the GAO 
study, but then to the strategic level.
    The GAO found that, since fiscal year 2014, the Navy fleet 
all across the board has spent over 33,000 more days in 
maintenance than expected. That seems--number's almost 
incredible. That's 91 years of delay. If this is becoming so 
commonplace that it seems to be something that we're building 
into our operations, Mr. Secretary, Admiral, how can we be 
advancing the strategic objectives outlined in the NDS with 
this kind of challenge? Obviously the lost operational presence 
in places like the South China Sea or the Mediterranean or the 
Arctic is a huge negative impact. Does China have these 
problems like we do, or are they just getting their fleet out 
and about? How is this impacting our broader National Defense 
Strategy?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. I guess, from my perspective, 
the past performance is unacceptable and unsustainable. That's 
why you've seen, I think, such a large focus on the Navy, 
particularly in the last 2 years, to look at this problem 
holistically. As the GAO's indicated, it's a--you know, a 
system of systems. There's lots of moving parts. We, in the 
past, may not have looked at all of it holistically. It was 
lots of little tribes, kind of, working in different elements.
    I'm encouraged by the performance we've seen in the last 18 
months, but I'm not satisfied. We have a long way to go to 
ensure we can, kind of, get up on the pipeline we need and then 
drive cost out of it.
    Senator Sullivan. But, bottom line, this dramatically 
undermines our ability to----
    Secretary Geurts. Absolutely.
    Senator Sullivan.--execute the National Defense Strategy 
and reorient towards the Indo-Pacific.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
    Senator Sullivan. Do you agree with that, Admiral?
    Admiral Moore. Yes, sir, I agree with that.
    Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Kaine.
    Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    I think that was a good analysis that Senator Sullivan did. 
I hadn't done the math. But, 91 years of delay--delay is 91 
years of these subs and ships not being in the water, doing the 
mission that they do, which is not only defending the country, 
but preserving open sea lanes, et cetera. If you think about it 
as 91 years of mission loss, that really demonstrates why we 
have to get on this.
    A couple of questions for you, Ms. Maurer, really quickly. 
On that first page that I quoted when I did my opening comment, 
I just want to make sure I understand another piece that you 
mentioned. At the bottom of the first page, What GAO Found: 
``For example, the Navy estimates it will take 20 years to 
improve the infrastructure at its shipyards.'' I am assuming 
that that is a reference to the Shipyard Infrastructure 
Optimization Program. Is that correct?
    Ms. Maurer. That's correct, Senator.
    Senator Kaine. That's the program--Secretary Geurts, in 
your testimony, that's the 20-year, $21 billion program. Now, 
that's your desire. You still have to get the funding from us, 
right?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir. We've got to request it, and 
then it has to be supported.
    Senator Kaine. In that $21 billion Shipyard Infrastructure 
Optimization Program, a lot of that money is military 
construction (MILCON) money, correct?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
    Senator Kaine. For example, on your testimony, you talk 
about examples of MILCON projects underway. My eye is drawn to 
the Norfolk one of the four, but you talk about a new--you're 
in negotiations to award a contract to build a new defueling 
and inactivation complex that will replace a 25-year-old 
facility. That's just an example of, at these shipyards, the 
sorts of MILCON investments that are going to need to be made.
    Secretary Geurts. Absolutely, sir. Part of the challenge 
is, we've run these shipyards hard, and they were designed 
many, many years ago, and they're not now optimized, as I'm 
sure Senator Perdue, when he looked at it--that's not the way 
you would set it up from scratch. So, we've got to not only 
modernize it, but do it in a way where we can get efficiency 
back into those shipyards.
    Senator Kaine. Let me tell you another challenge you have. 
So, one challenge is, a lot of this money that you need to 
solve the problem that we're discussing today is MILCON money, 
but another one is, there's a lot of competition for MILCON 
money, right? I mean, we're talking about--we have to build new 
hangars to deal with the F-35s that are coming online. We have 
to repair Tyndall and Lejeune that got blitzed, you know, by 
hurricanes in 2018. So, it's not exactly like MILCON projects 
are just easy to get funding for, correct? The competition is 
pretty intense.
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, sir.
    Senator Kaine. I'll just close by saying my colleagues and 
I are really, really committed to having a MILCON budget that 
is robust and that goes for the purpose for which it was 
intended.
    Thank you, Mr. Chair.
    Senator Perdue. I'm going to take you--the Chairman's 
privilege and make a comment, because I want to follow up on 
that. I think that's a very valid comment. I'm not surprised it 
comes from the Senator. He is very thoughtful about these 
issues. That is this, that I'm concerned, when we look at 
Seapower as a Subcommittee, and Readiness, these two committees 
overlap in so many ways. The one I'm concerned about is 
allocation of total spending in the Department of Defense. We 
spend about $760 billion. Fourteen percent of that is overhead. 
I'd like to understand why that's up from 2 percent, just 40 
years ago. The--but, the other 86 percent gets split in a 
third, a third, a third. I've got two Navy people here today, 
so I'm going to get a vested--I'm not asking a question, but I 
want to make a point. The point is, the NDS--the allocation of 
dollars in our budget for the DOD is not consistent in so many 
ways. MILCON is one. But, the overall support of the NDS is not 
there. It does--it's not consistent. The allocation of the 
money is not consistent with NDS. That's something that we're 
going to be looking at, from a Seapower Subcommittee 
standpoint. So, I would welcome any input you guys have 
specifically as it relates to NDS.
    Senator King.
    Senator King. No questions.
    Senator Perdue. Senator Blumenthal, do you have another 
followup?
    Senator Blumenthal. No.
    Senator Perdue. Anybody?
    Well, I think we've worn the subject out. So----
    First of all, Ms. Maurer, thank you for this report. This 
is fascinating. I appreciate the objectivity and the 
succinctness of it. It really helped us advance our education 
of the--this issue. We'll be talking more.
    But, Admiral, thank you for your service and your--both of 
you, for your service and your focus on this. We know you're on 
it. We see the improvement.
    But, this has been a very enlightening hearing. Thank you 
all for being here today and for your testimony.
    Thank you.
    [Whereupon, at 11:39 a.m., the Committee adjourned.]

    [Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]

               Questions Submitted by Senator Jim Inhofe
           maritime dynamic over the horizon targeting system
    1. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Geurts, I understand that your office 
has been working on establishing a pilot program called the Maritime 
Dynamic Over-the-Horizon Targeting System (MDOTS) that would satisfy an 
essential capability gap for Over-the-Horizon (OTH) Naval Dynamic Time-
Sensitive-Target (TST) Targeting aboard Naval vessels, command nodes 
and command ships to perform much faster kinetic and non-kinetic 
engagements from ``sense-to-engage.'' The Navy has identified the USS 
America as the desired platform for this pilot effort. Could you please 
explain to the Committee the risks associated with any delay in this 
effort and what not having this capability means to our warfighting 
readiness.
    Secretary Geurts. The Maritime Dynamic Over-the-Horizon time 
sensitive Targeting System (MDOTS) is currently one of several options 
that address the emergent need for a time sensitive target defeat 
strategy. The Department of the Navy is continuing to evaluate this 
concept and capability relative to requirements and warfighting needs. 
Given that this area is such a critical capability for our warfighter, 
the DON's evaluation needs to be comprehensive to ensure the Navy's 
strategy is sustainable for the long term.

    2. Senator Inhofe. Secretary Geurts, could you please detail how 
the Navy intends to meet the timeline necessary for the USS America and 
what resources have been identified to achieve this goal?
    Secretary Geurts. MDOTS was not installed on the USS America in 
fiscal year 2019. MDOTS is one of many possible technology solutions in 
this capability set. As part of POM22 (Program Objective Memorandum 
2022), all technologies in this capability set will be reviewed and 
prioritized.

    3. Senator Inhofe. Admiral Moore, could you please identify the 
Navy entities involved in the execution of the MDOTS program and which 
Navy Echelon 2 command has cognizance over this program? Furthermore, 
this capability could have broad applicability across the Department, 
including the Joint Strike Fighter Program. Who would serve as the Navy 
integrator for other combat systems into MDOTS, NAVAIR or NAVSEA?
    Admiral Moore. The Navy entities involved with MDOTS are NAVAIR, 
NAVWAR, and NAVSEA. NAVSEA is the Echelon 2 command that will oversee 
integration efforts.
                               __________
              Questions Submitted by Senator Dan Sullivan
                          maintenance backlog
    4. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Geurts, according to the Government 
Accountability Office's (GAO's) report on the Navy's maintenance 
delays, from fiscal year 2014 to fiscal year 2019, the Navy experienced 
a total of 33,701 days of maintenance delays. What is the impact of 
these maintenance delays on our ability to accomplish the strategic 
objectives outlined in the 2018 National Defense Strategy?
    Secretary Geurts. The on-time delivery of ships from maintenance 
availabilities allows the Navy to accomplish the strategic objectives 
outlined in the National Defense Strategy. Maintenance delays adversely 
affect these objectives. That is why the Navy has spent considerable 
time and resources and the use of data analytics to improve and 
eliminate the maintenance delays we saw from 2014 to 2019. The Navy's 
plan reduces those delays by 80 percent in fiscal year 2020 with a goal 
of eliminating delays by 2021.

    5. Senator Sullivan. Secretary Geurts, how do the maintenance 
delays identified in the GAO report affect the ships--and associated 
sailors and marines--that are not in a maintenance period and are 
currently conducting operations?
    Secretary Geurts. If maintenance delays consume planned operational 
periods of ships, the remaining ships in the fleet must fulfill 
operational requirements. This may require sailors and marines to 
deploy for periods for time beyond what they originally planned. In 
addition to impacts for sailors and marines, these maintenance 
extensions negatively influence shipyard loading, which further 
pressurizes the ship repair industry. The Navy is developing and 
implementing better productivity metrics and leveraging data analytics 
to close the gaps in shipyards performance. The Navy is focused on 
efforts to reduce lost operational days due to ship depot availability 
extensions by 80 percent in fiscal year 2020, as compared to fiscal 
year 2019, and eliminate lost operational days through availability 
extensions by the end of fiscal year 2021.
                               __________
               Questions Submitted by Senator Josh Hawley
                       virginia-class submarines
    6. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, I understand 
the Navy underestimated demand for certain replacement parts needed to 
maintain operational Virginia-class submarines, and as a result, you 
had to divert parts from the Virginia-class new construction effort to 
keep maintenance on schedule. I also understand that you are updating 
your models for predicting demand for those and potentially other 
replacement parts to avoid this situation in the future. Can you tell 
us what you have done to improve your models for predicting demand for 
replacement parts, and in particular, how your models account for the 
fact that extended deployments by these assets could increase 
maintenance requirements down the road?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy has been working over 
the last 2 years to develop an improved methodology for predicting 
maintenance material requirements to support the Navy Stock System's 
procurement strategy. The process is called Intelligent Forecast 
(iForecast) and it utilizes a systems engineering approach for 
integrating data from multiple disparate systems coupled with an 
understanding of the underlying business processes. The Navy initially 
focused on Attack Submarines (Seawolf (SSN 21), Los Angeles (SSN 688), 
and Virginia (SSN 774) classes) undergoing Depot Level Maintenance. 
Whereas the previous material forecasting model only predicted between 
7 to 10 percent of the material required for a maintenance 
availability, iForecast is projected to capture approximately 70 
percent of the material requirements of future maintenance 
availabilities. The iForecast team is working to not only improve the 
system's accuracy, but also expand its capabilities to allow it to 
support Intermediate Level Maintenance and lifecycle maintenance for 
Ballistic Missile/Guided Missile Submarines (SSBN/SSGN 726). 
Additionally, the team is working with the Aircraft Carrier and Surface 
fleets and to foster partnerships within these communities. Extended 
deployments are not expected to influence the type or volume of work 
that is accomplished during depot availabilities and therefore should 
not impact iForecast's ability to predict which components are required 
for planned maintenance availabilities.
                  conventionally-powered surface ships
    7. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, the Navy has 
spent years working to overcome maintenance backlogs and restore the 
material readiness of our conventionally-powered surface ships. When 
can we expect our conventionally-powered surface ships to be fully 
caught up on maintenance and material readiness?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy uses the Life Cycle 
Health Assessment (LCHA) tool to track a ship's class maintenance plan 
health according to its material condition and deferred work it may 
have in backlog. Fifty-four percent of U.S. Navy surface ships 
currently have a satisfactory LCHA rating. Based on the maintenance 
plan, the Navy is expected to achieve a 93 percent satisfactory rating 
by fiscal year 2025 for surface ships, including 100 percent 
satisfactory rating for all DDG 51 class ships, LHA/LHD class ships, 
and LPD 17 class ships.
                      navy's supply chain security
    8. Senator Hawley. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, I'd like to 
understand how the Navy is thinking about supply chain security when it 
comes to maintenance. For instance, let's say we are ordering parts 
from a European company for a European-designed system installed on a 
United States ship. How does the Navy track where that company is 
getting its components, subcomponents, materials, and software, so we 
do not end up buying these elements indirectly from sources with which 
we'd rather not be associated?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Historically, by law and by 
contract, the Navy's prime contractors are responsible for the 
provenance of supply. That said, we recognize that the primes and the 
Navy both have responsibility in executing supply chain security. There 
are a number of efforts and controls in place to assess and mitigate 
risks. For critical material applications (e.g., failure of material 
may result in loss of life, loss of ship, inability to recover), there 
are material control programs in place to minimize the risk of 
receiving noncompliant material. These programs include Level I 
Material Control Program, Deep Submergence Scope of Certification and 
Fly-By-Wire. In the effort to prevent intrusion of counterfeit material 
into our supply chain, NAVSEA has issued Counterfeit Materiel 
Deterrence and Detection Policy and guidance to provide methods and 
processes for managing and minimizing the risks of receiving 
counterfeit materiel. Additionally, FAR and DFARs clauses are available 
(e.g., FAR 4.21 Prohibition on Contracting for Certain 
Telecommunications and Video Surveillance Services or Equipment, FAR 
Part 25 Foreign Acquisition, DFARS 252.246-7007 Contractor Counterfeit 
Electronic Part Detection and Avoidance System, DFARS 252.246-7008 
Sources of Electronic Parts) to minimize the risks. Current efforts are 
addressing how and where to focus Supply Chain Management efforts in 
order to reduce the most significant risks. ASN RD&A has recently stood 
up Supply Chain Managers at each PEO with the express mission of 
working with the prime contractors to improve the health, security and 
future viability of the overall Navy supply base. Example efforts 
include supplier assessments, supply chain analytics, supplier audits 
and visits (verification of contract requirements flow-down to sub-
tiers), quality data analysis, and monitoring to develop better insight 
and information into the supply chain.
                               __________
           Questions Submitted by Senator Richard Blumenthal
                       force structure assessment
    9. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, in March, I asked you 
about the decision to retire the USS Truman early and you stated it was 
the result of ``hard tradeoffs.'' What are the consequences to ship 
maintenance as a result of reversing the decision to retire the USS 
Truman?
    Secretary Geurts. Reversing the decision to retire USS Harry S. 
Truman occurred prior to awarding the planning contract for the ship's 
Refueling Complex Overhaul (RCOH) and therefore had no impact to 
planned ship maintenance.

    10. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, have you been providing 
input to the Force Structure Assessment process to ensure it fully 
accounts for sustainment costs of the future force?
    Secretary Geurts. I have been working closely with Department 
leadership on the Force Structure Assessment to evaluate the long-term 
ability of the industrial base to design, build, and sustain the future 
naval force and the total cost of that force. The Navy's Maintenance 
and Modernization Plan will establish the framework to effectively 
sustain our investments in today's fleet and the future force and 
ensure the plan can be executed by the U.S. shipbuilding and supplier 
industrial base.

    11. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, are you able to provide 
an update from the Navy on the status of the Force Structure 
Assessment, and when you plan to release it publicly?
    Secretary Geurts. The Navy and Marine Corps have finished the 
initial work on the Integrated Naval Force Structure Assessment. On 
February 27, 2020, the Secretary of Defense directed a DOD-level 
comprehensive review and analysis of the Navy's future fleet force 
structure. Additional wargames, simulations, and detailed analyses will 
be conducted over the coming months, with results of this rigorous 
analysis due back to the Secretary of Defense in the summer.

    12. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, will you commit to making 
the Force Structure Assessment unclassified and public, to the maximum 
extent possible?
    Secretary Geurts. The Secretary of Defense and Department of the 
Navy intend to be transparent with Congress regarding the methods, 
progress, and results of this assessment.
                      private shipyard maintenance
    13. Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Maurer, can you elaborate on why you 
believe the Navy's 2023 timeline for eliminating submarine maintenance 
backlogs is based on ``optimistic assumptions?''
    Ms. Maurer. According to the Navy's workload management plan issued 
in December 2018, its reduction in submarine maintenance backlog was 
predicated in part on successful implementation of various actions and 
initiatives to improve maintenance timeliness, as well as outsourcing 
two additional submarine availabilities to the private sector. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \1\ Secretary of the Navy, Report to Congress on Submarine Depot 
Maintenance, December 27, 2018.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    As we noted in our November 2019 report, the success of the Navy's 
workload management plan depends on the shipyards (both public and 
private) and the Navy realizing improvements in their performance 
stemming from several ongoing actions and initiatives that they have 
not yet demonstrated. \2\ Specifically, we identified two key 
optimistic assumptions in the plan that could play a role in keeping 
the Navy from meeting its backlog reduction goal. First, the workload 
plan states that on-time completion of submarine maintenance, at both 
the public and private shipyards, is critical to eliminating submarine 
idle time and the submarine maintenance backlog. However, this 
assumption may not be realistic in light of recent performance at 
public and private shipyards. On average, the public shipyards have 
completed maintenance on time only about 26 percent of the time between 
fiscal years 2007 and 2017. Further, of the three submarine maintenance 
periods that were allocated to the private shipyards between fiscal 
years 2015 and 2018, all three will be completed more than a year late, 
according to Navy data as of November 2019. Until the shipyards 
demonstrate sustained improvement in their performance, as the Navy 
anticipates, we consider this assumption to be an optimistic one.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \2\ GAO, Naval Shipyards: Key Actions Remain to Improve 
Infrastructure to Better Support Navy Operations. GAO-20-64. November 
25, 2019.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Second, some of the maintenance anticipated in the plan will only 
be possible with the completion of certain dry dock projects, such as 
the multi-mission dry dock at Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. However, 
construction projects can face delays, and those delays could further 
slow the Navy's repairs. In addition, the Navy plans to fund its dry 
dock projects using future military construction funds, which are 
subject to competing budgetary demands. Without those funds, the 
projects themselves would not begin on time, likely placing the Navy's 
2023 goal out of reach.

    14. Senator Blumenthal. Ms. Maurer, do you believe the Navy's 5-
year forecast for depot maintenance could have been more realistic if 
it included more outsourcing to private shipyards?
    Ms. Maurer. The extent to which the Navy increases the use of 
private shipyards depends on several factors, most notably available 
capacity, including competing ship construction and ship maintenance 
priorities.
    The Navy currently repairs most of its surface fleet at private 
shipyards, and most of its nuclear submarines at public shipyards. In 
deciding where to send a given availability, the Navy weighs cost and 
schedule factors, as well as the impacts to the construction of new 
ships and the effect on the industrial base. The Navy is somewhat 
limited by the number of private shipyards authorized to perform 
nuclear submarine maintenance. My team has spoken with representatives 
from private shipyards, who stated they can currently support two 
submarine maintenance availabilities--one each at two locations-- 
without disrupting their ship construction work. We also note that all 
three of submarine maintenance periods that the Navy allocated to 
private shipyards between fiscal years 2015 and 2018 will be completed 
at least a year late, according to Navy data as of November 2019. 
Representatives from the private shipyards stated that they believe the 
cost and schedule challenges faced on previous availabilities would 
improve as they gain experience and, if they were to receive steady 
maintenance work from the Navy and make additional investments. Given 
these limits at the private yards, it would not necessarily make the 
forecast more realistic to include additional private sector 
availabilities.

    15. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, do you believe there is 
long-term value in retaining submarine maintenance proficiency in the 
private shipyards?
    Secretary Geurts. Retaining submarine maintenance proficiency in 
the private shipyards can mitigate short-term gaps in workforce 
availabilities, but it also provides a long-term value to the Navy. The 
Navy engages in a regular dialogue with our industry partners to 
identify risks and opportunities to enhance performance. Since 2015, 
four submarine availabilities have been assigned to the private sector 
with the intent to better balance workload across the industrial base. 
Another maintenance evolution is in the proposal evaluation phase with 
Electric Boat for the USS Hartford (SSN 768) fiscal year 2021 
Engineering Overhaul. In the longer term, the Navy will improve public 
and private sector surge capacity through a more stable and predictable 
private sector workload that incentivizes the private sector to 
establish the required capacity to support the Navy's submarine 
workload posture. Navy is developing a 10-year private sector submarine 
depot maintenance workload plan and acquisition strategy that leverages 
government and private sector partnerships to improve private sector 
submarine availability execution, incentivize private sector hiring and 
investment, and sustain a proficient and surge-capable workforce across 
the submarine/carrier industrial base. Leveraging the private sector in 
the Navy's long-term maintenance plan will also reduce the impact of 
infrastructure modernization at the naval shipyards.

    16. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, do you plan to continue 
outsourcing occasional maintenance overhauls to private shipyards to 
maintain private yard core competency and ease infrastructure strain at 
public yards during the long infrastructure modernization?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes. Navy is developing a 10-year private sector 
submarine depot maintenance workload plan and acquisition strategy that 
leverages government and private sector partnerships to improve private 
sector submarine availability execution, incentivize private sector 
hiring and investment, and sustain a proficient and surge-capable 
workforce across the submarine/carrier industrial base. Leveraging the 
private sector in the Navy's long-term maintenance plan will also 
reduce the infrastructure modernization churn at the naval shipyards.

    17. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, I was encouraged to see 
in your testimony the stated goal of awarding all maintenance contracts 
120 days prior--vice the standard 60 days--to the start of an 
availability. What are the current barriers to achieving this goal?
    Secretary Geurts. The barriers to achieving A-120 Awards include 
funding limitations created by Continuing Resolutions--The quarterly 
distribution of Operations & Maintenance, Navy (OMN) funding during a 
continuing resolution can create artificial funding scarcities that can 
delay contract awards. The largest barrier is that the Navy does not 
have incremental funding or advanced procurement authority to fund ship 
availabilities. Congress stipulated in Public Law 97-114, the 
Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1982, that `` 
. . . funds current at the start of a major availability must finance 
the cost of the modernization or repair, including all scope of effort 
changes necessary to complete it.'' The requirement to fund ``all scope 
of effort'' at award presents a barrier to A-120 award in instances 
where Ship Availability Start dates are in different fiscal years than 
the A-120 contract award date.
                         workforce development
    18. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, should the Navy share 
responsibility with the private shipyards to develop a skilled and 
experienced submarine workforce?
    Secretary Geurts. The Navy remains focused on ensuring the on-time 
delivery of ships and submarines to the fleet. To that end, the Navy, 
through direct engagement between the public Naval Shipyards and the 
private sector, continues to collaborate with the private shipyards to 
develop a skilled submarine maintenance workforce. Some of the ways 
we're doing this is by hosting workers from private shipyards at our 
facilities so they can observe how we execute certain types of work; 
conducting lessons-learned meetings following the completion of 
availabilities; sharing how the Navy plans major submarine 
availabilities; and providing technical advice and guidance to both 
contractors in the performance of their awarded work.

    19. Senator Blumenthal. Secretary Geurts, how do you envision 
operationalizing this workforce development partnership? Are you 
collaborating with private industry to create a joint workforce 
development strategy?
    Secretary Geurts. Yes, the Navy is collaborating with private 
industry to build submarine maintenance capacity through workforce 
development across the public and private sectors. The public Naval 
Shipyards (NSYs) directly engage the private nuclear shipyards on 
workforce development in a number of ways. Example of this 
collaboration including having them in our ``hot washes,'' which are 
reviews of a problems faced during recent availabilities designed to 
address issues so we don't face them again in the future; inviting them 
to Communities of Practice (CoP) events to learn NSY best practices for 
teaching skill sets crucial to the development of the shipyard 
workforce; sharing how we plan availabilities to help them more closely 
align their planning methodologies with the Navy's; and our shipyards 
provide technical advise and guidance to private shipyards on their 
maintenance work. Currently, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNSY) is 
collaborating with Electric Boat to prepare for the USS Hartford (SSN 
768) Engineered Overhaul (EOH) by providing planning documents from 
previous Los Angeles-class EOHs and other documents related to Los 
Angeles-class repairs. Additionally, PNSY is also working with EB to 
establish a series of site visits to observe work, facilitate 
knowledge-sharing and discuss technical assessments.
                               __________
             Questions Submitted by Senator Mazie K. Hirono
                     ship repair industry workload
    20. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, the Navy 
has publicly stated for some time now that the ship repair industry 
requires the long-term predictable and sustainable work load to secure 
the skilled work force and make the investments that the Navy expects 
of them to maintain the future Navy. The ``bundling'' efforts thus far 
appear to have fallen short of their intended effects. What actions can 
the Navy take to ensure a long-term predictable workload?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy is committed to 
working with industry to provide a stable and predictable workload in a 
competitive environment so industry can hire and make investments to 
maintain and modernize the Navy's growing fleet. The Department is 
approaching the ship repair industrial base with an integrated 
enterprise plan for private shipyards to anticipate total workload and 
better understand and predict the marketplace. The method for 
contracting that workload is evolving to provide long term workload 
predictability by grouping ship availabilities both horizontally and 
vertically to provide longer term predictability to incentivize 
industry to grow the needed capacity. Vertical groupings for ships with 
similar start dates will include multiple overlapping availabilities 
within a single solicitation. Horizontal groupings for ship 
availabilities occurring in a series will include multiple sequential 
availabilities within a single solicitation. The Navy awarded the first 
three-ship vertical grouping contract in February 2019 for USS Arleigh 
Burke (DDG 51), USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), and USS Gunston Hall (LSD 44). 
The Navy also awarded availabilities for USS Decatur (DDG 73) and USS 
Stethem (DDG 63) via a vertically grouped solicitation enabling the 
first double docking of DDGs in San Diego allowing the Navy to more 
efficiently utilize dry dock space. The first horizontally grouped 
contract was awarded in September 2019 to Vigor Marine, LLC, for USS 
Chosin (CG 65) and USS Cape St. George (CG 71), providing stability to 
the workload in the Pacific Northwest. By awarding multiple ``bundled 
availabilities'', industry receives a backlog of work that creates 
stability for a healthy, efficient industrial base. The Navy has 
received positive feedback from industry on bundling as a way to 
provide stable and predictable work, and is working to increase the 
percentage of availabilities that are bundled.
                    ship modernization cost estimate
    21. Senator Hirono. Ms. Maurer, your report found the Navy's 
shipyard modernization plan cost estimate is likely underestimated due 
to the methodology used. If the Navy took all of your recommendations 
into account for completing its estimates, what would your rough 
estimate be for the actual cost of the shipyard modernization plan?
    Ms. Maurer. We cannot provide a specific cost estimate because the 
Navy has yet to fully develop and document the necessary information in 
a manner consistent with the GAO Cost Estimating and Assessment Guide. 
As we noted in our November 2019 report, including inflation in the 
estimate could increase the overall cost by as much as 45 percent, 
depending in part on when the Navy makes its planned investments. \3\ 
Navy investments earlier in the 20-year process would be subject to 
less inflationary increase than investments made later in the 20-year 
process. We also noted that the Navy should include additional costs to 
provide a full and complete estimate, such as those for roads, 
utilities, and environmental remediation, among others. Precise costs 
for these elements will depend greatly on the specific improvements 
that the Navy decides to pursue. Officials from the Navy's shipyard 
optimization program office told us that they plan to develop a more 
precise cost estimate once they have completed their modeling and 
simulation efforts and identified a specific list of improvements.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    \3\ GAO-20-64.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The Navy agreed with our recommendation to improve their cost 
estimate for the shipyard optimization plan, and we will continue to 
follow up with them on their implementation efforts.
                            ship crew levels
    22. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, what steps 
has the Navy taken to evaluate its crew requirements and the length of 
the standard Navy workweek, and ensure that the right number of crew 
are available to meet the mission?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. In November 2018, Navy 
completed an extensive assessment of the Navy's Operational Afloat 
Workweek, previously called the Navy Standard Workweek. The study 
included over 5,000 enlisted sailor interviews across 18 ships, two 
submarines, 15 afloat aviation squadrons and six expeditionary staffs. 
Based on the assessment, Navy updated the Navy Availability Factor, 
which defines overall time sailors are available to perform work during 
at-sea operations. The update decreased the Productive Availability 
Factor (PAF) that covers time sailors are available for watchstanding, 
maintenance, and other activities from 70 hours per week to 67 hours 
per week. The Navy implemented the new Navy Availability Factor for use 
in all future Fleet Manpower Requirements Determination studies 
effective January 19, 2019. In 2018, Navy began formally including 
inport workload in all surface ship manpower requirements determination 
studies. This transitioned the Navy's Fleet manpower model from a 
wartime/at-sea only model to a more comprehensive operational manpower 
model. Expanding the scope of ship manpower studies provides visibility 
to all shipboard operational work and underwrites the determination of 
the right number of manpower requirements to meet the mission. Also in 
2018, Navy implemented a structured review of all workhour time 
allowances and factors used in calculating Fleet manpower requirements. 
These time allowances and factors add time to documented workhours to 
account for work conditions and environments that are outside of the 
sailors control and directly influence the sailors ability to complete 
the work. The allowances and factors ensure the Fleet Manpower 
Requirements Determination Model accounts for all sailor work.

    23. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, how long 
will it take the Navy to reassess the required crew sizes for the 
entire fleet?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Navy is on-track to deliver a 
comprehensive reassessment and determination of ship manpower 
requirements by the end of fiscal year 2024. At that time, Navy will 
have integrated inport workload and implemented a new 67 hours per week 
Productive Availability Factor into all ship manpower requirements 
documents. These enhancements directly contribute to the assessment of 
total ship work and the determination of ship manpower requirements 
across the entire Fleet.

    24. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, how many 
sailors will this add to the Navy's ships?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Navy employs a uniform Fleet 
Manpower Requirements Determination Model to establish the minimum 
manpower requirements needed to execute the Fleet mission successfully. 
The FMRD Program covers over 208,000 military manpower requirements, 
which represents 43 percent of the Navy's total military manpower 
requirements profile. From fiscal year 2018 through December 2019, Navy 
has added approximately 3,130 new military manpower requirements to 62 
Destroyers (DDG-51 class), two Hospital Ships (T-AH-9 class), the USS 
Mount Whitney (LCC 20), 10 Landing Platform Dock ships (LPD-17 class), 
and two Amphibious Assault ships (LHA-6 class). The Fleet Manpower 
Requirements Determination Model delivers manpower requirements to 
Navy's Resource Sponsors to develop funding allocation strategies by 
warfare area. Manpower requirements then compete for funding along with 
many operational requirements.

    25. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, after the 
Navy updates the required size of its crews, how long will it take for 
the Navy to actually assign the right number of crew members to its 
ships?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. Manning of Navy ships is in 
accordance with the manning priorities set by Fleet Commanders and the 
Navy's Optimized Fleet Response Plan. Once a determination is made 
about the required size of ships crews, these billets will become part 
of the normal distribution manning plan that detailers and placement 
officers use to match sailor's experience and ratings with the job 
descriptions. Normally the distribution process takes 6 months to 1 
year based on availability of qualified sailors who are transferring to 
a new duty location.

    26. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, during the 
interim, how will the Navy prevent undersized crews from negatively 
affecting the maintenance of its ships?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Navy Maintenance community 
is increasing the amount of Intermediate-Level maintenance that can be 
performed by sailor while underway and also improving sailor training 
and certification so there are more qualified individuals capable of 
executing such maintenance. This will improve the material condition of 
ships in the Fleet, while also ensuring that crews have the ability to 
keep their systems operating and potentially respond to battle damage, 
which is essential when ships are operating in harm's way. As a result 
of the Fleet Review Panel of Surface Force Readiness, the Navy 
reestablished I-Level Maintenance as a competency of the Regional 
Maintenance Centers (RMCs) and directed the RMCs to increase Active 
Duty personnel by 1,587 sailors in the Fleet Concentration Areas. The 
Navy now has 2,100 sailors supporting ship repairs and gaining valuable 
hands-on maintenance experience. Through execution of production work, 
these sailors participate in the Navy Afloat Maintenance Training 
Strategy program where they enter as apprentices and graduate with 
certifications as journeymen in one of 21 trade disciplines available 
for them across the RMCs. When they return to sea duty, they have the 
knowledge, skills, and ability to execute routine and emergent 
maintenance. Trained sailors who have the right technical documents, 
tools, and industrial plant equipment onboard are able to accomplish 
overhaul and repair of pumps, valves, engines, and motors and execute 
some welding work, as well as a significant amount of preventative 
maintenance. By developing journeyman skills, the Navy is developing 
the workforce necessary to conduct deep maintenance at sea and reduce 
the amount of contracting maintenance work.
                 implementation of gao recommendations
    27. Senator Hirono. Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore, what is the 
status of implementation of each of the recommendations from the GAO 
report?
    Secretary Geurts and Admiral Moore. The Department of the Navy 
(DON) provides periodic updates to Navy Audit Service on outstanding 
GAO recommendations. Navy Audit Service is the repository for responses 
to all GAO recommendations to the DON.
    What follows are the formal responses to the select GAO 
recommendations with supplemental information about responses to the 
recommendations.
    1. Status of Recommendations from Military Depots: Actions Needed 
to Improve Poor Conditions of Facilities and Equipment That Affect 
Maintenance Timeliness and Efficiency:
         Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should 
ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command and the Commander, Fleet 
Readiness Centers establish measures for their depots to track facility 
or equipment conditions that lead to maintenance delays.
          Answer:
           -  Detailed metrics will follow the Shipyard Infrastructure 
Optimization Program (SIOP) Phase II modeling and simulation at the 
Naval Shipyards. This modeling and simulation will map all current and 
optimized submarine and CVN depot maintenance processes, to identify 
inefficiencies and outages resulting from poor infrastructure material 
condition and impacts to availability execution and duration.
           -  These integrated simulations (digital twin) will enable 
viewing of changing layouts and processes on naval shipyard performance 
metrics and throughput in a digital environment. The digital twin will 
allow the Navy to evaluate options to minimize negative impacts to the 
shipyard mission during the SIOP.
           -  Scheduled completion dates for modeling and simulation 
digital twins are 4th quarter fiscal year 2021 for Pearl Harbor Naval 
Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, 2nd quarter fiscal year 
2022 for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Faculty, 
and 3rd quarter fiscal year 2022 for Norfolk Naval Shipyard and 
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
    In addition to the information included in the record information 
maintained by Navy Audit Service, the Navy facility readiness is 
indicated by the infrastructure figure of merit (IFOM) rating. The IFOM 
rating provides an indicator of the facility resource availability 
(condition, configuration, and capacity). As SIOP progresses through 
Phase II, the digital twins and Area Development Plans will provide 
additional information to measure facility conditions. The outcome of 
these efforts will be a system to develop, validate, and maintain a 
digital model of the current shipyard system, including facilities, 
equipment, personnel, and work processes, and to simulate impacts that 
workload and system variations would have on shipyard key performance 
parameters (KPP).
    This effort is a collaboration between NAVSEA's Shipyard 
Infrastructure Optimization Program Office (PMS-555), OASD(M&R) and the 
National Center for Manufacturing Sciences.
         Recommendation 2: The Secretary of the Navy should 
ensure that Naval Sea Systems Command and the Commander, Fleet 
Readiness Centers implement tracking of the measures for identifying 
when facility or equipment conditions lead to maintenance delays at 
each Navy depot.
          Answer:
           -  Detailed metrics will follow the Shipyard Infrastructure 
Optimization Program (SIOP) Phase II modeling and simulation at the 
Naval Shipyards. This modeling and simulation will map all current and 
optimized submarine and CVN depot maintenance processes to identify 
inefficiencies and outages resulting from poor infrastructure material 
condition and impacts to availability execution and duration.
           -  These integrated simulations (digital twin) will enable 
viewing of changing layouts and processes on naval shipyard performance 
metrics and throughput in a digital environment. The digital twin will 
allow the Navy to evaluate options to minimize negative impacts to the 
shipyard mission during the SIOP.
           -  Scheduled completion dates for modeling and simulation 
digital twins are 4th quarter fiscal year 2021 for Pearl Harbor Naval 
Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Facility, 2nd quarter fiscal year 
2022 for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard & Intermediate Maintenance Faculty, 
and 3rd quarter fiscal year 2022 for Norfolk Naval Shipyard and 
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard.
    2. Status of Recommendation from DOD Depot Workforce: Services Need 
to Assess the Effectiveness of Their Initiatives to Maintain Critical 
Skills
         Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy, in 
conjunction with the Naval Sea Systems Command and Naval Air Systems 
Command, should assess the effectiveness of the Navy's shipyards' and 
fleet readiness centers' hiring, training, and retention programs.
          Answer:
           -  The Naval shipyards (NSY) in fiscal year 2018 and fiscal 
year 2019 demonstrated their ability to successfully achieve their 
fiscal year hiring goals. For external hires, the timeline from job 
offer to onboard date ranges from 6 to 9 months, and the NSYs were able 
to meet their goals by changing their traditional hiring practices and 
job fair team structures. The NSYs have streamlined their job fair 
hiring process by utilizing direct and expedited hiring authorities and 
increasing their team membership to include the Navy's Operations 
Center, Human Resources, Fleet Human Resources Office and Personnel 
Security, which has significantly reduced onboarding times. 
Additionally, the NSYs have increased participation in job fairs during 
each fiscal year and have increased advertising efforts to attract 
applicants. Through these efforts, the NSY's have grown their workforce 
from 26,588 in fiscal year 2010 to 36,100 by fiscal year 2018, one year 
ahead of the planned schedule.
           -  The Naval Shipyards (NSY) have transformed the training 
and development of shipyard employees by investing in and increasing 
the use of learning centers to train new apprentices in a ``safe to 
learn'' environment. This approach has reduced the time it takes for a 
new hire to become a productive worker at the NSYs by 50 percent. 
Furthermore, the NSYs have improved their implementation of Naval 
Shipyard Training and Education Program processes that allow them to 
measure the effectiveness of their training program.
           -  The Naval Shipyards (NSY) have enacted various retention 
incentives for critical and hard-to-fill positions in an effort to 
preserve a highly skilled and experienced workforce. After a 15-year 
decrease in workforce experience levels due to retirements and ramped 
up hiring efforts, the declining experience level has stabilized and is 
now starting to increase. For example, at the start of fiscal year 
2018, 57 percent of the workforce at the NSYs had less than 5 years of 
experience. Due to successful retention efforts, that statistic has now 
decreased to 40 percent of the workforce at the NSYs with less than 5 
years of experience. Navy will continue to assess attrition rates and 
make full use of available recruitment and retention initiatives to 
maintain a quality, experienced workforce.
    3. Status of Recommendation from Navy Readiness: Actions Needed to 
Address Costly Maintenance Delays Facing the Attack Submarine Fleet
         Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should 
ensure that the Chief of Naval Operations conducts a business case 
analysis to inform maintenance workload allocation across public and 
private shipyards; this analysis should include an assessment of 
private shipyard capacity to perform attack submarine maintenance, and 
should incorporate a complete accounting of both (a) the costs and 
risks associated with attack submarines sitting idle, and (b) the 
qualitative benefits associated with having the potential to both 
mitigate risk in new submarine construction and provide additional 
availability to the combatant commanders.
          Answer:
           -  NAVSEA initiated a business case analysis that informed 
the President's Budget 2021 budget process. The Navy will continue to 
balance the workload between the public and private sector to maintain 
a healthy industrial base for submarine maintenance.
    4. Status of Recommendations from Naval Shipyards: Actions Needed 
to Improve Poor Conditions That Affect Operations
         Recommendation 1: The Secretary of the Navy should 
develop a comprehensive plan for shipyard capital investment that 
establishes (1) the desired goal for the shipyards' condition and 
capabilities; (2) an estimate of the full costs to implement the plan, 
addressing all relevant requirements, external risk factors, and 
associated planning costs; and (3) metrics for assessing progress 
toward meeting the goal that include measuring the effectiveness of 
capital investments.
          Answer:
           -  The table on the following page shows the status of 
actions taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 1. 
In addition, Phase II, through modeling and simulation that will create 
a digital twin of each shipyard along with the development of the Area 
Development Plans, will provide appropriate metrics to assess risks to 
SIOP costs estimates and the progress of its implementation schedule. 
These metrics will lead to fewer mandays and reduced availability 
durations, which will return operational availability (AO) to the 
fleet.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Estimated          Actual        Measure(s) Capturing
  Key Corrective Actions   Completion Dates  Completion Date    Demonstrated Results       Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Industrial Optimization     February 2018    February 2018                             February 2018 Report to
    Study Navy's Shipyard                                                               Congress frames SIOP as
 Optimized Infrastructure                                                                a $21 billion program,
  Plan (SIOP) is a three-                                                                  funded over 20 years
        phased program to
      provide appropriate
           infrastructure
 supporting the optimized
      shipyard operations
         through the 21st
                 Century.
 
   Phase I was completed
   when the February 2018
   Report to Congress was
         delivered, which
  outlines the process to
  build the Navy's future
               shipyards.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phase II is underway and          May 2022    Underway now.     Completion of digital        Comprehensive plan
     will complete in May                                              twins and Area    (Phase II) development
  2022 with detailed Area                                     Development Plans (ADPs)  is underway: - Phase II
    Development Plans for                                          for each shipyard.      informed President's
          all four public                                                                  Budget 2021 and will
       shipyards. Process                                                               inform   subsequent POM
  produces a digital twin                                                                    cycles. - Identify
     of each shipyard and                                                                 policy and regulatory
            optimizes the                                                                  relief opportunities
 infrastructure required.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phase III is execution of   September 2048   Will start when    - Integrated priority
 the plans over 20 years.                          Phase II        list of   projects
                                                  completes   developed. - Production
                                                                     efficiency   ROM
                                                                refined. - Investment
                                                                          ROM refined
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         Recommendation 2: The Secretary of the Navy should 
conduct regular management reviews that include all relevant 
stakeholders to oversee implementation of the plan, review metrics, 
assess the progress made toward the goal, and make adjustments, as 
necessary, to ensure that the goal is attained.
          Answer: The table below shows the status of actions 
taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 2. In 
addition, SIOP is in the process of completing a Requirements and 
Resources Review Board to analyze program requirements with senior Navy 
staff up to the Vice Chief of Naval Operations.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Estimated          Actual        Measure(s) Capturing
  Key Corrective Actions   Completion Dates  Completion Date    Demonstrated Results       Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
        Stand up initial    August 7, 2017   August 7, 2017   Organization and charter         Team and charter
 governance organization.                                                established.      established prior to
                                                                                            kickoff of Phase I.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Meetings on periodic          Ongoing.                      Progress assessed and       Periodic reviews as
        basis (biannual).                                        guidance provided as     warranted by stage of
                                                                            necessary   development and upcoming
                                                                                        milestone deliverables.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
       Revise governance     March 1, 2018    September 28,   Organization and charter
            organization.                              2018       revised. ASN (RD&A)
                                                               refined the governance
                                                               and update schedule by
                                                              formal memorandum. This
                                                              governance continues to
                                                                      guide the SIOP.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Bi-annual meeting held   October 28, 2019     October 28,               Information   Semi-annual meeting will
             with all key                              2019   synchronization with key      be scheduled by ASN
   stakeholders utilizing                                      stakeholders to update           (RD&A)'s office
 updated governance. This                                       progress and upcoming
    structure is the end-                                                     actions
     state for the update
               structure.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

         Recommendation 3: The Secretary of the Navy should 
provide regular reporting to key decision makers and Congress on the 
progress the shipyards are making to meet the goal of the comprehensive 
plan, along with any challenges that hinder that progress, such as 
cost. This may include reporting on progress to reduce their facilities 
restoration and modernization backlogs, improve the condition and 
configuration of the shipyards, and recapitalize capital equipment.
          Answer: The table below shows the status of actions 
taken, underway, and planned in response to Recommendation 3. In 
addition, as SIOP rolls out, regular meetings within Navy are held at 
least on a quarterly basis and as the budget rolls out, SIOP is working 
with Navy Office of Legislative Affairs to schedule quarterly or 
periodic meetings to update congressional staff.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                               Estimated          Actual        Measure(s) Capturing
  Key Corrective Actions   Completion Dates  Completion Date    Demonstrated Results       Clarifying Comments
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 President's Budget 2019     February 2018                             Status of plan
  Budget rollout to SASC,                                     development and shipyard
        SAC, HASC and HAC                                                 investment.
         committee staff.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Naval Shipyard   February 1, 2018                         Report completed.   Phase I work will inform
  Modernization Report to                                                               the Report to Congress.
      Congress for SAC-M.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Naval Shipyard     March 1, 2018                          Report completed.   Phase I work will inform
 Development Plans Report                                                               the Report to Congress.
    to Congress for HASC.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
President's Budget 2020,     February 2019                    Status of plan progress,
   2021, 2022, 2023, etc.    February 2020                       metrics and shipyard
  Budget rollout to SASC,    February 2021                        investment details.
        SAC, HASC and HAC    February 2022
         committee staff.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


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