    [House Hearing, 118 Congress]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]

     .
                             [H.A.S.C. No. 118-82]

                                    HEARING

                                       ON

                       NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

                              FOR FISCAL YEAR 2025

                                      AND

                  OVERSIGHT OF PREVIOUSLY AUTHORIZED PROGRAMS

                                   BEFORE THE

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

                            HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                        ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                                 SECOND SESSION

                                   __________

                             FULL COMMITTEE HEARING

                                       ON

             DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY FISCAL YEAR 2025 BUDGET REQUEST

                                   __________

                                  HEARING HELD

                                  MAY 1, 2024

    [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]

                                    __________

                       U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
    57-569                  WASHINGTON : 2025

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

                          COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
                        One Hundred Eighteenth Congress

                         MIKE ROGERS, Alabama, Chairman

    JOE WILSON, South Carolina           ADAM SMITH, Washington
    MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio              JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut
    DOUG LAMBORN, Colorado               JOHN GARAMENDI, California
    ROBERT J. WITTMAN, Virginia, Vice    DONALD NORCROSS, New Jersey
        Chair                            RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
    AUSTIN SCOTT, Georgia                SETH MOULTON, Massachusetts
    SAM GRAVES, Missouri                 SALUD O. CARBAJAL, California
    ELISE M. STEFANIK, New York          RO KHANNA, California
    SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee          WILLIAM R. KEATING, Massachusetts
    TRENT KELLY, Mississippi             ANDY KIM, New Jersey
    MATT GAETZ, Florida                  CHRISSY HOULAHAN, Pennsylvania
    DON BACON, Nebraska                  ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
    JIM BANKS, Indiana                   MIKIE SHERRILL, New Jersey
    JACK BERGMAN, Michigan               VERONICA ESCOBAR, Texas
    MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida               JARED F. GOLDEN, Maine
    LISA C. McCLAIN, Michigan            SARA JACOBS, California
    RONNY JACKSON, Texas                 MARILYN STRICKLAND, Washington
    PAT FALLON, Texas                    PATRICK RYAN, New York
    CARLOS A. GIMENEZ, Florida           JEFF JACKSON, North Carolina
    NANCY MACE, South Carolina           GABE VASQUEZ, New Mexico
    BRAD FINSTAD, Minnesota              CHRISTOPHER R. DELUZIO,
    DALE W. STRONG, Alabama                  Pennsylvania
    MORGAN LUTTRELL, Texas               JILL N. TOKUDA, Hawaii
    JENNIFER A. KIGGANS, Virginia        DONALD G. DAVIS, North Carolina
    NICK LaLOTA, New York                JENNIFER L. McCLELLAN, Virginia
    JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam                TERRI A. SEWELL, Alabama
    MARK ALFORD, Missouri                STEVEN HORSFORD, Nevada
    CORY MILLS, Florida                  JIMMY PANETTA, California
    RICHARD McCORMICK, Georgia           MARC VEASEY, Texas
    LANCE GOODEN, Texas
    Vacancy

                          Chris Vieson, Staff Director
                     Ian Bennitt, Professional Staff Member
                  Phil MacNaughton, Professional Staff Member
                        Taylor Burns, Research Assistant

                                C O N T E N T S

                                  ----------
                                                                       Page

                  STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS

    Rogers, Hon. Mike, a Representative from Alabama, Chairman,
      Committee on Armed Services....................................     1
    Smith, Hon. Adam, a Representative from Washington, Ranking
      Member, Committee on Armed Services............................     2

                                   WITNESSES

    Del Toro, Carlos, Secretary of the Navy..........................     4
    Franchetti, ADM Lisa, USN, Chief of Naval Operations.............     6
    Smith, Gen Eric M., USMC, Commandant, Marine Corps...............     8

                                    APPENDIX

    Prepared Statements:

        Del Toro, Carlos.............................................    61
        Franchetti, ADM Lisa.........................................   115
        Smith, Gen Eric M............................................   132

    Documents Submitted for the Record:

        [There were no Documents submitted.]

    Witness Responses to Questions Asked During the Hearing:

        [There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.]

    Questions Submitted by Members Post Hearing:

        Mr. Lamborn..................................................   155
        Mr. Scott....................................................   158
        Mr. Keating..................................................   158
        Mr. Waltz....................................................   158
        Mr. Fallon...................................................   159
        Mr. Gimenez..................................................   161
        Mr. Panetta..................................................   163
        Mr. Alford...................................................   163
             DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY FISCAL YEAR 2025 BUDGET REQUEST

                                  ----------

                              House of Representatives,
                                   Committee on Armed Services,
                                Washington, DC, Wednesday, May 1, 2024.
        The committee met, pursuant to call, at 10:00 a.m., in room
    2118, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Mike Rogers [Chairman
    of the Committee] presiding.

     OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE ROGERS, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM
             ALABAMA, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

        The Chairman. The committee will come to order.
        Today we complete our fiscal year '25 budget and posture
    hearings with the Department of the Navy. I want to thank the
    ranking member and all members for their cooperation, hard
    work, and dedication as we worked through 26 hearings in 13
    legislative days.
        These hearings have helped provide the information we need
    to mark up the fiscal year '25 NDAA (National Defense
    Authorizaton Act)later this month. I also want to thank our
    witnesses for being here, for their service to our nation.
        Admiral, this is the first time you are appearing before
    us. Congratulations on your confirmation as the first female
    CNO(Chief of Naval Operations) and thank you for being here.
        General, it's the first time for you as well and we are all
    thankful for your speedy recovery and are pleased to have you
    back leading our Marines.
        And, Secretary Del Toro, it's always good to see you back
    with the committee.
        The President is requesting a 1 percent increase for the
    Department of the Navy. Factoring in inflation we all know
    that's a 2 percent cut. Just as with the other services, a
    budget that fails to provide real growth means the Navy had to
    make painful tradeoffs and absorb real risk in their current
    and future readiness.
        We're seeing that very acutely in the request for
    shipbuilding. The President is seeking to build a paltry six
    battle force ships in fiscal year '25. At the same time, he
    wants to retire at 19. Ten of those ships have several years of
    service life remaining.
        These retirements represent a huge loss of capability and
    they leave us with a fleet of 287 ships in fiscal year '25.
    That's under the Navy's plan. The fleet will further drop down
    to 280 in fiscal year '27.
        Forget about the 500-ship Navy that many say we need to
    counter China. At no point over the next 20 years does the size
    of the fleet even reach the 381 ships needed to support the
    National Defense Strategy.
        The budget also cuts the buy for the Virginia-class
    submarine below the two per year needed to fulfill our
    AUKUS(Australia, United Kingdom, United States) commitment. I
    don't see how cutting the size of our fleet and shorting our
    AUKUS commitment will deter China.
        I also fail to see how it will provide the stability needed
    to revitalize our industrial base. I'm also concerned about the
    recent findings of the Navy's 45-day shipbuilding review.
        It is entirely unacceptable that nearly every single major
    shipbuilding program is experiencing significant schedule
    delays. We expect the Navy to provide us with a detailed plan
    to address these delays as soon as possible. One possible
    solution would be for the Navy to stop piling on new
    requirements and changing ship designs in the middle of
    procurements.
        As we have seen with the frigate program that only leads to
    ballooning costs and late deliveries. Cutting the buys for new
    ships, delaying deliveries, and decommissioning ships before
    the end of their service lives will play significant additional
    stress on readiness of the fleet.
        That's a big problem for two reasons. First, the fleet is
    already suffering readiness issues. Maintenance availabilities
    are taking much longer than planned, inhibiting our ability to
    project power.
        The Marines have experienced that firsthand when
    maintenance issues with the USS Boxer delayed the return of the
    Bataan Amphibious Ready Group earlier this year and last year
    maintenance issues meant there wasn't an amphibious ready group
    available to evacuate Americans from Sudan.
        The second problem is the Navy is currently carrying out
    operations at a much higher than planned tempo. The Navy is
    quickly using up missiles, burning through fuel, and extending
    deployments as it defends the Red Sea and Israel from Iran's
    terrorist proxies.
        I don't see the security environment improving in the
    Middle East anytime soon. I'd like to hear from our witnesses
    how they expect to continue to carry out these operations with
    a smaller budget.
        Finally, I'd like to hear from the commandant on the
    progress he's making with Force Design. Preparing our Marines
    to be successful in a potential conflict with China is
    critically important. Force Design will do just that.
        And with that, I yield to my friend, the ranking member,
    for any opening statement he may have.

    STATEMENT OF HON. ADAM SMITH, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM WASHINGTON,
              RANKING MEMBER, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES

        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I want to echo your comments and welcome our witnesses and
    General Smith in particular. It is great to see you healthy and
    doing well. Great to have you all here.
        I think the chairman outlined very well the challenges that
    we face. I mean, certainly the budget is at the top of the
    list. Now, the one piece of it I always like to add is what are
    we doing with the money that we have? Where are we spending
    money that maybe we shouldn't be spending?
        I know there's always a desire to look at something and
    say, gosh, wouldn't it be better if we had more money. I think
    that applies to just about everybody in every aspect of life,
    you know, business or government.
        But we do have a fair amount. Where are we spending money
    that we shouldn't be spending money and how can we get more out
    of what we're spending? Because, you know, we are $33 trillion
    in debt. The deficit is pretty substantial, over a trillion.
        I don't see a rain of more money coming anytime soon so
    we're going to have to get more creative about how we spend
    that money. I would like to use the Winston Churchill quote
    about how "Gentlemen, we're out of money. Now we have to
    think."
        I know that's a bit of an overstatement but I have found it
    to be more fruitful than you might think at first glance.
        And the second the shipbuilding challenges, without
    question. You know, the chairman outlined those. I know a huge
    part of it is workforce, you know, and I think there's a major
    challenge we have in this country.
        In many instances we just don't have the workers with the
    skills necessary to meet those challenges and we need to get
    very creative about how we recruit and get more people into the
    shipbuilding industry.
        You know, this is not a great place to bring up an
    immigration debate, you know, but, you know, immigration is
    potentially one place where we can find some of those workers
    and as we are all painfully aware there are a lot of people who
    want to come here. Seems to me that we ought to be able to
    match up those two problems a little bit better than we are.
        And then on the requirements piece I just really want to
    foot stomp what the chairman said, and I don't know the
    specific ins and outs about how requirements may or may not
    have shifted but I'm very confident that we have too many
    requirements.
        I was out at a shipyard just next to my district where they
    were doing repairs on an LCS and then the people explained to
    me -- and I could be getting this slightly wrong but there was
    something like 1,200 pages of requirements for how to paint the
    subsea part of the ship and the people working on it thought
    that was a little bit unnecessary.
        I have sort of a standard joke about how, you know, I wish
    if I had the power I could do like a Thanos thing where I could
    snap my fingers and make half of all the requirements go away,
    and I don't really care which half, okay. If we could just
    start to look at it that way.
        And requirements are also frequently used by various people
    lobbying from industry because they want the requirements to
    vector it down to where they get picked. That doesn't help us.
        We need to build in more flexibility in how we do these
    things, and along those lines the modernization challenge. I
    know, General Smith, your predecessor General Berger really
    took on that challenge -- what is, you know, the current state
    of warfare and the future of it and how do we shift to make
    sure we're accommodating that.
        We got to get better at that. Force protection is part of
    it. The chairman mentioned the pace and the tempo, the cliche
    of using a $2 million missile to shoot down a $50,000 drone.
        We have new innovative technologies that could get us to a
    cheaper result. We have got to speed those up so that we're
    spending less money and still getting the same result.
        Directed energy -- personally, I think the microwave
    approach probably is going to work better than the laser
    approach.
        But let's make a choice and let's start figuring out how we
    can build this and get us to a -- you know, a better more cost
    effective way to meet our needs. Same true for unmanned systems
    -- you know, what are the systems that are really going to help
    us meet our challenges in the most cost effective way possible.
        And then, lastly, you know, no posture hearing would be
    complete without talking about recruitment and retention. You
    know, our military is the greatest in the world because of the
    people who serve and the families that support them.
        I know this committee has taken on the task with our
    Quality of Life Task Force to say what can we do to really
    improve the quality of life of service members and their
    families. That's part of the equation. But I would love to hear
    from all of you about how recruitment and retention is going
    and what we can do to help it be more successful.
        With that, I thank the chairman and thank the committee for
    going through another posture season and I look forward to the
    testimony. I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the ranking member.
        Now I'd like to introduce our witnesses, the Honorable
    Carlos Del Toro, Secretary of the Navy; Admiral Lisa Franchetti
    is the Chief of Naval Operations; and General Eric Smith,
    Commandant of the Marine Corps.
        I'd like to welcome our witnesses and we'll start with you,
    Mr. Secretary. You are recognized.

     STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE CARLOS DEL TORO, SECRETARY OF THE
                   NAVY, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

        Secretary Del Toro. Good morning, Mr. Chairman.
        Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, distinguished
    members of the committee, it's an honor to again appear before
    you this morning to discuss the posture of the Department of
    the Navy.
        First and foremost, I would like to thank General Smith and
    Admiral Franchetti for answering again the call of our nation
    time and time again. They, like all who devote their careers
    and in many cases, indeed, sacrifice their very lives in
    defense of their fellow Americans, represent everything that
    makes the United States a beacon of hope and freedom around the
    world.
        Together, our combined years of service to our country
    totals over a century, a century marked by multiple
    deployments, time away from home, sacrifices made by our
    families, and as we gather here this morning tens of thousands
    of our sailors, Marines, civilians, and their families are
    either stationed or deployed all over the world making the same
    sacrifices and enduring the same trials that myself, General
    Smith, and Admiral Franchetti have faced throughout our
    careers.
        In the Indo-Pacific our Navy and Marine Corps are sailing
    and operating alongside our international allies and partners
    in support of a free and open maritime commons, one where
    nations are secure in their access to the seas and where their
    rights within their exclusive economic zones are respected and
    upheld by all nations including the People's Republic of China,
    as they should.
        Across Europe we, in cooperation with our NATO allies, are
    supporting our Ukrainian partners as they continue their fight
    to restore their territorial and national sovereignty as
    Russia's illegal full-scale invasion is now into its third
    year.
        I commend Congress for passing the national security
    supplementals last month, allowing us to continue providing
    support to our Ukrainian partners as they fight to restore
    peace in their homeland and defend democracy for all free
    nations.
        And in the Red Sea today our sailors and Marines have
    encountered hundreds of missiles and drones launched by the
    Houthis these past six months, targeting merchant shipping and
    the warships of both the United States and our international
    allies and partners.
        We are confronting an adversary supported by Iran that has
    no respect for the innocent lives of civilian merchant Mariners
    and one that is actively targeting our ships attempting to harm
    our sailors and Marines because we dare to defend the
    defenseless.
        And last month the USS Carney, the USS Arleigh Burke, both
    operating in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, intercepted several
    Iranian ballistic missiles heading towards Israel.
        For those who question why the American taxpayer should
    provide for and maintain a Navy and a Marine Corps look at what
    is happening today in the Middle East where we are defending
    the free flow of international commerce and actively defending
    our international allies and partners.
        Members of the committee, we appear before you today to ask
    for your continued support, your partnership, and your
    commitment to ensuring that the nearly 1 million sailors,
    Marines, and civilians of the department that we lead are ready
    on all fronts at all times when called upon.
        While the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 required us to
    make extremely hard choices, the $257.6 billion in the
    President's budget request for fiscal year '25 for our
    department deftly balances maintaining and modernizing the
    fleet and force of today against planning for the future force
    while also taking care of our people.
        This budget directly supports our department's three
    enduring priorities of strengthening our maritime dominance,
    building a culture of warfighting excellence, and enhancing our
    strategic partnerships around the globe.
        We are acquiring the most lethal, agile, and capable
    warships, submarines, aircraft, weapons, and systems our world
    has ever seen. We are also funding the research and development
    transformational technologies and fielding them more quickly to
    make our fleet more lethal and persistent within the current
    FYDP.
        We are investing billions of dollars in the industrial base
    that supports us while encouraging them to invest more in
    resources themselves at the same time and as responsible
    stewards of taxpayer funds we will enforce accountability to
    ensure our sailors and Marines have the platforms and
    capabilities that they need on time and on budget.
        Above all else, we are taking care of our people, our
    personnel, their families, by focusing on improving housing,
    expanding childcare capacity, and increasing access to mental
    health resources amongst other critical areas.
        We are clear eyed about the challenges that our nation
    faces today in the maritime domain both commercial and naval.
    As a maritime nation we must confront the challenges of today
    and prepare for the potential conflicts of tomorrow by
    investing in a strong Navy and Marine Corps.
        Again, it's an honor to appear before you this morning and
    we look forward to discussing with you how best to deliver the
    Navy and Marine Corps that our nation requires.
        Thank you.
        [The prepared statement of Secretary Del Toro can be found
    in the Appendix on page 61.]
        The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
        Admiral, you're recognized.

         STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL LISA FRANCHETTI, CHIEF OF NAVAL
                OPERATIONS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY

        Admiral Franchetti. Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith,
    distinguished members of the committee, good morning and thank
    you for the opportunity to testify on the posture of the United
    States Navy.
        On behalf of our sailors, Navy civilians, and their
    families deployed and stationed all around the world thank you
    for your leadership and your continued support in providing and
    maintaining the Navy the nation needs.
        I'd also like to thank my teammate General Smith for his
    exceptional partnership and collaboration as we guide our
    services under the leadership of Secretary Del Toro.
        Flanked by two oceans the United States is and always has
    been a maritime nation whose security and prosperity rely on
    access to the sea, and for over 248 years the U.S. Navy has
    guaranteed that access, operating forward, defending our
    homeland, and keeping open the sea lines of communication that
    fuel our economy and underwrite our nation's security.
        The events of this past year and the actions taken by your
    Navy and Marine Corps team in the Indo-Pacific, in the
    Mediterranean, and the Red Sea and beyond underscore the
    enduring importance of American naval power.
        With an average of 110 ships and 70,000 sailors and Marines
    deployed at sea on any given day, the Navy-Marine Corps team is
    delivering power for peace, deterring potential adversaries and
    standing ready to fight and win our nation's wars if deterrence
    fails.
        I could not be more proud of this team. No other navy in
    the world can train, deploy, and sustain such a lethal combat
    credible force that operates from the seabed to space at the
    scope, scale, and tempo that we do.
        This year's budget request supports the National Defense
    Strategy and my priorities of warfighting, warfighters, and the
    foundation that supports them. It enables the Navy to continue
    to meet our congressionally mandated mission in both peace and
    war.
        It is strategy driven, maintaining our focus on the
    People's Republic of China as the pacing challenge and the
    acute threat of Russia and other persistent threats like the
    DPRK, Iran, and VEOs.
        Given the discretionary spending caps prescribed by the
    Fiscal Responsibility Act and a top line increase of .7
    percent, the Navy had to make tough choices, favoring near-term
    readiness, investing in our industrial base and prioritizing
    our people while assuming risk in future capabilities.
        Within this fiscally constrained environment the budget
    request fully funds the Navy's top acquisition priority and the
    most survivable leg of strategic deterrence, the Columbia-class
    submarine.
        It provides funds for six battle force ships and
    incremental funding for two Ford-class aircraft carriers in
    fiscal year '25, and it continues our support to Marine Corps
    Force Design by maintaining 31 amphibious ships, procuring
    three LPDs, one LHA, and eight Medium Landing Ships.
        In total, the budget request procures 57 ships and
    submarines across the FYDP(Future Years Defense Program). This
    budget request prioritizes warfighting by funding operations,
    training, and readiness accounts.
        It invests in our foundation with funding for our
    installations, for our shipyard infrastructure optimization
    program, and for the broader Defense Industrial Base, sending a
    strong signal to our industry partners on the need to increase
    our capacity to meet the growing demands of the present and the
    future.
        And it continues our strong commitment to our warfighters
    and our families through pay raises for our sailors and Navy
    civilians, investments in quality of service initiatives such
    as unaccompanied housing, education, childcare, and sailor
    resiliency.
        These initiatives as well as others, enabled by your
    steadfast support, have helped us maintain historically high
    levels of retention, which is imperative given the current
    recruiting environment.
        And while this environment remains challenging and our
    manning requirements have increased, we are about 2,500
    recruits ahead of where we were last year at this time and I
    remain optimistic that our marketing and data analytics
    investments will show additional progress throughout the year.
        I would also like to thank this committee for your
    commitment to our sailors' quality of life. The Navy is in
    receipt of the Quality of Life panel report and we look forward
    to working closely with Congress and the office of the
    Secretary of Defense to ensure our sailors and their families
    have all they need as they support our nation's security and
    prosperity.
        As Chief of Naval Operations I am committed to pulling
    every lever available to me to put more ready players on the
    field, platforms that are ready with the right capabilities,
    weapons, and sustainment and people who are ready with the
    right tools, skills, training, and mind set to defend our
    nation's security and prosperity wherever and whenever it is
    threatened.
        I thank the committee for your leadership and partnership
    in ensuring the world's premier warfighting force remains ready
    to preserve the peace, respond in crisis, and win decisively in
    war if called.
        I look forward to your questions.
        [The prepared statement of Admiral Franchetti can be found
    in the Appendix on page 115.]
        The Chairman. Thank you, Admiral Franchetti.
        General Smith, you're recognized.

      STATEMENT OF GENERAL ERIC M. SMITH, COMMANDANT, U.S. MARINE
                                 CORPS

        General Smith. Good morning.
        Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, ladies and
    gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to represent your
    Marines today.
        I'd like to start by sincerely thanking this committee for
    its enduring support and your advocacy for a timely,
    predictable and sufficient budget that enables the Marine Corps
    to remain the first to fight.
        I'd like to express my deep gratitude for the partnership
    between my shipmate Admiral Franchetti and me as we lead our
    respective services under the leadership of Secretary Del Toro.
        Whether deterring, responding to crisis, or in conflict it
    will be the Navy and our Marine Corps Expeditionary Force
    forces who make first contact with partners seeking help or
    adversaries seeking a fight.
        Our partnership, collaboration, and integration is a
    decisive advantage. Recently, I published my updated guidance
    to the force entitled "Maintain Momentum." I chose this title
    as I firmly believe the Corps is on the right path under Force
    Design.
        A few points from that document. First, I believe that the
    Corps must continue to strike a balance between high-end
    modernization and our commitment to persistent forward-deployed
    naval expeditionary forces that campaign and respond to crises
    globally. This effort is represented by our Marine
    Expeditionary Units.
        Second, we must prioritize our operations with the Navy and
    its amphibious ships and we must provide Marines with the
    organic mobility to rapidly maneuver from shore to shore, ship
    to shore, and back again.
        Third, on recruiting our performance speaks for itself. We
    will continue to make mission without ever diminishing our
    standards. Additionally, our top performing Marines are
    reenlisting at historic rates and we must sustain this trend.
        Fourth, we must maximize the capability of our reserves to
    ensure that our nation has the ready bench of warriors that
    they relied on -- have relied on since the founding of the
    Marine Corps forces reserve in 1916.
        And, fifth, I'm dedicated to ensuring a quality of life for
    our Marines that matches the high demands we place on them
    every day. That means nutritious food, high quality and
    accessible gyms, and a safe quiet place to recover from a hard
    day's work.
        Our Barracks 2030 initiative is our most consequential
    barracks investment ever and it is sorely needed. While
    aggressively pursuing these priorities I commit to you that our
    Corps will always be frugal and accountable with the resources
    that you and the American people provide.
        I'm proud of my Marines and civilian Marines who enabled
    the Marine Corps to receive an unmodified audit opinion earlier
    this year, the first of any service to do so.
        They told us what we have long known, that when you entrust
    us with the taxpayers' money it is money well spent and fully
    accounted for.
        All these things are critical to maintaining the strength
    and dominance of your Marine Corps. This year marks 249 years
    since the founding of our Corps. That is 249 years of battles
    won and peace upheld in the name of democracy and prosperity
    for our nation and for all nations who abide by the
    international rules-based order.
        But, increasingly, world events demonstrate that this order
    is being challenged. Free trade, unrestricted access to the
    seas, peaceful cooperation between nations big and small, are
    under assault. Our nation's prosperity is underwritten by a
    strong Navy and Marine Corps who maintain a global presence and
    keep malign actors at bay.
        Thank you again for the opportunity to represent your
    Marines today. I pledge to continue to work closely with each
    of you to ensure your Marine Corps remains the most lethal
    fighting force on the planet and I look forward to your
    questions.
        [The prepared statement of General Smith can be found in
    the Appendix on page 132.]
        The Chairman. Thank you, General.
        Before I recognize myself for questions I want to
    acknowledge the presence of a special guest today. We have got
    a former long-term member of this committee and also a
    classmate of mine and a retired Marine colonel, John Kline,
    with us today. Good to have you, John.
        [Applause.]
        The Chairman. Now I recognize myself for questions.
        Admiral Franchetti and General Smith, the Navy and Marines'
    fiscal year '25 budget has $4.5 billion in unfunded
    requirements. It's clear you've had to leave some important
    programs on the cutting table.
        I'd like to ask each of you to speak to some of the
    tradeoffs that you've made trying to make this budget number
    work.
        Admiral, I'll start with you.
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you, Chairman Rogers, and as I
    said in my opening statement, you know, we really prioritized,
    you know, Columbia first and then readiness and then our
    people, quality of service, and everything that they need to be
    able to do their jobs. But the --
        The Chairman. What could you not make fit?
        Admiral Franchetti. -- things that I couldn't really get
    after is, you know, we took risk in our future procurement. If
    you look at the things that, you know, we weren't able to do in
    the future, really, the airwing of the future -- you know,
    aircraft carriers, SSNX, DDGX.
        So, really, we prioritized on the current readiness that we
    need and did not prioritize the future. So if there were
    additional resources available certainly my UPL(Unauthorized
    Practice of Law) has items on there that either came up after
    our budget was submitted but the things that are on there are
    things that we need to accelerate or to get some warfighting
    advantage.
        The last thing I would mention is although I have
    prioritized investment in our foundation, which is
    installations and everything associated with our
    infrastructure, about 60 percent of our MILCON(Military
    Construction) budget is going into the SIOP program and so I
    think there will always be opportunity to provide more
    investment in our installation.
        The Chairman. General Smith?
        General Smith. Mr. Chairman, our UPL does two things. It
    accelerates modernization against the pacing threat who is
    moving at an alarming pace.
        It accelerates quality of life improvements -- our Barracks
    2030 initiative -- and, frankly, the risk, if not funded, is we
    will remain capable and ready but deferred funding will
    eventually be paid for in blood by our Marines in crisis or in
    combat or in training.
        In the near term, our success in recruiting and retention
    is jeopardized because we won't be able to fulfill commitments
    to Marines and their families.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        Mr. Secretary, the review found every major shipbuilding
    program is experiencing significant delays and challenges. Can
    you speak to how you plan to correct that?
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely, Mr. Chairman.
        First, let me say that these are concerns that I've had
    from the first month I became Secretary of the Navy trying to
    address the most difficult challenges and trying to make
    improvements to get us to a better place.
        I'm pleased to say that due to the support of the Congress
    and the administration we are now pumping nearly $18 billion
    into the submarine base, $1 billion into the surface industrial
    base as well, too, and just in '24 some of the advancements
    that were made establishing an additive manufacturing center
    down at Danville -- 9,700 workers hired across both GD,
    Electric Boat, and HII Newport News -- an installation of
    additive manufacturing parts, groundbreaking on the submarine
    manufacturing facility at Newport News, for example,
    strategically outsourcing 3 million hours of work from the
    prime vendors to the sub vendors, something that I've been
    encouraging them to do from the very beginning, and we hope to
    actually double that in fiscal year '25 along with increasing
    other strategic sourcing as well to scaling of attraction,
    recruiting, training and retention efforts.
        As you know, Mr. Chairman, we have had, again, thanks to
    the support of Congress $25 million retention money that's been
    passed to Fincantieri, for example, so they can retain more
    people. We see another $25 million added to the '25 budget.
        So there are a lot of good news stories that are trying to
    be executed upon in order to get the state of these production
    lines up to where they should be.
        The Chairman. Thank you.
        We used to execute heel to toe amphibious deployments into
    AORs. Now we struggle to maintain one deployment in one AOR.
    Can you talk about what you're doing to correct that?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, Mr. Chairman.
        In fact, if my memory serves me right I think it was
    sometime in the 2017-2018 time frame when we actually had a
    heel to toe deployment of an ARG. Since then we unquestionably
    have been challenged by maintenance problems with our
    amphibious ships.
        And there's no question in my mind that we should have been
    buying more amphibious ships earlier. The age of our amphibious
    fleet is excessively high. We need to continue to invest in new
    ships to replace these old ships.
        If you take the Germantown, which we're proposing
    decommissioning this year, for example, she is our oldest LSD.
    She has wood decks on her that are corroding. She has a crane
    that hasn't been able to be fixed in the past six years and
    that's with help of the OEM (original equipment manufacturer),
    the original manufacturer.
        So it's time to actually replace these older LSDs with new
    ones in order to be able to meet the missions that face us
    tomorrow.
        The Chairman. Great. Thank you.
        I yield to the ranking member.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll continue along
    those lines in terms of the shipbuilding challenges and
    particularly focus on the workforce piece of it, and I don't
    know exactly so I'm curious how big a factor is that in not
    being able to keep up and having so many of our ships behind?
        Secretary Del Toro. It is a significant factor, Mr.
    Chairman. The blue collar workforce in this country has
    actually decreased significantly over the course of the last
    decade, I would argue, and we actually need to take measures in
    a whole of maritime statecraft effort, quite frankly, to try to
    recruit more people to the shipbuilding industry.
        Our country doesn't have a commercial shipbuilding industry
    either. That significantly hurts the status of naval
    shipbuilding in the country, and that's what we're trying to
    get back. Try to go after the low-hanging fruit to try to
    retrain more people.
        Members from my office just came from Ohio just a few days
    ago, for example. We're meeting with the Boilermakers Union of
    Ohio to try to get them to be able to retrain people at
    Bartlett Shipyard, for example, so that they could actually go
    into the shipbuilding industry. There's about 4,000
    boilermakers in the --
        Mr. Smith. Is there a way to quantify this? Are we -- like,
    do we need 10,000 workers? Do we need 20,000? Understanding
    that it's going to differ special -- to specialty but in
    general is there a number that either you or the admiral could
    give us on how short we are here?
        Secretary Del Toro. I think we -- we're going to need
    upwards of 50,000 or more shipyard workers into the future to
    be able to constitute the demand signal that we're putting in.
        Mr. Smith. Have we worked at all with high schools on, you
    know, beginning to show people the -- you know, basically
    career and technical education to say -- because I know there's
    been a bit of a pivot, certainly, in my area and we have a
    robust, you know, shipbuilding industry there.
        We're building a maritime high school which focuses on a
    number of different issues. But, you know, an effort to take
    people in high school and say, hey, this is a career that you
    could pursue?
        Secretary Del Toro. So we're taking a significant amount of
    investment from the submarine industrial base and the ship
    industrial base, and Chairman Courtney knows that up in
    Connecticut, for example, we're pumping that money into
    retraining programs so that we can actually take high school
    students, turn them into certified welders and put them right
    into the shipyard.
        We're doing the same thing with community colleges as well,
    too. I just visited a community college up in Maine -- in Bath,
    Maine, for example, where we're trying to do the same thing.
        Mr. Smith. Okay. And on the requirements piece what can we
    do? I mean, it just seems to me like that does drive cost, and
    then to the chairman's point, requirements shift for a variety
    of different reasons in the middle of a project.
        But even before we get to the shifting just the set of
    requirements that are thrown up as a starting point is anyone
    taking a serious look at that? I'd be interested in all three
    of you just giving me a quick comment.
        How can we shrink that down so that we can be more nimble
    in how we meet our manufacturing needs?
        Secretary Del Toro. It's a complicated -- it's a
    complicated situation --
        Mr. Smith. Yes, it is.
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and, of course, made even more
    complicated over the years because every time you have a new
    operational requirement it adds additional requirements to the
    factor as well, too.
        When you take a -- just as one example, we want to operate
    more in the Arctic, right? Well, our DDGs, for example, are
    only designed to operate a set number of days in the Arctic.
    But if we're going to operate more in the Arctic we got to
    reinforce those hulls on our DG Flight IIIs, for example, and
    our DDGXs in order for them to be able to do so.
        So there are times when there are legitimate growth in
    requirements to support an operational mission but in many
    cases it's also telling the shipyard how to do their job and we
    shouldn't be doing that.
        We should be setting the overall requirements and letting
    them build to those requirements as well, too. Sometimes safety
    factors are at play as well, too, and lawyers get involved and
    so, you know, one lawsuit drives a hundred different additional
    requirements to the process as well.
        Mr. Smith. Absolutely.
        Just very quickly in time I have left, Admiral, General
    Smith, do you want to offer thoughts?
        Admiral Franchetti. I would just offer that it's really
    important, you know, as we are designing the ships initially
    and setting the requirements both, you know, as we just did
    with the Landing Ship Medium, you know, to really think through
    that work very carefully with the concept of employment that
    we're going to use and make sure that we're basically saying
    exactly what we need for those capabilities when we release
    that RFP.
        Mr. Smith. General, just --
        General Smith. I would echo what my shipmate said, that our
    Wargaming and Analysis Center is vital to that, to war game
    through what actually you need before you set the requirements
    and then our requirements officer, Lieutenant General Heckl, is
    there to keep those requirements on pace and to keep them
    steady.
        Mr. Smith. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield
    back.
        The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
    South Carolina, Mr. Wilson.
        Mr. Wilson. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and, indeed,
    we are so grateful to have with us today Congressman Colonel
    John Kline of Minnesota. He served with such distinction and he
    still does, and so it's so good to see his bright face here
    today. Thank you.
        With that, too, I want to thank each of you for your
    service. I grew up with a great appreciation of the Navy in the
    holy city of Charleston, South Carolina, with the Navy base
    there. I was a sea cadet and so I saw firsthand the great work.
        And then I'm also grateful to be today a Navy dad and my
    son is a orthopedic surgeon in the Navy and then for everyone -
    - and military service can be so uplifting. I now -- with his
    service in Naples, Italy, I've got three grandchildren who
    speak perfect Italian and so who would ever imagine the ripple
    effect of military service?
        And then, General, I'm really grateful. I previously
    represented Parris Island Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort
    and I saw young recruits come and to be totally transformed
    from what they were into Marines, having very meaningful lives.
    And so it's just an extraordinary opportunity that you provide
    for the young people of our country as we defend our country.
        And, Secretary Del Toro, the Missile Defense Agency's
    budget request for fiscal year '25 cuts the procurement of
    Standard Missile 3, or SM-3, Block 1B interceptors, which is
    our Navy's primary defense against tactical ballistic missiles
    for the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense Weapon System.
        This deviates from last year's budget request which set
    procurement of these interceptors through fiscal year '29. I'm
    concerned that this proposal was drafted prior to the
    commencement of the outrageous and illegal attacks on Israel by
    Iran and its puppets on October 7, 2023, and beyond where these
    SM Block III 1B interceptors have been expended to protect
    American troops and freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.
        With the current trajectory to end production of this
    proven defense against the threats in the CENTCOM(Central
    Command) region will this create a gap of a defense capability
    and what is the department going to do to address the gap?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, thanks for that really
    important question. I truly believe that SM-3s will be needed
    in greater numbers in the future, given the operations that
    took place in defense of Israel here recently where some were
    fired and very effectively so.
        I think given the future threat and our deterrence mission
    in the Indo-Pacific we are going to need more SM-3s in the
    future and I think that those decisions were made before recent
    operations. I think we're going to have to relook that in order
    to add more SM-3s in the future.
        Mr. Wilson. And thank you, Mr. Secretary, because it really
    is shocking to me. Here we are in the 21st century with the
    Iran missile attacks on the citizens of Israel, and then you
    have the Houthis, puppets of Iran, with their capabilities --
    underwater sea capabilities that -- of nomads.
        No, no. Hey, we're dealing with dictators with rule of gun
    invading democracies' rule of law. Whether it be war criminal
    Putin, whether it be the regime in Tehran, whether it be the
    Chinese Communist Party, we have just got to be prepared and
    address the changes that occur.
        Additionally, with the hearings that we have had the
    integrated air and missile defense ballistic systems that we
    have -- there has been a dialogue between the departments of
    integrating the unmanned aerial systems with the Aegis
    Ballistic Missile Defense architecture.
        Is that proceeding?
        Secretary Del Toro. I'm sorry, Congressman. Can you repeat
    it? You're talking about integrated unmanned aerial systems
    with --
        Mr. Wilson. Yes. Yes. Yes.
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. So as one example we're very
    excited, obviously, by the current operations associated with
    MQ-4, MQ-9, and in the future MQ-25.
        We are very much planning the integration of MQ-25, for
    example, with the integrated air missile defense systems so
    that we can recognize that the MQ-25 is operating out there as
    an unmanned F-18 refueler while we're actually protecting the
    entire Carrier Strike Group.
        Mr. Wilson. Well, again, as we face the changes it's just
    so startling. Again, in the 21st century this shouldn't be
    occurring.
        And, finally, Admiral Lisa, I'm really grateful there's a
    future sailor preparatory course at Fort Jackson giving young
    people an opportunity to serve. Is the Navy looking -- and it's
    been successful. You need to contact General Kelly. Is that
    being pursued by the Navy?
        Admiral Franchetti. Yes, Congressman Wilson. We have also a
    future sailor prep course modeled on the Army's course for both
    physical fitness and academic and it is having a really
    positive impact for our future sailors.
        Mr. Wilson. Hear, hear. Thank you. I yield back. Thank you.
        The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from
    Connecticut, Mr. Courtney.
        Mr. Courtney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Again, I want to thank all the witnesses for being here
    today.
        Secretary Del Toro, we had good news last night on AUKUS
    where the State Department issued their ITAR regulations to
    implement the Optimal Pathway that you and I witnessed out in
    San Diego.
        It's great to see you, Admiral Franchetti. Congratulations
    on your first hearing and really want to, you know, welcome
    Gerald Smith back into the fray and really glad you're back in
    the saddle leading the Marine Corps.
        Mr. Chairman, before I begin my questioning I request
    unanimous consent to enter into the record two letters from the
    Machinists Union and the metal trades department of the AFL-CIO
    urging sustained investment in the two per year cadence of the
    Virginia-class submarine.
        The Chairman. Without objection so ordered.
        Mr. Courtney. They represent the welders, electricians,
    painters, and boilermakers who are hard at work right now
    delivering three Virginia-class submarines in this calendar
    year and on track to deliver two more in 2025 and are part of
    that job training initiative that the Secretary mentioned in
    New England -- 5,300 hires last calendar year with an 86
    percent retention rate.
        I also request unanimous consent to enter into the record a
    letter that myself and 119 other House members submitted to the
    Appropriations Committee last night in support of restoring the
    second Virginia-class submarine.
        The Chairman. Without objection.
        Mr. Courtney. Thank you.
        Admiral Franchetti, we have had our posture hearings over
    the last month or so, as the chairman mentioned. We heard from
    Admiral Aquiline at INDOPACOM(United States Indo-Pacific
    Command), General Guillot from NORTHCOM(U.S. Northern Command),
    and General Cavoli from EUCOM(United States European Command
    that their requirements for attack submarine missions extend
    beyond what the Navy current has in its inventory.
        Again, the Navy's shipbuilding three-year plan has a
    requirement for 66 attack submarines and at this point we
    possess about 50, maybe 51 with the New Jersey that was
    delivered last week.
        Is that still the Navy's position that that's the target in
    terms of what should be an adequate attack submarine fleet?
        Admiral Franchetti. Yes. I can't speak highly enough of our
    attack submarine fleet, really our asymmetric advantage, and as
    you said, yeah, 66 is our requirement.
        Mr. Courtney. Thank you.
        So, Mr. Secretary, during the budget briefs back in March
    Navy officials said, quote, "We are going about the submarine
    cut in a strategic way because we're simply not taking a
    submarine out. We're also continuing investment in advanced
    procurement to make sure that the supplier industrial base is
    fully funded."
        Unfortunately, committee staff has dug deeper into the
    budget books and it's clear that many, many suppliers are not
    included in the advanced procurement phase of construction and
    are not protected by this strategic way.
        Our staff determined that it would cost an additional $1
    billion to achieve the goal that was stated with the Navy's
    budget brief. When this enormous shortfall was raised at the
    Sea Power Subcommittee two weeks ago Assistant Secretary
    Guertin replied, "Well, we'll have to take a closer look and
    see what we can do to help."
        Does the Navy today have an answer to these supply chain
    companies which, again, the analysis shows are not going to be
    protected the way it was intended?
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Let me first also reaffirm our complete commitment on the
    part of the entire Department of the Navy to the 66 attack
    submarines.
        We currently have 50. We have 11 that are actually under
    construction and four additional ones under the contract, and
    I'm confident with the '26 budget we'll eventually get to the
    66 that are required.
        Of course, we need to have them built faster and have those
    production rates increase. With regards specifically to these
    vendors we're in constant contact with these vendors.
        The purpose of advanced procurement money, however, isn't
    to fully fund all the vendors that are in the supply chain.
    It's to fund those vendors that are most critical to the supply
    chain.
        I don't think there's ever been a confirmation that we can
    support, you know, full funding of all the vendors across the
    entire spectrum.
        Mr. Courtney. So, Mr. Secretary, if I could just say -- my
    time is running out -- I know some of those critical supply
    chain companies. They are left out, okay, with the plan that
    was submitted by the Navy.
        They are picked up through full -- the full funding phase
    of the submarine program, not advanced procurement long lead
    items and, again, this is a real problem which, again, we now
    have dollars and cents in terms of what it would take to fix
    that.
        Not a penny of that would go to the general contractor --
    that $1 billion. That was all, again, to make sure that all
    these fabricators and parts manufacturers are actually going to
    be protected as Mr. Raven had indicated in his opening
    statement.
        And, again, at some point to really protect them we should
    just go forward with what was in the FYDP last year to have two
    submarines included in this year's budget. We are going to work
    really hard with your team to try and accomplish that goal.
        We have done it in the past. We did it in 2013 when the
    Obama administration eliminated a submarine and then 2020 when
    the Trump administration eliminated a submarine. Sometimes it
    was in the UPL's list. Sometimes it wasn't.
        But we -- using our constitutional duty Article One Section
    Eight Clause 13 to provide and maintain the Navy, we stepped
    forward and filled that gap and it's a good thing we did.
        With that, I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr.
    Wittman.
        Mr. Wittman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank our
    witnesses for joining us today.
        Secretary Del Toro, I want to begin with you. We know that
    in the Indo-Pacific in order to deter conflict this is the tip
    of the spear effort. It's a Navy-Marine Corps fight. In order
    to do that we have to have ships.
        Listen, our sailors and Marines are great but until they
    can walk on water we better be building them ships. We know
    that the entire effort there needs to be about the existing
    Navy and building new ships.
        The President's budget comes over this year. Build six,
    retire 19, 10 of those before the end of their expected service
    life.
        I'm not a mathematician but seems to me you can't do
    addition by subtraction. We know that there's continued cost
    growth and schedule movement to the right in building new
    ships.
        So if we're not going to repair the ships we have and we're
    going to be delayed in getting new ships it seems like to me
    the delta will get even bigger, and I've warned for years that
    there are real consequences to this.
        If you look at what's going to happen just in the Hampton
    Roads area, one of the great places for ship repair, from
    fiscal year '18 to fiscal year '28 will have a reduction in
    workload demand there by 50 percent. Employment levels there
    will go from 7,800 ship repairs to 3,800 ship repairs. We know
    once those people leave they're not coming back.
        So, Mr. Secretary, what do you have in mind for the
    capacity of our U.S. repair yards? How do we maintain a navy?
        How do we make sure that we as members of Congress who have
    a constitutional responsibly -- the Constitution says to
    maintain navies.
        How do we maintain them if this demand signal goes away and
    we have this massive decrease in the number of ships that we
    are going to keep on when we need them? How does that work?
    Tell me what's the Navy's plan, going forward, to sustain our
    Navy?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        First and foremost, as you know, the debt discussions that
    took place here on Capitol Hill led to the Fiscal
    Responsibility Act that actually puts extensive downward
    pressure on the United States Navy and part of that is actually
    then having to make the choice to decommission --
        Mr. Wittman. Mr. Secretary, I hate to interrupt but it's
    the broader --
        Secretary Del Toro. I know, but this is a complicated
    discussion.
        Mr. Wittman. -- it's the broader constitutional
    responsibility that we have to defend this nation. I understand
    about the Fiscal Responsibility Act but it is about making
    priority decisions on the resources that --
        Secretary Del Toro. But I have to make those priority
    decisions based on the law and if the law does not allow me to
    spend more money than the 1 percent increase over last year's
    budget I then have to make really tough --
        Mr. Wittman. The Constitution says maintain our navies.
    Maintain our Navy is what the Constitution says.
        Secretary Del Toro. But the laws are what I have to follow
    on a year to year basis, and so I have to actually take a look
    at retiring legacy systems so that we could actually build new
    ships and we're building 58 of them across the FYDP --
        Mr. Wittman. None of those come into operation, though,
    inside the Future Year Defense Plan. So all of our dreams are
    going to come true outside -- you'll be long gone and somebody
    else is going to be saying, well, I'd have gotten to the Navy
    if I didn't have to deal with what was given to me prior.
        Secretary Del Toro. And to the chairman's point, I'm trying
    to work with industry to increase the production rates. For
    example, the New Jersey, for example, was delivered just last
    week and it was delivered almost three years late.
        If all the submarines that we had ordered actually had been
    delivered on line because of the challenges to the production
    rates we'd actually have five additional submarines in our
    fleet today to be able to meet our operational needs across the
    nation.
        So we have to work an entire whole of government maritime
    statecraft to actually try to bring these production rates back
    up so that we can get the ships delivered on time and on budget
    and so that we can keep them operational at sea and actually
    free up those shipyards so when they do need to come back and
    be repaired they could be made available.
        We're also making historic investments in the SIOP(Single
    Integrated Operational Plan) program, for example, $20 billion,
    thanks to the support of the Congress over these last 10 years,
    and those programs are moving along very nicely, obviously.
        But these are programs that hadn't been invested in in over
    75 years. And so those are the investments that we are making
    that I think are truly historic that, hopefully, will get us to
    the right place. But it's going to take time to get us there
    and there's nothing I can do. I can't snap my fingers have
    these ships built faster.
        Mr. Wittman. But I -- I understand about new construction
    but we got to have the maintainers. If we're going to let the
    maintenance side atrophy when you do get those new ships where
    are the repairs going to come from? So then we're going to be
    in a situation of being able to maintain a 355-ship Navy if and
    when we ever get there.
        So there is the maintenance side of the formula that I
    think is critically important, I would argue probably today
    even more important than the build side. I understand the
    delays in the build side. All those things are reality.
        Let me ask you this. Admiral Franchetti, I wanted to get
    your perspective on where we are with SSN projections building
    one submarine. Now, the Australians look at that and they go
    well, wait a minute -- we thought we had an AUKUS agreement
    here.
        We thought we were going to build two a year. We thought we
    were going to be able to buy some from the United States. How
    do we sustain the fundamentals of the AUKUS agreement?
        If you were an Australian looking at this and go, is the
    U.S. really serious about this -- they're going down to
    building one submarine this year when they say we need to have
    a pace of 2.3, and they look at it and go, I thought we were
    going to buy some submarines from them -- I thought we were
    actually going to have a cooperative agreement there.
        How do you see this as being able to sustain on SSN --
        The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
    Garamendi.
        Mr. Garamendi. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        So many things here. Money, money, or not enough money. We
    had $4.5 billion of unfunded priorities. I think you mentioned
    that, Admiral.
        I would point out to the committee that the Sentinel
    program has been Nunn-McCurdyed, stopped. Four point six
    billion dollars is expected to be spent on it this year. Maybe
    that could be delayed and spent on the Navy, maybe, if this
    committee decides what should be done.
        We make choices here about prioritization. The fact of the
    matter is we do not need the Sentinel for at least another
    decade and a half. But this is the Navy. You do build Columbia-
    class submarines, don't you?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Garamendi. At about $7 billion to $8 billion a copy.
    Sentinel is $137 billion over the next decade plus. That's
    about eight Columbia-class submarines.
        If we had the shipyards which, unfortunately, my colleague
    Mr. Waltz is not here. He and the Subcommittee on Readiness has
    developed a interim national maritime strategy that speaks to
    the commercial side of it, which is also the shipyard side and
    the ability of our shipyards to produce ships on the commercial
    side but also to repair naval ships. So there's an overarching
    strategy that we're working on here.
        General Smith, welcome back. Delighted you're here.
    Delighted you appear to be in great health. Thank you. You've
    always fancied and you've told me and I'm sure others that the
    Marine Corps is fast and light, capable, able to operate
    independently as part of an integrated joint force. What
    capabilities is the Marine Corps pursuing to enable that
    mobility in contested environments? What do you need to carry
    out that goal?
        General Smith. Well, Mr. Garamendi, thanks for the warm
    welcome. It's good to be back.
        What we need is the Landing Ship Medium. The request for
    proposal is out for industry now and we can't go fast enough.
    The Landing Ship Medium built to commercial standards and I'm
    pleased with the fiscal year '25 shipbuilding plan, which is
    11222.
        I'll use the Ford F-150 analogy. It's based on existing
    commercial standards and the requirement for this is 35 with
    the initial purchase of 18 and they will provide littoral
    mobility for the stand-in forces.
        They're low signature, they're rapid, and they can carry
    with them our medium missile batteries, which are a requirement
    to deter the People's Republic of China.
        Mr. Garamendi. Very good. You mentioned commercial
    standards. Unfortunately, the ranking member stepped away. He -
    - way into standards right now, listening to him early on.
        I assume those commercial standards would relieve part of
    the problem that he was talking about.
        General Smith. I believe they would, sir.
        Mr. Garamendi. Admiral Franchetti, one of my favorite
    subjects and I know you're aware of it has to do with the
    ability of the shipyards to actually conduct their work. In
    order for those shipyards to be efficient and effective they
    have to know well ahead of time what the incoming availability
    that a ship needs to be done.
        Could you help me understand how the Navy is in real time
    keeping track of what every ship needs to be done in an
    availability?
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you, Congressman Garamendi.
        You know, our shipyards do need that information ahead of
    time and one of the things that we have been focused on through
    the NAVSEA enterprise is identifying all of that work along the
    way through the port engineer, the type commander, and working
    with all the different program executive offices on whatever
    modernization needs to be done in a shipyard to develop that
    full package.
        Our objective is to have that package locked in 120 days
    before a shipyard availability begins so the shipyard can plan
    so we can get the materials that we need to be able to do that
    so we don't have unnecessary delays or growth work because
    that's where you start to see the delays.
        Mr. Garamendi. Thank you very much.
        Secretary Del Toro, I thank you for visiting Mare Island
    and I would point out to the committee that the privately owned
    shipyards have the -- have a program available through MARAD to
    upgrade their shipyards.
        However, the amount of money that is available through the
    ongoing budget is minuscule.
        The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Tennessee, Dr.
    DesJarlais.
        Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you all for
    being here.
        Secretary Del Toro and Admiral Franchetti, the next
    questions will be for you. The U.S. Navy has been tasked with
    the critical mission to keeping Red Sea commercial shipping
    lanes open by neutralizing Houthi missile and drone attacks.
        Could you briefly describe this mission for the committee?
    And then the activity appears to have died down over the past
    month but how do you assess the threat, moving forward?
        Secretary Del Toro. Mr. Chairman, it's an incredibly
    important mission, as you know, one that we have been
    conducting for six and a half months with close to 200
    engagements with the Houthis of drones and missiles shot at our
    ships directly and also at innocent merchant mariners
    throughout the Red Sea.
        Regretfully, it has resulted in probably about a 70 percent
    decrease in merchant traffic through the Red Sea. It's our
    responsibility to do the very best that we can to protect
    American lives and protect the lives of those innocent
    mariners, obviously, and to keep those ships from being
    attacked and I think our Navy has responded brilliantly in
    doing so without any loss of life.
        On U.S. Navy ships that have been attacked we, regretfully,
    have lost three Special Forces operators, obviously, that were
    on the USS Puller. But perhaps the CNO can expand on that.
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you. I just also wanted to add,
    you know, through Operation Prosperity Guardian it's really,
    you know, U.S. Navy leadership of a coalition of folks that are
    doing the maritime security mission through the Red Sea and in
    the Gulf of Aden.
        We're also coordinating with the EU mission which is called
    Aspides to make sure that we have an integrated plan, you know,
    with them to deconflict any potential. You know, both of us is
    skirting the same things.
        So I think this operation has gone really well. Really
    proud of the team. You know, we have learned a lot through
    this. We have embarked on expeditionary resupply. Everything
    that we're learning in the Red Sea and through this operation
    against a very challenging Houthi threat is some things that we
    can replicate and learn from in other areas of the world.
        Dr. DesJarlais. Okay. When reviewing the fiscal year '25
    budget request I was surprised to see that the number of SM-6s
    that you are procuring -- considering the heightened activity
    in the Red Sea the budget request just seems insufficient to
    meet the need. Would you agree?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, we have actually
    emphasized the growth in SM-2 missile production, which is the
    majority of the missiles that we're actually shooting. The SM-
    6s are essential missiles as well as are the SM-3s.
        They take a lot longer to actually build, which is part of
    the reason why we haven't invested more money into them until
    the production rates can come up to a point where we could
    actually invest more money to buy more SM-6s and SM-3s as well,
    too.
        Dr. DesJarlais. You mentioned and touched on it briefly
    earlier -- can you discuss the Navy's plan to field directed
    energy weapons and high-energy lasers to support maritime
    missile defense?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. We have accelerated the
    development and the testing of the Helios laser program, which
    in many ways is a replacement -- not a replacement but it
    supplements the CIWS system. We also have six other laser
    projects and high energy projects, some of which are classified
    and I can't talk about openly.
        But this is a high priority area for us. We, obviously,
    well into the future cannot continue to shoot down drones with
    simply SM-2s and SM-6s. We need to develop the high energy,
    high lasers, and directed energy programs to be able to counter
    these air drones that are being shot at us as well.
        Dr. DesJarlais. Thank you. I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New Jersey, Mr.
    Norcross.
        Mr. Norcross. Thank you, Chairman, and to the witnesses for
    being here today.
        Secretary Del Toro, we were commissioning a ship down in
    Key West last year and on the way down there I sat next to a
    young lady who happened to be a teacher, and it came up what
    her children are going to do. And she said, well, one wants to
    go to college -- the other one wants to become a mechanic, and
    immediately went to the issue of what we're talking about
    today, where is our next generation of worker who work with
    their hands and their head come from.
        And she said something that I will not forget -- we need to
    give our children the permission to pursue an area that they're
    interested in whether it's to be a lawyer, a doctor, or an
    electrician. Permission to do that, because the narrative in
    our country today is you got to go to college to make it.
        We're, you know, in the process of taking away debt for
    those who went to college. But for those who go to work in the
    shipyard they get nothing. I think we as a society have this
    role.
        Whether you want to become a lawyer or you want to become a
    welder we value those the same and until we as a nation value
    those things the same way we're not going to get the people in
    the shipyard the way we need it. We look at them many times as
    a society as second class. I know that and I see that.
        So when we talk about that next 50,000 we, as a nation,
    have to value that for what it is and do that. You talk about
    the blue collar workforce being reduced over the last 50 years
    and it has. The number-one reason is we offshored those items,
    that manufacturing that we did. We did that to ourselves,
    chasing the dollar instead of the capacity.
        So here we are trying to build it back up and wondering why
    we can't get there. Well, I think we need to look in the mirror
    and say we need to make sure that capacity goes on here. We
    need friends, we need allies, and we need to work with them but
    we need to have the capacity here long term, not just for two
    days.
        So after that rant we're sitting here, and I want to thank
    the admiral for visiting the Philadelphia South Jersey yard,
    the capacity that we have there, and we had this very
    conversation when we were there -- why can't we get those
    people.
        The Philadelphia repair yard is literally talking about
    closing because they can't get enough work. The work that's
    going on there today is with the USS New Jersey that we retired
    almost 25 years ago. They're doing it but after that their work
    isn't there.
        So Mr. Wittman talked about that repair. We have to send
    the demand signals. Why would I want to go to work someplace
    that's going to shut down in two years?
        So other than money, Secretary Del Toro, and to each of --
    the general and the admiral, what can we do other than money to
    send the right signals to get that workforce, that we value
    them? How do you do that?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, Congressman, I think you hit the
    nail on the head and I've been calling for a call to national
    maritime service, not just to the uniform service -- obviously,
    in the Marine Corps and the Navy through our recruiting efforts
    but also to increase the number of civilians that we have
    working in the Department of the Navy and in our shipyards as
    well too because it is honorable service, as you know, and we
    need electricians, we need plumbers, we need welders, fitters -
    - we need everything to build these great ships.
        But in my call to a national maritime statecraft I think
    resurgence of the commercial shipbuilding industry would also
    help tremendously itself and it would help the economy. It
    would help create more jobs across the entire country.
        We essentially have given up on commercial shipbuilding and
    China and, thank God, our allies and Japan and South Korea have
    also invested heavily in shipbuilding. But we have lost that
    arc here in the United States. We can't even build our own LNG
    ships here in the United States, for example, when we should be
    building them.
        So I think it's also complicated by some of our immigration
    policies. We need to increase legal immigration. We need to
    increase work visa programs to allow other workers coming from
    other countries to come here as well and fill these jobs that
    are being unfilled.
        The good news is that unemployment is under 4 percent
    across the country. The challenge, however, is that we need
    more workers to continue to feed our growing economy, and so
    that's the challenge that we have and I think a national call
    to maritime service is what I'm committed to.
        Mr. Norcross. If I may, in addition to those leaving the
    service, recruiting them to go back to work because many of
    them continue to work for years after that and more importantly
    than that is the number-one way other than telling them their
    value is to pay them the right wages.
        And with that, I yield back.
        The Chairman. In complete agreement with that statement.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Mississippi,
    the general.
        Mr. Kelly. Yeah, I want to concur with a lot of the
    thoughts. Listen, we can blame it on money. We can blame it on
    budgets. But for the last three years we have asked to give
    away more ships than we're bringing. So it's not just that
    thing and here's what I will say.
        We have to have a consistent message to our shipbuilders
    that we're going to build ships. We can't change that. We can't
    change the requirements. We have to send a constant message
    that we're going to continue because we will never get our
    workforce in place if we continue to say we're going to do a
    strategic pause on amphibs, we're going to do a strategic pause
    on Virginia-class.
        You've got to let them catch up to get on schedule. We
    never allow them to get on schedule. With that being said,
    Admiral Franchetti, what the heck is going on with the Boxer? I
    mean, she underwent a $200 million overhaul in 2022 and hasn't
    been underway since. In fact, she really hasn't been out of the
    dock in five years. So what is going on with the USS Boxer?
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you, Congressman Kelly. I will
    give you an update on the Boxer. So, you know the Boxer did
    actually go through all of her work-ups for deployment. She
    headed out but now she's back in San Diego.
        She has bearing on her starboard rudder that is not -- it's
    not in good condition so it needs to be replaced. So we are
    basically -- right now she is there. We are evaluating the
    different procedures that will be done to repair her.
        It's about -- right now about a four- to six-week repair.
    We look to be able to finish that repair pierside -- the
    bearing is available -- and then get her back out on
    deployment.
        I would say that we're still investigating the cause of the
    bearing but it was either potentially installed improperly or
    the bearing itself was -- had some type of defect. So we're
    going to continue that inquiry right now --
        Mr. Kelly. Thank you. Let me get to -- General Smith, how
    does the Boxer's unavailability impact the Marine Corps?
        General Smith. Congressman, we're designed to operate on a
    three-ship amphibious ready group, one big deck LHA, LHD, and
    two small boys -- two LPDs(landing platform dock). So when you
    lose your big deck you lose most of your aviation assets and
    you lose your crisis response force.
        Mr. Kelly. You also lose the ability to train and exercise
    those Marines also. Is that correct?
        General Smith. That is correct, sir.
        Mr. Kelly. All right. I want to talk a little bit --
    without the 31 amphibious ships and 35 landing ships can the
    Marine Corps fight, survive, and meet combatant commander
    requirements as a stand-in force?
        General Smith. Sir, we cannot. We need those agreed upon 31
    anthems and the CNO and I have locked shields on that and we're
    determined to get there.
        Mr. Kelly. And I want to talk a little bit about the LSM or
    the Medium Landing Ship. We have got that. We do not need --
    and I know you agree with me, Commandant, we do not need to
    turn that into the Navy's version of Pentagon wars. We don't
    need to create something that's going to be so expensive and to
    be survivable.
        The Marine Corps has asked for a requirement and I think we
    should trust the Marine Corps to build them the ship that they
    ask for because you know how to employ those. Is that correct,
    Commandant?
        General Smith. Sir, that is correct.
        Mr. Kelly. And all the considerations that other people are
    taking to create this into something different those -- are
    those being asked for by you, Commandant, or did you ask for
    the requirement that you need as the commandant of the Marine
    Corps?
        General Smith. Congressman, I asked for the requirement
    that is required for them to be survivable, mobile, and
    beachable.
        Mr. Kelly. Absolutely. And I guess I think -- Secretary Del
    Toro, I think we have made some progress but I do think that we
    need to be very careful about when we do a 30-year shipbuilding
    plan that the first 10 years are locked in and we never move
    those. Or five years. I don't know what that number is.
        But what we do is we keep shifting year one and we can't do
    that. We have to send a consistent demand signal to industry or
    they will never be able to keep up with the maintenance or the
    shipbuilding that is required.
        So I hope that you guys will understand we have to build
    what we're building and we can't change that. Can I get a
    commitment to do that, Secretary Del Toro?
        Secretary Del Toro. Mr. Chairman, I have -- I've tried to
    keep that commitment since the day I came in as Secretary of
    the Navy and for the first three years until this budget I
    haven't been able to -- I've been able to do that where no
    numbers of shifts have changed in the first 10 years of the
    shipbuilding plan.
        However, it is the Fiscal Responsibility Act that was
    passed by the Congress and, again, in response to the very
    difficult negotiations that were done around the debt limit
    that forced our hand this year to be able to have to remove
    that one submarine and a situation where it simply could not be
    delivered by the shipyards, and that's opportunity cost. The
    opportunity cost on resources we need --
        The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Maine, Mr.
    Golden.
        Mr. Golden. Thank you.
        Mr. Secretary, last month Admiral Pitts testified that one
    Flight III DDG-51 -- to date only one has been delivered to the
    fleet.
        He also expressed the importance of fielding the new
    capabilities that come with Aegis Baseline 10 and the SPY-6
    radar. Of course, before Congress passed in a fiscal year '24
    approps bill the administration requested two DDGs in the
    President's budget request.
        Now that we have a '24 approps through -- into law and it
    included $1.3 billion for advanced procurement it seems to me
    like that's a clear indication from Congress, not to mention
    just a lot of the work of the committee over the last several
    years that Congress wants to speed the delivery of Flight III
    ships.
        Is that a priority that you agree with? Would you agree
    that Congress should be trying to speed the delivery of Flight
    III to the Navy fleet?
        Secretary Del Toro. To the extent that it doesn't take away
    from other requirements that I have to meet across the
    Department of the Navy, yes, I always welcome more DDG Flight
    IIIs into the Navy.
        Mr. Golden. More ships is good. All right.
        Mr. Kelly just stole the question I was going to ask you
    but I guess I'll just reiterate. I mean, it sounds like what
    you're saying is you would commit to adhering to the five-year
    plan on the landing ships and procuring eight of them, assuming
    Congress gives you the resources you need. It's a priority for
    the Navy as well as the Marine Corps, right?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, I've been a big supporter
    of the LSM and I've worked to try to accelerate the LSM
    schedule as much as possible. We had to go through some very
    difficult survivability discussions.
        I think we're in the right place, supporting the commandant
    of the Marine Corps and the requirements that are set forth,
    which the CNO agrees with as well, too. So we're united in the
    future of the LSM.
        We're committed to building the 18 LSMs initially,
    eventually to get to 35. But we want to be able to get these
    first few out to have the Marine Corps continue to experiment
    with them and make sure that they're the final design before we
    go to advanced procurement for the 35.
        Mr. Golden. I think it's no secret that some members of
    Congress or the appropriators, authorizes, or other talking
    about whether or not we should be adhering to these caps that
    you keep referring to. It's not necessarily your decision.
        But I mean, in a perfect world you would not be structuring
    a budget based upon these caps. Does that sound right?
        Secretary Del Toro. That's correct, Congressman. Obviously,
    we would spend to the amount that the Congress authorizes and
    appropriates.
        Mr. Golden. Sure. And I think Mr. Norcross touched upon
    this. I mean, there's been a pretty good focus today on talking
    about the need to really focus on shipbuilding, ship builders,
    and developing a workforce that can meet the needs of the Navy
    and our national security.
        I've tried to do a lot of work on that through the years.
    With reporting requirements, it seems like maybe you're
    actually benefitting from some of the reporting that Navy has
    done as a result of that and have a good understanding of where
    we're at and where we need to be.
        I just want to reiterate again my office is even hearing
    from shipyards in the Philly region who do repairs and
    maintenance that they're getting ready to lay people off. I
    know that we're behind schedule on maintenance and repairs in
    general so I'm hoping that the Navy will do a good job of
    spreading some work around to try and ensure that we're not
    losing skilled workers at a time when we're talking about
    having --
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, we have robust
    conversations with all the shipyards small, medium and large
    across the nation. I personally have visited many of them --
    Mare Island, Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
        We would, obviously, try to keep them as full as possible
    but our primary role is to keep ships out at sea and to keep
    them operational. Obviously, we need to maintain them on time.
        When we have delays in how we maintain the ships because of
    extended operational periods that are driven by real life
    circumstances that creates problems, obviously.
        Mr. Golden. Has anyone from, like, Atlantic Ship Repair
    notified the Navy that they might lay off members of their
    workforce in the near term future?
        Secretary Del Toro. I'd have to get back to you,
    Congressman. We'd be happy to report back to your staff on
    recent conversations with regards to the layoff there.
        Mr. Golden. Thank you. I yield back.
        The Chairman. The gentleman yields back.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Indiana, Mr.
    Banks.
        Mr. Banks. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        The Navy was the only service last year that failed to meet
    its recruit quality benchmarks and continues to fail to meet
    them again this year.
        Fiscal year 2024 for the first half of the fiscal year the
    Navy is 35 percent short of its recruitment goal and in fiscal
    year '23 was 20 percent short of recruitment goals.
        Secretary Del Toro, why do you think the Navy has had so
    much more trouble hitting its recruiting goals than the Army or
    the Air Force?
        I don't like the Navy losing to the Army or the Air Force
    in anything but especially when it comes to recruitment. Why
    are we struggling so much more than the other branches?
        Secretary Del Toro. First and foremost, Congressman, thank
    you for your question. I'm concerned about recruiting for all
    our military services. It's one team one fight.
        Having said that, the Navy wasn't the only service last
    year to fall short on its recruiting goals.
        Mr. Banks. You fell much further short than the other
    branches.
        Secretary Del Toro. Last year we began the year at 17,500
    thinking we were going to short -- fall short by 17,500. We
    were short by 7,500. This year we have started thinking that we
    would fall short by 16,400 and it looks like we're going to
    fall short maybe by 6,200.
        But what we haven't done -- what we have done actually is
    we have increased the goal. So we have actually increased the
    goal by 7,000 to 40,000 that we need to make up for the
    shortages of past years. So it's kind of a false narrative is
    what it is. We're striving to meet the new higher 40,000 goal
    that we have actually established for ourselves so that we can
    --
        Mr. Banks. But you're setting a goal and you're not meeting
    it and the other branches are coming closer to reaching their
    goals. What are we learning then from the Army and the Air
    Force that the Navy --
        Secretary Del Toro. This isn't a numbers game, Congressman.
    I mean, we hired --
        Mr. Banks. You're turning it into a numbers --
        Secretary Del Toro. -- we raised the goal to 40,000.
        Mr. Banks. Secretary, you're turning it into a numbers
    game.
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, but you're the one who brought
    this up. I mean, if the other services lowered their goals and
    met their goals --
        Mr. Banks. So I take it -- I take it --
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and we hired our goals and we're
    striving to meet our goals. I think that's an admirable
    challenge, right?
        Mr. Banks. So it's admirable to fall --
        Secretary Del Toro. We're trying to make -- well, yes,
    we're trying to make up for the shortages that we had in
    previous years because it's all about filling billets at sea is
    what it's all about and that's what we're trying to.
        Mr. Banks. I would love to have a Secretary of the Navy
    come before us and talk about how you're disappointed that
    you're not reaching your goals and what you're going to do to
    reach them. So let me ask you --
        Secretary Del Toro. I think you misunderstood what I said,
    Congressman.
        Mr. Banks. Secretary, let me ask you a different way. What
    --
        Secretary Del Toro. No, but I think it's important for me
    to go on the record. I think you misunderstood what I said.
        Mr. Banks. Secretary, what are you doing to meet your goals
    --
        Secretary Del Toro. I said we raised our recruiting goals
    to 40,000 and we're striving to meet --
        Mr. Banks. Answer my question. What are we doing -- please
    answer my question. What are you doing to meet your goals that
    you're not doing? What are you going to do to meet those goals
    that you --
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, we have actually filled all --
    we're about to fill all our recruiting billets, for example. We
    have taken a lot of lessons learned from the Marine Corps, for
    example. We have actually made numerous process changes
    actually to try to get us to a better place and I'd be happy to
    have the CNO add additional details to that list.
        Mr. Banks. I'll stick with you, Secretary. You said the
    fighting climate change is the Navy's, quote, "top priority" --
        [Simultaneous speaking.]
        Secretary Del Toro. No, sir. That's not correct. I said it
    is one of the Navy's top priorities, not the top priority.
        Mr. Banks. Okay. Is it still a top priority?
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely it's still a top priority.
        Mr. Banks. Where does recruitment fall into your priority
    list? Is it above or below climate change?
        Secretary Del Toro. Recruitment is also a top priority as
    well, too. I have numerous top priorities in the Department of
    the Navy that I have to worry about on any given day.
        Mr. Banks. So what about delays in shipbuilding? Is that
    more of a priority than climate change or less than a priority?
        Secretary Del Toro. Actually, we have made significant
    changes in delays and in maintenance stays at shipyards to
    actually try to get these ships out of the shipyards quicker.
        Mr. Banks. Secretary, you don't seem to be too concerned
    about recruitment, which is really bad.
        Secretary Del Toro. I am significantly concerned about
    recruiting and we have actually made a huge difference.
        Mr. Banks. You've actually been testifying calling for --
        Secretary Del Toro. I just told you that we started the
    year off at 16,400 and we're down to --
        Mr. Banks. Are you worried -- Secretary, are you worried
    that the Navy shrinking by another 5,000 sailors could make it
    harder to deter Communist China? Are you worried about that?
        Secretary Del Toro. Actually, I just told you we're trying
    to increase our goal to 40,000 and recruit to that so that we
    have more sailors to close the gaps at sea so that we can be
    even more combat ready.
        Mr. Banks. All right. I got one minute left. What are you
    going to do to meet the Navy's recruitment goals in fiscal year
    2024?
        Secretary Del Toro. It's all hands on deck with all the
    processes and everything that we have put in place to actually
    shorten that goal and we're actually 2,500 ahead.
        Mr. Banks. What do you mean by that? What are you saying
    about it?
        Secretary Del Toro. We are actually 2,500 ahead than where
    we were last year. So I hope that we get to meet our goals --
        Mr. Banks. Are you going to meet your goal in fiscal year
    2024?
        Secretary Del Toro. We're doing everything we can. I don't
    have a crystal ball.
        Mr. Banks. What is everything that you can? What does that
    mean? What are you doing to meet that goal?
        Secretary Del Toro. That means that I'm putting all our
    resources, that we have made dramatic improvements in how we
    recruit. We have taken lessons from the Marine Corps as well
    too to meet our goals --
        Mr. Banks. What are those lessons? I asked that question
    earlier. What lessons have you learned?
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and we are actually doing 2,500
    better this year than we were last year.
        Mr. Banks. What are you doing?
        Secretary Del Toro. So we have six months left in the
    calendar year, basically, to get to the fiscal year more or
    less and we will continue to actually decrease that gap until
    we get close. But it's all hands on deck is what it is.
        Mr. Banks. You haven't given me a single concrete -- you
    haven't given me a single concrete answer to how you're going
    to meet those recruitment --
        Secretary Del Toro. I think I've given you many concrete
    answers.
        Mr. Banks. A lot of hot air. With that, Mr. Chairman, I
    yield back.
        Secretary Del Toro. We'd be happy to work with your staff
    to provide you even more answers, Congressman.
        Mrs. Kiggans [presiding]. The gentleman yields.
        The chair now recognizes Mr. Carbajal from California.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you very much. Thank you to the
    witnesses for being here today. General Smith, welcome back.
        The GAO report from September 2023 highlighted there are
    major concerns with our military barracks. Some of these
    service members reported that the conditions of barracks affect
    their quality of life and readiness.
        Your number-one unfunded priority was $230 million for
    restoration and modernization of barracks for the Barrack 2030
    initiative.
        While the fiscal year '25 budget request only appears to be
    for $65 million, I'm sure we both agree that our service
    members are our number-one priority and our most valuable
    asset.
        With barracks been such an issue can you help me understand
    why your budget request did not include the $230 million for
    restoration and modernization in your unfunded priority list?
        General Smith. Congressman, I can.
        Barracks 2030 is our most consequential barracks
    investment. We're tackling it from multiple avenues. We're
    attacking it from professional management, which returns 500
    Marines to the fleet. FSRM -- facilities sustainment,
    restoration, and modernization funds, maximizing those. That's
    to fix washers, dryers, locks, windows.
        We're doing material, furniture, -- again, washers locks --
    and I've directed a rigorous inspection of over 58,000 rooms.
    We have completed that inspection, and we now know what is --
    what needs to be fixed and that's why my number-one unfunded
    priority request is the almost $450 million to accelerate
    Barracks 2030.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, General Smith.
        The reduction in maritime prepositioning ships underway has
    significantly reduced the Marine Corps' flexibility for crisis
    response operations in the Indo-Pacific, Mediterranean, and
    elsewhere. Today, only two squadrons in maritime prepositioning
    ships are available to support Marine Corps global commitments.
        How are the Marines compensating for this reduction and how
    much risk are we accepting strategically?
        General Smith. Congressman, I would argue that we're
    accepting significant risks strategically. Those MPSRONs --
    maritime prepositioning squadrons -- are ready base.
        They're designed to flow forward and offload their cargo to
    complete such tasks as the Korea Plan and they would be used as
    a ready reserve, if you will, of assets. So I would offer that
    that's a real risk when you don't have the MPSRONs available to
    replace the equipment that will be inevitably lost in combat
    and to speed the marrying up of Marines who deploy by aviation
    assets and then the seaborne assets that are on those MPSRONs.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you.
        Admiral Franchetti, congratulations on your finally being
    appointed as the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations. I apologize
    for you on -- for the Tuberville national security breach our
    country went through in delaying your appointment.
        And I know we have many aspiring senators in this
    committee. I sure hope they understand the breach that was
    created by not allowing many of our appointments to move
    forward.
        Admiral, can you speak to the Navy's sealift campaign plan,
    specifically how the Buy Used Program will work with sealift,
    preposition and surge assets?
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you. And, you know, sealift is
    critically important, one of our core functions of the Navy,
    and we're really taking a three-pronged approach to sealift.
        First, we are doing service life extensions on our existing
    platforms and then the Buy-Used Program that you mentioned.
    This has been very productive, and speaking with TRANSCOM and
    MARAD on these conversations this is a very good program.
        We have already bought a number of ships and we are
    projected to buy up to nine, which is our limit. So we'll have
    a legislative proposal in there to remove that limit so we can
    continue to do that.
        We're also in the process of designing a new sealift ship
    and so, again, working with all stakeholders to make sure that
    we have that capacity that we need, going forward.
        Mr. Carbajal. Thank you, Admiral, and I'm out of time. So,
    Secretary Del Toro, thank you for being here. Thank you for
    articulating the good answers to the bad questions that
    sometimes you receive. Thank you very much for your service.
        Madam Chair, I yield back.
        Mrs. Kiggans [presiding]. The gentleman yields. The chair
    now recognizes Mr. Waltz from Florida.
        Mr. Waltz. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Secretary Del Toro and General Smith, if we can just talk
    very quickly about the Abbey Gate families from the disgraceful
    Afghanistan withdrawal.
        Mr. Secretary, I sent you a letter requesting that the 11
    Marines killed at Abbey Gate during the withdrawal be
    posthumously promoted in accordance with 10 U.S. Code Section
    1563.
        It authorizes members of Congress to initiate a
    recommendation or an honorary promotion and I'm grateful that
    less than two weeks after the bombing you posthumously promoted
    Navy Corpsman Soviak to hospital corpsman third class. But it's
    been nearly three years since these brave Marines were killed
    and more than six months since I made this request to you.
        When can we do what's right and promote these Marines?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, this is a very sensitive
    issue, obviously. The corpsman was promoted, largely, because
    she already was under consideration for promotion.
        I asked my staff to take a look at Medal of Honor
    recipients who received their Medal of Honors posthumously
    since the beginning of the Vietnam War. We have had over 50
    Marines that courageously lost their lives in battle and
    received the Medal of Honor. None of them were promoted --
        Mr. Waltz. I have limited time. We have huge issues. I get
    five minutes on behalf of my --
        Secretary Del Toro. None of them were promoted posthumously
    so --
        Mr. Waltz. Can we -- when are we going to promote or can
    you give me an answer of why you're not going to promote these
    11 Marines? It's been three years.
        Secretary Del Toro. It's under consideration but it's very
    unlikely that they will be promoted.
        Mr. Waltz. How long will you -- it's very unlikely?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir, because they were not under
    consideration at the time for a promotion. So given the fact
    that we haven't posthumously promoted 50 Medal of Honor
    recipients since the beginning of Vietnam. It's very unlikely -
    -
        Mr. Waltz. Were they killed in action, all 50?
        Secretary Del Toro. Excuse me?
        Mr. Waltz. Were they were killed in action, all 50?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. They were killed in action,
    all 50.
        Mr. Waltz. There are a number -- we'll come back to you
    within -- as I stated in the letter, there's a number of
    instances where soldiers, sailors, Marines, were not under
    consideration for promotion including some that I lost in
    action and yet they were promoted because their service
    secretary decided it was the right thing to do. You have that
    authority.
        Secretary Del Toro. I have the authority and I'd be happy
    to conduct further discussions with you on the subject.
        Mr. Waltz. But you're making a decision to not execute that
    authority?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, like I said, Congressman, there
    have been 50 Medal of Honor recipients that were not promoted
    posthumously --
        Mr. Waltz. God bless them. But in this case --
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and one has to take a look at that
    as precedence, basically, for actions moving forward.
        Mr. Waltz. Mr. Secretary, if that's your decision that's
    certainly -- but I want also out there for the record that you
    have the authority to promote those Marines.
        General, should those Marines get promoted?
        General Smith. Congressman, as a rule we do not grant
    posthumous promotions. That does not take away from the
    sacrifices of those Marines killed at Abbey Gate. But even our
    posthumous Medal of Honor recipients have not been posthumously
    promoted.
        Mr. Waltz. I don't think the level of award, General,
    necessarily should dictate whether you give a posthumous
    promotion. You look at -- I mean, this was the worst withdrawal
    since Saigon.
        These Marines were put in an impossible position -- defend
    an airfield yet let people through by the hundreds if not
    thousands. They were put in an impossible position so we also
    have to look at the mission, not just historic precedent.
        And, Mr. Secretary -- and I would think with your
    recommendation, General, you have the authority to do it -- I'd
    ask you to reconsider and let's at least give these families
    that closure, given the entire nature of what happened in that
    withdrawal and that they were put in mission impossible, not by
    either of you but by the White House. But thank you.
        If we could just talk about -- number one, Mr. Secretary, I
    told you we're going to recognize the bravery and I want it
    loud and clear of those sailors in the Red Sea. They're kicking
    ass and taking names and we should absolutely pound the table
    and please --
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman.
        Mr. Waltz. I'll be there in Jacksonville when they come
    back to Mayport. God bless the Carney.
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman.
        Mr. Waltz. But if we -- we ate up my time here but we have
    -- the Columbia, the Virginia, the Constellation, our DDGs, are
    all behind.
        We have a broader systemic problem here and I know it's an
    all of society -- I have a maritime strategy that I'm releasing
    next week -- issue to get at workforce, to get at shipyards and
    steel and materials and all that and I look forward to working
    with the legislative recommendations in it. But I think we have
    a systemic problem in the Navy as well. Can you speak to that
    in the time I have remaining?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, the major reasons for the delays
    on most of these ships is actually delays associated with the
    delivery of major components from the vendors, particularly
    Northrop Grumman with regards to turbine generators and main
    reduction gears to their primary vendors. That is the root
    cause of the major delays associated with each of these with
    the exception of the Fincantieri Constellation-class --
        Mrs. Kiggans [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
        Mr. Waltz. We're running out of time, Mr. Secretary --
    2027. We need to -- thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.
        Mrs. Kiggans [presiding]. The gentleman's time has expired.
    The chair now recognizes Ms. Jacobs from California.
        Ms. Jacobs. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you so much to
    our witnesses.
        As the representative from San Diego both of these services
    are incredibly important to my community and so I'm grateful
    for you all being here.
        I first wanted to ask about the USS Boxer. I know my
    colleague Mr. Kelly already asked some of it but, you know, one
    of the things I was interested in is just before its deployment
    in March it was reported that the ship won several awards
    including the battle effectiveness award.
        I guess I'm a little concerned that that shows that we
    don't actually have a good way to measure the readiness of our
    ships and, you know, that we're awarding ships for mission
    readiness that clearly are not mission ready. How do we -- how
    do you assess readiness and how do we make sure it's accurate,
    given these recent developments?
        Whichever of you would like to answer.
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you for your question and thank
    you for your support to our folks in San Diego.
        You know, in the Boxer casualty -- equipment casualty that
    you're having right now this is a materiel failure. So, you
    know, we have a very good set of standards for all of our ships
    in each one of their primary warfare areas and including
    engineering and all of the different things that they need to
    be able to do.
        They're assessed by an afloat training group and then as
    the ship progresses from individual training to intermediate
    and advanced training we have standards that each one of the
    ships is supposed to meet with very rigid criteria and very
    well qualified inspectors.
        Ms. Jacobs. So then why was the Boxer awarded this
    readiness award when they were clearly not ready?
        Admiral Franchetti. So the particular casualty was a
    documented casualty. It had an engineering assessment for some
    not related departures from specifications on the rudder. But
    they -- this current casualty is a new casualty that was not
    part of those departures from specifications.
        Ms. Jacobs. Got it. Okay. Thanks.
        And then in terms of the sailors who are on the Boxer are
    they going to stay on the ship through the duration of the
    maintenance and will the current maintenance period add time to
    their deployment schedule?
        Admiral Franchetti. So the Pacific Fleet commander is the
    one who will make all the decisions about the Boxer. In fact,
    he is one that approved the maintenance repair plan right now.
    The way that the current plan is, you know, we are optimistic
    that the repair will be done in about four to six weeks. He has
    several other branch courses of action if this one doesn't
    work.
        The intention, if it finishes on time, is to get the ship
    back out on its deployment. Because we are, you know, a
    teammate with the Marine Corps the Marine Corps also has a
    deployment, you know, when their deployment ends. So we'll end
    that deployment on time after the Boxer gets out there.
        Ms. Jacobs. Great. Thank you.
        And then I wanted to ask, you know, the Navy has made
    tremendous strides in experimental and research regarding
    uncrewed systems and the digital tools necessary to enable
    their capabilities. I myself have been out to Bahrain to see
    some of the amazing work. We're doing that in San Diego. We
    have got some examples.
        But I guess one of the things I'm wondering is why, given
    all that research, we haven't procured those systems in
    sufficient bulk for the fleet even though we have identified
    them as a high priority and why it's dependent on an OSD
    program -- the Replicator initiative -- to fund and procure
    these systems rather than going through the actual naval
    procurement process.
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman. First and
    foremost, we have been buying some of those unmanned vessels in
    the numbers that we currently need to be able to experiment
    with them.
        As we continue to further operationalize them, so for
    example, on Task Force 59, you know, we had a set number of
    sail drones that we purchased from a saildrone company when we
    actually move that to Fourth Fleet and conducting operations in
    the streets between Haiti and Cuba.
        Taking a look at drug runners, for example, we bought
    additional sail drones as well, too, so we're purchasing them
    in the numbers that we currently need them.
        In the case of operationalizing them in the Pacific we have
    four of them that we have been experimenting now with the good
    part of a year. But I think what you will see in the next few
    years is actually more of those coming to fruition as we
    continue to bring more of them to work side by side our manned
    vessels as we operationalize them in the Indo-Pacific as well.
        So I think you'll see a significant growth in the numbers.
    The XLUUV is a perfect example of that. Orca is in the final
    stages of testing for its IOC, for example. We'll have
    additional for those once they're fully manufactured and
    deployed out to sea.
        Ms. Jacobs. Great. Thank you. Well, I just want to make
    sure that this approach outlives the current senior leadership
    at the Pentagon. We have seen great programs fail when
    leadership changes and that given the recent issues that have
    come up with the Air Force and the F-35 that we make sure that
    the Navy has control over the architecture and software of
    these kinds of programs, not the contractor.
        The Chairman. [Presiding.] The gentlelady's time has
    expired.
        Ms. Jacobs. Thank you.
        The Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from
    South Carolina.
        Ms. Mace. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
    Secretary Del Toro, Admiral Franchetti, and General Smith for
    being with us here today.
        My constituents have a great appreciation of the importance
    of U.S. Navy and our Marine Corps. In the low country of South
    Carolina we make Marines and we're really proud of that.
        Beaufort County is home to the Paris -- to Parris Island
    and the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort. Our community is
    deeply supportive of the important work being done to train the
    next generation of Marines and to defend the homeland.
        I would like to use my time today to highlight the
    importance of these installations and their capacity to play an
    even greater role in our national defense.
        The Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort has the support of
    the local community. It has excess capacity and room to grow.
    The number of squadrons has shrunk from nine to five while the
    infrastructure to support a larger number of squadrons remains.
        From my understanding, Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort's
    location also provides among the largest training areas
    anywhere on the Eastern seaboard.
        So, General, my first question for you this morning is do
    we have plans to expand the mission set or number of squadrons
    stationed there?
        General Smith. Congressman, we don't have plans right now
    to expand the number of squadrons there but we will modify the
    number of aircraft and those aircraft will increase squadron
    sizes from 10 to 12.
        Ms. Mace. And then what's the timing of that
    implementation?
        General Smith. I'll get back to you on that, Congresswoman,
    to give you the exact details and dates.
        Ms. Mace. Okay. My understanding is it starts in a few
    months delivery of some of the newer aircraft on that
    installation. Currently, Parris Island lacks the on-base
    medical facilities, personnel, and capabilities required to
    efficiently treat recruits who are injured in training.
        Under the current model the naval hospital in Beaufort
    provides only ambulatory care and so many of the recruits are
    required to secure outside treatment, and we know that if their
    treatment is prolonged and off the installation they're more
    apt to maybe not return back to training and we want to make
    sure that they get the immediate care that they need.
        Would building an on-base multipurpose medical facility at
    Parris Island and a smaller clinic at Marine Corps Air Station
    Beaufort help our Marines get appropriate medical care? What is
    your sort of sense of medical care for our Marine recruits in
    their training?
        General Smith. Well, Congresswoman, I'm committed to making
    sure that all of our recruits East Coast and West Coast have
    adequate medical care and I defer to our Surgeon General --
    Navy Surgeon General on the allocation of resources and medical
    providers to ensure that our recruits have what they need
    because right now there is a lack of medical readiness at
    Parris Island and I acknowledge that.
        Ms. Mace. And some of it are -- some of it might be related
    to chronic staffing shortages like at the naval hospital. Have
    you all had discussions about that and been aware of maybe some
    of the high turnover as well?
        General Smith. Congressman, we have -- I speak with Admiral
    Miller, who's the Surgeon General for the Marine Corps, on a --
    literally right now almost on a daily basis.
        Ms. Mace. Is there -- are there plans to increase
    recruitment of medical personnel to treat our service members
    at this time?
        General Smith. Ma'am, I'll defer to the Navy on recruiting
    Navy personnel.
        Ms. Mace. Okay. I appreciate that.
        So Marine Corps -- I have a minute and a half left -- the
    Marine Corps Air Station in Beaufort has experienced a housing
    crisis.
        We have a military population of around 12,000 in Beaufort
    County. There were only 1,140 units -- housing units at Marine
    Corps Air Station Beaufort and approximately 960 of those units
    are occupied with the less -- the rest being unlivable or in
    disrepair.
        I'm sure you're well aware about these units. They were
    built in the 1960s. They have not experienced significant
    upgrades or increased volume since construction so, obviously,
    this is an issue that I hear about day in and day out from
    folks in the low country and in Beaufort.
        What are we doing to ensure our Marines and their families
    in Beaufort have access to safe, quality, and affordable
    housing while they're stationed there?
        General Smith. Well, ma'am, the on-base housing is in need
    of refurbishment -- that there's no doubt about that. Our
    budget calls for an update in our FSRM(Facilities Sustainment,
    and Restoration and Modernization), which is our barracks --
    facility sustainment restoration modernization -- and it calls
    for ensuring that there's enough quality housing on base to
    satisfy the needs, which right now it's not.
        So the increased budget will assist us in improving the
    housing that is there and then others will live out in town
    based on cost of living allowance.
        Ms. Mace. Okay. And is there any movement afoot to look at
    the contractors and who we're using down there to improve the
    quality of construction and maintenance?
        General Smith. Yes, ma'am, there is.
        Ms. Mace. Okay. All right. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
    I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Massachusetts,
    Mr. Moulton.
        Mr. Moulton. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
        General Smith, the Marine Corps, has attracted a fair
    number of critics for the speed of your modernization including
    even some from our own ranks, retired generals and whatnot.
        Why is the Marine Corps moving faster with modernization
    than the other services?
        General Smith. Congressman, there's a couple reasons. One,
    we have a commandant and when the commandant says move Marines
    move.
        But it's not just based on my assessment. It's based on
    deep research, deep wargaming, deep analysis, and it's in
    compliance with the National Defense Strategy. So our
    modernization efforts under the name of Force Design are
    designed to make us the most lethal and most ready for the
    fight that's coming, not for the fight that we just had.
        Mr. Moulton. Well, some members of Congress got together
    and wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal some months ago
    when this debate was at its height and it was extremely
    supportive, of course, of what you're trying to do.
        But we did have one criticism, one criticism in the whole
    article. We said, if anything the Marine Corps should be moving
    faster. Now, your plan is to maintain momentum. That's the
    title of your current plan.
        But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs says we need to
    accelerate, change, or lose. What can the Marine Corps do to
    move even faster with modernization and what can Congress do to
    help?
        General Smith. Congressman, the steady reliable funding is
    really important. Frankly, when we go into -- and this is not
    to criticize but when we go into --
        Secretary Del Toro. Continuing Resolutions.
        General Smith. -- Continuing Resolutions -- thank you, Mr.
    Secretary -- when we go into Continuing Resolutions we cannot
    spend at that year's rate. We have to spend at last year's rate
    and our -- all of our advancements are in the current year. So
    it retards our process and it retards our progress and it slows
    us down.
        Mr. Moulton. Well, I would just say that if there are any
    more specific things that you can come to us and say, you know,
    if we do this we can move even faster. We can get rid of the
    old stuff more quickly.
        We can invest in the new things and field them to the
    troops even more quickly than we are today. There's going to be
    a lot of receptivity for that on this committee.
        Admiral Franchetti, a lot of my colleagues talk about a
    355-ship Navy. Do you think that's a reasonable goal?
        Admiral Franchetti. I do. I think every study, really, that
    we have done since 2016 shows that we do need a larger Navy
    and, you know, we're committed, as we said, and through all of
    our investments in the industrial base that it isn't just about
    the numbers.
        It is about having ready ships with the munitions, with the
    right number of people, with the training, you know, that can
    fight as part of that joint warfighting ecosystem that we need
    to be able to do in the high end fight.
        Mr. Moulton. I've heard nothing but good things about you
    so it's not really fair to have my first question to you be a
    bit of a trick question but I'm very concerned about a 355-ship
    Navy because I think we should probably add a zero to that or
    maybe two zeros because if we don't have a Navy that has
    literally thousands of autonomous ships I don't know that we're
    going to win the future fight.
        Admiral Franchetti. I'm very focused on increasing our
    abilities in the unmanned space. You know, I think that as you
    look forward we really need to have that complementary force
    that will be able to expand the reach and the lethality of our
    conventionally manned platforms. That's what we need to do in
    the future and I'm committed to focusing on that, growing that
    as quickly as possible.
        Mr. Moulton. General Smith, one core component of your
    strategy with Marine littoral regiments is being able to put
    these Marines on places like islands in the Philippines so
    they're spread out, they're dispersed, they're autonomous. They
    can do a lot to disrupt Chinese plans.
        But, of course, that's dependent on having these agreements
    with nations like the Philippines, perhaps Japan as well. What
    are you doing to foster those agreements and actually get
    Marines practicing what you preach?
        General Smith. Congressman, we're exercising with our
    Filipino allies on a regular basis. We just finished Balikatan,
    the largest one ever, involving thousands of Marines. And so
    our ability to exercise throughout the southern Ryukyus, the
    Japanese home islands, and the Philippines is without question.
    We have a very hospitable host in the Philippines.
        Mr. Moulton. Finally, Mr. Secretary, you know how important
    mental health of our service members is to me personally and
    having worked with a fellow veteran to pass 988, can you just
    tell me at this point is 988 dialable from -- without a prefix
    without a postfix, from all unclassified DOD telephone systems
    in the Navy and the Marine Corps?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, I can't confirm that it's
    dialable for every single one but what I will tell you is that
    the marketing campaign that we have put into effect to actually
    have the 988 posters throughout every installation is
    extraordinary and I have visited many --
        The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The chair recognizes the gentlelady from Virginia, Mrs.
    Kiggans.
        Mrs. Kiggans. Thank you to our panel for being here. It's
    certainly a privilege to be in the same room as the three of
    you.
        We have done a lot of talking today about the number of
    ships and how this fiscal year '25 budget takes us down to 287
    decommissioning ships prior to their expected service life,
    decommissioning more than we're commissioning, slowing the
    aircraft carrier builds, you know, having the submarine build.
        So I'm just worried about the -- you know, that message
    that's sending to our allies. We have got this great AUKUS
    agreement in place. We're excited about it.
        Also, to our shipbuilding partners -- we talked today about
    the number of ship repair and I've got them in my district in
    Virginia, too, that message that that sends to them. They can't
    keep their people. I know Continuing Resolutions is part of it.
    It's frustrating to me, too, and I know that defense budget is
    always inadequate.
        But what are we doing or what can we do to be more
    reassuring to partners like -- allies like Australia or people
    we need in the fight like our ship repair and shipbuilding
    industry?
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congresswoman.
        I think the biggest thing we can do is actually reaffirm
    the commitment just in this FYDP alone that we're investing $18
    billion in the submarine industrial base to actually try to
    increase the production rates to where they need to be so that
    we could actually build more submarines well into the future.
        Mrs. Kiggans. Along those same lines, just talking about
    messaging and getting our message to our partners like allies
    and ship repair shipbuilders, for the recruitment and retention
    side I know we have talked about that today, too, and I had the
    privilege of sitting on the recruitment and retention Quality
    of Life Task Force. I hope you all have copies of the bound
    book that we put together.
        My ask yesterday to the Secretary of Defense was just to
    get that word out to the American public. I need them to know
    that Congress hears them, that we have emphasized things like
    paying compensation in housing, child care, health care, spouse
    employment.
        I need that message to get to them. So whether that's a PR
    campaign or -- and kudos to the buildsubmarines.com. I've had
    multiple people in my district come up to me and say, hey, we
    have reached out to -- we saw the ad. So I think those things
    work so let's get that message out to the American people that
    we heard them and we're taking care of our military men and
    women.
        Secretary Del Toro. Nine thousand new applications just
    this past year, ma'am.
        Mrs. Kiggans. Awesome.
        Secretary Del Toro. And retention is as high as it's ever
    been in the Navy and the Marine Corps thanks to your
    investments in quality of life, quality of service.
        Mrs. Kiggans. Always room for improvement, and we need to
    keep down that track.
        I want to switch gears to naval aviation, a subject near
    and dear to my heart as a former Navy pilot. But, you know, I
    look at programs like the A-12, like the F-22, and we can ask a
    lot of questions about if we should have done some things
    differently.
        I'm looking at the F-35 right now and yesterday we talked a
    lot about that expense and how it continues to grow. We have
    quite a few that are still sitting in flight lines. They're not
    -- we don't have pilots in cockpits yet.
        I want to put in my plug for Naval Air Station Oceana in my
    district and how -- and I know, Secretary, we have had
    discussions too about considering them East Coast master jet
    bass so that we can house the F-35s. The city of Virginia Beach
    is very welcoming to the idea and I look forward to pursuing
    further discussions about that.
        Along those same lines, though, thinking of naval aviation
    training and, again, my son is now in Corpus Christi. Very
    proud of him. Started the pipeline, but that wait -- the wait
    for those students is too long.
        We have invested in them from assessment training. They're
    sitting. They're waiting for starting primary. But now we're
    looking at the T-45s. I know we had recent compressor stall
    issues. This is the second time that we are now halting, you
    know, training on the T-45.
        So I need the Navy to have some foresight and to think
    about what that replacement aircraft looks like for advanced
    jet training because this isn't our first go round with this.
    We have options out there. So I want to hear from you all what
    is the time line for replacing that T-45.
        Secretary Del Toro. So, ma'am, as you know, we're actually
    several years from replacing the T-45 but we're accelerating
    the necessary work to actually try to move that to the left so
    that we can actually get the next generation of trainers out
    there and have it be reliable.
        Mrs. Kiggans. It can't happen fast enough because when
    those guys are delayed then I got the Hornet RAG at Oceana
    delayed and I got fleet pilots that are then being held up. So
    as much as we can expedite that.
        And then I also just wanted to close with a story. I had
    the privilege of traveling to Israel about three weeks ago,
    meeting with military intelligence officers, dining with just
    everyday Israelis and families and listening to them thank me
    as the representative from Hampton Roads, thanking me and all
    of us for sending our aircraft carriers -- the Ford, the
    Eisenhower, the Bataan -- over to sit off the coast of Israel
    in our quick response after October 7th.
        They truly believe, each and every Israeli I spoke to, that
    because of our aircraft carrier presence that is why Hezbollah
    did not invade Israel from the north. I had Israeli families
    dining with their children skipping around the room saying, I
    want to go on the aircraft carrier -- I want to go on a
    aircraft carrier.
        So I was the representative that received phone calls when
    we extended those deployments, when they missed Christmas with
    their families, when they missed the birth of their first
    child.
        But because of those service men and women, because of our
    U.S. Navy, you know, we maintain some civility and some peace
    in that region. I've shared that story with the ship repair
    shipbuilders, with Navy leadership. But please take that story
    back to your men and women. We know it's a sacrifice but we
    appreciate their sacrifice and that's what keeps the peace in
    the world.
        So thank you so much for all that you do. I yield back.
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congresswoman.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentlelady.
        The chair now recognizes another lady from Hawaii, Ms.
    Tokuda.
        Ms. Tokuda. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        Mr. Secretary, thank you for your continued personal
    attention to Red Hill and the significant work the department
    is doing to get things right after the November 2021 fuel
    spill.
        As the Navy assumes responsibility for the closure of Red
    Hill I respectfully request your focus as well on the necessary
    work to remediate and restore the aquifer and ensure the long-
    term safety of our water supply.
        There's a lot of concern among our communities and
    constituents that our department continues to view the Red Hill
    problem set in sequential order, moving from defueling to
    closure to remediation, when elements of closure and
    remediation should be done concurrently.
        Mr. Secretary, in the interest of time I won't ask you to
    respond but would strongly encourage the department to urgently
    prioritize aquifer restoration and remediation efforts for Red
    Hill.
        I will go on to say, though, that there continues to be
    gaps in community trust and this is a broken trust, as we know,
    in the department's ability to guarantee the health and safety
    of their drinking water, especially given the uncertainty
    created by the Navy's testing regime.
        The Navy recently released its data supporting the
    hypothesis that low-level detections of TPH at the Pearl Harbor
    drinking water system were likely caused by issues with its
    testing methods.
        Mr. Secretary, would you please explain why would the Navy
    use testing for wastewater and solid waste analysis for
    drinking water and why did it take two years and over 8,000
    samples to figure out that they were not doing the right test?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, ma'am, the conclusions that were
    made with regards to testing procedures was a combined
    conclusion with the president of the health department of
    Hawaii, the EPA, and the Navy, and, collectively, they
    determined that chlorine was actually impacting the actual test
    results with regards to detection --
        Ms. Tokuda. I think you're -- it's the first step to the
    question.
        Secretary Del Toro. -- of TPH
        Ms. Tokuda. So did the department of health and EPA
    (Environmental Protection Agency) tell you two years ago to use
    a test on these 8,000 samples that were made for wastewater and
    solid waste analysis, not drinking water?
        Secretary Del Toro. Ma'am, the tests that were used at the
    time were the only tests that were actually available at the
    time to be able to use and they were actually off the -- they
    were on the mainland, basically, so we had to actually send all
    those tests back to the mainland.
        Actually, just yesterday I signed a letter to the governor
    actually saying that we're donating the necessary equipment for
    Hawaii to actually have its own water testing laboratory in
    Hawaii.
        Ms. Tokuda. That's great. So you're telling me two years
    ago when we were suffering from a situation where there was no
    trust in the drinking water because jet fuel had been poured
    into it we were using the only test available.
        So there was no test available for drinking water. We were
    using a test on these samples to determine if there was any
    kind of contaminants in people's home that was for wastewater
    and solid waste analysis. That was the only one available to
    you in that two years?
        Secretary Del Toro. Ma'am, I am not the subject matter
    expert on this. But I will say that we were using the test that
    was recommended to the Department of the Navy and to the
    Department of Hawaii Health Resources and to the EPA to test
    those water samples at the time.
        Ms. Tokuda. So would you now say, based upon your --
        Secretary Del Toro. Because if we had -- if we had known of
    some better test we would have actually been using that test.
        At the time I don't think we understood that the chlorine
    in the water that's used to actually chlorinate all the water
    across the United States would actually have an impact on TPH
    detections in the test itself.
        Ms. Tokuda. I'm sorry. If I may just continue my question.
    I find it also hard to believe that we have the best minds in
    science and defense sitting in the Navy, also sitting in the
    EPA, part of our department of health, and they were unable to
    determine or identify that two years ago when they started
    these samplings because your men and women and their families
    were seeing sheens in their drinking water, experiencing
    massive health impacts, that maybe something wasn't right there
    in that particular thing.
        So I'd just ask you this hypothetical question. I'll flip
    the switch on you a little bit. I'm assuming that suppliers of
    ammunition to DOD are required to do regular testing to ensure
    functionality and lethality.
        What if a series of their tests found flaws and then they
    later came back and said they've been testing the ammo in the
    wrong way for two years and now everything is okay. Would you
    trust putting ammo in a soldier's gun knowing it could be the
    difference between life and death?
        Secretary Del Toro. Ma'am, I'm not a subject matter expert
    on testing fresh -- on testing drinking water. But what I do --
        Ms. Tokuda. Well, I'm thinking you would want to make sure
    that the bullets in a soldier's gun actually works. It should
    be no different when the quality of the water is coming out of
    a service member and their family's water pipe.
        Secretary Del Toro. I'm quite confident --
        Ms. Tokuda. You could do much more in terms of rebuilding
    this trust and I will tell you that that was a big lethal blow
    to the trust of the Navy a few weeks ago when the public got
    this kind of response.
        I'm running out of time here. But given these recent events
    will the Navy consent to independent third party testing to
    help track and verify the Navy's testing?
        Secretary Del Toro. I believe we have had third water
    testing going on different numerous occasions.
        Ms. Tokuda. So you'd allow people to come in and drill
    holes, collect samples, and do their own independent testing?
        Secretary Del Toro. Those are decisions that have to be
    made between the Department of the Navy and the Department of
    Health in Hawaii and the EPA, moving forward.
        Ms. Tokuda. So you're giving me consent that third party
    independent drilling and testing can take place so that it can
    be verified and reverified.
        Secretary Del Toro. I believe we have had third party
    testing in the past.
        Ms. Tokuda. Okay. That is not the understanding I have but
    I'm glad to hear that we have the consent of the Secretary to
    go ahead and allow them to --
        Secretary Del Toro. I said that we have had --
        Ms. Tokuda. My time is up. I yield, Mr. Chair.
        The Chairman. The gentlelady's time has expired.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Florida, Mr.
    Gaetz.
        Mr. Gaetz. Mr. Secretary, I want to personally thank you
    for your involvement in Naval Air Station Pensacola to unlock
    the great potential of our naval museum with some changes to
    the gating system there.
        This was a sticky wicket for us for years and because you
    took the time to go there and really understand that mission we
    were able to achieve greater success, and I think it's because
    you get it.
        I think you understand that unlocking the imagination in
    the minds of young people when they interact with our museums
    and with our demonstration teams that's a critical vector in
    the recruiting crisis that we're all dealing with. So I'd love
    you to share your perspective on that with the committee.
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman. I always try my
    very best to get to the core problems that we face and try to
    fix those problems so we can make our Navy and Marine Corps a
    stronger team and actually trying to gain greater access to all
    of our museums but particularly that museum, which is so very
    special to the community -- the aviation community and to the
    entire Department of the Navy is critical so that young people
    -- high school graduates, community college graduates, grammar
    school students -- can actually go and see what the Navy is all
    about.
        It is important, and I'm glad that we have been able to
    make progress in actually opening up the museum to a greater
    number of people in the region.
        Mr. Gaetz. And I must confess you may become a victim of
    your own success here because I have a similar problem that I
    think you'll see in a similar way.
        The Blue Angels, as they travel around the country and
    travel around the world, they ignite a sense of optimism about
    the Navy and adventure, and we are so proud in Pensacola to be
    the home of the Blue Angels.
        But some of the conditions of our hangar systems have
    fallen into some disrepair following Hurricane Sally and so
    we're working right now with your office to try to get the
    right alignment of PD&E funds to get a new hangar system for
    the Blue Angels.
        But I wanted to make sure that you saw the Blue Angels
    similarly like you saw the naval -- the museum promoting all
    that is good and right in the Navy to get more young people
    excited about it. Is that something we can work on?
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely, Congressman. I think the
    CNO would agree that the Blue Angels bring tremendous value to
    our recruiting mission.
        Mr. Gaetz. Yes. Great. And, you know, we want to just make
    sure, you know, that they've got the right digs. I think,
    Admiral, I'd invite you to come down and spend some time with
    us in Pensacola as the Secretary has, the cradle of naval
    aviation.
        But you would likely walk away from that experience deeply
    concerned that there are buckets that are having to collect
    rainfall, which we occasionally get in Florida, inside the
    hangar system, not outside.
        And so I would encourage you to come join us because we
    certainly would want our greatest demonstration of naval
    capability to be able to have the right accommodations to be
    able to do the mission.
        Admiral Franchetti. Thanks. I look forward to coming down
    and visiting.
        Mr. Gaetz. Yeah. Well, see, and I'm inviting you to a
    beautiful place. You know, not all the people on this committee
    are from beautiful places like northwest Florida. So I
    certainly hope you'll take us up on that opportunity.
        In my remaining moments I want to talk a little bit about
    the LCS. The ranking member has sort of convinced me that the
    littoral combat ship make sadly, tragically in some
    circumstances, turn out be just an aquatic casket in a world in
    which we are unable to have sufficient air defense for those
    while China is shooting hypersonic missiles at them in the
    event of a Taiwan scenario.
        Is there a fight that we can imagine now in great
    competition where the LCS (Littoral Combat Ship) will even get
    in the fight, Mr. Secretary?
        Secretary Del Toro. Very much, Congressman, and actually
    we're taking the necessary steps. Right now we have added the
    naval strike missile to six of the LCSes, for example. By '26
    we hope to have them all on the Independence-class and then on
    the Freedom-class by 2032 -- excuse me, I have those reversed,
    right. But we plan on putting --
        Mr. Gaetz. Would that provide hypersonic air defense?
        Secretary Del Toro. The hypersonics you won't be able to
    put it on an LCS.
        Mr. Gaetz. Right. So that's my worry.
        Secretary Del Toro. But you can put -- you actually can
    fire SM-6 from mobile launchers off the decks and that's
    something that we have already experimented with and have
    proven out successfully. So the fact that we could actually be
    able to fire an SM-6 from an LCS is actually very, very
    positive.
        Mr. Gaetz. We're doing that now?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. We have already
    expended --
        Mr. Gaetz. And we're confident that that would be a
    sufficient capability to defend against an offensive hypersonic
    system from China?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, it'll make it that much more
    defendable, that's for sure.
        Mr. Gaetz. I don't know. I don't know. I hope that's right
    but I really worry that we have adopted this theory that just
    more is better on some of these platforms, and if they're not
    relevant to the fight because they can't get into the fight I
    worry about how many of them we should buy and how many of them
    we should build.
        Did you have a perspective on that, Admiral?
        Admiral Franchetti. I mean, the LCS performs, you know, a
    pretty critical mission for mine countermeasures, you know, and
    we're moving forward with that package. I think, you know, that
    is a very important mission that we do.
        A lot of our allies and partners do that, too, so being
    able to integrate that capability is critically important.
    Again, there's a lot of different scenarios that we might
    encounter so having multiple tools in the tool bag is very
    important.
        Mr. Gaetz. Okay. Well, demining is a far more constrained
    concept than we'd originally had for the LCS. I don't know that
    it's able to achieve all those goals.
        Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
        The chair now recognizes the gentlelady from Virginia, Ms.
    McClellan.
        Ms. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        I wanted to follow up on your discussion with my landlocked
    colleague Mr. Banks about climate change and I want to talk
    about the impact that climate change has on readiness,
    operations, infrastructure, our forces and their families.
        Naval Station Norfolk is the largest naval installation in
    the world and is located in a city that has the highest rate of
    sea level rise on the East Coast.
        Recent projections show that it will face one major flood a
    year and a minor flood every week. Meanwhile, we are seeing
    record-setting heat waves in the Pacific Northwest.
        Can you discuss how sea level rise, recurring floods, more
    frequent and destructive hurricanes, record-setting heat waves
    -- discuss the impact that they all have and will continue to
    have on readiness, operations, our naval infrastructure, our
    service members and their families?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, ma'am. First and foremost, climate
    -- installation readiness is combat readiness. If we can't
    deploy or if we can't house our ships safely in ports and
    deploy them safely then we have a bigger problem, right, and so
    mitigating -- making the investments in order to mitigate the
    negative effects of climate change are extremely important in
    all our ports across the entire United States and we're seeing
    the dramatic challenges that that brings.
        And so greater investments in moving the utilities to the
    right places so that they're not negatively impacted by the
    rising sea levels is incredibly important. How you construct
    the piers themselves, for example, and where you put the
    utilities on those piers is extremely important. And so, again,
    installation readiness is combat readiness and perhaps the CNO
    can comment more so on the operational side as well.
        Admiral Franchetti. Yeah. I think, you know, one of the
    things, you know, that we look for as we're designing our new
    platforms is making sure from an operational readiness
    perspective that they have the ability to operate wherever they
    need to be able to operate. And so, again, having the right
    facilities where we can pull them in is critically important.
        Ms. McClellan. And corrosion has an impact on metal and an
    impact on ships and ship readiness as well, and record-setting
    heat waves have an effect on our sailors and our corpsmen,
    correct, and their ability to do their job and the health and
    their readiness?
        Secretary Del Toro. Very much so, Congresswoman. It's
    having an impact on unaccompanied housing as well, too. Look,
    we for decades have made -- the Congress has made really
    impressive investments in family housing but we haven't
    invested in unaccompanied housing to the extent that we should.
        We're correcting that now. We're doing that, moving
    forward, and I think our sailors and our Marines appreciate
    that, given the high retention rates that we have seen in the
    Navy and Marine Corps.
        But it's still a huge challenge in areas of high humidity.
    So whether it's Key West, whether it's Parris Island, other
    places like that, San Diego as well, too, you know, these are
    the places we have to pay even more attention to, quite
    frankly, to be able to get them up to the standards where they
    could resist the humidity.
        Ms. McClellan. And to put a finer point on that, increased
    temperatures and increased flooding and increased moisture
    leads to increased mold in our --
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, ma'am.
        Ms. McClellan. Thank you. Now I want to focus on the
    readiness of the Navy for a possible conflict in the Indo-
    Pacific region and discuss our overseas repair capability.
        My staff recently traveled to Japan to meet with security
    partners there who expressed concerns that shipbuilding and
    repair capabilities are located almost exclusively in the
    United States and that in case of a war or a conflict this
    would severely restrain our combat capability if we have to
    send the ships all the way back to Hawaii or San Diego for
    repairs.
        What is your assessment of this risk and what are the
    department and the administration doing to ensure robust repair
    capabilities are available in the Pacific should a conflict
    break out?
        Secretary Del Toro. Well, thank you, Congresswoman, for
    that question.
        It is, indeed, a combat-related question. I mean, if we
    find ourselves in conflict and we suffer damage, which is
    inevitable, we will be able to have to send those ships back to
    the closest depot necessary to be able to repair those ships.
        So what we're asking of the Congress this year, basically,
    is to authorize us up to six continuous maintenance
    availabilities of less than 90 days so that we can then now go
    and assess which foreign shipyards will be able to do this work
    effectively during times of peace.
        I hope we never have to go to war but if we should have to
    go to war we will then have full knowledge of which shipyards
    in what countries we could actually send these ships to be able
    to do the damage repair that is going to be necessary.
        Ms. McClellan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the lady.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Georgia, Mr.
    McCormick.
        Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
        The Chairman. I was out of line. I saw Mr. Fallon came in
    ahead of you. I apologize.
        The gentleman from Texas, Mr. Fallon, is recognized.
        Mr. Fallon. Dr. McCormick denied.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it.
        Okay. So, Mr. Secretary, thank you, and General and
    Admiral, thank you for being here.
        The thing that I come back to, and we had a discussion
    about this last year, is the recruiting crisis so -- and I
    apologize because I was at my office and missed a little bit of
    this testimony.
        But, Mr. Secretary, do you believe that the recruiting
    crisis is an existential threat to the republic?
        Secretary Del Toro. I think it is, across the entire
    nation. In fact, we need more blue collar workers. We need more
    young men and women actually who are willing to come into our
    armed services across the board and serve.
        Mr. Fallon. No, I think it -- ironically and, oddly, it's
    refreshing to hear that because we're not going to solve a
    problem unless we really understand the gravity of it and thank
    you for that.
        And so I was looking at the statistics from all branches
    but particularly I was going to talk about the Navy today --
    that we missed their goals last year by 20 percent, about --
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. We had a -- we actually fell
    short. The beginning of the year we thought we'd be at 17,500.
    We ended the year at 7,500. This year at the beginning of the
    year we thought we'd be short about 16,500 and we'll probably
    end, perhaps, at 6,400 or less.
        But we actually increased our goal that year to 40,000,
    which is important to note. You know, we want to make up for
    the shortages from previous years so we can reduce the number
    of gaps that we have at sea.
        Mr. Fallon. Yeah, because this happens every once in a
    while and where -- but it's an anomaly and it's just a year and
    then the next year, and you can mitigate some of that, of
    course, with retention as well.
        But what I'm alarmed about is when it's year over year and
    it's -- of course, at least with the Navy it's going to be two
    years in a row. With the Army it's been three years. But, of
    course, the Marine Corps always meets their recruiting goals.
    They have the best commercials. What are you going to do?
        But, you know, look at the Navy/Marine guy over here that
    was -- the Air Force won this one, by the way.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Fallon. So what can we do? What new innovative ideas
    can we use, Mr. Secretary, to mitigate this and really end it?
    Because I think that's what we're after here is if it's been
    three --
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Fallon. -- three unsuccessful years with the Army and
    two with the Navy we need to do something differently. What do
    you think those things should be?
        Secretary Del Toro. So please understand it's been an all
    hands on deck effort across the board --
        Mr. Fallon. Okay. Good. Good.
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and the CNO can talk specifically to
    some of the measures that we have taken. But it is all hands on
    deck and we're actually putting a call out to the maritime
    service across the board as well, too.
        Admiral Franchetti. Thank you. And I agree, recruiting is
    really an existential threat so we're kind of taking a two-
    pronged approach. One is, first, to approve the recruiting
    enterprise itself. So the Navy just put a two-star admiral in
    charge of recruiting.
        Mr. Fallon. Good.
        Admiral Franchetti. We have also adopted a thing that we
    use in aviation for aviation operations, maintenance,
    understanding what's going on with each type model series.
    We're looking at -- we have a recruiting operations center now
    to look at what's going on with each one of our recruiting
    centers, each recruiter, because it's really about throughput
    per recruiter, and how do we need to improve their ability to
    recruit.
        The other thing, as the Secretary mentioned, you know, we
    had taken a 60 percent manning cut to man at 60 percent in our
    recruiting centers when we put more people at sea. So we
    actually had reduced our recruiting force by the end of May. We
    should have that fully restored so we'll be able to do that.
        I think on the other side --
        Mr. Fallon. Well, Admiral, I -- sorry, I don't make it a
    habit to interrupt flag officers. I apologize for that.
        But I really want to emphasize we need it to be measurable
    as well. And also a question -- when we have excellent
    recruiters are they allowed to stay within the recruiting
    command?
        Admiral Franchetti. Yeah. We have a career recruiter first,
    yes.
        Mr. Fallon. Okay. Good. Okay. So they can do it for --
    because that's the thing I don't want is somebody highly
    successful and then they leave, and I would gently suggest that
    we build everything around recruiting right now. I mean, make
    sure that they're manned and then build. That should be the
    first thing. Again, just to --
        Admiral Franchetti. Right. That's how we get our seed corn.
    We really need to make those investments.
        Mr. Fallon. Yeah. And, you know, I was thinking about as
    far as the Navy you're on all the planes. You're under the
    water. You're on the water. You're in the air. You're on the
    ground. You're in space. I don't think any other branch can say
    that.
        Secretary Del Toro. And always forward.
        Mr. Fallon. Right. But because of that I would imagine that
    you would recruit the submariner differently than you're going
    to attract somebody to, say, go into the Special Ops and SEALs
    or somebody who's going to cyber or intel or service fleet, and
    I just wanted to touch on that a little bit and ask you what
    are -- what field or expertise has been most hit by recruiting
    -- the recruiting crisis?
        Secretary Del Toro. Actually, the medical profession. We're
    having a really hard time in the medical profession and also
    recruiting in the nuclear field as well, too, because we just
    don't have enough students and colleges that actually go into
    those studies.
        And so we're having to work at a younger age in the case of
    the nukes actually trying to encourage high schoolers to
    actually go into the nuclear field, and you know the problems
    that exist in recruiting health professionals across the board.
        Mr. Fallon. Sure. And I'd just like to, again, gently ask
    and politely ask maybe with the recruiting stuff, a quarterly
    report given to this committee would be wonderful for us
    because there's a role for us to play as well and we want to
    give you the resources to succeed.
        We just want a measurable and think outside the box because
    we have got to take care of this. None of us want to go, dare I
    say, to a draft and if we're going to --
        [Simultaneous speaking.]
        The Chairman. The gentleman's time has expired.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from North Carolina,
    Mr. Davis.
        Mr. Davis. Thanks so much, Mr. Chair, and to the witnesses.
    Good afternoon to you.
        Mr. Secretary, we spoke last year about expediting toxic
    water claims processing for those veterans as a result of the
    Camp Lejeune situation.
        Mr. Secretary, what's the estimated time line now that you
    would forecast in getting claims heard, in particular with the
    elective option then in place?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. It actually depends on how
    quickly the claimants themselves actually completely fill the
    paperwork online. We have made tremendous progress and
    investments, because this is very important, to the Department
    of the Navy, to the Department of Defense and to the president
    of the United States, actually.
        And so we have 190,000 claimants, basically, that have now
    signed online but many of them actually haven't completed their
    full regiment of paperwork necessary to be able to process
    those claims.
        But we are moving extremely fast once a claimant actually
    submits all the necessary documentation, all the necessary
    paperwork, to make them the offers that they so deserve.
        Mr. Davis. From the time that a completed claim is
    submitted what would you estimate --
        Secretary Del Toro. I'd have to get back to you
    specifically on the amount of time. We do the analysis on those
    that have fully submitted their paperwork and I do know that
    out of the ones that have fully submitted their paperwork, for
    example, some have actually taken time to consider the offers
    that have been made.
        And so we can provide you all the specific statistics
    associated with the --
        Mr. Davis. There was a report that was due in January on
    the 1st. When do you anticipate that report?
        Secretary Del Toro. I'll have to get back to you on where
    that report is, Congressman.
        Mr. Davis. Okay. In eastern North Carolina there's a
    growing need for employment opportunities that can provide
    young people with careers. I've recently facilitated a meeting
    between representatives from the Newport News Shipyard,
    community colleges in North Carolina, and workforce development
    officials from across our region to collaborate on these
    opportunities in our part of the state.
        Mr. Secretary, is there a pool -- I mean, we know there's a
    pool of existing talent that's going to exit the Navy in
    particular. They're separating for whatever reason.
        How can we better assist in particular service members that
    we know are exiting through the transition assistance program
    in these certain critical areas that are important for our
    national security still?
        Secretary Del Toro. Congressman, first and foremost, my
    goal is to keep them in, obviously --
        Mr. Davis. Understood.
        Secretary Del Toro. -- and so we're trying our very best
    and actually retention has been the highest. It's been
    historic, actually, for both the Navy and the Marine Corps. So
    we're doing our job well and providing necessary quality of
    life, quality of services, necessary to keep them in.
        But I think you raised an important point and one of the
    things that we have been talking about in this call for
    maritime services for those individuals that do depart actually
    how could we actually guide them to work in our shipyards is
    one example.
        You know, we have a very robust NavalX program in North
    Carolina, for example, that helps private industry in North
    Carolina work with the Department of Navy and that's part of
    that as well, too.
        Mr. Davis. Yeah. Mr. Secretary, obviously, we want to
    continue to keep them in but, obviously, there's a point in
    time where we know the separation is going to occur and that's
    what I was really highlighting. You know, when we know it's
    going to occur now we're -- it's a matter of transitioning.
        So, you know, that's definitely something I think we have
    to continue to think through, in particular our transition
    assistance programs --
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Davis. -- because that still can be the pipeline to
    secure our national security. So I appreciate that.
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Davis. Elizabeth City State University is an HBCU in my
    district. There's a growing aviation program, the only four-
    year aviation sciences program in North Carolina, that's on
    track to growing and increasing this capacity.
        They're looking to build additional aviation hubs, in
    particular, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point being one of
    the locations. This program could provide a pipeline of pilots
    to the military. So I'm trying to get them in, too, not just
    concerned about the transition. We're trying to get them in as
    well.
        How can the Navy collaborate and leverage programs like
    this at universities like Elizabeth City State University and
    other HBCUs to alleviate pilot shortages?
        General Smith. Well, Congressman, I don't -- I'm not
    familiar with Elizabeth State University but I'm going to be by
    tonight, and my commanding general of the Marine Corps
    Recruiting Command is going to be by tomorrow morning.
        [Laughter.]
        Mr. Davis. Well, good.
        General Smith. And we are -- because we are looking for
    pilots. We are looking for pilots.
        Mr. Davis. All right. Well, from this airman to the Devil
    Dog I say hooah. I yield back, Mr. Chair.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman.
        The chair now recognizes the doctor from Georgia, this time
    for real.
        Dr. McCormick. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciate you.
        It's interesting -- when you talked about recruiting just
    recently I wasn't planning on talking about this but a couple
    of things came to mind.
        When we forgive student debt, for example, and we have
    people who never went to college paying for people who did go
    to college who then had their debt forgiven, where's the
    incentive to give away scholarships for the military when we're
    recruiting it their college is already paid for free? Where's
    the incentive to motivate people to go into medicine or
    anything else when they don't incur debt otherwise?
        We have to remember that this is an incentive-driven
    society and that we are a all-volunteer force and I think we
    have to realize that in our recruiting force.
        Secondly, I think when it comes to our enlisted folks when
    we recruit we always have to go after the warriors, which means
    we recruit on the right stations at the right places with the
    right message.
        The sergeant major of the Army -- the former sergeant major
    still owes me a hundred pushups because I told him he was
    barking up the wrong tree by going after the recruiting venues
    that they were using.
        I like the Marines -- I may be a little biased. I may have
    been involved in something like that. But when you talk about
    the few, the proud, the Marines, and it is about a warrior
    ethos that's why we make our quota because we recruit the right
    people for the right mission and that's what we should focus
    on.
        With that said, we do have a mission and it's all over the
    globe right now. One of the things that we're having a hard
    time delivering is our people to the right place at the right
    time with our amphibious shipping, which we're obviously in a
    shortfall right now.
        I know we're trying to reallocate for a mission all over
    the world, a diverse mission, which I understand we have
    limited funds for. Do you think we're going to be able to fix
    this?
        Are we shifting away from this amphibious warfare model or
    are we going to reinvest in expanding our amphibious fleet so
    we can meet the needs of the Corps and the Navy?
        Secretary Del Toro. By no means imaginable, Congressman. We
    are fully dedicated to a strong and robust amphibious fleet.
    Just in this budget alone we have reinserted three LPDs in '25,
    '27, and '29.
        We actually moved LHA(Landing helicopter assault) 10 to the
    left by two years, and so we're fully committed and that
    commitment has to continue well into the future as well, too,
    with bringing on the LSMs that the commandant mentioned earlier
    as well, too. Our Marines need to move around long distances in
    the Indo-Pacific as well as island to island and we need to
    give them the capabilities to do so.
        Dr. McCormick. Do we think that we're on -- what kind of
    time line before we start to catch up to that curve that we're
    obviously behind on right now? We're struggling to meet our
    needs.
        Secretary Del Toro. I think as long as we remain steady on
    LPD production, for example, we're going to be okay. The
    production lines down in Pascagoula are not as challenged as
    they are in the submarine community and up north as well either
    and so they're being able to deliver these ships pretty much on
    time and on budget a few months delayed but not, certainly,
    years delayed.
        Dr. McCormick. Great. I'm aware that the Marine Corps in
    fiscal year 2024 has requested for -- to reinstate a couple 53
    kilos, those beautiful magnificent birds that they are, near
    and dear to my heart. It seems like just two helicopters. What
    kind of impact does that have on the fleet when we talk about
    two helicopters?
        General Smith. Congressman, two helicopters is significant
    for us and to answer your question it's about the CH-53K, which
    is an incredible platform that can lift itself. It can
    literally lift itself.
        It is the only heavy lift -- true heavy lift helicopter in
    the DOD inventory in-flight refuellable and can lift itself. It
    can lift 48,000 pounds external, which is stunning.
        So I'm committed to making sure that our fleet of CH-53Ks
    is robust and is fully outfitted.
        Dr. McCormick. Thank you. And I love the picture recently
    of the 53 Kilo with a slung low F-35, aerial refueling
    nonetheless. I hope to be on the next one of those ops.
        Speaking of air, Osprey. Still very concerned about the
    delays in getting them back up online. Obviously, we have seen
    what's happened in AFRICOM (Africa Command)with the waiving,
    you know, and I still think it's a safe aircraft. Incredible
    safety profile, considering its new technologies.
        But where are we at in getting them back to work at full
    process, getting our pilots up to speed so they can be
    proficient at what they do best?
        General Smith. Congressman, the MV-22, as you note, is --
    it's our workhorse. We're always looking to modernize this
    asset. But we have been flying it in combat and in training
    since 2007.
        It's got a safety record consistent with all other
    platforms and its return to flight has met the standard by
    NAVAIR. So we are returning it to flight. We're going through
    day check rides, night check rides, and getting it back in the
    fight.
        Dr. McCormick. Got you.
        With that, I have five seconds to say Semper If. Welcome
    back to the fight. Oorah.
        General Smith. Oorah, sir.
        The Chairman. I hank the gentleman.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
    LaLota.
        Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Chairman.
        Mr. Secretary, good to be with you today, sir. Our Navy-
    Marine Corps team is the most lethal fighting force for good
    the world has ever known. Would you agree with that?
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir. Absolutely.
        Mr. LaLota. When he was Secretary of Defense General Mattis
    would say that the policy decisions made at the Pentagon and
    made here should be made in contemplation of ensuring that we
    have the most lethal fighting force the world has ever known in
    general, would you agree with that?
        I'm sorry. In general, Mr. Secretary.
        Secretary Del Toro. Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you were
    referring to the general, not in general.
        Mr. LaLota. I'll watch my wording.
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely, sir.
        Mr. LaLota. And of all the things that make our Navy-Marine
    Corps team the most lethal fighting force we have talked about
    a few things today -- SM-2/3/6 shipbuilding, some other
    equipment, amphibs and whatnot.
        But our people -- do our people still remain the biggest
    component to our success?
        Secretary Del Toro. Without question, Congressman.
        Mr. LaLota. And I'm frustrated because my questions aren't
    going to be about some of the infrastructure, some of the
    decisions about where our bases are, and some of the technology
    we're acquiring, which are rightful endeavors to us -- for us
    to discuss.
        Admiral, do you remember meeting on the floor of the House
    two months ago or so during the State of the Union? Do you
    remember our conversation, Admiral?
        I'll remind you. It was about status of forces agreements.
    Do you remember who my guest was at the State of the Union?
        Admiral Franchetti. Yes. I think it was Mrs. Alkonis.
        Mr. LaLota. Lieutenant Ridge Alkonis and his spouse,
    Brittany Alkonis, and I'm hoping that with the hundred years of
    collective naval service that the three of you have -- combat
    deployments, command at sea, command at sea even for you, Mr.
    Secretary -- that you could help with this issue because I
    think it does strongly relate to lethality.
        Twenty-five years ago when I was a midshipman the top of
    our class at the Naval Academy, of which I was not a part,
    would select ships in the Seventh Fleet for the most part
    because that was the most challenging tip of the spear
    assignments, and our best and brightest and from ROTC and OCS
    would pick this same because of the challenge of those
    assignments and the specter that if we, as a Navy-Marine Corps
    team, were in the biggest part of the fight it would likely be
    in that part of the world, and that was in the year 2000.
        Now, 24 years later, it's much more apparent that if our
    Navy-Marine Corps team gets called into the biggest fight it's
    likely to be in that part of the world, and because of the
    weaknesses of our status of forces agreement specifically with
    Japan less folks are seeking orders to Japan because they're
    inferior -- our status of forces agreements.
        In the case of Lieutenant Ridge Alkonis, real briefly,
    while traveling down Mount Fuji with his family he innocently
    because of mountain altitude sickness lost control of his
    vehicle. No drinking or drugs involved. Lost control of his
    vehicle which tragically resulted in the death of two Japanese
    nationals.
        The Japanese took custody of the lieutenant, denied him a
    right to a translator, denied him any sort of attorney, sleep
    deprived him and ultimately coerced him into a confession that
    resulted in him serving 537 days in a Japanese prison.
        That outcome would not have happened likely in Korea or
    anyplace else where we have status of forces agreements. So my
    question is this.
        Mr. Secretary, I realize this is not in your jurisdiction.
    I realize that status of force agreements are generally
    negotiated between the Department of State and that friendly
    foreign nation.
        But, Mr. Secretary, you are in the business of ensuring
    that we have the most lethal fighting force the world has ever
    known and the specter of conflict in that part of the world is
    more real than it's ever been.
        Mr. Secretary, can you commit to working with the Secretary
    of Defense, the Secretary of State and others to ensure that
    our status of forces agreements in nations like Japan comport
    with our values, contemplate lethality to ensure that if our
    men and women are called in to fight in that battle that they
    can have the confidence knowing that if they're out in town on
    liberty and find themselves accused of a crime by a friendly
    foreign nation that they have rights similar to what rights the
    everyday American citizen have -- would have in America?
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely, Congressman. The safety of
    our personnel in the United States and serving overseas is
    incredibly important to us and the SOFA agreements are also
    incredibly important to protect their rights.
        Mr. LaLota. Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
        And can you commit to following up in due course, three or
    six months, to tell me what progress we have made as a Navy-
    Marine Corps team to ensure that our sailors and Marines in the
    Seventh Fleet in Japan have better protections, Mr. Secretary?
        Secretary Del Toro. Absolutely, Congressman.
        Mr. LaLota. Thank you. And with the remainder of my time,
    on behalf of Mr. Waltz with unanimous consent, Mr. Chairman,
    I'd like to enter into the record his letter to you, Mr.
    Secretary, regarding his request that those service members at
    Abbey Gate be posthumously promoted.
        The Chairman. Without objection, so ordered.
        Mr. LaLota. Thank you. I yield, Mr. Chairman.
        The Chairman. The gentleman yields.
        The chair now recognizes the gentleman from Colorado, Mr.
    Lamborn.
        Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
        Secretary Del Toro, the last time I saw you we were under
    the ice up in the Arctic Ocean, IceX. We were on an attack sub
    and that was quite an experience.
        Secretary Del Toro. Yes, sir.
        Mr. Lamborn. There's some amazing capability that we field
    out there.
        Admiral Franchetti, I'll ask my first question to you. Over
    the past several years Congress has appropriated over $3
    billion for the development of the Conventional Prompt Strike
    CPS(Conventional Prompt Strike) hypersonic missile.
        Yet, to date that program has yet to successfully test and
    all-up RAMP. I understand these testing problems are driving a
    program replan that aims to field the hypersonic capability on
    USS Zumwalt by the end of 2025 and the Virginia-class SSN five
    years later in 2030.
        Given the recently reported shipbuilding delays are these
    platforms on track to accommodate hypersonic capability on this
    time line?
        Admiral Franchetti. Well, thank you for the question. You
    know, first, let me say how important the CPS capability is.
    You know, it's extremely lethal, maneuverable, and it's
    something that we need to have, going forward, and we're in
    development of that program along with the Army. And so we're
    committed to developing that, getting that out as quickly as
    possible, and making sure that we are doing all the proper
    testing to move that forward.
        As far as our platforms go, the Zumwalt entered the
    shipyard down in Pascagoula now and, you know, she -- I went
    down to visit her just about maybe a month ago and they are
    moving fast to get her ready for the CPS Alt and I'm looking
    forward to getting her out.
        And so when she's done that that would be coincident with
    the missile being ready. The Virginia payload -- we have
    certainly seen some of the delays in our submarines and, you
    know, right now, we want to invest in the submarine industrial
    base so we can increase the cadence and really set the
    conditions to meet the cadence and delivery that we really
    need, going forward, and that will be part of that capability.
        Mr. Lamborn. Yeah, let's talk about that. I understand that
    some critical flight tests for CPS are scheduled for later this
    year and I'm hopeful that they'll be successful. But I think
    we're not moving fast enough. Can you please tell us
    specifically what we can do to increase the tempo or cadence of
    the testing?
        Admiral Franchetti. I think, you know, continuing to work
    with our testing community, with Admiral Wolfe, with everyone
    who's involved with this and the Army, you know, they are
    moving with a sense of urgency and they feel that every single
    day.
        Mr. Lamborn. Secretary Del Toro, since the October 7th
    attack on Israel we have seen a steadily deteriorating security
    environment in the Middle East. One of the hallmarks of that
    environment is the attacks by Iranian-backed militias
    specifically using cheap attack drones.
        I applaud the U.S. Navy's performance in defending against
    this threat but it comes at a significant and unsustainable
    cost long term.
        You testified to the Senate Appropriations Committee that
    the service required about a billion dollars to replenish
    stocks of air defense missiles, and General Kurilla told this
    committee that he encourages the Navy to deploy directed
    energy, specifically shipborne lasers such as the Helios system
    to get on the right side of the cost per shot equation.
        So, Secretary, Under Secretary Shyu recently said the
    department is working on a directed energy system for the Navy
    with three times the power of existing systems. Can you update
    us on what the Navy is doing to develop shipboard directed
    energy capability?
        Secretary Del Toro. Thank you, Congressman. You're
    absolutely right that we need to make even greater investments
    in the future. We should have been making them for a long, long
    time.
        But, nevertheless, we are continuing to make investments in
    order to get Helios deployable. She will hopefully be
    deployable here sometime in the next several months, certainly
    by the end of the year, hopefully, on USS Preble.
        But we have six other programs including some of the one
    that Heidi Shyu is talking about us as well to make added
    investments in more high power lasers as well as other directed
    energy programs, many of which are also SAT programs that we
    can't talk about openly.
        Mr. Lamborn. And, General Smith, I know that part of the
    Force Design 2030 has been to rethink the capabilities of the
    Marine Corps and the needs in the INDOPACOM theater.
        Can you talk about the importance of systems like the
    medium-range intercept capability, which is a directed energy
    capability, and what we're doing to speed up its delivery to
    the Marines?
        General Smith. Well, sir, I can. The MRIC -- medium-range
    intercept capability -- is one of the backbones of our
    strategy. It, paired with the TPS-80 G/ATOR Radar, can sense
    targets -- very small diameter targets at great range and can
    intercept them at -- again, at great range and at a different
    classification level I can discuss the range with you.
        But it is a critical part of our Force Design throughout
    the First Island chain to disrupt a potential PRC attack.
        Mr. Lamborn. Thank you, all, and I yield back.
        The Chairman. I thank the gentleman and I thank the
    witnesses. This testimony has been very helpful and we look
    forward to taking what you shared with us today and folding it
    into the National Defense Authorization Act later this month.
        And with that, I will yield to the ranking member for any
    closing comments he may have.
        Mr. Smith. I am good, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
        The Chairman. We're done. Thank you.
        [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

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                                A P P E N D I X

                                  May 1, 2024

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                  QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING

                                  May 1, 2024

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                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. LAMBORN

        Mr. Lamborn. Secretary Del Toro - I'd like to just take a moment
    and echo a few of my colleague on the poor state of the Submarine
    industrial base despite unprecedented levels of funding from Congress,
    which is directly jeopardizing our Sea Based Nuclear Deterrent. I
    understand the Navy is investing $15 Billion dollars over the next five
    years and, yet you testified to the Senate that many of the shipyards
    are buying back upwards of $4 billion dollars in stock. This must stop.
        Secretary Del Toro, at this level of investment the only metric
    cannot be the number of submarines we are producing years into the
    future. Can you tell the committee what the Navy is doing to develop
    metrics that will indicate our investment in the industrial base is
    bearing fruit?
        Secretary Del Toro. The Navy appreciates the continuous support
    Congress has provided to our nation's submarine industrial base (SIB).
    The Navy understands the importance of metrics to prove the benefit of
    the resources required to advance submarine construction and in-service
    sustainment. To that end, the Navy has made significant progress in
    implementing a performance to plan method to track and communicate
    investment impacts, with a focus on those that are outcome-based and
    tied to submarine schedules and performance.
        This approach maps SIB investments - which serve as enablers of the
    Columbia and Virginia production cadence - and traces metrics and
    performance to targets for individual projects that have been
    aggregated by common outcomes (e.g. number of workforce members placed
    in the SIB against the 10K-12K required each year). This approach
    enables traceability down to the lowest levels, with ties to "1+2"
    production rate and in-service operational availability. It also
    provides a fact-based framework to assess quantitative and qualitative
    progress and make data-driven decisions on investments and priorities.
        Mr. Lamborn. Hypersonic weapons are critically important to
    expanding U.S. deterrence options against our adversaries. Fielding
    Navy's Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) from ZUMWALT destroyers and
    VIRGINIA submarines must stay a priority. Shortly thereafter, I hope to
    see the Hypersonic Air Launched Offensive (HALO) weapon fielded.
    However, fielding the initial capabilities must not be considered the
    required end state; fielding is the starting point. The initial
    capabilities already have vulnerabilities. Accelerating technology
    development and flight test demonstrations is vital to mitigating those
    vulnerabilities and restoring technological superiority over our
    adversaries.
        The Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) Test Resource
    Management Center's (TRMC) Multi-Service Advanced Capability for
    Hypersonics Test Bed (MACH-TB) located at Naval Surface Warfare Center,
    Crane Division (NSWC Crane) is leading a pioneering effort to
    dramatically reduce the cost and accelerate the pace of hypersonic
    flight testing and demonstrations. I would like to get your perspective
    on a few items:
        1. What importance do you place on continuing hypersonic technology
    development and demonstration for CPS after initial fielding? 2. What
    impact do you believe MACH-TB will have in accelerating technology
    development and transition in the Navy.
        Secretary Del Toro. Fielding hypersonic weapons is one of DoD's
    highest technical research and engineering priorities. The DoD's
    strategic approach for hypersonic weapons is predicated on rapid
    prototyping, which involves accepting, minimizing, and mitigating risks
    to move through the design, build, test, and learn cycles faster than
    traditional acquisition programs.
        In order to rapidly maximize the warfighting capability delivered
    to our Sailors, the Navy Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) Program has
    implemented a program plan that includes a series of recurring
    Technology Insertions, as required to keep pace with emerging threats.
    This will allow the program to routinely iterate the weapon system
    design to enhance its capability against evolving threats, integrate
    affordability initiatives to reduce material costs, leverage additive
    manufacturing and other new production processes, and perform
    obsolescence management activities.
        The Technology Insertion process ensures that the Army and Navy can
    affordably deliver a capable hypersonic system to support the nation's
    continued battlefield dominance. With Congress' support, the Multi-
    Service Advanced Capability Hypersonic Test Bed (MACHTB) program was
    initiated by the CPS Program and Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC),
    Crane, Indiana in 2022 to accelerate hypersonic technology development
    by increasing the capacity for hypersonic flight testing. In 2023, the
    program the program transferred MACH-TB to OUSD(R&E) Test Resource
    Management Center (TRMC) to expand support to all hypersonic and
    strategic systems across the Department.
        MACH-TB will accelerate U.S. hypersonic technology development and
    transition by providing an affordable, rapid hypersonic flight test
    capability for DoD programs, NASA, national labs, academia, and
    industry. MACH-TB supports hypersonic programs by creating frequent,
    low-cost opportunities to test technologies with robust, agile and
    modular approaches prior to incorporation into a weapon system, like
    CPS.
        The CPS Program utilizes MACH-TB as a critical test and evaluation
    partner in rapidly designing, developing, and fielding a hypersonic
    capability to the warfighter. In Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23), CPS
    participated in four flights with MACH-TB, which included more than 20
    experiments and the first full-scale test that will enable future
    testing of a low cost and modular experimental glide body. In
    partnership with MACH-TB, the CPS Program tested a new navigation
    technology that was developed, prototyped, and integrated and flown on
    a sounding rocket in just 14 months.
        Future MACH-TB testing will provide insight to the Navy on
    technology improvement and capability validation, enabling more robust
    and successful evolutions of our hypersonic weapon system. The CPS
    program will continue to partner with the OUSD(R&E) TRMC to address the
    current and future needs of the CPS program's developmental sub-scale
    and full-scale testing using MACH-TB.
        Mr. Lamborn. Undersecretary Shyu recently testified before this
    committee that OSD R&Es program called "Accelerate the Procurement and
    Fielding of Innovative Technologies Program", or APFIT, is an effective
    catalyst for small and non-traditional companies. She specifically
    mentioned accelerating production for a paint removal system that
    greatly improved naval ship maintenance.
        1.Can you highlight any other examples of ways your organization
    works with both the APFIT program and Industry (such as Naval
    Shipbuilding Research Program) to accelerate the development
    technologies to improve existing industrial processes? Can you tell the
    committee about any program internal to the Navy that also plays a
    similar role?
        2.We have heard from companies that work in spaces adjacent to the
    ship maintenance industry who develop promising and innovative
    solutions to improving shipyard industrial processes. How is the Navy
    ship-maintenance enterprise encouraging large prime contractors, who
    are hesitant to deviate from proven but expensive and antiquated
    processes/equipment, to invest in novel technologies to drive down cost
    and improve efficiencies within shipyards.
        3.What role does SEA04X, SEA04T, and the Navy Seaport program play
    in helping small business to bring advanced capabilities to bear in the
    Ship Maintenance Enterprise, if any?
        Secretary Del Toro. The Navy values innovative solutions and the
    role small businesses play in moving technologies that benefit the Navy
    forward. The Navy works closely with OSD R&E's APFIT program to help
    engage the small business enterprise and acquire capabilities that
    deliver technical advancement across multiple domains, including
    communications, unmanned vehicles, sensing, and industrial
    applications.Beyond the noted paint removal system, the Navy has had
    additional successes with APFIT in the past and continues to work
    closely with the APFIT office on additional key innovative technologies
    that would be beneficial to the Navy.
        Within the Navy, the Small Business Innovation Research program
    resources small businesses to develop solutions for several topics,
    including industrial processes. Additive manufacturing efforts within
    the Navy are developing cutting edge solutions to issues within the
    traditional industrial supply chain.
        Additionally, the National Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) is
    an industry-led, partially NAVSEA and Program Executive Office funded,
    program that collaboratively develops improved products and processes
    in ship design, construction, and repair, in order to maintain the
    global competitiveness of the US shipbuilding and repair industry. The
    NSRP strives for rapid, widespread implementation of R&D results on
    Navy and commercial shipbuilding and repair programs.
        It seeks implementation across shipyards, across tiers, and across
    varied business operations and technology areas as soon as practicable,
    before projects are complete. Coordination with the shipyards ensures
    NSRP develops solutions for those closest to the problem. Specific to
    the Navy's public shipyards, NAVSEA 04 works with the NAVSEA SBIR
    office to provide opportunities for small businesses to develop
    technologies that help to overcome a specific problem the shipyards are
    dealing with while enabling these small businesses to grow.
        The technologies are then made available government wide, as well
    as commercially, to help grow the business, boost the economy, and
    provide solutions to other industry leading partners.
        Mr. Lamborn. The Zumwalt is only 1 ship and cannot be continuously
    deployed, but INDOPACOM requires a persistent offensive hypersonic
    capability. Can you update the committee on your plan to maximize
    presence and deliver the USS Moonsoor and USS Johnson with the CPS
    launcher system?
        Does the Navy's decision to only procure 1 Virginia Class Block 6
    submarine this year affect the Navy's ability to provide persistent CPS
    presence after this weapons it is fielded by subsurface platforms (VA
    Block 5) in 2030?
        Admiral Franchetti. The Navy is leveraging the industrial capacity
    of our new construction shipbuilders to modernize Zumwalt-class
    Destroyers with Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) capability. DDG 1000
    is undergoing the first modernization program. Follow-on availabilities
    are scheduled for DDG 1001 and DDG 1002. Once complete, the Navy will
    have three destroyers prepared to support a persistent hypersonic
    capability. To maximize presence in the INDOPACOM region, ship
    employment cycles will be phased to ensure continued operational
    availability throughout the conduct of routine and depot maintenance
    cycles. The current shipbuilding plan provides for persistent CPS
    presence by 2030. CPS fielding on submarines will be accomplished with
    Virginia Payload Module (VPM) capability starting with SSN 803, which
    is expected to be available to the Fleet by FY30. SSN 804 and SSN 805
    are also scheduled to be delivered by 2030 with CPS capability.
        Mr. Lamborn. Undersecretary Shyu recently testified before this
    committee that OSD R&Es program called "Accelerate the Procurement and
    Fielding of Innovative Technologies Program", or APFIT, is an effective
    catalyst for small and non-traditional companies. She specifically
    mentioned accelerating production for a paint removal system that
    greatly improved naval ship maintenance.
        1.Can you highlight any other examples of ways your organization
    works with both the APFIT program and Industry (such as Naval
    Shipbuilding Research Program) to accelerate the development
    technologies to improve existing industrial processes? Can you tell the
    committee about any program internal to the Navy that also plays a
    similar role?
        2.We have heard from companies that work in spaces adjacent to the
    ship maintenance industry who develop promising and innovative
    solutions to improving shipyard industrial processes. How is the Navy
    ship-maintenance enterprise encouraging large prime contractors, who
    are hesitant to deviate from proven but expensive and antiquated
    processes/equipment, to invest in novel technologies to drive down cost
    and improve efficiencies within shipyards.
        3.What role does SEA04X, SEA04T, and the Navy Seaport program play
    in helping small business to bring advanced capabilities to bear in the
    Ship Maintenance Enterprise, if any?
        Admiral Franchetti. The Navy values innovative solutions and the
    role small businesses play in moving technologies that benefit the Navy
    forward. The Navy works closely with OSD R&E's APFIT program to help
    engage the small business enterprise and acquire capabilities that
    deliver technical advancement across multiple domains, including
    communications, unmanned vehicles, sensing, and industrial
    applications. Beyond the noted paint removal system, the Navy has had
    additional successes with APFIT in the past and continues to work
    closely with the APFIT office on additional key innovative technologies
    that would be beneficial to the Navy.
        Within the Navy, the Small Business Innovation Research program
    resources small businesses to develop solutions for several topics,
    including industrial processes. Additive manufacturing efforts within
    the Navy are developing cutting edge solutions to issues within the
    traditional industrial supply chain. Additionally, the National
    Shipbuilding Research Program (NSRP) is an industry-led, partially
    NAVSEA and Program Executive Office funded, program that
    collaboratively develops improved products and processes in ship
    design, construction, and repair, in order to maintain the global
    competitiveness of the US shipbuilding and repair industry.
        The NSRP strives for rapid, widespread implementation of R&D
    results on Navy and commercial shipbuilding and repair programs. It
    seeks implementation across shipyards, across tiers, and across varied
    business operations and technology areas as soon as practicable, before
    projects are complete. Coordination with the shipyards ensures NSRP
    develops solutions for those closest to the problem.
        Specific to the Navy's public shipyards, NAVSEA 04 works with the
    NAVSEA SBIR office to provide opportunities for small businesses to
    develop technologies that help to overcome a specific problem the
    shipyards are dealing with while enabling these small businesses to
    grow. The technologies are then made available government wide, as well
    as commercially, to help grow the business, boost the economy, and
    provide solutions to other industry leading partners.
                                     ______

                  RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. SCOTT
        Mr. Scott. Can the U.S. Navy be able to count on the commercial
    sector to transport damaged ships or support battle damage repair
    (BDAR) near the fight?
        Admiral Franchetti. The Navy has in the past and continues to
    evaluate options to support BDAR in times of conflict and will conduct
    exercises in the coming year to exercise the system. Commercial vessels
    have provided such services in contested environments in previous wars
    and have a recent, proven history of transporting and assisting
    stricken USS vessels overseas outside of contested environments.
        Immediate capacity is a challenge since there are no U.S. flagged
    heavy-lift vessels capable of providing support to larger USS vessels,
    and there are limited U.S. flagged towing vessels located worldwide to
    ensure some are close to a potential fight. From a wartime readiness
    perspective, the Navy is exploring additional forward maintenance
    opportunities to "exercise the system" so that when conflict arises we
    are prepared to respond in foreign friendly shipyards, that are already
    qualified and certified in peacetime to US Navy standards with the
    knowledge and experience to work with us.
                                     ______

                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. KEATING
        Mr. Keating. Secretary Del Toro and Admiral Franchetti, can you
    elaborate on the innovation occurring with our Australian and UK
    partners with regards to AUKUS Pillar 2, specifically in regard to the
    torpedo tube launch and recovery capabilities and small unmanned
    underwater vehicles?
        Secretary Del Toro. As a component of AUKUS Pillar II, the Undersea
    Warfare Working Group is accelerating the development and delivery of
    advanced military capabilities while bolstering industry and innovation
    sector collaboration. The AUKUS partners are integrating the ability to
    launch and recover undersea vehicles from torpedo tubes on US, UK, and
    Australian SSNs to include SSNAUKUS, the purpose built AUKUS submarine.
    Torpedo tube launched and recovery (TTL&R) makes the operation of
    uncrewed undersea vehicles ubiquitous for the SSN force, increasing the
    range and capability of our undersea forces to enable assured access
    and deliver effects such as strike and intelligence, surveillance, and
    reconnaissance.
        Mr. Keating. Secretary Del Toro and Admiral Franchetti, can you
    elaborate on the innovation occurring with our Australian and UK
    partners with regards to AUKUS Pillar 2, specifically in regard to the
    torpedo tube launch and recovery capabilities and small unmanned
    underwater vehicles?
        Admiral Franchetti. As a component of AUKUS Pillar II, the Undersea
    Warfare Working Group is accelerating the development and delivery of
    advanced military capabilities while bolstering industry and innovation
    sector collaboration. The AUKUS partners are integrating the ability to
    launch and recover undersea vehicles from torpedo tubes on US, UK, and
    Australian SSNs to include SSN-AUKUS, the purpose built AUKUS
    submarine. Torpedo tube launched and recovery (TTL&R) makes the
    operation of uncrewed undersea vehicles ubiquitous for the SSN force,
    increasing the range and capability of our undersea forces to enable
    assured access and deliver effects such as strike and intelligence,
    surveillance, and reconnaissance.
                                     ______

                  RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. WALTZ
        Mr. Waltz. Last October, I sent you a letter requesting that the 11
    Marines killed at Abbey Gate during the Afghanistan withdrawal be
    posthumously promoted in accordance with 10 USC section 1563, which
    authorizes Members of Congress to initiate a recommendation for an
    honorary promotion. I'm grateful that less than 2 weeks after the Abbey
    Gate bombing, you posthumously promoted Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak to
    Hospital Corpsman Third Class.
        However, It's been nearly three years since these brave Marines
    were killed, and more than 6 months since I made this request to you.
    When will you do what is right by these Marines and their families?
        Secretary Del Toro. As the Department has previously testified, it
    is longstanding Marine Corps practice that only Marines selected for
    promotion prior to being killed in action are considered for posthumous
    or honorary promotion. None of the Marines killed at Abbey Gate were
    under consideration for promotion at the time. This practice is
    grounded in fairness and honor to all Marines who have been killed in
    action throughout its history.
        It is consistent with how the Marine Corps has recognized our
    greatest examples of valor; as an example, the Vietnam War, 45 Marines
    were awarded the Medal of Honor having gallantly given their lives,
    none of whom were posthumously promoted. Many have had ships or
    buildings named in their honor. This does not detract from the
    sacrifices the Marines killed at Abbey Gate made. We sacredly honor
    them and their families for the contributions they have made to the
    Marine Corps and our Nation, and have recognized them through personal
    awards and citations.
        Mr. Waltz. The Navy recently completed and published the results of
    a 45 day review of its shipbuilding portfolio.
        Could these timelines improve if we had more shipyards? Do you
    consider shipyards to be infrastructure? The Infrastructure Investment
    and Jobs Act provided $1.2 trillion for infrastructure projects in the
    United States. How much funding to build new shipyards was included?
    Were you consulted at all while the White House drafted this proposal?
        When we see China building up their shipyards - building more than
    50% of the world's ships each year (up from 12% only 2 decades ago)
    with PLAN 395 ships by 2025 and an expected 435 by 2030, how are we
    accepting such abysmal performance from our American shipbuilding
    infrastructure?
        What are you doing to get us back on track while we are being
    dwarfed by the Chinese shipbuilding arm?
        Secretary Del Toro. The private shipyards that build ships for the
    Navy are paramount to the larger shipbuilding industrial base, but are
    not owned or operated by the U.S. Navy. While partnering with private
    shipyards in infrastructure investments will help improve performance,
    the 45 Day Shipbuilding Review found the largest challenges to
    shipbuilding performance are driven by the lingering effects of COVID
    on the supply chain and skilled workforce availability and proficiency.
        The Navy is working major initiatives to drive improvement in these
    areas. The Fiscal Year 2025 budget request continues investment in the
    submarine industrial base. Further, the Navy is working initiatives
    that focus on developing and retaining the highly skilled shipbuilding
    workforces in both industry and the government, including utilizing
    Section 122 workforce development legislation in the fiscal year 2023
    National Defense Authorization Act.
        Additionally, the Navy is promoting the shipbuilding industrial
    base and supply chain through smart acquisition strategies, like multi-
    year procurements, and efficient build profiles while also
    appropriately balancing risk between the Navy and industry.
                                     ______

                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. FALLON
        Mr. Fallon. Secretary Del Toro, you have recently told lawmakers
    that "the service is out at least $1 billion in critical munitions in
    recent operations in the Middle East. You said that the $2 billion
    within the supplemental is direly critical to the Navy and Marine Corps
    to be able to replenish those munitions and continue to provide the
    types of defensive measures enacted in the last 6 months.
        My fear is that if activity in the Middle East and elsewhere
    increases much more funding will be required. We have estimates that
    the Iranian strike costed Israel and allies approximately $550 million,
    that is 2% of our entire Israeli supplemental spent within 6 hours.
        We need current munitions and missile intercepts to ensure we our
    defending our troops and allies but this solution alone is not
    sustainable over the long term.
        What efforts are you pursuing to ensure effective and sustainable
    defensive solutions?
        Secretary Del Toro. Through collaboration, the Navy is employing an
    operationally informed mix of air, surface and ground-based
    interceptors, as well as other defense systems. Expenditures are at
    historic levels. While we acknowledge the cost inversion of kinetic
    interception against these cheaper one-way attack unmanned vehicles, we
    balance that cost against the safety of our Sailors and the billions of
    dollars of forward-deployed surface fleet power projection that they
    protect.
        The Navy needs both increased capacity and enduring low-cost
    solutions that match this emergent unmanned threat. On the capacity
    front, both expansion of the munitions industry base and the
    acquisition of long lead items, will help our replenishment rates.
    Multi-Year Procurement (MYP) and Economic Order Quantity (EOQ)
    contracts allow industry to bulk buy components and negotiate long-term
    purchasing agreements with their suppliers.
        This reduces our costs. On the other end of the spectrum, we are
    currently experimenting with and maturing a host of lower cost kinetic
    and non-kinetic technologies that promise to expand our layered defense
    options.
        Mr. Fallon. Secretary Del Toro, can you send the committee a
    quarterly report on the recruiting results versus goals? We would like
    to validate trends and actively continue the conversation on how
    Congress can help Navy/ Marine Corp in ensuring readiness.
        Secretary Del Toro. The Office of the Secretary of Defense
    publishes monthly press releases which provide recruiting numbers for
    each of the Military Services. They can be found at:https://
    prhome.defense.gov/M-RA/Inside-M-RA/MPP/PR/
        Mr. Fallon. A recent Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD)
    paper highlighted some of the issues currently being felt by the DOD
    cyber community. I asked in a cyber hearing last year, "who is
    accountable for the growth, readiness, and capability development of
    the cyber fleet". Nobody has given me a direct answer on this. DOD has
    basically delegated this to the services, which is problematic.
        I bring this up in this hearing because the article I just
    referenced specially called out the Navy for not doing its part to
    contribute to the 14 Cyber National Force teams, which are responsible
    for defending our most critical assets.
        The article specifically states, "the Navy will not be able to
    deliver new teams for at least a few years because I needs to focus on
    improving the readiness of its existing cyber personnel."
        Secondly, I just reviewed some recruiting statistics released by
    the Pentagon, and frankly the Navy's numbers for its entire force are
    concerning.
        What is the Navy doing right now to accelerate force readiness for
    cyber?
        Admiral Franchetti. I am committed to providing world class cyber
    forces in support of National Defense priorities. To accelerate force
    readiness, the Navy is focused on increasing manning, building capacity
    through recruiting, retaining talent with retention incentives, and
    enhancing training. In the last year, Cyber Mission Force (CMF) manning
    has increased from 80% to 88% across 40 teams.
        I will continue to focus on CMF manning until it is greater than
    95% across all teams. To improve recruiting, we are leveraging a proven
    initiative by assigning Information Warfare (IW) Senior Enlisted to six
    locations to focus on IW recruiting.
        In FY23, Cyber Warfare Technician (CWT) recruitment achieved 100%
    of its goal, and we are incentivizing the rating through Selective
    Reenlistment Bonuses (SRB) and Special Duty Assignment Pay (SDAP). The
    Navy established Cyber Qualification Training Teams (CQTT) to improve
    unit level training across the CMF and meet U.S. CYBERCOM required unit
    level training requirements.
        This effort will provide a regular and repeatable training process,
    performance assessments, and support team certifications. Navy also
    invested in a virtual training environment and acquired a U.S. CYBERCOM
    Persistent Cyber Training Environment (PCTE) Enterprise Compute and
    Store (ECS) node. This investment has tripled the annual training
    throughput for CMF work roles in just two years. Navy has been
    advocating to transform the cyber force generation system to a model
    where government owned, service deliver individual training is provided
    to service members prior to assignment to CMF teams.
        Where authorized, Navy now delivers some of the required CMF
    training, resulting in steep readiness improvements. Case in point,
    Navy delivered Cyber Protection Team (CPT) training resulted in a 34%
    increase in individual readiness in the past 14 months. Navy continues
    to partner with U.S. CYBERCOM/NSA to gain authorization to deliver the
    remainder of cyber training in this manner.
        Mr. Fallon. General Smith an article published in January of this
    year highlighted that Marines deployed on Rotational Forces Southeast
    Asia and Darwin were relying on our partners for counter UAS because
    they weren't equipped by their organic units with this capability.
        I think it's safe to say every service has struggled to adapt to
    this threat, but I'm particularly concerned that Marines, because of
    how dispersed you operate, may be lacking this capability at the small
    unit level. Are you concerned with these reports considering the
    accelerated proliferation of drone use we are seeing with our
    adversaries? What is the Marine Corps doing to get US made CUAS
    solutions in the hands of our marines before they go into theater?
        General Smith. The proliferation of drone use is a concern.
    Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) are changing the character of war in
    ways like the IED did twenty years ago. To combat the UAS threat, the
    Marine Corps is investing in four key programs: Marine Air Defense
    Integrated System (MADIS), Light-MADIS (L-MADIS), Medium Range
    Intercept Capability (MRIC), and dismounted CUAS systems. MADIS, L-
    MADIS, and MRIC were specifically designed for Low Altitude Air Defense
    Battalions (LAAD Bn) conducting air defense in support of critical
    assets and maneuver forces.
        The dismounted CUAS system is intended to provide every element of
    the Marine Corps a means of self-defense against Group 1 and 2 small
    UAS. Each program organically, or through command-and-control
    networking, will complete the entire CUAS kill chain (detect, track,
    identify, and defeat).
        Two prevailing challenges will be the balance between the size,
    weight, and power (SWaP) versus system capability and lethality; and
    the ability to provide at every echelon the notification of adversary
    UASs for force protection and cueing, as well as notification of the
    employment of friendly UASs to mitigate mis-identification. To advance
    the Marine Corps capability in this area, we requested the following in
    FY25 Budget:
        MADIS o $132.2 million request to support the procurement of (13)
    systems in PB25. o Employed on a pair of Joint Light Tactical Vehicles.
    o Can lethally defeat manned aircraft and group 3-5 UAS with Stinger
    missiles, and lethally and non-lethally defeat group 1-3 UAS. o AAO is
    (190) MADIS systems comprised of (380) total vehicles. o IOC scheduled
    for 1QFY25 with the delivery of (13) systems to III MEF.
        L-MADIS o $33.2 million request to support procurement of (5)
    systems in PB25. o Employed on a pair of Ultra-Light Tactical Vehicles
    (ULTV). o Can lethally defeat manned aircraft and group 3-5 UAS with
    Stinger missiles, and non-lethally defeat group 1-3 UAS. o AAO is (21)
    systems consisting of (42) ULTVs. o IOC scheduled for 2QFY25 with the
    delivery of (3) systems to III MEF.
        MRIC o $111.4 million request to support the procurement of (12)
    launchers and (242) missiles in PB25. o Designed to lethally defeat
    sub-sonic and super-sonic cruise missiles, and capable of lethally
    defeating manned aircraft and group 3-5 UAS. o The first complete
    battery will be fielded in FY26, followed by an additional battery in
    FY27 and FY28. o In February 2024, industry partners broke ground
    establishing a U.S.-based production facility in Camden, AR which will
    ensure continued access to a supply of domestically produced
    interceptors.
        Dismounted CUAS o Low SWaP body-worn or man-portable system that
    provides Marines at the small unit level an ability to detect and
    engage Group 1 and 2 sUAS with organic weapon systems. o Detect, track,
    and identification phase of the kill chain completed through a handheld
    graphic user interface to receive sensor data from external entities
    with a redundant RF detection system. o Combination of directional/
    omni-directional jammers and/or enhanced rifle optics to defeat sUAS. o
    Urgent Needs and Program of Record Requirement Documents are currently
    in draft.
                                     ______

                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. GIMENEZ
        Mr. Gimenez. What is the current status of our littoral mobility in
    the Pacific?
        Secretary Del Toro. Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships support
    littoral mobility through employment of T-AOs (Fleet Replenishment
    Oilers), T-AOE (Fast Combat Support) and T-AKE (Dry Cargo/Ammunition)
    class ships that refuel, resupply, and rearm carrier strike groups and
    expeditionary strike groups.
        Navy is developing the Light Replenishment Oiler (TAOL), which will
    strengthen Navy's ability to conduct power projection and sea control
    by augmenting the current combat logistics force with smaller, intra-
    theater ships that enhance the Navy's ability to conduct distributed
    Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in Contested
    Environments (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).
        TAOL will provide fuel, ammunition, and supplies to dispersed
    surface action groups and will support expeditionary advanced base
    requirements. TAOL will transfer fuel, ammunition, and supplies at-sea
    to Medium Landing Ship (LSM), which will further transfer this material
    to expeditionary forces ashore via its beaching and pier side offload
    capabilities.
        Mr. Gimenez. What is the current status of our littoral mobility in
    the Pacific?
        Admiral Franchetti. Combat Logistics Force (CLF) ships support
    littoral mobility through employment of T-AOs (Fleet Replenishment
    Oilers), T-AOE (Fast Combat Support) and T-AKE (Dry Cargo/Ammunition)
    class ships that refuel, resupply, and rearm carrier strike groups and
    expeditionary strike groups.
        Navy is developing the Light Replenishment Oiler (TAOL), which will
    strengthen Navy's ability to conduct power projection and sea control
    by augmenting the current combat logistics force with smaller, intra-
    theater ships that enhance the Navy's ability to conduct distributed
    Maritime Operations (DMO), Littoral Operations in Contested
    Environments (LOCE), and Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations (EABO).
    TAOL will provide fuel, ammunition, and supplies to dispersed surface
    action groups and will support expeditionary advanced base
    requirements.
        TAOL will transfer fuel, ammunition, and supplies at-sea to Medium
    Landing Ship (LSM), which will further transfer this material to
    expeditionary forces ashore via its beaching and pier side offload
    capabilities.
        Mr. Gimenez. Given known amphibious warship maintenance issues, are
    (4), forward-deployed amphibious warships in Japan adequate to support
    a three-ship amphibious ready group for the 31st Marine Expeditionary
    Unit?
        Admiral Franchetti. Yes. To meet the high readiness requirements of
    the Forward Deployed Naval Force-Japan, four amphibious ships allows
    for one ship to be in an extended maintenance period, while still
    capable of supporting the three ship requirement.
        Mr. Gimenez. General Smith, last year I traveled with my colleagues
    to meet with our Marines and Sailors throughout the Indo Pacific, I saw
    firsthand the malign acts of the Chinese Community Party in throughout
    the region. I am fully supportive of the Force Design and modernization
    efforts of the service, enabling the Marines to be that Stand in Force
    we need to deter the CCP.
        However, I am deeply concerned with the state of the Marines
    littoral mobility as the Landing Ship Medium (LSM), has received for
    the first time ever, funding in their year's budget request. Can you
    please explain why the LSM is so important to the Marine Corps? What
    does the Marine Corps plan on using as a bridging solution in the
    Pacific until the LSM is operational?
        General Smith. The Medium Landing Ship (LSM) is planned to fill the
    capability gap that exists in the littoral environment between the
    Navy's large, globally deployable, high endurance, multipurpose
    Amphibious Warfare Ships (AWS) and smaller amphibious warfare type
    craft that enable ship to shore employment.
        The LSM's role is to provide the primary means of theater mobility-
    littoral maneuver and sustainment for Marine elements of the Stand-in
    Force (SIF). Marine SIF are task-organized, mobile and low-signature
    formations designed to maneuver across all domains. They provide the
    Joint Force the ability to sense and understand the battlefield, enable
    combined kill webs, and apply all-domain combined arms. Marine SIF
    formations primarily operate in the littoral environment that currently
    has a critical gap in which the Navy and Marine Corps do not maintain a
    platform that is suitable to maneuver and sustain forces operating
    ashore.
        The LSM will fill this void and be a vital platform for the SIF to
    deploy personnel and equipment to maintain forward presence by
    campaigning, responding to crisis, and enabling Joint Force power
    projection during conflict. The Marine Corps requirement for LSMs is
    35. In FY25, there are 8 LSMs planned within the FYDP, with a
    procurement profile of 1-1-2-2-2 (one ship each in FY25 and FY26; and
    two ships each in FY27, FY28, and FY29). The Marine Corps supports PB25
    that initiates procurement of the first LSM in FY25 and eight total
    over the FYDP, maintaining a procurement schedule of 1/1/2/2/2.
    Maintaining the current procurement profile is critical for delivering
    the late to need platform necessary to fill the void in current
    littoral mobility.
        Due to the urgency of this void, the Navy and Marine Corps have
    developed a Littoral Maneuver Bridging Solution (LMBS) as a phased
    approach to provide some limited operational mobility and tactical
    maneuver capacity for elements of the SIF until LSM are available to
    support one Marine Regiment in the early 2030s. The purpose of LMBS is
    to provide forward capacity now in direct support to Stand-in Force
    task organized units of action with limited intra-theater mobility,
    tactical maneuver, and sustainment.
        This effort is not to negate the late-to-need of the LSM; this
    effort is to leverage what exists already, even if limited, and
    experiment with chartered vessels to develop procedures for SIF
    formations and future LSM employment as well as inform US Navy on
    lessons learned from experimentation. The approved LMBS is four
    expeditionary fast transports (T-EPF) and two landing craft utility
    (LCU) and experimentation craft such as the four Marine Corps-funded
    charters and the two planned Ancillary Surface Craft (ASC).
        T-EPF will be used in support of intra-theater operational
    mobility, and pierto-pier support of units conducting Expeditionary
    Advanced Base Operations (EABO) in an archipelagic environment.
        LCU will be used in exercises for tactical maneuver of smaller
    units and sustainment.
        Experimental chartered vessels will be used to support 21st century
    beaching operations in support of exercises and experimentation, adding
    needed littoral mobility capacity in the Indo-Pacific region. These
    chartered vessels will also assist in the refinement of tactics,
    techniques, and procedures (TTPs) in support of EABO. The TTP
    development with these chartered vessels serving as surrogates for the
    Medium Landing Ship (LSM) is needed now as the LSM program continues
    along the procurement path and remains late-to-need.
        ASC will be used for experimentation to provide enhanced maneuver,
    littoral mobility, and sustainment to/from expeditionary advance bases
    (EABs) and potentially Advanced Naval Bases (ANBs) within the
    archipelagos. The capacity and capability of LMBS does not match or
    fulfill the requirements and capability of the LSM program once all
    vessels are delivered.
                                     ______

                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. PANETTA
        Mr. Panetta. Secretary Del Toro, I appreciate your partnership
    pushing forward the new Naval Innovation Center (NIC) at the Naval
    Postgraduate School in my district in Monterey, CA as part of your
    initiative to propel innovation by transforming how the DoD leverages
    the private sector and other DoD hubs.
        In your posture statement, you framed the NIC as "empowering our
    next generation of warfighters by leveraging the talent at NPS to
    inform future operational concepts and advanced technology
    development."
        Our adversaries understand that one of our greatest challenges is
    our inability to invest in capabilities today so that we can rapidly
    deploy them in tomorrow's battle.
        You and I discussed how early investments in innovative technology
    enabled successful operations in the Red Sea, while on the flip side,
    Ukraine demonstrates the DoD's lack of flexibility to procure and
    deploy new technology during crisis operations.
        I want to be clear: our inability to bring innovative solutions
    quickly is not just a threat to our national security, but makes the
    U.S. a liability to our partner forces.
        This is why we need a hub like the NIC that leverages private
    sector investments and the unique experiences of our service members to
    circumvent slow and outdated processes and bring solutions for both
    long-term strategic planning, and immediate tactical-level challenges.
        Having the NIC in Monterey surrounded by over a dozen Navy, Army,
    and Coast Guard installations, and just down the way from Silicon
    Valley, will bring together several components of the DoD, industries
    that span the U.S., and some of our nation's most talented
    servicemembers to experiment and collaborate on cutting-edge
    technologies for strategic competition and irregular warfare.
        Secretary Del Toro, thank you for securing the planning and design
    funds for FY25 and FY26, prioritizing the completion of the 1391 form,
    and accelerating the environmental assessment review.
        My questions are: 1. Can you elaborate for the Committee on why we
    need the Naval Innovation Center and how it will leverage DoD and
    defense industries across the nation?
        2. Can you confirm your MILCON timeline as FY26 and FY27 for the
    committee? 3. What support do you need from Congress to see through the
    MILCON request?
        Secretary Del Toro. The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) ensures the
    technological leadership of our future force. By combining student
    operational experience and graduate education with an applied research
    curriculum and faculty expertise, NPS accelerates the adoption of naval
    capabilities by educating the next generation of naval leaders needed
    to employ them.
        The Naval Innovation Center (NIC) at the NPS will develop a cadre
    of warrior-scholars deeply versed in the technologies driving
    revolutionary changes in modern warfighting. By fostering academic
    collaboration with traditional and non-traditional partners within DoD
    and industry, the NIC will serve as a premier military education
    facility for Navy and Marine Corps that will enhance the education of
    our postgraduate students through relevant, experiential, hands-on
    applied research with cutting-edge technologies.
                                     ______

                 RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MR. ALFORD
        Mr. Alford. Secretary Del Toro & ADM Franchetti, The committee
    included a provision in the FY24 NDAA requiring the Navy to provide a
    report on the industrialization efforts and investments it is making
    into the Navy's next generation Nickel Zinc submarine battery. It is
    the view of this committee and as testified by Navy leadership that the
    submarine industrial base is only as strong as its weakest link, and
    that we need to make investments at all supplier tiers in the submarine
    production base to get readiness and production rates where they need
    to be.
        The recent supplemental appropriations request that was approved
    asked for approximately $3 billion dollars for investments in the
    submarine industrial base. And I want to commend the Navy for making it
    smart investments in Nickel Zinc battery technology that it has
    recognized will improve operational performance, safety and drastically
    reduce maintenance delays.
        Out of the recently approved AUKUS SIB funds and in the FY 25 Navy
    Budget request, can you please tell the committee what the investments
    are specifically planned for Nickel Zinc submarine battery
    manufacturability to ensure the VA Class submarines are delivered on
    time?
        Secretary Del Toro. The Navy is committed to investment in Nickel
    Zinc battery technology. There is funding allocated in the FY24
    supplemental appropriations and in the FY25 budget request associated
    with scaling up of the Nickel Zinc battery manufacturing
    infrastructure. These investments will secure domestic sources, provide
    a viable alternative to current power sources and offer an
    environmentally friendly and safer energy storage solution.
        Mr. Alford. Secretary Del Toro & ADM Franchetti, The committee
    included a provision in the FY24 NDAA requiring the Navy to provide a
    report on the industrialization efforts and investments it is making
    into the Navy's next generation Nickel Zinc submarine battery. It is
    the view of this committee and as testified by Navy leadership that the
    submarine industrial base is only as strong as its weakest link, and
    that we need to make investments at all supplier tiers in the submarine
    production base to get readiness and production rates where they need
    to be.
        The recent supplemental appropriations request that was approved
    asked for approximately $3 billion dollars for investments in the
    submarine industrial base. And I want to commend the Navy for making it
    smart investments in Nickel Zinc battery technology that it has
    recognized will improve operational performance, safety and drastically
    reduce maintenance delays.
        Out of the recently approved AUKUS SIB funds and in the FY 25 Navy
    Budget request, can you please tell the committee what the investments
    are specifically planned for Nickel Zinc submarine battery
    manufacturability to ensure the VA Class submarines are delivered on
    time?
        Admiral Franchetti. The Navy is committed to investment in Nickel
    Zinc battery technology. There is funding allocated in the FY24
    supplemental appropriations and in the FY25 budget request associated
    with scaling up of the Nickel Zinc battery manufacturing
    infrastructure. These investments will secure domestic sources, provide
    a viable alternative to current power sources and offer an
    environmentally friendly and safer energy storage solution.

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