[Senate Hearing 119-269]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-269
THE STATE OF NUCLEAR SHIPBUILDING
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HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON SEAPOWER
of the
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
APRIL 8, 2025
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Armed Services
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http: //www.govinfo.gov
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
62-647 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES
ROGER WICKER, Mississippi, Chairman
DEB FISCHER, Nebraska JACK REED, Rhode Island
TOM COTTON, Arkansas JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota KIRSTEN E. GILLIBRAND, New York
JONI ERNST, Iowa RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota TIM KAINE, Virginia
RICK SCOTT, Florida ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
TED BUDD, North Carolina TAMMY DUCKWORTH, Illinois
ERIC SCHMITT, Missouri JACKY ROSEN, Nevada
JIM BANKS, Indiana MARK KELLY, Arizona
TIM SHEEHY, Montana ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
John P. Keast, Staff Director
Elizabeth L. King, Minority Staff Director
______
Subcommittee on Seapower
RICK SCOTT, Florida, Chairman
DAN SULLIVAN, Alaska TIM KAINE, Virginia
TOMMY TUBERVILLE, Alabama JEANNE SHAHEEN, New Hampshire
MARKWAYNE MULLIN, Oklahoma RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
JIM BANKS, Indiana MAZIE K. HIRONO, Hawaii
TIM SHEEHY, Montana ANGUS S. KING, Jr., Maine
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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april 8, 2025
Page
The State of Nuclear Shipbuilding................................ 1
Member Statements
Statement of Senator Rick Scott.................................. 1
Statement of Senator Tim Kaine................................... 2
Witness Statements
Sermon, Mr. Matthew D., Program Manager Maritime Industrial Base. 2
Weeks, Rear Admiral Todd S., USN, Program Executive Officer 4
Strategic Submarines.
Rucker, Rear Admiral Jonathan E., USN, Program Executive Officer 5
Attack Submarines.
Moton, Rear Admiral Casey J., USN, Program Executive Officer 6
Aircraft Carriers.
Questions for the Record......................................... 42
(iii)
THE STATE OF NUCLEAR SHIPBUILDING
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TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2025
United States Senate,
Subcommittee on Seapower,
Committee on Armed Services,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:32 p.m. in room
SR-222, Russell Senate Office Building, Senator Rick Scott
(Chairman of the Committee) presiding.
Committee Members present: Senators Scott, Sullivan,
Tuberville, Sheehy, Kaine, Shaheen, Blumenthal, Hirono, and
Kelly.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR RICK SCOTT
Senator Scott. The hearing will come to order. In today's
Subcommittee on Seapower hearing, we're going to have an
important discussion about the state of our Navy's nuclear
shipbuilding effort.
With us today is Rear Admiral Todd Weeks for strategic
submarines, Rear Admiral Casey Moton for aircraft carriers,
Rear Admiral Jonathan Rucker for attack submarines, and Matt
Sermon, who serves as the program manager for the Navy's new
maritime industrial base office, which seeks to coordinate and
execute investments to strengthen naval shipbuilding and
maintenance. First off, thank you each of you for being here
today.
As many as you know, I was in the Navy where I served as an
operation specialist, was a radar man, really swabbed the deck
a lot, cleaned the chains on the USS Glover. It's alarming to
me when I see some of our ships and hear about the countless
delays in production to replace them, especially when these
ships and submarines are often a crucial tool in projecting
power in our seas and around the world.
Today, the Navy's nuclear shipbuilding efforts are riddled
with delays, workforce shortages, and industrial based strength
stretched too thin, and we're at great risk of losing ground
and falling behind adversaries like communist China. We can
look no further than our Virginia-class submarines, which are
critical America's undersea dominance or the Columbia-class
ballistic missile submarine, which was intended to replace our
aging Ohio-class submarines and is crucial to our nuclear
triad.
This is just the start of our challenges. It's clear cause
for concern. I'm very optimistic that with a focused industrial
base President Trump's leadership in the newly announced office
of shipbuilding, we're going to get back on track and ensure
our naval forces are prepared to project power and maintain
peace through strength.
But like any business organization in need of a turnaround,
we're going to need a plan to ensure our shipyards step up,
improve retention, invest in new technologies, and work with
industry partners to speed up production because our national
security depends on it.
Today, the Subcommittee is seeking clear answers on how our
witnesses will deal with these challenges and deliver for the
American people. I look forward to our discussion and now I'd
like to recognize Ranking Member Kaine for his remarks.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR TIM KAINE
Senator Kaine. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to the
witnesses. I enjoyed our talk last week and I'm looking forward
to the hearing today, and I welcome you and thank you for your
service to the Nation.
Two weeks ago, we had a hearing in the Subcommittee on the
state of conventional shipbuilding. While today we'll focus on
nuclear shipbuilding, submarine programs and the aircraft
carrier program. Many of the same challenges apply that we
discussed at the earlier hearing. We don't yet know what the
fiscal year 2026 budget request will be for these programs, but
we do know that Secretary Hegseth has decided to try to protect
Virginia-class submarines and executive surface ships from the
8 percent budget cut drill that he directed last month, at
least in the initial phase.
So, while we wait for budget clarity today, we can discuss
the state of the industrial base that supports our nuclear
shipbuilding program and what the Navy is doing to support that
industrial base. We also need to discuss the important
question, the big, big question of how to get Virginia-class,
Columbia-class, and Ford-class delivered on time. This is
particularly important for our submarines given the
construction schedule, operational demands, and the commitments
that we've made pursuant to the Australia, United Kingdom,
United States (AUKUS) agreement.
We have to be open to new approaches and admit that what we
have been doing needs to change if we want better outcomes. I
want to thank the Chairman and I look forward to our witnesses'
testimony.
Senator Scott. Thank you. Thank you, Ranking Member Kaine.
Why don't we just start? Mr. Sermon, you want to start first?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF MR. MATTHEW D. SERMON, PROGRAM MANAGER MARITIME
INDUSTRIAL BASE
Mr. Sermon. Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Kaine, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the
opportunity to appear before you today. As we commemorate the
250th anniversary of the Navy, we reflect on our unmatched
legacy of guaranteed freedom of the seas, a legacy enabled by
our sailors, which is not possible without the American
industrial base, its workforce, and their ability to leverage
modern manufacturing methods to build and maintain the Navy the
Nation needs.
Today, we must confront and overcome persistent challenges
including workforce shortages and supply chain disruptions that
are causing delays in ship deliveries. In order to do this, we
must embrace a number of vital opportunities, including
adopting advanced manufacturing for our entire maritime
ecosystem, expanding and strengthening the network of
shipbuilding suppliers, leveraging the power of capital markets
for National defense at this time, and removing statutory,
regulatory, or policy driven bureaucratic barriers that stand
in the way of maximizing maritime capacity.
The maritime industrial base program is leading efforts to
reinvigorate the industrial base in order to expand
shipbuilding capacity. In this effort, our priorities are: one,
systematically expanding and reinforcing supply chain capacity
to ensure timely delivery of critical components. Two,
addressing workforce challenges through partnering with
government and private organizations across key regions in an
all-hands-on deck effort that will attract, train, and retain
American manufacturing and engineering workers.
The nuclear and conventional shipbuilding and repair
industrial base must hire approximately 250,000 skilled and
well compensated workers over the next decade. Three, bold and
urgent adoption of advanced manufacturing in all aspects of the
ship lifecycle. This can be done by integrating additive
manufacturing, robotics, automation, and artificial
intelligence into how we build and maintain our Navy.
To do all of this, the Navy is working closely with our
industrial based partners and has launched nearly 1,200
supplier development, workforce, and advanced manufacturing
projects in 40 states. All of them focused on supporting
businesses, improving throughput, and updating antiquated
tooling and production processes. Foundational investments like
these take time to mature. We are planting trees, not growing
house plants.
Since 2018, we have expanded parts delivery for submarines
by more than 250 percent. This production must more than double
again, in order to deliver the nuclear Navy that the Nation
needs. We can get this done. In parallel, we have supported
industry efforts to recruit, train, and retain over 12,600 new
employees in 2024, helping to address critical labor shortages
in skilled trades and naval engineering fields.
We're also seeing momentum in advanced manufacturing where
the adoption of cutting-edge technologies is driving innovation
and improving productivity across the industrial base. The
Navy's Additive Manufacturing Center of Excellence in Danville,
Virginia has already printed more than 270 parts, and this year
we'll partner with the advanced manufacturing industry to
mitigate over 1,000 days of delay in parts availability.
These efforts are on track to revolutionize critical parts
procurement with the ability to print thousands of parts
quickly and with unprecedented quality. In conclusion, our
shipbuilding industrial base stands at a pivotal moment, thanks
to strong congressional support and by investing in our
workforce, infrastructure, and manufacturing technology, we can
ensure that the United States Navy remains the world's premier
maritime force, not just today, but for the next 250 years and
beyond.
Thank you for your dedicated support for our sailors, our
crucial industrial base workforce, and their collective
mission. I look forward to your questions.
Senator Scott. Thank you. Admiral?
STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL TODD S. WEEKS, USN, PROGRAM EXECUTIVE
OFFICER STRATEGIC SUBMARINES
Rear Admiral Weeks. Thank you, sir. Chairman Scott, Ranking
Member Kaine, it is my honor to be here today to address the
state of nuclear shipbuilding.
As a program executive officer for strategic submarines, I
have cradle to grave responsibility for the sea-based leg of
the American nuclear triad, the largest and most survivable
leg. I provide proactive and focused acquisition,
modernization, and lifecycle management for both the new
Columbia-class strategic submarine and the existing Ohio-class
strategic and guided missile submarines.
The Columbia-class is the Navy's number one acquisition
priority and a critical once in a generation recapitalization
effort for this foundational leg of the Nation's nuclear triad.
The current Ohio-class ballistic missile submarine (SSBN) force
is reaching the end of its operational life and must be
replaced to meet US strategic command operational requirements.
In General Cotton's recent statement to this Committee, he
noted that the United States, its allies, and partners are
confronted with a deteriorating security environment. The
Chinese Communist Party's investment in the expansion of its
land, sea, and air based nuclear delivery platforms, along with
Russia maintaining the largest and most diverse nuclear arsenal
in the world, only reinforces the assertion that no portfolio
needs recapitalization more than the nuclear portfolio.
Simply stated, building and sustaining a modernized U.S.
naval force that can stand the test of time adapt to the ever-
changing maritime threat landscape is more important now than
ever. It is a mission that we live each day. The delivery of
the lead ship in the Columbia-class, the future District of
Columbia, is projected to be 12 to 18 months late to contract.
While this delay is due to a variety of factors, it is
unacceptable.
I have directed the shipyards to execute a bold, paradigm
shifting approach to recovered lead ship schedule. The program
is also pursuing every opportunity to drive and improve
velocity, ensuring Columbia is appropriately resourced in the
shipyards, and prioritize in the industrial base.
The second ship, the future Wisconsin is on schedule. We
have seen positive continued performance and productivity
improvements over the lead ship. Wisconsin is approximately 5
percent ahead of where the lead ship was at the same point in
time during her construction. Early procurement and
construction activities are underway for the next five ships,
building on the learning demonstrated on Wisconsin. I would
like to thank the Committee for your steadfast support of
nuclear shipbuilding.
Together with my counterparts, I am committed to rebuilding
our shipbuilding industrial base building and sustaining the
Navy the Nation needs. I hold myself personally accountable
for, and remain committed to providing SSBNs on time and in
budget with the ability to operate anywhere and everywhere, to
deter aggression, responding to crises whenever and wherever
they happen and to keep our seas open and free.
Thank you for the opportunity to be to appear before you
today. I look forward to your questions.
Senator Kaine. [Presiding] There's a vote ongoing now, so
you'll see some folks coming in and out. But Admiral Rucker,
you're up next.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL JONATHAN E. RUCKER, USN, PROGRAM
EXECUTIVE OFFICER ATTACK SUBMARINES
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thank you, sir. Ranking Member Kaine
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, coming and
going, thank you for your opportunity to be here for you today.
Your continued support remains instrumental in helping the Navy
and industry build and maintain our submarine force and uplift
the industrial base to increase production and improve
operational availability.
As the program executive officer for attack submarines, I'm
both privileged and honored to be responsible for sustainment
of the Navy's attack submarines and for the design and
acquisition of the most capable attack submarines in the world.
The Virginia-class, our Navy's unmatched undersea capability is
a key component of the United States ability to deliver peace
through strength.
The United States force structure requirement is 66 attack
submarines. Virginia-class submarines are also a vital
component of The AUKUS partnership, which is a generational
opportunity to deepen diplomatic, security, and defense
cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, including the sale of
Virginia-class submarines to Australia.
To meet U.S. fleet requirements, the Navy must first
achieve a production cadence of one Columbia-class plus two
Virginia-class submarines per year. This is what we call 1+2.
To then meet AUKUS commitments, we'll, this will subsequently
ramp to 1+2.33. To accomplish this, the U.S. submarine
industrial base is undergoing its largest recapitalization
effort in nearly 50 years.
Over the last decade, we have more than doubled our annual
submarine tonnage production, and we must double again this
decade. As of March, 2025, the Navy has taken delivery of 24
Virginia-class attack submarines with 14 additional submarines
under construction. In 2024, the Navy and industry team
delivered two Virginia-class submarines to the fleet, New
Jersey and Iowa. We are tracking to deliver two more submarines
in 2025, Massachusetts and Idaho.
However, our 2024 annual production rate of Virginia-class
submarines per year was 1.13 compared to our need of 2.0. The
main causes for this are workforce challenges, material and
supplier delays, and shipbuilder facilities and infrastructure
issues, all of which are driving cost increases and scheduled
delays. Together, the Navy and industry are aggressively
addressing these challenges. In fiscal year 2018, Congress
began appropriating funding to help lift the submarine
industrial base to increase capability and capacity.
This funding started to grow significantly in fiscal year
2023. We are executing a holistic strategy across the
shipbuilders and industrial base. Increasing production takes
time. Our dividends are not fully matured, but we are seeing
initial benefits of the investments and we expect much more to
come.
Submarine shipbuilding and sustainment is my life, and I am
fully committed to improving things. Continued strong
collaboration between Navy, industry, and Congress is crucial
to executing these important efforts. I want to thank the
Subcommittee for your steadfast bipartisan support of the U.S.
Navy and our industrial base, and I look forward to your
questions. Thank you.
Senator Kaine. Thanks, Admiral Rucker. Admiral Moton,
you're up.
STATEMENT OF REAR ADMIRAL CASEY J. MOTON, USN, PROGRAM
EXECUTIVE OFFICER AIRCRAFT CARRIERS
Admiral Moton. Ranking Member Kaine and all distinguished
Members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon and thank you for
the opportunity to discuss our Navy's vital shipbuilding
mission.
I am honored to lead the team of sailors and Navy civilians
of the program executive office aircraft carriers. My team is
proud to both deliver and sustain these mighty instruments of
national power. We consider our mission a solemn obligation to
our Navy and our Nation. The results of our work are visible
daily from USS Harry S. Truman, operating in the Middle East,
with Carl Vincent on route to join her, to the George
Washington maintaining steady presence in the Pacific.
We see it in our oldest aircraft carrier, USS Nimitz
beginning her final deployment after 50 years of service, and
our newest carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, continuing to bring
next generation capability to the fight as she prepares for her
upcoming second deployment.
Our future Ford-class aircraft carriers are under
construction at Newport News Shipbuilding, where we continue
working closely with the shipbuilder to address challenges and
improve performance. CVN 79, the future USS John F. Kennedy is
95 percent complete, but delivery is pressurized by remaining
critical path work. Supply chain issues have impacted CVN 80,
the future USS Enterprise with sequence critical material
delaying the ship. We are rigorously incorporating all lessons
learned into production.
CVN 81, the future USS Doris Miller is early in
construction but has benefited from earlier material buys and
an innovative dry dock modification that will allow
simultaneous carrier construction. The Navy and industry are
responsible and accountable to improve this performance. With
my partners here at this table, we are attacking shipbuilding
challenges with investment and improvements in our industrial
workforce, supply chain resiliency, and shipbuilding
infrastructure.
Specific to carriers, we have transitioned new construction
to digital products, implemented projects to expand and
distribute production capacity, made focused improvements in
critical system production techniques, and worker training and
efficiency, and accelerated the adoption of advanced
manufacturing.
Our guidepost remains our statutory force structure
requirement of 11 aircraft carriers, the most survivable,
lethal, and adaptable airfields in the world. As an enterprise,
we will deliver John F. Kennedy to the fleet on the fastest
possible path to combat readiness. We will continue to
stabilize and improve class shipbuilding production. In
service, we will continue to improve overhaul and maintenance,
and we stand ready to extend the service lives of these 50-year
platforms as appropriate, as we have already done on Nimitz and
Eisenhower.
We will do all of this working collaboratively with
industry, knowing that we are accountable to every citizen for
providing the protection they deserve. I want to thank Congress
and specifically this Subcommittee for your steadfast support
of our Navy, our sailors, our shipbuilding mission, and our
industry that enables it. I look forward to your questions.
[The joint prepared statement of Rear Admiral Casey J.
Moton, Rear Admiral Jonathan E. Rucker. Rear Admiral Todd S.
Weeks, and Mr. Matthew D. Sermon follows:]
Joint Prepared Statement by Rear Admiral Casey J. Moton, Rear Admiral
Jonathan E. Rucker. Rear Admiral Todd S. Weeks, and Mr. Matthew D.
Sermon
introduction
Chairman Scott, Ranking Member Kaine, and distinguished members of
the Subcommittee: thank you for the opportunity to appear before you
today to provide an update on the Navy's nuclear shipbuilding
programs--programs that are foundational to America's military
strength, global leadership, and national security.
This year marks the 250th anniversary of the United States Navy--a
moment to reflect on two and a half centuries of unwavering commitment
to defending American interests at sea. Since Congress authorized the
Navy's first six frigates in 1794, the United States has built and
sustained the most powerful and capable naval force the world has ever
known. That success was not inevitable--it was earned through
foresight, sustained investment, and an enduring partnership between
industry, Congress and the Navy.
Today, that legacy is under pressure. Our adversaries are investing
heavily to challenge our maritime dominance and assert themselves as
the world's preeminent naval power. They are building fleets, expanding
shipyards, modernizing capabilities, and positioning forces to
undermine the international order and threaten regional stability. We
cannot afford to cede the advantage we have built. Maintaining our
position as the world's foremost maritime power requires bold action,
clear resolve, and continued National support.
A superior naval force has long been a pillar of American
deterrence and global influence. At the core of that force is our
nuclear powered fleet--a critical asset that ensures global presence,
credible deterrence, and sustained combat power. Ballistic missile
submarines provide the most survivable leg of the Nation's nuclear
triad. Attack submarines deliver unmatched lethality and stealth in
undersea environments. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and their
strike groups enable rapid, sustained operations across the globe--
reassuring allies, deterring adversaries, and responding decisively in
times of crisis.
But this fleet's effectiveness depends on the strength of the
industrial base behind it. America's shipyards, suppliers, engineers,
and tradespeople are the engine of maritime readiness--and they must be
modern, resilient, and resourced to meet both today's operational
demands and tomorrow's challenges. Together with our industry partners,
we must focus on growing capacity, driving innovation, accelerating
deliveries, and modernizing production and sustainment to ensure we
stay ahead of those who seek to surpass us. We are executing a
generational shipbuilding increase as we ramp to the one Columbia-class
and two Virginia-class serial production per year, often referred to as
``1+2''. Subsequent to this, we will further ramp to 1+2.33 to support
delivery of a conventionally armed, nuclear powered attack submarine
capability to Australia under Pillar 1 Optimal Pathway of the tri-
lateral AUKUS Security Pact.
As the current security environment becomes more complex, the U.S.
Navy is aggressively implementing new, agile ways of operating,
integrating, and maintaining our forces. We are harnessing innovation,
strengthening partnerships, and investing in the people and
infrastructure that make our maritime dominance possible. The future of
American sea power depends on the decisions we make now.
state of maritime industrial base
The U.S. maritime industrial base is a critical enabler of the
Navy's ability to deliver and maintain combat capability necessary to
execute its missions around the world. The industrial base consists of
public and private shipyards, private industry partners, highly skilled
workforces, original equipment manufacturers, complex supply chains,
and organic resources. While U.S. shipbuilders continue to produce the
highest quality, safest, and most advanced warships in the world, our
maritime industrial base faces significant challenges and, as a result,
cost and schedule performance remain poor. These challenges are common
across nuclear and conventional shipbuilding with both Navy and
industry sharing responsibility. Identified challenges in nuclear
shipbuilding include atrophy of our manufacturing industrial base,
workforce shortages related to macroeconomic and demographic trends,
diminished workforce and supervisor proficiency, supply chain
disruptions, slow adaptation of advanced manufacturing technology, and
limited overall investment across the industrial base.
Historic underinvestment and industry consolidation following the
end of the cold war have led to inadequate capacity at our nuclear
shipbuilders and in their supply chains, leading to workforce-
constrained build schedules that do not meet the needs of the Navy and
the Nation today. The remaining prime shipbuilders and subcontractors
face shortages of available skilled workers in both the trades
(welders, pipefitters, electricians, etc.) and design/engineering
workforce leading to schedule disruptions, delayed delivery of critical
components, and associated cost and schedule challenges. The Navy faces
its own challenges, as well, with burdensome acquisition processes and
overly cumbersome technical and logistics requirement and processes,
along with historically inconsistent demand signals--factors that
discourage innovation and participation from non-traditional industry
partners.
columbia-class submarine program overview
The Columbia-class Ballistic Missile Submarine (SSBN) is the Navy's
top acquisition priority and is a critical once-in-a-generation nuclear
recapitalization effort for the Navy and the Nation's nuclear triad.
The current Ohio-class SSBN force is reaching the end of its
operational life and must be replaced to meet U.S. Strategic Command
(USSTRATCOM) strategic deterrence requirements.
The first Columbia-class submarine, the future USS District of
Columbia, must be ready for patrol by fiscal year 2031 to meet
USSTRATCOM requirements. The Columbia-class is the largest, most
powerful, and most advanced submarine this Nation has ever designed or
built--approximately 2.5 times the size of a current Virginia-class
submarine, and 10 percent larger than the existing Ohio-class
submarines. It is designed for a longer service life, better
operational availability, and better survivability than the Ohio-
class--designed to be effective and relevant through at least the
2080's. Columbia, with the TRIDENT D5 Life Extension 2 (D5LE2) missile,
will ensure the effectiveness and availability of the Nation's sea
based strategic deterrent through the rest of this century.
The lead ship of the class started full construction in fiscal year
2021 and is more than 50 percent complete. This ship is the first SSBN
built in 30 years, and the first lead ship of an SSBN class built in
almost 50 years. Based on shipbuilder performance, supply chain
challenges, and the complexity of first-of-class construction and
testing of this new submarine, delivery is projected to be 12 to 18
months late to contract delivery date. The Navy is working with both
General Dynamics Electric Boat (GDEB) and Huntington Ingalls Newport
News Shipbuilding (HII-NNS) to implement an aggressive, alternative
build strategy to recover up to 12 months of schedule, improve overall
performance, and deliver the lead ship as rapidly as possible.
The second ship of the class, the future USS Wisconsin, commenced
full construction in October 2023. Relative to the lead ship,
performance is improving through learning, updated build plans, and
increased proficiency. This ship is on schedule to deliver within
contractual schedules.
Through the Polaris Sales Agreement, the Navy is supporting the
United Kingdom's four-ship Dreadnought-class SSBN, a generational
recapitalization of the UK's Continuous At-Sea Deterrent. With the
Common Missile Compartment, the shipbuilders provide missile tubes and
associated components for both Columbia and Dreadnought.
Continued adequate and on-time funding for advance procurement,
advance construction, and continuous production for the class, as
reflected in our budget requests, is critical to improved supply chain
performance, reducing construction schedule risk, enabling cost
savings, and meeting USSTRATCOM requirements throughout the Ohio to
Columbia transition. The Navy appreciates Congress's continued support
of the Columbia-class as a national priority.
virginia-class submarine program overview
Virginia-class fast attack submarines (SSN) provide critical multi-
mission undersea warfighting capabilities. As of February 2025, the
Navy has taken delivery of 24 Virginia-class submarines with 14
additional under contract. USS New Jersey (SSN 796) delivered in April
2024 and USS Iowa (SSN 797) delivered in December 2024. The Navy and
industry team is tracking to deliver two more submarines in 2025, the
future USS Massachusetts (SSN 798) and the future USS Idaho (SSN 799).
The second ship of the Block V contract (future USS Arizona (SSN 803))
will introduce the Virginia Payload Module, which incorporates four
additional large diameter payload tubes to help mitigate the loss of
undersea strike capability with the retirement of Ohio-class guided
missile submarines (SSGN). All Block V ships will incorporate acoustic
superiority improvements.
Beginning in 2011, the Virginia-class program began a ramp to
achieve a production rate of two SSNs per year in support of Navy force
structure requirements. Construction performance achieved a build rate
close to 1.9 per year for approximately 3 years, but post-COVID [Corona
Virus Disease] performance has dropped to a production rate of 1.13 at
the end of CY 2024. Key drivers of the drop in production include
workforce challenges, first time quality, material and supplier delays,
and lead ship issues associated with the Virginia Payload Module
variant. The Navy is working closely with the shipbuilders to drive
improvement throughout the Virginia enterprise.
The Navy appreciates the support of Congress in providing an
additional $5.7 billion of fiscal year 2025 supplemental funding to
fully fund cost increases in the two fiscal year 2024 boats and the
single fiscal year 2025 boat, as well as providing wage increases and
funding shipyard productivity enhancements across the nuclear
shipbuilding portfolio. These investments are critical to address
issues associated with workforce development and retention along with
recapitalization of shipyard industrial facilities and equipment.
state of submarine construction & path forward
In February 2023, the submarine Program Executive Officers (PEOs)
and shipbuilders (GDEB and HII-NNS) established a production execution
plan to ramp to serial production of 1+2 by the end of CY2028 ''),
which would then serve as the foundation to ramp to 1+2.33 in the early
2030's to support AUKUS.
With the Navy's additional investments to strengthen the submarine
industrial base as well as ongoing Navy and industry actions, we've
seen performance improvements in the following areas: hiring at
shipbuilders increased by 41 percent in 2023 and exceeded hiring
targets in 2024; capacity of vendors in key market spaces has
increased, shoring up single source suppliers and developing new
suppliers to ensure material is available; and strategic outsourcing
and manufacturing technology are on track to support increased
production and material availability.
Despite these improvements, we have not observed the needed and
expected ramp-up in Columbia-class and Virginia-class submarine
production rates necessary to keep pace with the 1+2 strategy. The
Navy, submarine shipbuilders, and supply chain enterprise
underestimated the effort required to transition from the peace-
dividend era, low-rate submarine production and sustainment to the
increased 1+2 production needed for an era of near-peer competition.
While both submarine programs have experienced delays, there are unique
challenges in each program that we are aggressively working to correct.
To help address this, both Columbia-class and Virginia-class
Submarine Programs, in coordination with Supervisor of Shipbuilding,
GDEB, and HII-NNS, have instituted intrusive program office deck plate
presence to help inform and drive improvement. In addition, the Navy
and the shipbuilders conducted in-depth reviews into the underlying
drivers of performance issues to execute lines of effort to drive
increased production and inform new production rate projections.
Looking ahead, increased improvement efforts will continue, and--
coupled with ongoing investments--are expected to produce improvements
in calendar year 2025 with additional gains projected across the FYDP.
ford-class aircraft carrier program
Ford-class aircraft carriers (CVN) are the next generation of
aircraft carriers designed to improve survivability, increase
lethality, and significantly drive down total ownership cost over their
expected 50-year service life. The replacement of legacy systems and
multiple improved design features are meant to reduce maintenance and
manning needs and allow service for decades with reduced periods of
downtime. Despite enduring their own higher first-in-class and
subsequent platform cost and schedule challenges, Ford-class carriers
are beginning to make an impact on the Fleet.
The USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) completed a highly successful
deployment in January 2024 in support of Combatant Commander
objectives, including the initial response to the Hamas attack on
Israel, with critical new systems performing well. CVN 78 spent 239
days underway, sailed over 83,476 nautical miles, and worked with 17
nations throughout its deployment during critical strategic exercises.
Her crew and embarked air wing logged over 17,826 flight hours and
10,396 sorties, conducted 33,444 flight deck moves, 3,124 hangar bay
aircraft moves, 2,883 aircraft elevator moves, 16,351 aircraft fueling
evolutions, and transferred 8,850 pallets of cargo and mail. CVN 78 is
currently completing workups for her next deployment, upcoming shortly.
John F Kennedy (CVN 79) is nearly 95 percent construction complete
and has a contract delivery date of July 2025, however, we assess
significant pressure to that date. The pressure meet the contractual
delivery date is driven by critical path challenges, primarily in the
Advanced Weapons Elevators and Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment.
Initial class design challenges are resolved, as evidenced by Ford's
successful operations, however, early class production-focused
challenges and associated learning continue on CVN 79. All lessons
learned and improvements by both the Navy and industry teams are being
implemented in-construction on CVN 80 and 81. The Navy and shipbuilder
HII-NNS are hyper-focused on a CVN 79 delivery plan that results in the
fastest path to a combat ready CVN, crew, and air wing.
Enterprise (CVN 80) construction is 44 percent complete, and Doris
Miller (CVN 81) 20 percent complete, with Doris Miller's material
procurements pacing significantly ahead of previous Ford-class carriers
thanks to the two-ship buy. CVN 80 continues to experience schedule
challenges driven by late sequence critical material that will
significantly delay delivery past the contractual date. The Navy
continues to work with our shipbuilding partners and critical path
vendors to identify levers for schedule risk reductions. CVN 81 risk is
also reduced by earlier material procurement and the completion of the
shipbuilder's new construction dry dock for simultaneous CVN
construction.
Despite the construction challenges on CVN 80, the Navy remains
committed to reducing and controlling the cost of Ford-class aircraft
carriers and continues to benefit from the $4 billion acquisition
savings achieved through the two-ship block buy contract award for CVN
80 and CVN 81. Cost growth to date has not eroded the two-ship savings
assessment. Additionally, the aircraft carrier industrial base has
significant overlap with the submarine industrial base, both at the
shipyard and at major suppliers. The Navy's investments in the
submarine and maritime industrial bases have in many cases benefited
aircraft carrier programs by improving performance, efficiency, and
capacity at critical suppliers, which will help to realize the designed
Ford-class life cycle cost savings of $5 billion per ship when compared
to Nimitz-class carriers.
maritime industrial base program
With the help of Congress, the U.S. Navy is addressing these
challenges through a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation effort to
develop and nurture the shipbuilding industry with significant
investment in the industrial base that is required to meet a
generational increase in demand for shipbuilding. Since 2018, over $10
billion has been appropriated for SIB efforts. The Navy's strategy to
improve the health of our MIB is focused on six key lines of effort:
growing capability and capacity in the supply chain, modernizing
shipbuilder infrastructure, expanding capacity of key suppliers to take
on work traditionally executed by shipbuilders, developing the critical
maritime manufacturing workforce, operationalizing advanced
manufacturing technology, and improving government oversight.
In September 2024, the Navy established the MIB Program Office to
lead enterprise efforts to help restore America's shipbuilding capacity
and to ensure the Navy can build and sustain the fleet required to
support the National Defense Strategy. This strategic reorganization
integrates the submarine industrial base (SIB) and surface combatant
industrial base programs into a cohesive entity focused on the overall
health of the maritime enterprise. The transition to the MIB Program
represents a comprehensive approach to revitalizing America's
shipbuilding and ship sustainment ecosystems, enabling the Navy to
holistically address challenges and opportunities, respond to a
comprehensive Navy demand signal, while also opening the aperture on
efforts and investments to meet future defense demands more
efficiently.
The Navy has implemented a data-driven and data-informed process to
ensure our investments and initiatives are targeting the primary
needle-movers and enablers of shipbuilding and ship sustainment
schedules. As part of this process, we assess and track impacts of Navy
investment at multiple levels. At the individual project level, the
Navy implements discrete, measurable return on investment metrics for
each project with a mandated feedback loop to measure progress. At the
aggregate level, we assess multiple individual projects with shared
objectives; and at the portfolio level, we assess projects and
aggregate-level impacts relative to production schedule drivers. The
Navy's data-based assessment and decisionmaking process for industrial
base investment enables a standard approach to assessing impact and
identifying challenges and opportunities, improving coordination, and
integrating perspectives among a range of stakeholders. Collectively,
these efforts support flexible decisionmaking to meet a dynamic supply
chain environment.
The Navy is seeing early indications that investments appropriated
to date are helping to stabilize targeted sectors of the industrial
base that provide critical materials for new construction programs and
in-service ships. Since fiscal year 2018, we have launched more than
725 supplier development projects with more than 300 suppliers across
33 states to add capability, capacity, and resiliency to the supply
chain, including developing alternate suppliers for critical
components. The Navy has invested more than $1 billion over the past
few years to improve the on-time delivery of components that are build
sequence-critical for nuclear shipbuilding programs--material that must
be delivered on time to maintain production schedules. The Navy is also
executing strategic outsourcing efforts to smartly shift some workload
to other shipbuilders and key suppliers to enable long-term sustainable
growth in capacity to deliver the submarines that we must have. This
includes the innovative partnership with private capital and industry
to create the United Submarine Alliance Fund and the subsequent
purchase of prime shipbuilding industry land in Mobile, Alabama.
The Navy's six regional Talent Pipeline Programs have placed more
than 6,700 trades workers in the maritime sector and, through our
partnership with the Southeastern New England Defense Industry
Alliance, more than 6,750 workers have been trained and placed in the
shipbuilding industrial base. The Accelerated Training in Defense
Manufacturing rapid trades training program in Danville, Virginia has
trained more than 875 students in key maritime trades, and in January
2025, opened the National Training Center which will scale the program
to 1,000 graduates per year by the end of 2025.
The Navy is working with shipbuilders, suppliers, and a consortium
of non-traditional companies and academic partners to move shipbuilding
into the era of advanced manufacturing and automation, leveraging
commercially proven technologies like additive manufacturing (AM) and
robotics at scale across the industrial base while working to integrate
next generation capabilities like artificial intelligence to improve
efficiency and productivity. The Navy's Additive Manufacturing Center
of Excellence (AM CoE) in Danville made significant progress in
maturing and operationalizing additive manufacturing, printing more
than 350 parts and leading efforts to scale AM by producing production-
ready technical data packages, responding to emergent material needs,
centralizing non-recurring engineering, and qualifying AM suppliers to
enable parts production at scale. The AM CoE is already helping get our
ships back to sea, where the AM CoE has printed numerous parts for
ships and submarines in response to emergent needs, saving over 900
days of delay to date relative to traditional procurement paths. The
CoE is on path to print an additional 50 parts in 2025. The combined
efforts of the Navy's MIB Program are focused on improving elements
that impact nuclear shipbuilding schedules.
conclusion
As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Navy this year,
we reflect on a legacy built on strength, sacrifice, and an enduring
commitment to protect our Nation's interests at sea. That legacy
endures today through the unmatched strategic power of our nuclear
fleet.
Ballistic missile submarines form the bedrock of our Nation's
strategic deterrent, providing an enduring and survivable capability
that ensures any adversary must think twice before threatening the
United States or its allies. Fast attack submarines deliver asymmetric
advantage--capable of operating undetected across the world's oceans to
gather intelligence, hunt enemy submarines, and deliver precision
strike. Nuclear-powered aircraft carriers serve as unmatched
instruments of national power, enabling sustained air operations,
supporting joint force integration, and reassuring allies through
persistent presence in areas of strategic importance.
Together, these platforms form the backbone of the Navy's ability
to deter aggression, defend the homeland, and uphold the international
rules-based order. But their strength depends on the health and
resilience of the industrial base that builds and sustains them.
Maintaining and enhancing this base is not just a strategic necessity,
it is a generational obligation.
The Department of the Navy remains committed to working alongside
Congress, industry, and our partners to accelerate production,
strengthen our supply chains, and develop the skilled workforce we need
to, deliver these vital assets on time and on budget. We owe it to our
warfighters, our allies, and the American people.
As we look to the future, our responsibility is clear: to ensure
the U.S. Navy remains the world's premier maritime force--ready,
resilient, and capable--for the next 250 years and beyond.
Thank you for your continued support.
Senator Kaine. Great. We will jump in. I'll begin with a 5-
minute round of questions. I know then the Chairman should
return promptly and I'll go vote. Let me ask a question general
before I get into the particular platforms, which is the
adjudication of resources and workforce to these three very
important platforms: Columbia-class, very important, Virginia-
class, very important carrier, very important.
You cite some of the reasons for delays or not being able
to do the work we need to do in a timely fashion. The reasons
you cite are similar supply chain issues, workforce issues. As
you work together with the two primary shipyards, from a Navy
standpoint, how are you sort of prioritizing and adjudicating
the, you know, progress on Virginia-class vis-a-vis Columbia
vis-a-vis carrier? If you could talk about that please?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I'll just briefly open up by, obviously
all of the platforms are important. It has to be in all of the
above strategy. Columbia is clearly our highest program
priority, but the carriers bring in a central mission, and
Virginia is critically important to the fight. We work
together, we have to do what makes our programs most efficient,
but we work together every day ensuring that our plans for both
shipyards support construction to meet our objectives for both.
We work with Navy leadership to ensure that we do that.
Trade-offs have to be made at some point and there is a balance
process. Our going in position is that we have to accomplish it
all and that's what our plan is designed to do.
Senator Kaine. I completely agree, but your point about the
Columbia being the primary acquisition priority, that is
because it's the one place where we cannot have a gap. We
cannot have a gap in the triad. You have been able, I think
Admiral Weeks, you've been able to manage the gap a little bit
through the extension of the useful life of the Ohio-class. So
that's helpful. Columbia has to kind of take lead as we're
trying to adjudicate because this is an area where no gap is
really allowable. Is that correct?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. So I 100 percent agree with
Admiral. We work very hard to make sure that the programs don't
come into competition with each other, because the only thing
that loses when we do that is the American people. Absolutely,
Columbia is the Navy's number one acquisition priority. As you
state, we are doing select service life extensions for our
Ohio-class submarines to make sure that we have sufficient
margin to make sure that we continuously meet the United States
Strategic Command (STRATCOM) requirement for 10 operational
SSBNs. Yes, sir.
Senator Kaine. Great. Thank you. Admiral Rucker, please
give us an update on the status of the contract for the two
fiscal year 2024 Virginia-class option votes and the 5.7
million in emergency funding Congress provided in the
Continuing Resolution (CR) for fiscal year 2025.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thank you for the question, sir. I
would also echo the importance of all the programs. Where we
stand right now is we on the fiscal year 2024 ships, which is
two boats as well as the 5.7 billion. We have finished up
primary negotiations. We're finishing up documentation as well
as getting final approvals, answering questions for the various
stakeholders to be able to support awarding the contract in the
near term.
Senator Kaine. When you say near term, give me a sum
estimate of what near term means.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. Right now, as we finish up
answering questions making sure that the documentation is
correct depending as we finish those, we're kind of in the
final throws. So I don't want to give you a time because it's a
little bit contract sensitive, but I would commit to you that
it's not too far in the distant.
Senator Kaine. Great. Well, you know, this Committee and
the full Committee is going to be deeply involved between now
and the end of June on the National Defense Authorization Act
(NDAA). So I hope that we can have a solid answer on that one
as we get into the finalization of the committee's work
product.
Last year we had some significant discussion about the
Surface Advanced Warfighting School (SAWS) proposal that was
made by industry with respect to this particular platform. Now
that's not in your control. That is probably Secretary of
Defense (Sec Def) and White House and Office of Management and
Budget. But ever since the proposal came to light last year,
I've had two basic questions. If we don't do SAWS, what do we
do instead?
What can we do to make sure that we don't end up in a
position where we need a proposal like SAWS in the future?
Could you share your thoughts on those two questions?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, thanks for that question, sir.
What I would say is the most important thing, whichever path we
choose, whether it to your term SAWS or a different path, the
main thing we're focused on is outcomes. What we were able to
do through the analysis that we did over the last year or two,
is clearly identify across both shipbuilders and the Navy what
investments would be required, what's required with wages.
So in the end, we're looking and really do appreciate all
the congressional support for the money we need for the 24
ships and the anomaly funding because that has investments and
wages in there to get after what we need. So right now, we're
focused on working with senior leadership to achieve those
outcomes, which is increase submarine production to deliver the
submarines the Nation needs.
Senator Kaine. I'm assuming the second half of my question,
what do we do to avoid getting in a position like this in the
future? The outcome strategy has to be one that's sustainable
and not just episodic?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. I would agree. The goal is
the ramp to that 1+2 in the most efficient and a quick process
that we can.
Senator Kaine. Great. Thank you. Mr. Chair, I yield to you.
Senator Scott [Presiding] Senator Hirono.
Senator Hirono. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Chairman several reports highlight significant workforce
shortages across the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base,
particularly in skilled labor necessary for new ship
construction. Without addressing this issue, we risk continued
delays and increased costs in delivering much needed vessels.
So, my questions, what specific actions is the Navy taking
to recruit, train, and retain a skilled workforce to support
shipbuilding efforts? By the way, and what is causing the labor
shortage issues that I just referred to?
Mr. Sermon. Thank you, ma'am. I'll actually hit the second
question first because I think it frames out the overall
answer. Over the last if I go back 40 years to 1985 when we
were producing submarines specifically and aircraft carriers at
the rate that we need to now, we were about 30 percent
manufacturing as a Nation, our percentage of our workforce.
Today we're about 12.
So, in a more service-based economy, it makes competition
for people, for resources really challenging. What we are doing
is really a three-pronged approach, right? It is actually, you
know attracting workforce. We've established
buildsubmarines.com campaign that has resulted in 2.7 million
job applications with thousands and thousands of jobs on a
website that we work with a nonprofit partner and gotten
attention kind of across the industrial base. That's an
attraction example.
In training, we've worked both with the shipbuilders now
working with the public shipyards as well starting relatively
recently with the formation of the Maritime Industrial Base
(MIB) program and working with the supply chains across six of
our most intense regions to support partnerships between
community colleges and those supply chain partners to do that.
Finally you know, retention. We have additional work to do
here, but our critical team that's building and maintaining our
nuclear ships should be paid more than the service industry
wage. Over time, that wage gap that we had for many years has
gone away. So, you know, we're interested in addressing that,
but also very critically we have to train supervisors.
Another thing that causes retention issues is inexperienced
or poorly trained supervisors, and we have the least
experienced supervisors that we've had at any point in our
history that we can mine data for, and so we have to address
that issue as well.
Senator Hirono. Clearly, without an adequate workforce, and
you have retirements, you have people, all of that, that you
have to be very focused. Are you focused on the areas that I
talked about? It doesn't, you know, it doesn't happen. The
workforce doesn't happen because it's a good thing. You have to
be very intentional about getting the people you need and to
retain them. So, I conclude that that's what you're doing.
Mr. Sermon. Yes. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Hirono. So, one of the other issues is that there
are always massive cost overruns. The estimates that we get for
how much a ship will cost usually is way off. Is there a way
that you can better tell us what the costs are so that we're
not facing massive overruns due to basically an inability to
estimate what the cost will be over time? Have you thought
about using an independent entity to estimate the cost that
might be involved?
Admiral Moton. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Hirono. Who wants to respond to that?
Admiral Moton. I will do that, ma'am.
Senator Hirono. Go ahead.
Admiral Moton. In general, in shipbuilding, you know, good
cost estimates are key to informing the process. They're key to
understanding the business case. I know that's recognized as
the best case in shipbuilding. I know that Government
Accountability Office (GAO) has recognized that and the
business case itself as best practices for shipbuilding. So, I
completely agree. Our process is set up so that when we are
getting ready to procure a new class or new ships, we actually
have independent cost estimates.
There's a team that we work closely with, but does their
own cost estimates depending on the buy, we often have other
sources of cost. We talk to Congressional Budget Office (CBO)
and others. So we do take several inputs all designed to
increase the fidelity of those estimates and improve our
budgets.
We then obviously have to perform. The other half of your
question is cost efficiency. Clearly that's part of the
National efforts that Mr. Sermon talks about and that we're
working at each of our shipbuilders to improve their cost
performance.
Senator Hirono. I can't tell if my time is up, I think it
is. So I will submit other questions for the record, Mr.
Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Scott. When you contract with the private sector,
do you mandate that they contract or do they voluntarily bid
and not do what they said they're going to do? Voluntarily, you
don't have a mandate that they have to sign a contract with
you, right?
Admiral Moton. Sir, it depends in which area of
shipbuilding. I know certainly in aircraft carriers and nuclear
shipbuilding, our shipbuilders, you know, we have our two
primary builders. For aircraft carriers, Newport News
Shipbuilding is our only supplier. It doesn't mean that we
don't hold them accountable. It doesn't mean that we don't
aggressively look at their bids. But we do have to partner with
them and collaborate as we do that. I do believe that we can do
both.
Senator Scott. Senator, are you ready to go or are you,
okay, Senator Shaheen.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all
for being here today. I'm sorry I missed your testimony. So, if
you've addressed the questions that I'm going to ask, please
forgive me.
I know we're here to have a conversation about building the
Navy's nuclear fleet, but we also need to maintain those ships
once they're built. That maintenance and sustainment mission is
one that I'm very focused on because the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard is half in New Hampshire and half in Maine. So, we
claim it. So, Mr. Sermon, how is the Navy prioritizing those
Single Integrated Operations Plan (SIOP) investments to ensure
that we have the public shipyards that are going to be
necessary to maintain the fleet?
Mr. Sermon. Thank you for the question, ma'am. My
organization actually works closely with the SIOP office on the
intersection between those fundamental infrastructure
investments and things like dry docks and buildings at our
public shipyards and how my organization is pressing to use
additional advanced manufacturing. So how do we put together
the new facilities the additional people needed with advanced
manufacturing?
So, working very closely with them on that, and, you know,
understand, there's you know, particularly at Portsmouth, as I
happen to know, a very mature SIOP program ongoing and tracking
with them as the new dry docks come in, as the new buildings
come in, how do we best leverage technology and the workforce
efforts that we're doing across New England frankly from
Electric Boat to Bath Iron Works (BIW) and with Portsmouth. How
do we put all those things in battery together and the
organizations really focused around putting all the things the
workforce to manufacturing technology and the infrastructure
with these partners together for better results.
Senator Shaheen. Well, thank you, and as I'm sure you know
since you sound like you've been up to Portsmouth, the work
that's going on there is going to make them much more efficient
in terms of the job that they're doing, which will integrate
better with the shipbuilding that's happening at BIW and
Electric Boat.
Mr. Sermon. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Shaheen. I want to followup on Senator Hirono's
question about workforce. I appreciated the comments that folks
made about the effort to hire, recruit, and retain skilled
workers. It's been an ongoing challenge at the shipyard. I know
as people have retired because one of the challenges is just
our unemployment rate is so low, there are a lot of options for
people. The uncertainty right now around what's happening in
the Department of Defense has created a lot of anxiety and
concern that it's going to make the situation worse.
So, I know that the Department of Defense (DOD) has
indicated that our public shipyards should be exempt from
policies like the Deferred Resignation program, the mass
firings, but my understanding is also that the actual policy
guidance has been very slow to arrive. So, what can you say
that will reassure folks that that policy guidance is actually
going to come and they don't need to worry about their current
jobs and look for something else because we do value the job
that they're performing. I guess that's for you, Mr. Sermon.
Mr. Sermon. Thank you, ma'am. What I can say is that I am
confident in the demand signal for submarines. I'm confident in
the demand signal for repairing submarines and quite frankly,
because you talked about BIW and that work too, as my
organization reaches to support across shipbuilding and ship
repair very confident in our need for surface ships and that
continued work ongoing. Honestly, that's what I would say is
I'm confident in that demand signal for the Navy.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I agree with that, but I guess it
doesn't address the policy guidance question and the slowness
with which the Secretary's office, I guess, has come down to
reassure people that they're not going to be fired. I don't
know if somebody else would like to address that.
Admiral Moton. Ma'am, I would just offer at the general, I
think all of us would agree that we need a strong professional
workforce in shipbuilding and ship sustainment, including at
Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and all of our naval shipyards. You
mentioned the exemptions that have been announced for the
public shipyard workers. I think all of us also earnestly have
to agree though that we need to perform as efficiently as we
can.
Senator Shaheen. I would just point out that in Portsmouth,
they have been on time and on budget.
Admiral Moton. Yes, ma'am. I would just close by saying
that it's our job to do both. To have that professional
workforce and to be efficient.
Senator Shaheen. Well, I would hope that when possible, you
would urge that the policy guidance reflect that intent.
Admiral Moton. Yes, ma'am.
Senator Shaheen. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Scott. Senator Tuberville.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you, Chairman Scott, for this
hearing. I hadn't been in this business long, but I've noticed
shortcomings of shipbuilding since I've been on this Committee
and Armed Service Committee. We build components for
submarines, the Columbia-class and the Virginia-class at Austal
in Mobile, probably most of you know that. It's pretty new to
us, but I've noticed a recruiting as Senator was alluding to
workforce.
I know Austal has gone out and going through fast food
joints and everything else, trying to find welders and people
that can actually work and understand it. So it's an ongoing
process. Admiral Weeks, how does this module production support
your goal of increasing summary and construction rates?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Sir, thank you. Thank you for that
question. So, as we look at the constrained capacity in our
primary building yards, it's really important that we recognize
that broadening that shipbuilding industrial base, the
shipbuilding base beyond those two yards is really the
opportunity we need to be able to, again, bring more folks to
bear, bring, you know different geographical regions to bear,
and alleviate the strain on our primary yards, right?
That will then allow them to do most efficiently what only
they can do, which is things like outfitting, final assembly,
and testing. So both----
Senator Tuberville. Are we seeing an increase in production
by doing this?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. Sir, it has been, you know,
anytime you put something new in a new facility that's not done
that kind of work before, you expect that it's going to take a
little bit of time to come up to speed. That's exactly what's
happening. We are now, you know, especially with Austal, we've
been on the path long enough now that we're starting to see the
improvement that we expected.
Both Admiral Rucker and I have been down to Austal multiple
times partnering with both Electric Boat and the company there
to make sure that they're on track to get where they need to be
and, you know, they're doing well. Yes, sir.
Senator Tuberville. Yes. You think it'll help us catch up
with the Chinese and their expansion of their submarines?
They're really, they're flying past us. You think it's going to
be possible for this type of procedure to really help catch the
Chinese?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. I think it's absolutely
critical that we expand our industrial base. That is the only
way we're going to be able to compete. Yes, sir.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Admiral Rucker, what can the
Navy and Congress do to accelerate outsourcing of module
production?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thank you for the question, sir. I
agree with everything Admiral Weeks said and the importance of
outsourcing. Where we stand today, we have a goal by 2026 to
get up to about 7 million man-hours annually. That's equivalent
of a surface ship destroyer from our submarine yards out to the
industrial base. As of end of 2024, we were at about 3 million
hours, so we're about halfway there.
As Admiral Weeks said, we've been down to Austal. They've
already delivered the first two large submodules for Virginia-
class. They've got three more they're working right now. The
next one's going to be delivering this summer, and then they
keep on going. We need that strategic outsourcing to increase
the overall capability and capacity for large structural
fabrication, machining, electrical. So we're going to continue
to work with the shipbuilders to ensure that we can execute
that efficiently and effectively.
Senator Tuberville. Admiral Moton, any thoughts on
strategic outsourcing as a method to increase our shipyard
output?
Admiral Moton. Yes, Senator. I completely agree with my
colleagues on the importance. I think it's a critical part of
our strategy, as you say, to improve our pace of shipbuilding.
I would note in the example of Austal, the aircraft elevators
for CVN 80 and 81 are both being built there as well. So we've
done that.
Closer to Hampton Roads, outsourcing has been an important
part of Newport News Shipbuilding strategy to improve on
aircraft carrier production. They've gone to several suppliers
to help with construction of modules, including a site just
across the river in the Hampton Roads area that's focused on
adding real estate and the ability to do panels more quickly to
support our carrier shipbuilding. So I agree, it's critical.
Senator Tuberville. Now, visiting Austal, I noticed that
especially in submarines, Nickel is a huge part of very
important parts of the submarine and our supply chain there.
Any three of you can you give update on, do we have a, a better
supply of nickel now? Is it getting worse? Because we don't
have a lot of nickel in our country. Anybody want to answer it?
Mr. Sermon?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. Nickel is
as you point out, sir, is among the fundamental metals and
alloys that we're continuing to work with OSD, Office of
Secretary of Defense, to take a very careful look at and
address. As you pointed out, we do continue to have both price
fluctuations, which are of course related to supply but
committed to addressing those, sir.
Senator Tuberville. Thank you. Just one other question if I
could. Mr. Sermon, the Navy and Capstone Investments put $150
million each to buy land from Alabama shipyard just recently
which is just next to Austal. Can you describe how this
partnership came about and what's your plans for growing the
industrial base using, you know, this land? Do you know
anything about this?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. I'm familiar, and thank you for the
question. So, when we talked about outsourcing and we
understand as Admiral Rucker and Admiral Weeks pointed out
we're about 3 million hours into that outsourcing that we have
to do annually, we have to get to seven. We need as an
enterprise, we need additional space, we need additional
workforce, we need additional production.
We've got a very promising work started at Austal. We've
got work started at BAE Systems in Jacksonville. We've got work
started at Rhodes in Philadelphia as well, that are really
going to bring us into battery. More land is needed, more you
know, waterfront land. That facility that is Alabama shipyard,
actually 60 acres of that 355 acres there will remain as in
battery maintaining our military sealift command.
Much of the rest of that, our intention in an opportunity
zone public private partnership is to work to bring that land
into battery, much like it was that exact same land was in
battery building liberty ships and tankers during World War II,
is to bring that in battery for supply chain activities, for
submarine modules, and most importantly from my perspective,
advanced manufacturing that will fundamentally teach us across
the entire industrial base, the entire nation, how to build
ships, unmanned vehicles, and other kinds of naval activities
better and more efficiently.
Senator Tuberville. Yes, I'd love to get into the cell
drone discussion, but thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Senator. So first off, thanks
each of you for your answers. Mr. Sermon, so you run the
maritime industrial based program. Since 2018, you've received
funding above normal funding. So how much is it and what's the
return that we can tell our taxpayers?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. Thank you for the question. Since
2018, we've received about $6.7 billion that's focused on the
1+2 mission. Then I believe around $3.16 billion that's focused
on submarine sustainment mission. Those have been focused in a
handful of areas, as we mentioned, supply chain uplift, what
we've seen there, and that's where we started. Fiscal year 2018
to 2022 is focused on supply chain uplift.
The statistics we have from the projects that took place
between, or were funded between 2018 and 2022 and together with
that and the rising demand signal, we've actually increased the
parts output from 16 percent of what is required in order to
execute 1+2 to just over 40 percent. We have to continue to
advance that, and you know, the plan for the money that's in
battery now, we haven't seen the results yet because it takes
between 24 and 48 months, depending on the type of project to
really bring those things into battery.
But 1,200 projects across workforce, across supply chain
and across advanced manufacturing are in battery working to get
our production rates better, sir.
Senator Scott. You know what I don't get is, I never
understand how with government, private companies can bid, not
do their contract, and then somehow government's responsible
for somehow putting up more money to get something done. It
seems like if they bid up for something, they know what
employees cost, it's their responsibility to go get these
employees, not government's responsibility.
So, it's never made sense to me. So, let's talk about
contracts. So, you all, every one of you have dealt with
companies that have not performed on their contract. Do they
have any negative, did anything bad happen to them? Do they,
like, do they have penalties? What's the repercussions of not
doing what they said, they're the ones that committed to it.
You're not the one committed to it. I guess all of you have
dealt with this, right?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Scott. So, if you could just say what's the
accountability part of this?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I will just say in, you know, when we
choose a contract type, it is different for each type of ship
that we're procuring in the circumstances. All of them come
with various tools. You obviously cost plus is a different
strategy. Fixed price puts more accountability on the
shipbuilder. We have fixed price for share lines, which
strongly incentivize them to have positive cost performance.
Every contract has often a typical set of incentives that go
along with that incentivize the shipbuilder to perform in
schedule or other key program aspects.
We hold the contractor accountable by first of all, the
profit that's associated with those, and sometimes with other
measures, but it differs for each contract depending on what
we're executing.
Senator Scott. Admiral Rucker?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. I
agree with my colleague, Admiral Moton. What I would also say
is, in addition to holding them accountable via their profit
and how much money they make or lose, we have had cases where
vendors have not performed. One of our strategic outsourcing
vendors, in which case we move the work from them to other
vendors. So we do take action when we do see something that is
affecting our production.
Senator Scott. Are they responsible for any increased cost
if you have to move it?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Depending. It goes back to what
Admiral Weeks said, sir. It depends on the contract structure.
So, my answer is it depends. In some cases, they are fixed
price contracts, which they're fully responsible. In other
cases, it might be a cost contract depending on if it's a
development one or not. It depends on the amount of risk and
how we share that risk.
Senator Scott. Admiral Weeks?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. I would add that, you know,
in extreme cases, we can also withhold payments. So we will
retain some of the payments if the companies are not performing
to the contract. So that is another tool that's in our
inventory if we need to use it.
Senator Scott. Mr. Sermon?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. As Admiral Rucker said, we've had 17
suppliers where we've stood up additional suppliers where we
were single source previously with the submarine industrial
base investments. To fully address your question, sir, I would
say that the direction that we are headed with these maritime
industrial base efforts with partnering across the submarine
aircraft carrier community is particularly in submarines, is to
get to leverage competitive forces to get the best results.
Both in terms of schedule and cost out of our industrial base.
As we buildup the maritime industrial base we are positioning
ourselves to better leverage those forces.
Senator Scott. Thank you. Senator Sheehy.
Senator Sheehy. Thanks for your time today, gentlemen. How
do we boost our forward submarine tender capability? My
understanding is we're pretty low on those right now.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thanks for the question, sir. Right
now, we have two. Right now, they're helping us if you're
probably familiar with the maintenance that was done over in
Australia. We actually positioned our tender there to help the
USS Hawii was over there doing maintenance. USS Minnesota as
well. Right now, those two tenders are what we are using. As
part of the budget process, the evaluations ongoing on what's
going to take to replace them,
Senator Sheehy. How many do you think we need to be fully
operationally capable for the whole fleet?
Rear Admiral Rucker. So, the answer depends. It depends on
where we end up with the fleet, sir. I'd have to take that for
the record. I'm not the expert on how many we need right now,
so I'd have to take that for the record.
Senator Sheehy. Do you have enough?
Rear Admiral Rucker. The two that we have today, they're
fully utilized, sir.
Senator Sheehy. Then you know, as we explore a near peer
environment, is the Virginia-class and another Columbia-class
as well, is that where we need to be operational wise, do you
think as far as capabilities for a near peer engagement? Or do
we think there's a next gen investment we need to make for our
undersea dominance?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question. As
the Program Executive Officer (PEO) for attack submarines, I
own not only the Virginia-class construction and sustainment,
but also the development of the Next Generation Attack
Submarine (SSNX). The Virginia is an extremely capable
platform. There's no peer like it in the world, so it is
executing missions today for national security.
However, as we look out in the future and where the rest of
the world is going, we are realizing what we need to add in
terms of payload, speed, stealth, and survivability. So that's
what we're looking for the next generation attack submarine.
But our intent is to continue for the 2025 shipbuilding plan,
continuing to build Virginia-class in parallel as well.
Senator Sheehy. Our replacement capability for that, you
know, which ties back to our maritime industrial base you know,
if we enter into a sustained conflict, our ability to replace
vessels, should they be attrited. Do you feel confident we have
the ability to have replacement both undersea and for our
surface vessels?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Great question, sir. For our
submarines, our four public shipyards or what have the primary
capacity to repair our submarines as well as our two private
shipbuilders, we've been undergoing material strategy to ensure
that we can uplift and provide, working with Matt Sermon's team
and the rest of the industrial base to provide the necessary
spare parts that we have on the shelf so that as we need to do
those repairs, they're more available.
We've obviously, as we went down to low-rate production had
less on the shelf. So now we're in the process of not only
improving summary construction, but our sustainment efforts as
well.
Admiral Moton. Sorry, I would just briefly add as well on
the sustainment side, you know, that the ability of our naval
shipyards and our private shipyards to do a quick repair is a
big focus. I know for Naval Sea Systems Command and other
organizations they basically--the ability to respond to battle
damage is something that we have significantly increased focus
on in recent years. It's a key part of how we would respond to
any conflict.
Senator Sheehy. Yes, and I think my concern is, you know,
we've become very comfortable, you know, in the not near peer
environment where, you know, we may have damage, but my biggest
concern is when it's a near peer conflict and we're losing
ships, i.e. they're destroyed and sunk, and our ability to
replace those at a rate higher than the adversary. Right now,
our adversary builds vessels 230 times faster than we do.
So, the advantage we had last time we had a big naval war
in Westpac was our ability to replace those vessels rapidly.
Now that advantage lies with our adversary. So two things
either have to happen, one or both. We have to be eminently
survivable under any combat conditions or we have to be able to
replace, and right now we can't replace, so.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. We do need to do both.
Senator Sheehy. Yep. Then one final question. I think as we
see relatively low intensity conflict, you know with our Naval
Combat and the Red Sea what have you learned as far as our--I
don't think we've had any major vessel damage from that, but of
course we've had magazine replacement, you know, and we've had
to keep those ships combat operational. Are there many lessons
that you've gleaned from the fleet now that we've actually seen
for the first time in decades, some pretty steady naval combat
that we can adopt quickly?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I will just say, obviously you know,
that's not day to day, you know, as an aircraft shipbuilder,
but as a naval officer, I've been extremely proud to watch
what's happened in the Red Sea. Our fleet has responded
magnificently. You know, getting our assets on station,
supporting them in theater has been significant. I know that,
you know, Admiral Cooper and others have talked explicitly
about the incredible performance of the crews, of our carrier
strike groups.
We are learning on the fly. We are outpacing anyone's
ability to keep up with us as we adapt to the tactics and
techniques that have been used, and made improvements on the
fly to ensure that our entire Navy force out there is able to
respond. Obviously so far it's been successful, and so we have
learned a lot but we have a lot to be proud of as well.
Senator Sheehy. Thank you.
Senator Scott. Senator Blumenthal.
Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here today. Thank you for your testimony and your service
to our Nation. I want to begin on submarines. I was at the
commissioning of the Iowa on Saturday. As always with all the
commissionings and christenings, a stirring and moving event,
and a tribute to the great workforce at Electric Boat (EB). I
was talking to Mark Rayha, I'm sure you're familiar with him.
He seemed pretty optimistic about the progress on hiring enough
of the skilled workforce that are necessary in the thousands.
Is that your assessment as well, Rear Admiral Rucker?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thanks for the question sir, and good
to see you again. Good seeing you at the Iowa on Saturday. I
will applaud you for being able to make it up there, given your
schedule I know.
Yes, sir. I would agree. From 2022 to 2023 we saw across
both ship loaders about a 41 percent increase in their hiring.
In 2024 they pretty much met their goals. Our challenge now is
to continue to work with them on their attrition. Those rates
have come down since 2022. However, they're still higher than
they need to be, especially in the one to 2-year workforce
range. So that's an effort that we are working together with
them to address.
Senator Blumenthal. Is there anything you would recommend
our doing in the NDAA to make possible or make more likely
meeting that workforce challenge?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. There are multiple things
that we're doing, so appreciate the question. I would say the
workforce is one of the number one things that is needed to be
able to build the submarines and aircraft carriers. Wages is
one of the top things, and so appreciate Congress's continued
support and the funding that came in the emergency
supplemental, the 5.7 billion of that, about 520 million of
that is specifically to go after wages on current contracts
across all three of our programs. That's something as we move
forward, we can hopefully be able to continue to do that so we
can pay the people that do the work what they should earn and
deserve to earn.
Senator Blumenthal. They're in the midst or they're
beginning contract negotiations with a number of their unions,
I believe, and I think that's very important to meet the goals
and challenges of their workers in an era of rising prices and
possibly even higher prices in the future.
Let me ask you if I may on the subject of cost, both the
Columbia-class and the Virginia-class programs depend on
nuclear grade steel, high yield steel, steel alloys, other
kinds of extremely specialized materials coming from a supply
base that has shrunk over the last few years. I think in the
1980's there were 17,000 suppliers. Today, they're around
5,000. Will tariffs impact the costs of producing our nuclear
submarines?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Senator, thank you for that question.
As I'm sure you're aware, you know, the vast majority of the
components that go, you know, certainly into the Columbia-
class, but also the Virginia-class are American made
components. You know, the Navy anticipates that there may be
some cost increases associated with tariffs, however, it's
really too early to be able to assess what those might be.
Senator Blumenthal. I'm sorry. Maybe it's going to be up to
the suppliers to determine what the----
Rear Admiral Weeks. No, sir. I mean, the Navy, you know, as
we have, you know, work together with industry to evaluate what
the, you know, as costs change and go up or go down depending
on what market you're talking about, again, it's all sort of
rides, you know, all the things we procure for the, you know,
certainly in the commodity space like steel and things like
that, really do ride on kind of what the market is, right?
As the things sort of ebb and flow, our ability to work
together with industry to be able to evaluate what the impact
would be to our program specifically.
Senator Blumenthal. So, we really don't know at this point.
Rear Admiral Weeks. We do not know. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Let me ask you, what is the timetable
for the Columbia currently being constructed and the next two,
if you can tell us?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. So, lead ship District of
Columbia, right now, we are projecting it to be 12 to 18 months
late, the contract. However, we're taking action right now to
accelerate and recover as much schedule as we possibly can. The
second ship, Wisconsin, is currently on schedule. So, we are on
schedule to deliver that ship at the 80-month contract.
The next five ships we're really in the early construction
phase of those. So, we're not in a position yet to be able to
evaluate where they are relative to the delivery schedule.
However, all the activities that we have going on right now are
all on track.
Senator Blumenthal. So just to be more precise, the
Columbia will be ready in about 2027?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Sir, it'll be closer to 2029.
Senator Blumenthal. In 2029?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. The next, the Wisconsin, what year?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Sir, Wisconsin will deliver in 2032,
but I----
Senator Blumenthal. In 2032?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. The one after that, the Groton?
Rear Admiral Weeks. So that sir, would be in 2034.
Senator Blumenthal. In 2034? I recognize I'm out of time,
Mr. Chairman, maybe if we have a second round and I can stay,
I'll come back with more questions. Thank you.
Senator Scott. Senator Sullivan.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen,
thank you for your testimony. By the way, as a senator, I've
gotten to kind of dig deep into the whole history of the
nuclear Navy and it's really remarkable organization. You guys
are all part of something that's very special. It started out
under some really unique leadership with Admiral Rickover, and
then the systems in which we continue today have a long-term
billet assignment for the admiral in charge of the nuclear
navy, an 8-year assignment.
So one of the things I tried to do last year, and I raised
this in the hearing 2 weeks ago on conventional surface
shipbuilding, is saying, ``Hey, why wouldn't we want to do
something similar on shipbuilding?'' I asked Vice Admiral
Downey from Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA), should we make
the NAVSEA billet like the head of Navy nuclear reactors 8
years. That way you can actually oversee shipbuilding.
It was interesting, I didn't know this, but Admiral Downey
said, ``Well, NAVSEA is a 3-year billet, but it often gets
extended.'' Which actually kind of makes my point. So last year
I had a provision that this Committee passed and voted on
pretty strongly bipartisan vote that got in the Senate, NDAA
bill for having Nav Sea to have an 8-year billet, just like the
head of Navy nuclear reactor.
So that individual and then be done retired, can actually
seriously oversee shipbuilding, not have to look at your next
billet assignment. What do you gentlemen think about that? I
think Admiral Downey kind of liked the idea. I like the idea. I
think we're going to re-attack it again. Think Navy stripped it
out last year in the conference with the house. I have no idea
what the hell the house was doing, but the Navy didn't like it
for some reason.
Why? Why wouldn't we want to do that? It works for you
guys. Why wouldn't it work for shipbuilding writ large? Anyone
have a view on that?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I'll just start. I probably have a
little bit of a unique perspective on my panel here in PEO
carriers. I'm actually not a nuclear trained officer. I have
immensely enjoyed working with Naval Reactors over the last 2
years in the job and have been incredibly impressed with----
Senator Sullivan. Do you think part of their impressiveness
is the fact that the head of Navy nuclear reactors has an 8-
year billet, and retires pretty much?
Admiral Moton. I do. I'm certain that steady capable
leadership is part of their success. Absolutely.
Senator Sullivan. Would that help in shipbuilding?
Admiral Moton. You know, longevity, the ability to see
programs through a long period of time, I think is always
helpful. People often bring up other factors such as the, you
know, being change agents and bringing fresh sets of eyes. From
my perspective----
Senator Sullivan. If your fresh set of eyes are leaving
every 3 years, you're----
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. It has to be looked at from, you
know, for every job from a PEO's perspective, you know, I
certainly trust Navy leadership to balance that properly, and
that they'll do----
Senator Sullivan. Yes. Not always. Sometimes we know what
we're talking about here.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Sullivan. Sometimes we don't, but sometimes we do.
Let me move on to another question. I just literally walked out
of a meeting with Admiral Caudle and we were talking about the
same issue. He mentioned to me from 1960 to 1964, the United
States produced 41 Boomer strategic submarines. 41 in 4 years.
So we can do this. We all know we can do this, but we had a lot
more shipyards back then.
In the last 30 years, the number of public shipyards has
been halved leaving four, and only seven private new
construction yards still in existence. What's more concerning
is that we have only two private nuclear shipyards and both of
those are on the East Coast. The good news is there's very
strong bipartisan support right now in the Senate and the House
to help the Navy fix its shipbuilding crisis. Now you have the
support of the President of the United States. In the State of
the Union has said he's making this a priority.
Do we need more shipyards? Do we need West Coast shipyards?
If we did, I think this Congress would say, ``How many? We'll
pay for them.'' What do you guys think? Open any and all.
Rear Admiral Rucker. I appreciate the question, sir. I
think with our two nuclear shipbuilders today we've been
talking so far to the Committee about all the work we're doing
to move work outside of the two shipbuilders to what we call
strategic outsourcing. The number we were talking about, it's
about 7 million hours per year. So the equivalent of a surface
ship, a destroyer that we're pushing out to the industrial base
to other locations from a public----
Senator Sullivan. Do we need more shipyards?
Rear Admiral Rucker. So, the shipyards, we're actually
evaluating that right now, sir. We have a joint study going on
with the Secretary of Defense's office, the Cape as well as the
Navy that will be finishing up. We're in evaluation right now
of what will be required.
Senator Sullivan. What do you think, Admiral?
Rear Admiral Rucker. I actually am and have the team that's
running that study, and I'm waiting to see the final results,
so I'll be able to get back to you later this year, sir.
Senator Sullivan. Admiral Weeks?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Sir, I agree with Admiral Rucker that
we absolutely need more shipbuilding capacity in this Nation.
So, whether that is you know, discrete shipyards or as our
current strategy is, which is to shift work out across the
Nation, right? Not necessarily be constrained by coastal areas.
I think, you know, again, my perspective, the right answer is
we've got to grow our capacity. I think that comes in lots of
different ways. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of
the study that Admiral Rucker referred to, to make sure we're
being smart about how we pursue it.
Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Admiral Moton, any of you
guys have a view on this?
Mr. Sermon. Sir, I think it's critically important that we
get the shipyards that are both public in the maintenance
world, and as you mentioned, our two nuclear yards to full
capacity at three shifts and humming there as we assess this,
which is part of what the study that Admiral Rucker is
participating in is doing.
The workforce efforts that we're undertaking to do that, to
be able to really take advantage of three shifts at the public
shipyards and take advantage of manning there, as well as how
we use advanced manufacturing. We've both got uplift
possibilities.
Admiral Moton. Sir, I, you know, completely agree with my
partners up here. You know, aircraft carriers are a little bit
different, obviously the size of the platform, there's only two
naval shipyards that are able to work on them, and one shipyard
that's able to build. But collectively, I think it's an
important part of the discussion. We are actually part of the
study that Admiral Rucker mentions, I can assure you that it is
data-based. It is, you know, looking hard at the future
capacity and the future workload, and it's going to inform the
right decision, I'm sure.
Senator Sullivan. Sorry, Mr. Chairman, there was one final
question on aircraft carriers. We have one company in America
that can build aircraft carriers. Is that right?
Admiral Moton. That's correct, sir. Newport News
Shipbuilding from Huntington Ingalls Industries (HII) is our
carrier shipbuilder.
Senator Sullivan. Thank you.
Senator Scott. Senator King.
Senator King. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to followup
on this line of questioning. Everybody around here for the past
three or 4 years has been talking about rebuilding the defense
industrial base, expanding the defense industrial base. How do
we do it? Is that a matter of more contracts for the big prime
contractors? Is it bringing new people into the business? Is it
encouraging smaller companies?
I mean, this is one of these things everybody talks about,
but I never hear much in the way of specifics about how to go
about it. Mr. Sermon, what are your thoughts?
Mr. Sermon. Thank you, Senator. My three primary focus
areas that are absolutely aimed at capacity, are getting the
workforce that we need.
Senator King. That's going to be my next question.
Mr. Sermon. That's not just at the shipbuilders, but in the
supply chain across the Nation, right? Not just on where the
shipyards are on the coast.
Senator King. Isn't one of the big issues supply chain,
second and third order suppliers?
Mr. Sermon. Yes. Yes, sir. It absolutely is. My second item
is foundational investment in our supply chain. What we have in
the submarine community in particular, about 70 percent of our
critical suppliers are single or sole source, meaning we don't
have a backup method. Getting a backup supplier, or getting
that supplier to where they're very competitive, both in terms
of schedule and cost, is crucially important.
Senator King. One of the problems, we've had testimony
before, the full Committee, that smaller companies have given
up trying to contract with the Pentagon. It's so burdensome,
slow, so much paperwork, and we're losing the opportunity to
develop this capacity in anything but larger entities.
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir. I think it's absolutely necessary for
us to lower some of those barriers to entry to get more
suppliers in. One of the ways we're pursuing that is through
advanced manufacturing. We see that, you know, we know, to get
to the full 100 percent capacity required for the 1+2 number
that we use, that we're going to require many, many additional
components across the industrial base. When we look at capacity
and look at workforce and look at what our foundational
infrastructure is, we know we'll need advanced manufacturing
for that.
Senator King. What are the bottlenecks in the Columbia
program? Is it suppliers? Is it Electric Boat? Where could we
poke to improve the throughput?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. I'll address that as the PEO
for Columbia. So it is all the things that Matt Sermon said, is
absolutely supply chain challenges. I would offer that because
of the unique authorities that we have with the Columbia
program, so the, you know, advanced construction, advanced
procurement authorities, we've been able to minimize some of
those impacts. We do still feel them.
We also have this, you know, the challenges in the
shipyards themselves, right? The workforce you know, the green
workforce we have in those shipyards, their ability to not be
as efficient as they need to be. Those are also pacing us. Then
unique to Columbia, at least on the first ship is we have the
first of class sort of learning that you always have with a
first of class. We're working through those as well.
Senator King. Let's talk about workforce. You fellows have
mentioned it two or three times. I believe we're headed into a
time when workforce--well, workforce is a huge barrier now. I
was with the building supply companies in Maine today. They
have workforce problems. Everybody's facing workforce problems,
and we always talk about wages. I think, Admiral, you mentioned
wages, but I believe we're going to have to start talking about
things like childcare and parking because those are the things
that are necessary in order to enable people to get to work.
I hope the Navy is, and I know they are in some cases,
thinking about those kinds of, that's a legitimate part of the
workforce proposition is these kinds of ancillary benefits, if
you will to attract workers that we need.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. I would 100 percent agree
with you. Congress did a great job in the Fiscal Year 2023 NDAA
about talking about workforce incentives and matching with the
shipbuilders and our industry partners. When we established
contracts, we've been putting those into some of the near, you
know, most recent shipbuilding contracts. Many of those are
looking at things such as childcare, parking, quality of
supporting the workforce to then allow them to be able to be
the most effective and efficient at their jobs.
Senator King. That has to be part of it. Mr. Chairman, I'm
going to associate myself with Senator Sullivan's comments
about tenure tour. I think of myself after 3 years, I barely
was learning how his place worked and to learn all you learn in
3 years and then move on, I think that's a discussion that
should be had more generally.
I'll never forget interviewing General Dunford when he left
Afghanistan and all the knowledge that he had that was walking
out the door. So, I think that's something that we ought to be
talking about generally, not only in nuclear shipbuilding or
shipbuilding generally, but across the board, particularly at
these high expertise positions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I
yield.
Senator Scott. Thank you. Senator Kaine.
Senator Kaine. I don't want to ask about the content of
these communications, but I just want to ask sort of the fact
of communications. Have any of you been consulted about how the
proposed shipbuilding office at the White House should be
composed and what mission that they should take?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I'll say that, you know, that all of us
had the opportunity to actually review the draft executive
order for the White House Office shipbuilding and the other
measures that are in there. We were able to provide feedback.
So it was very positive that we had the ability to do that and
continue to have feedback. I know at kind of the higher
secretariat level, there's active discussion going on, on that
process and how that's going to work. We're supporting that
process from our level as PEOs.
Senator Kaine. Great. Yes, I don't want to ask about the
content of communications because that's really for the
executive, but the fact that you've been consulted, that's a
positive and been offered the opportunity for feedback. Admiral
Rucker talk a little bit about the collaboration going on with
the Australian shipbuilding industry around the Virginia-class
program.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. As you mentioned earlier,
the importance, and I kind of talked about the importance of
the AUKUS partnership both of our ally partners to be
successful, Indo-Pacific AUKUS is a key tenet of that. I've
been fortunate we have our AUKUS Integration and Acquisition
office currently led by Ms. Atkins. But just in the last 2
weeks, I got to sit down with the entire UK leadership at the
one to two, three-star level to have a update with them on what
we're doing with our capabilities jointly.
Then as part of AUKUS, the Australian, both the Australian
Submarine Agency and the Australian Submarine Corporation was
just over 2 weeks ago, meeting with them. So far, we're seeing
great efforts that they're leaning forward with the workers
that are at Pearl Harbor Shipyard, about 154 of them. Part of
our discussions, one of the lessons learned that we learned
about is that's a lot of trades. So we're talking about what we
need to do to also uplift their engineering and planning
personnel as well. That's kind of a takeaway we learned is
something we need to get after as well.
Senator Kaine. Thank you. Admiral Moton, I want to give you
a chance to brag on the Ford a little bit. You know, this
Committee's been very focused over the years on the delays and
cost issues with the Ford-class, with the arresting gear, with
the weapons elevator, with the launch system. Those systems
continue to pose challenges in future ships.
However, the Ford is now under deployment. Talk to us about
how the Ford is performing, and particularly in those three
areas that had been trouble spots. Give us a report.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. Senator, thank you for the
opportunity to do that. So our entire organization, the PEO, I
know Newport News, we're all very proud of the performance of
Ford so far. Ford had a highly successful initial deployment.
Ford was there. Ford was the initial response from the United
States following the Hamas attack on Israel. One of the best
pictures that I have is actually the, the Eisenhower and Ford
sailing together. The ship did extremely well. The crew did
well.
I can tell you that during that deployment service the
ship, including the crew, including the catapults, including
the resting gear and the elevators, did over 10,000 aircraft
sorties during that deployment. Weapons onto aircraft and
conducting those sorties. The elevators themselves, lots of
discussion there. Obviously, the elevators have done on Ford
over 43,000 cycles. I'm----
Senator Kaine. This is all the elevators. So you're not
operating with like 7 of the 11. You got all of them going?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. I will tell you, as a program
executive officer, my job is not only construction and
sustainment. So there are absolutely early class sustainment
issues. Things like changing, you know, where and how many
spares and those kinds of things. We are every day taking the
lessons learned from Ford to improve that. But overall, the
systems are doing well and the ship is underway right now,
preparing for her next deployment and doing exceptionally. So
we're very proud.
Senator Kaine. My understanding is that CVN 79 is probably
not going to deliver till March 2026. Is that correct?
Admiral Moton. So, CVN 79 at John F. Kennedy is 95 percent
complete. So the progress is good there, but we are having
critical path challenges. Right now, in principally two areas
in the aircraft in the advanced weapons elevators, and also the
advanced arresting gear. The shipbuilder is very focused. I
will be quick to point out that the challenges that the
shipbuilder is having are not design related. The elevators and
the catapults and the aircraft launch recovery gear are
performing exceptionally, as I just mentioned.
The ship, this is the second class. We're still learning a
lot of lessons on production. These are complex machines and
that's what we're seeing. We're executing a variety of
improvements, both on 79 as much as we can, but particularly on
80 and 81. I do anticipate that that's going to delay the
delivery of John F. Kennedy. We are focused very much on
mitigating that and getting to combat readiness as quickly as
possible, and we're assessing that and we'll have more details.
We are looking at all avenues to improve the timeline that
I can get John F. Kennedy to the fleet
Senator Kaine. On 80, the contract delivery date was
September 2029, but Secretary Del Toro's 45-day review
suggested it would be more like January, 2032. Is that still
how it's tracking?
Admiral Moton. I think that was January 30, sir. But I take
your point. So CVN 80, as I mentioned earlier, has been delayed
by sequence critical material major items of, material that are
late to the ship and are causing delays to the critical path
and forcing the shipbuilder to change our build cycle. We are
doing everything we can to get that equipment intense oversight
from both the Navy and Newport News Shipbuilding.
I do actually anticipate that that performance has
continued to degrade from what we reported a year ago. I'm
estimating about--a year ago, we reported up to 26 months late.
I'm estimating now 28 months. We are doing everything we can
with the shipbuilder to improve that prognosis.
Senator Kaine. I said January, 2032, and you're right, I
meant January, 2030, because It's the Doris Miller where the
contract delivery date is 2032.
Admiral Moton. Doris Miller, yes, sir. You're correct.
Doris Miller is on track for 1932. So the other thing that is
helping with Doris Miller's schedule is, number one, we bought
the material for Doris Miller much earlier than we did for
Enterprise. That in and of itself is preventing those critical
path challenges to 81. The other thing we did very innovatively
was with the shipbuilder, do a modification to the dry dock
that's going to actually allow Enterprise and Doris Miller to
construct at the same time that's going to mitigate the impacts
to Doris Miller.
Senator Kaine. Great. Thank you. Yield back, Mr. Chair.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Senator Kaine. Mr. Sermon, I
guess, I don't know if it was you did this or somebody else,
but you shifted from executing industrial based funding through
shipyards to a new not-for-profit Blue Forge Alliance. Can you
talk about how much money we've given to Blue Forge Alliance
and if we've gotten a return?
Mr. Sermon. Yes, sir, I can. So, since 2023 we have done
approximately 200 supply chain projects as well as numerous
workforce efforts, as well as coordination of our advanced
manufacturing, bringing together colleges and our technical
community efforts via nonprofit company called Blue Forge
Alliance.
That company has about right around $2 billion that has,
has flowed through it to the industrial base, on the efforts I
talked about, primarily on supply chain projects, right? The
company is a nonprofit. The company has a overhead rate and an
execution rate that is actually less expensive for executing
these projects than we had as we were executing them with the
shipbuilders.
Just as importantly the projects that they are executing it
has, and I believe that the shipbuilders would share this
perspective takes pressure off of the shipbuilders supply chain
team who is buying this 5x, really 6x by components increase
across the industrial base.
We bring the Blue Forge Alliance team into battery to go
and execute the actual investment projects that raise
capability and capacity. By no means stuck on like, ``Hey, we
got to use Blue Forge Alliance for this either.''
My plan going forward is to maximize bringing in partners
from across the defense industrial base from other parts of the
United States from other industrial base places of excellence
where we've seen these kind of uplifts and learning and having
more partnerships to ultimately get us to 1+2 to get us to
1+2.33. Thank you.
Senator Scott. Thank you. Admiral Weeks when you talk about
the different ballistic missile submarines, when they're going
to be ready, is that actually ready to go to combat or is that
that just delivered and there's still going to be a lot of work
to do afterwards?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes, sir. The dates I was quoting
earlier were delivery dates out of the shipbuilder. There is
another, you know, approximately 18 months of time it takes
from when the ship is delivered till it's ready for first
patrol. Lead ship is a little bit longer, but we are partnering
with the fleet to shrink that to as small of a period of time
as we possibly can.
Senator Scott. Is that still way later than what they
thought?
Rear Admiral Weeks. Yes sir. We're still looking at, you
know, it basically carries forward into that on patrol date,
although we're looking to shrink some of that as well as the,
as I mentioned earlier, the work we're doing with the
shipbuilders to try accelerate delivery schedules to get the
ship delivered as soon as possible. So that's the fastest right
now, that's the thing we can do.
We're also, again, working with the fleet to optimize that
post-delivery to first patrol timeframe to make sure we're
cutting out all the extra stuff in there and make sure it's
really just the things we have to do.
Senator Scott. Admiral Moton, so how many shipyards can we
build at nuclear aircraft carrier and how many do we have?
Admiral Moton. Sir, you know, given the size of the
aircraft carrier and the specialized facilities we only have
one shipyard in the United States that's capable of building
them, and that's Newport News Shipbuilding under HII.
Senator Scott. Could they be built overseas? Are there
shipyards overseas?
Admiral Moton. Not that immediately could build a carrier.
I'd have to, you know, check and see if there were one that
were big enough potentially. But obviously with the nuclear
power aspects of the carrier, the complex machinery, which is
part of what makes Ford capability so special you know, I would
say it would probably be unlikely in my opinion that we could
do that overseas. But, you know, I'm always willing to look at
any alternative to improved performance.
Senator Scott. If they don't perform, then what do we do?
We don't have any options?
Admiral Moton. Sir, Newport News Shipbuilding is our
partner in building aircraft carriers, but we also hold them
accountable under the contract. All of the provisions that are
in there are designed to incentivize their performance. If they
don't do that properly, they don't get those incentives. We do
that and we hold them accountable in many other ways day to day
on their performance. But at the end of the day, we do have to
partner with them. I do believe that we can do both and both
are PEO Navy organizations such as the supervisor shipbuilding
exercise, accountability of the builder at all possible levels,
at the same time as we work with them to produce the ships.
Senator Scott. Wouldn't it be beneficial to have
competition?
Admiral Moton. Sir, it's always beneficial to have
competition. Prior in my career as a captain, I was the
destroyer program manager for the Arleigh Burke-class. I very
much enjoyed having two shipbuilders that were in competition
with each other as we built that class. It has to be a class-
by-class basis and obviously the carrier brings special
constraints.
Senator Scott. So Admiral Rucker, so we're continuing to be
way behind on the Virginia-class program. I mean, is it really
anything that's happening now? Because didn't they tell us
before we were going to be on time and it still hasn't
happened. I mean, what's realistic? Same question I asked
Admiral Weeks. When you say you're going to deliver something,
it doesn't mean it's ready to go to war, right? There's
significant delays after that.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Yes, sir. Thanks for the question.
I'll kind of work my way from your second question here first.
When we deliver Virginia-class today, they're the highest
quality platforms in the Navy. Independently assessed by our,
what's called our inserve team. They have the highest quality
score of any ship in the Navy. From the time we've delivered
them, we've worked with the fleet based on the fleet's needs to
actually deploy multiple submarines.
So, both New Jersey and Rickover both deployed before their
post shakedown availability and Iowa's on track to do that this
year as well. So, my answer is on that, we do support the fleet
and let them use them and adjust our schedules when world
events require that. Where we stand today on production, sir,
we need to continue to improve. It's both an issue with the
supply base and at the shipbuilders.
We've got actions ongoing, both with congressional help to
support the uplift of the supplier base. We've already seen
some bottlenecks removed. We have more to go and then at the
shipbuilders we need to get after their production capacity as
well.
Senator Scott. So, we're producing a little over one a
year, right? What are we funding? Are we funding more than
that?
Rear Admiral Rucker. We have funded two. The Congress has
appropriated two and authorized two in the past. The 2025
budget has one that's in there. The advantage of that one,
which I've talked on the record before about, is right now the
production system is, what I would say is out of balance across
manufacturing, kind of the steel production outfitting and
final assembly and tests. We need to get that back rebalanced.
We actually slowed down portions of the production system
that we're at a two per year rate to make sure the whole system
could then be uplifted together. That one boat in 2025 allows
us to resynchronize and rebalance the production system. Then
going forward, the two per year rate that we anticipate doing
allows us to do a more efficient ramp up to get to the two per
year that we need to achieve.
Senator Scott. So, does it make sense to keep funding at a
rate way in excess of what we're producing?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Great question, sir. I understand that
perspective. Part of the continuing to look going forward as we
go into the 2026 budget, obviously that's still being looked
at, but the advantage of the two per year is if you look across
the production system, we need all phases of it to get to that
two per year.
If we go back down to one per year looking out in the
future, the ability to ramp back up the two would cause us to
have those same challenges of ramp, which we're going through
now. We have a clear plan working with Matt Sermon's team and
the industrial base and then with our shipbuilders on a path to
get there. So going back down, we would still have to get back
up again to support what we need for our four structure of 66
submarines, and then also our AUKUS partners.
Senator Scott. Just didn't seem to make much sense when
we're funding two, we're not getting two, but if we don't keep
funding two, we'll never get to two. It seems completely out of
whack of what we're spending.
Rear Admiral Rucker. Understand, sir, which is why in 2025
we put one forward to kind of allow the system to catch back up
and ensure we get rebalanced.
Senator Scott. All right. Anybody have any questions?
Senator Blumenthal. Yes, I have a couple. Thanks Mr.
Chairman. If I understand correctly, we funded one for 2025,
but we're funding two for the successive years when we hope to
be back on two subs a year?
Rear Admiral Rucker. The current PB 2025 shipbuilding plan
has two per year in it right now. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Let me ask you Admiral Moton, and I
apologize if I'm being repetitive or just plain dumb. How far
behind was the Ford on schedule? In other words, how far behind
its scheduled completion date was it?
Admiral Moton. Sir, actually I will have to take that for
the record. I do not, you know, having been the PEO only for--
--
Senator Blumenthal. For 3 years.
Admiral Moton. Actually, I do not know the original
scheduled date for Ford, right? It was certainly behind. It
delivered in 2017, but then also it delivered in an incomplete
state and required the Navy several years through our Make Ford
Ready program to get it ready, right? We have to do better than
that. Understanding the challenges that we're still having, we
have to continue to improve. It was unacceptable. I don't have
the original delay number and I'd have to get that for you,
sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Is the John F. Kennedy behind schedule?
Admiral Moton. Sir, the John F. Kennedy is largely complete
except for critical path work primarily in the weapons
elevators.
Senator Blumenthal. Well, I know. I heard you say that. But
when was it supposed to be delivered?
Admiral Moton. Sir, it's current contract date is this
summer. It's supposed to deliver this summer. There have been
some changes in John F. Kennedy schedule over time. The Navy
shifted the plan on how we were going to take delivery of the
ship. We also made a decision to pull a lot of the work that we
had done on Ford after delivery into earlier on John F. Kennedy
All of that being said, that caused a date shift. The current
date that the shipbuilder is accountable for is this summer,
and that's the date with the challenge.
Senator Blumenthal. This summer. But that's later than what
was the date, the projected date. When was it supposed to be
done?
Admiral Moton. It's later than the original contract date,
but the Navy made a decision to pull capability into the ship
so that it's combat readiness, like when it was ready to go
with the fleet would be on time. That was what was done with
John F. Kennedy. I know that is slightly confusing, but it was
done to ensure that we had a fully combat ready carrier on the
schedule to meet fleet needs.
Senator Blumenthal. I have to confess, I don't understand
that answer.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. If I'm a home buyer, I go to a
contractor, he says I'll have the home ready for you to move
in----
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal.--in Christmas of 2025. If it's ready 2
years later, I can say it's 2 years behind.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. In this case in your analogy, we
would have the original schedule for the home. The home buyer
may want to put a pool and we decided that we're going to go
ahead and put the pool in before we take the custody of the----
Senator Blumenthal. I understand that point that maybe its
capabilities were increased.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. But my question is, the original John
F. Kennedy, when was it supposed to be ready?
Admiral Moton. I do not have the original delivery date in
front of me, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Can you get these answers for us?
Admiral Moton. Absolutely.
[The information referred to follows:]
Admiral Moton. The Detail Design and Construction (DD&C)
contract awarded to Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News
Shipbuilding (HII-NNS) on June 5, 2015, initially envisioned a
two-phased delivery approach for USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79):
Phase I (Hull, Mechanical & Electrical--HM&E): Completion
targeted for September 2022, providing full propulsion, safe
navigation, and limited aircraft launch and recovery
capability.
Phase II (Combat & Warfare Systems): Completion targeted
for September 2024, installing remaining combat and warfare
systems, including Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar (EASR),
delivering CVN 78-like capability.
Subsequently, Section 124 of the fiscal year 2020 National
Defense Authorization Act, Public Law 116-92, mandated a shift
to a single-phase delivery to ensure CVN 79's operational
readiness with the F-35C Joint Strike Fighter before Post
Shakedown Availability (PSA). While this required integrating
additional work during construction, this new single-phase
delivery targeted completion for 2024, achieving the most
efficient path to fleet operational status.
However, in 2023, to optimize work scope placement to
achieve the mandated F-35C capability at ship delivery and to
mitigate risks, the single-phase delivery date was revised to
July 2025, while shifting work originally planned for PSA into
the construction period.
Finally, compliance with 10 USC 8671 (Determination of
Vessel Delivery Dates) required the Navy to deliver vessels
that are ``assembled and complete.'' Accordingly, the Navy's
current estimated delivery date for CVN 79 is March 2027, with
preliminary acceptance expected in 2026.
Senator Blumenthal. The reason I'm asking is you've got two
more?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. The Enterprise and the Doris Miller.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. They're supposed to be ready in 2030
and 2032.
Admiral Moton. Correct.
Senator Blumenthal. Are they going to be ready in 2030 and
2032?
Admiral Moton. Well actually Enterprise was supposed to be
ready in 2028, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Twenty twenty-eight.
Admiral Moton. We are now projecting it's going to deliver
in 2030 based on the----
Senator Blumenthal. That's 2 years behind.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. The Doris Miller 2032, was that
supposed to be ready in 2030?
Admiral Moton. 2032 is the date for the Doris Miller. We
assessed that Doris Miller is still tracking to that partly by
the earlier material buys and the dry dock updates that I
talked about earlier. I'll just say, Senator, you know, my
apologies as a lot of those dates were long before I was with
the program. I will get you a crisp answer on the dates for
both 78 and 79.
[The information referred to follows:]
Admiral Moton. The Detail Design and Construction (DD&C)
contract awarded to Huntington Ingalls Industries Newport News
Shipbuilding (HII-NNS) in September 2008, established a
contractual ship delivery date of September 2015 for USS Gerald
R. Ford (CVN 78). The actual ship delivery occurred in May
2017.
This delay can be primarily attributed to challenges
inherent in the first-of-class nature of the CVN 78 program,
which incorporated numerous advanced technologies. Key factors
contributing to the delay included:
First-of-Class System Integration Challenges:
Initial systems installation faced developmental, production,
and testing challenges associated with a lead ship.
Advanced Technologies: Complex manufacturing of
new technologies led to certification delays and delayed system
turnover to the Navy.
Senator Blumenthal. I appreciate that, and again, I hate to
ask questions that maybe I should know the answer to. The Ford
costs how much?
Admiral Moton. Sir, that's another one that unfortunately I
do not have the final Ford cost in front of me.
Senator Blumenthal. I would appreciate knowing what it
costs.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. What it was projected to cost.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. I will get that for you.
[The information referred to follows:]
Admiral Moton. The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) projected
cost at the time of the 2008 Detailed Design and Construction
contract award was $10.5 billion. The final cost for CVN 78 was
$13.224 billion.
Senator Blumenthal. What is John F. Kennedy going to cost?
Admiral Moton. John F. Kennedy is projected to cost $12.9
billion.
Senator Blumenthal. Twelve point nine.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. In other words, $13 billion?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. The Enterprise?
Admiral Moton. Thirteen point five billion dollars, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. How about the Doris Miller?
Admiral Moton. Fourteen billion dollars, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Fourteen?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Is the John F. Kennedy actually--that
figure $13 billion, is that what it was projected to cost or is
that higher?
Admiral Moton. That is our current estimate. It is higher
than the original cost. I will have to get you the original
cost in anticipation of your question.
Senator Blumenthal. I would appreciate that as well.
[The information referred to follows:]
Admiral Moton. The USS John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) projected
cost at time of the 2015 Detailed Design and Construction
contract award was $11.498 billion. The cost for CVN 79 in
President's Budget 2026 is $13.196 billion. Key factors
contributing to the increased cost included:
Transition from a dual-phase to single-phase
delivery approach
F-35C Joint Strike Fighter capability prior to
Post Shakedown Availability (PSA)
Shifting PSA work into the main construction
period
Shipbuilder production inefficiencies leading to
increased costs
Admiral Moton. There have been that's the total cost of the
carrier, not just the shipbuilders, but also all the equipment.
There has been growth on both. It's unacceptable. I will say
that all three of these ships were awarded pre Corona Virus
Disease (COVID) so that they were affected by COVID performance
and also the continuing escalation that we're seeing. None of
that's an excuse. It's just a fact. The bottom line is we
should have been able to deliver on the original cost, and
that's our commitment.
Senator Blumenthal. Okay.
Senator Scott. Have you done analysis of if you could give
us this, what was the starting date? What was the original
cost? What's it now? All right. Then what the reasons, and then
the last one could be is, okay, so they didn't do it. The
people that were responsible, I mean, do they suffer anything?
Senator Blumenthal. Yes, that was actually--Mr. Chairman,
thank you for anticipating my next question. Were there any
penalties for the cost overruns or delays? Again, going to my
analogy on the house, somebody said, I'm going to get the house
ready for you in Christmas of 2025. It turns out it costs twice
as much and it's delayed by 2 years.
I would say, ``Hey guys, I'm not going to pay you what I
promised to. You're going to have to pay, you're going to
suffer some penalty.'' To go to the Chairman's question, I
think that's one of the questions I had. Were there any
penalties and will there be penalties for the cost overruns on
the JFK, the Doris Miller, and the Enterprise?
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. So, first, Senator, I will
absolutely get you the question that you asked for. In terms of
penalties, the way that the contracts are set up, Ford was a
little bit of a different--as the leadership Ford was a cost-
plus contract. You know, and that's a, that's kind of a
separate discussion.
For 79, for 80, for 81, those ships are fixed price
contracts with what we call an incentive share line, or
basically the shipbuilder's profit is degraded as their cost of
building the ship goes up. So they are absolutely paying a cost
penalty for the shipbuilder cost growth on those ships.
Senator Blumenthal. How much does their return or their
profit go down? Do they absorb all of the costs overrun or?
Admiral Moton. So, the way that the--you know, to
immediately absorb all of it would be what we call firm fixed
price. For shipbuilding, what we often do, including on Ford-
class, is what we call a fixed price incentive fee. There's a
target that they are supposed to hit with a target profit
associated with that. Then we share either the overruns or
underruns.
So, if there's an overrun you know, for every dollar on the
overrun, the shipbuilder has to basically eat a certain amount
of that out of their profit. Then the Navy pays. It's part of
how we balance risk with the shipbuilders. It changes from
contract to contract, but the contract is basically the same.
Senator Blumenthal. So, the Chairman is a business person,
so he can ask this question a lot better than I.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. But my question is, what is the
percentage of profit on these ships?
Admiral Moton. It differs from ship to ship, sir. Again,
depending on kind of where you are in the class, it's a
different construct, right? I could certainly give you an
example. You know, I think typically a typical ship percentage
for profit may start out as perhaps 14 percent profit, right?
Then that profit would degrade as cost, as cost performance
degrades.
Senator Blumenthal. If the shipbuilder of an aircraft
carrier hits the target cost, for example, on the John F.
Kennedy----
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir.
Senator Blumenthal. Which is not going to happen, it
would've been 14 percent. Do you know what it will be now that
there have been some increase in cost beyond what it was
supposed to be, cost overrun?
Admiral Moton. Sir, I do know exactly where the Navy
anticipates that the shipbuilder will end up in terms of cost
and profit on that ship. That is a number that we typically do
not say publicly in terms of reporting their returns.
I would be completely willing to get specifics of those
numbers to the Committee outside of the hearing. But we do know
precisely where we think their performance is and what the
impact of that will be on their profitability on that contract.
Senator Blumenthal. I would appreciate--I don't know how
the--I don't want to be presumptuous here, but I would
appreciate----
Senator Scott. You know what we should do is we can pull
up--I'll get my office to do it and I'll just send around to
everybody. Let's get everybody's profitability of--they're
public. Most of them are publicly traded companies. We can just
look at those numbers, and so you don't have to look at it--you
know, it's not going to be perfect because they'll have all
these different programs as Senator Kaine said. But that's one
way to look at it.
Admiral Moton. Yes, sir. Sir, we can absolutely get it to
the Committee. We can get the specific information. Certainly,
to your point, sir, there's public information. I know that
Newport News Shipbuilding has publicly talked about, you know,
declining cost performance and declining margins including on
their carrier work. They've said that in their own statements.
We certainly assess that that's true. It's just that for the
specific numbers we would get that to you separately.
Senator Scott. What I'll do is I'll get my team to just get
all the--I get a pool of them. There's a lot of public--you
know, we can get from all these analyst reports too, so I'll
just get around to everybody. So all the ones that deal with,
you know, Seapower.
Senator Blumenthal. Great.
Senator Scott. That might be helpful.
Senator Blumenthal. Thank you.
Senator Scott. Okay, anything else?
Senator Kaine. Just two quick things. So one, this is a
good kind of conversation back and forth about accountability
and contracting mechanisms. So let me put one other contracting
question into the mix, and I'm going to shift to something
else. Block buys. So, you know, I've been a block buy fan. You
make a block buy that should enable you to achieve cost savings
by pre-ordering, you know, supplies, etc, etc.
I wonder whether you have to factor in a downside to block
buy, which is the block buys that were done, say in Virginia-
class were done at a time when we didn't know we were going to
hit COVID and have big inflation. So, you lock in a contract
and you lock in a price. Then we had this significant inflation
event that nobody was projecting.
I kind of wonder if you rolled it backward, would the
shipyard or would we have wanted to do a block buy, if we had
the crystal ball, we might've said maybe it's not a good time
to do a block buy.
So now we hope we don't have COVID type emergencies that
put all kinds of inflationary pressure on things. But the block
buy has a lot of positives, but they may not be all positives.
So, for purposes of thinking about the best way to contract, to
deliver a result and to have an accurate assessment of the cost
and the timing, I'm not asking for an answer, but it's made me
rethink a little bit about whether block buy is 100 percent the
virtuous solution. Do you want to say something on that Dick,
but then I'll move to an unrelated issue? Go ahead.
Senator Blumenthal. Yes, I guess I'd be interested. I think
that's a really important point. I guess my question is, both
of you Admiral Rucker and Admiral Moton have emphasized the
importance of advanced buying of materials, which I think is
critical.
When you advance buy the materials, is it at a certain
price so that even if you know their tariffs and inflation, and
obviously steel and aluminum maybe subject to tariffs, the
aluminum goes into these ships, but do you get the raw
materials that you advance by at a fixed price or does it rise
with inflation?
Rear Admiral Rucker. Thanks for the question, Senator. The
answer is, it depends on the contract. But back to your
question on block buys, we do block buys. We get an advantage
of what's called economic order quantity funding in addition to
the advanced procurement. By doing that, we actually, the
shipbuilders, when we negotiate with them and they go do it,
they lock in forward pricing rates so they actually can get a
reasonable bulk buy, kind of like a Walmart. So that is a
benefit.
The downside to your point Senator, is if there is some
type of catastrophic change just like they can benefit from it
and they did in early blocks, that unpredictable thing can
result in a downside. Then we have to work with them on what
makes the most sense on how we adjudicate it.
Senator Kaine. Please go ahead, Admiral Moton.
Admiral Moton. Sorry. I would just add another tool that we
have for the scenario you're talking about is something we call
economic price adjustment that we put in many of our contracts
often contracts have an economic price adjustment for material.
We do that so that if there's general market increase in
particular types of material some of that we are able to adjust
the cost of the contract to account for that.
We quite frankly, do that because we found if we don't do
that, the shipbuilder's perception of risk is oftentimes going
to cause them to increase their prices, possibly even more
dramatically. So, we consider it a risk balancing tool.
Senator Kaine. The unrelated question I wanted to ask Mr.
Sermon, you mentioned in your opening testimony, the additive
manufacturing program in Danville, which is really designed to
do two things. One, it's to train workers that Danville cluster
to train the workforce, but also with additive manufacturing,
it's also to come up with new strategies for dealing with
supply chain issues.
Is the Navy looking--I had heard that the Navy was thinking
about doing another one in the upper Midwest, either Wisconsin
or Michigan. Is that model something that the Navy is looking
at dispersing more generally to try to help us deal both with
workforce issues, but also to develop new technologies around
innovative production through additive manufacturing of supply
chain items and parts?
Mr. Sermon. Thank you, sir. Specifically, we are looking to
leverage on the training side and as you said the accelerated
training and defense manufacturing efforts in Danville that
will provide 1,000 workers to the industrial base across the
whole Nation in steady state with which they'll be in next
year.
We'll do that going forward, we have had it critiqued and
reviewed by the supply chain folks who've gotten those workers
and have had outstanding feedback on you know, saving 300 days
in terms of brokers getting to full capability and capacity.
We absolutely are looking to and we have in a much smaller
version as we were doing the Michigan Maritime Manufacturing
program that we stood up, we used some of the lessons learned
to partner with the folks in Michigan. It's a smaller scale,
but we will continue to look for opportunities to apply that.
On the advanced manufacturing, particularly metallic
additive side of that, what the effort in Danville has been
primarily focused on is we have struggled as--I would frankly
say as certainly as the navy more broadly in the entire nation,
I've studied our economy--to get additive manufacturing demand
into that industrial base, right?
We have, because of cost concerns, because of schedule
concerns, because of is that material really better than how we
were doing castings and forgings? We struggled to establish the
additive manufacturing community. What we're doing in Danville
is focusing on a set of materials that are six materials that
are really impactful to the submarine, aircraft carrier, and
shipbuilding industrial base, and maturing those materials.
Then working with the Navy and working with the
shipbuilders and working with suppliers to then get a demand
signal out to the additive manufacturing community for those
materials. With a formula that's like, here's exactly how you
do it. So that as we bring additive manufacturing partners in,
we would actually have an established demand signal for them,
be able to put, you know, those kind of incentives toward
building that capacity. But pressing that out further I think
is absolutely important sir.
Senator Kaine. Let me just say this just for my two
colleagues who are here. On this demand signal side, I have
some tremendously innovative additive manufacturers in Virginia
who say I keep getting like, awards from the DOD for being an
innovator, but then getting no orders. Like I'm tired of
getting the blue ribbon, but not getting any orders.
I think you're right. Finding the area where you don't just
have the innovators, but you're actually putting a demand
signal in so that they can get work through their innovation,
that's going to be helpful.
On the workforce side, this thing in Danville is
fascinating. They usually have, you know, 50 to 100 going
through a cohort at a time, and it's about an 8-week full-time.
They come from around the country and around the world.
So, the last time I was there, you know, kids from rural
Virginia, kids from the Pacific Northwest, Aussies, a lot of
Afghans who are here, you know, they already work to defend the
Nation and they're here on a special immigrant visa and they've
decided, ``I don't want to drive an Uber. I've worked with the
U.S. military, why don't I be a shipbuilder?''
You walk into this class and you see them all learning
together and then they fan back out among the industrial base
all over the country and some back to Australia to work. But
they've had a common set of experiences to train. Then you do
find that it reduces the training needed once they get back. It
probably increases the retention too, if they've been into this
program. So, it is really a program worth seeing, and it is
bearing some fruit, but thank you for giving that report and I
yield back.
Senator Scott. Anything else? Well, first of all, thanks
for coming. I can't imagine how frustrating it has to be for
you to come and, you know, have to respond on how late things
are. Because none of you seem like you're the type that don't
want to get things done on time and on budget and all these
things. So thank you for all your hard work. We do have to make
a--we have to figure this out.
We are falling behind communist China. We don't really have
a choice. You know, we've got to figure this out and we might
have to figure it out pretty fast depending on what they do.
So, I was talking to Senator Kaine, hopefully with the
secretaries that we're getting, hopefully with President
Trump's leadership, this new Office of shipbuilding, that we're
going to be able to make a dramatic change to get something
accomplished.
Because my concern is, we don't know when communist China
is going to take action. If we're not ready it's going to be
horrible for our country and we're going to put a lot of men
and women at risk. So, thank you. This adjourns the meeting,
but I guess we'll leave the record open for two or 3 days--two
days, I guess, if anybody wants to add anything. Thanks.
[Whereupon, at 4:19 p.m., the Committee adjourned.]
[Questions for the record with answers supplied follow:]
Questions Submitted by Senator Dan Sullivan
shipbuilding and maintenance
1. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, President Trump has
expressed a vision where we work with our allies to make use of their
existing shipbuilding capacity, leverage lessons learned from their
shipyards and encourage their investment in our own Maritime Industrial
Base (MIB). What is the role that you see our allies playing in
expanding our navy shipbuilding infrastructure and growing the Navy?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. As a maritime nation, the United States must
have a strong and resilient maritime industrial base capable of
securing our national and economic security. The Navy is closely
engaged with our allies to understand their approaches to shipbuilding
and how we can leverage best practices to improve efficiency and
productivity. The Navy is working closely with partners from across the
Federal Government to carry out the President's Executive Order
``Restoring America's Maritime Dominance,'' including identifying
opportunities to work our allies in executing the President's vision.
2. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, what is your view on
expanding the authorities for overseas preventive maintenance on U.S.-
based ships?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Navy appreciates the authority provided by
title 10 U.S. Code Sec. 8680, which was recently expanded to allow
preventive maintenance on surface ships, which may not exceed 21 days
in duration nor affect any homeport by more than 2 percent of its
workload.
3. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, what, in your mind, are the
biggest barriers facing our Naval shipbuilding industry and how do you
plan to approach them if confirmed?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Naval shipbuilding industry faces several
significant barriers that are jeopardizing performance and efficiency.
Key challenges include workforce recruitment, training, and retention;
workforce proficiency and efficiency; supply chain delays and
associated material lead times; and slow integration and adoption of
manufacturing technology.
The Navy's Program Executive Offices (PEOs) and Direct Reporting
Program Manager for the Maritime Industrial Base (DRPM MIB) are focused
on removing these barriers through targeted initiatives and investments
with the support of industry partners. Navy investments are increasing
nuclear shipyard worker wages, helping to improve workforce attraction,
recruitment, training, retention, and execution; growing capability and
capacity in the supply chain; and operationalizing advanced
manufacturing technology.
4. Senator Sullivan. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker and Rear
Admiral Weeks, I am very concerned about both our ship and submarine
readiness. I know the Navy has established an 80 percent surge
readiness goal, but we are nowhere near there today. Xi is deathly
afraid of our submarines. What will you do to get submarines in and out
of maintenance on time?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Navy
is executing major initiatives to increase readiness of attack
submarines by increasing material availability at the start of a
maintenance period, outsourcing discrete work, addressing obsolescence
aimed at reducing submarine maintenance durations, and addressing
public shipyard execution and efficiency.
The Navy continues efforts to enhance collaboration between the
public and private sectors, aiming to sustain a robust industrial base
and enhance cost-effectiveness and schedule adherence for both
submarine maintenance and new construction initiatives.
U.S. Strategic Command sets requirements for the Navy's strategic
submarines. The Navy is meeting those requirements.
5. Senator Sullivan. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker and Rear
Admiral Weeks, what will you do to simultaneously increase sub
maintenance capacity?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, and Rear Admiral Weeks. Increases
in throughput and on-time delivery of submarines from maintenance
availabilities will ultimately lead to an increase in submarine
maintenance capacity. The Navy is focused on the development of the
workforce, enabling nonstop execution of work on the deck-plate, and
improving the availability of new and refurbished parts and components
to ensure projects have the material needed before the maintenance
availability begins. Enabling non-stop work and improving overall
throughput are key to ensuring the readiness of our fighting submarine
fleet.
While additional work is in progress to improve schedule adherence
and minimize delays, current efforts are having a positive impact. With
this focus, submarine throughput has increased by 22 percent from
fiscal year (FY) 2024 quarter 2, and work stoppage durations have been
reduced by 33 percent over the same period.
Navy will continue to focus on increasing throughput and on time
delivery of submarines from maintenance availabilities, driving
increases in submarine maintenance capacity.
6. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, will you commit to working
with the Senate Armed Services Committee to review military
specification requirements for naval vessels created and executed by
Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) and to proactively recommend the
removal of those deemed most burdensome?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. It is important to ensure we are not
overengineering our vessels and not overburdening our industry partners
in the design and production of our fleet. In support of these notions,
it is prudent and necessary to review the specifications placed on our
ship classes to determine whether they are current, necessary, and
reasonable. The Navy is working closely with partners from across the
Federal Government to carry out the President's Executive Order
``Restoring America's Maritime Dominance,'' identifying proposals to
accelerate procurement timelines and strengthen the U.S. maritime
industrial base by following commercial approaches to shipbuilding
where ever possible, and we are committed to working with this
Committee on this important issue as well.
7. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, the delays identified by
the previous Secretary of the Navy's (SECNAV) 45-day shipbuilding
review paint a damning picture whereby five major ship classes are
delayed by 12 to 36 months. Do you believe the regular congressional
authorization and appropriation cycle and Department of Defense (DOD)
planning, programming, budgeting, and execution (PPBE) process can
deliver ships on time and on budget?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The shipbuilding timeline can be influenced by
a complex set of factors including requirements stability, availability
of materials, workforce capacity and capability, technical challenges,
and external global supply chain disruptions. The PPBE process and
congressional cycles, while critical for ensuring appropriate funding
and oversight, sometimes present challenges in responding at the speed
of relevance to these issues. A particular challenge is the consistent
cycle of Continuing Resolutions (CR) which result in negative
consequences far beyond the timeframe of the CR if certain
flexibilities aren't also provided.
Ultimately, while the current processes provide a solid foundation,
the ability to dynamically and responsively manage programs will be
necessary to meet the growing demands of our Navy and ensure we stay
ahead of emerging threats.
8. Senator Sullivan. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, recognizing
that attack submarines are one of our biggest advantages compared to
the People's Republic of China (PRC). Do you agree that our inability
to produce at least two submarines per year, and deliver them on time,
increases risk in the Indo-Pacific during this decade?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. Yes, I do agree. Our fast attack
submarines (SSNs)--particularly the Virginia-class--remain one of the
United States' most significant asymmetric advantages in the Indo-
Pacific region, where undersea superiority is essential to deterring
adversaries and preserving freedom of maneuver for joint and coalition
forces. China is expanding its submarine fleet at a rapid pace, and
Russia continues to modernize its undersea forces in the Pacific. In
this context, any delay in restoring and sustaining a minimum two-boat-
per-year production cadence directly increases operational and
strategic risk in this decisive theater.
As Admiral Paparo recently testified, the U.S. submarine force
provides a ``generational advantage''--an advantage that cannot be
assumed to persist without deliberate investment. Returning to a stable
two-per-year build rate for Virginia-class submarines is critical to
the Navy's global posture.
Sustained undersea dominance requires predictable procurement,
strong industrial base support, and timely delivery. Failing to produce
at least two attack submarines per year--and to deliver them on
schedule--exacerbates risk in the Indo-Pacific, erodes combatant
commander flexibility, undermines strategic deterrence and places
alliance agreements at risk.
9. Senator Sullivan. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, I have been
a strong supporter of AUKUS [Australia, United Kingdom, and United
States] since its launch, and believe it is a potential game changer
for U.S. and allied posture in the Indo-Pacific as well as the weapons
capabilities at allied disposal. The nominee for Secretary of State,
Senator Marco Rubio, was enthusiastically supportive of AUKUS in his
confirmation hearing and I agree with him that AUKUS is a ``blueprint''
for future consortium partnerships with allied nations facing global
threats. Do you agree?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. We must increase submarine
availability and production if we are going to meet U.S. requirements
in the Indo-Pacific and realize AUKUS Pillar I. The United States
cannot afford to weaken its own submarine forces during this critical
period, which is why President Trump is leading a whole-of-government
approach to revitalize American shipbuilding. Significant investments
are needed by industry in the U.S. Submarine Industrial Base (SIB) to
increase production rates.
On Submarine Rotational Force-West, I remain concerned that
Australia has fallen behind on timelines necessary to support
infrastructure requirements for our sailors at HMAS Stirling. We are
working with Australia to determine whether timelines can be
recaptured, however, analysis still needs to be done. We will continue
to work to ensure appropriate cost-sharing arrangements with our allies
and partners, and to address worrying trends in our submarine
industrial base.
10. Senator Sullivan. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, our
inability to produce at least two submarines per year obviously creates
doubt in Australia that we can deliver three to five Virginia-class
submarines as part of the optimal pathway for Pillar I. What would you
tell your Australian counterparts to assure them of our commitment to
increasing Virginia production and executing the optimal pathway?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. I would tell our Australian
partners that I am laser focused on getting Virginia-class production
to what we need in the United States; that thanks to Congress we are
investing billions of dollars through the Submarine and Maritime
Industry Base Programs to uplift our submarine production and
sustainment. We are also encouraging our Submarine Industrial Base
partners to make concurrent investments in their own enterprises as
well.
We must expeditiously increase submarine availability and
production, however, if we are going to meet U.S. requirements in the
Indo-Pacific and realize AUKUS Pillar I. The United States cannot
afford to weaken its own submarine forces, which is why President Trump
is leading a whole-of-government approach to revitalize the American
shipbuilding industry.
2025 government accountability office report
11. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, in a 2025 Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report on shipbuilding, one of the
recommendations was for the Secretary of the Navy to develop
performance metrics to assess the programmatic and aggregate effect of
investment in the Navy's ship industrial base. This echoes a similar
recommendation from a 2024 GAO report on Amphibious Ship readiness.
What is the importance of these metrics, and which metrics should the
Congress be tracking to ensure that the intent of these investments is
being reached?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Navy has implemented a process to ensure
our investments strengthen and grow the maritime industrial base are
targeting the primary needle-movers and enablers of shipbuilding and
ship sustainment schedules. As part of this process, we assess and
track the impact of Navy industrial base assessments at multiple
levels, including individual project level, aggregate level across
multiple projects with shared objectives, and portfolio level assessing
impacts to shipbuilding production drivers.
This approach enables us to assess performance against current
shipbuilding demand in addition to projected future demand as the
industrial base scales to meet growing demand to ensure we are working
to achieve gains that are sustainable. Collectively, these efforts
support flexible decisionmaking to meet a dynamic supply chain
environment.
12. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, one of the things we certainly
need to be tracking is the retention of workforce. In my opinion, we
are expending a lot of effort and treasure to get people in the door of
these shipyard, we need to ensure we are keeping them. What are you
doing to increase retention through the Maritime Industrial Base?
Mr. Sermon. Encouraging young Americans to seek careers in the
skilled trades will require the collective efforts of Federal, State,
and local governments, as well as our industry partners. Next-
generation workforce members must see a viable career path that is
adequately compensated, has clear purpose, and provides opportunities
to advance. We must fundamentally change how we view skilled trades--
they must be seen as a critical component of our national security, and
the Navy team is actively working to elevate those conversations at a
national level through messaging and partnership.
The Navy has made significant investment to attract, recruit,
train, and retain the maritime industrial base workforce. The fiscal
year 2025 Continuing Resolution (Public Law 118-158) funded wage
increases and infrastructure productivity enhancements for nuclear
shipbuilding programs, to help improve worker retention. In addition,
our six regional talent pipeline programs provide dedicated coaching
for small and medium suppliers to implement attraction and retention
best practices. Navy funding is also supporting quality-of-life
improvements at the shipyards, such as a new childcare facility at Bath
Iron Works. To maintain improvement of recruiting and retention, we
must continue to urge industry to provide competitive wages in order to
attract and retain its workforce, continue to address K-12 education,
career and technical education/university education, incumbent
workforce matters, and the ecosystem improvements to ensure people want
to stay.
dual buy of cohen veterans network's 82 & 83
13. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon and Rear Admiral Moton, in your
provided testimony you cited an acquisition savings of $4 billion
dollars by doing a dual buy of CVN 80 and 81. In last year's National
Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), the House version of the bill
included language ``encouraging'' the Navy to review and revise the
future Ford-class acquisition strategy starting with CVN 82 and
included funding for a dual buy of CVN's 82 and 83. The Senate included
funding for CVN 82. Neither of these provisions made it into the final
bill. Can you explain the benefits to the taxpayer and our maritime
industrial base of doing a dual buy of these ships?
Mr. Sermon, and Rear Admiral Moton. The Navy is assessing the
procurement of CVNs 82 and 83 as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget
review. A block buy has the potential for significant savings and would
send the industrial base a clear demand signal.
14. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon and Rear Admiral Moton, can you
articulate the risks to our maritime industrial base of not doing a
dual buy of CVN 82 and CVN 83?
Mr. Sermon, and Admiral Moton. Both the Navy and our Nation's
shipbuilding industrial base face many challenging demands for time and
resources, but we must balance our construction plans for nuclear-
powered aircraft carriers (CVNs) with other national conventional and
nuclear shipbuilding priorities. Reduction in steady State demand
signal for equipment and components for construction will negatively
affect the overall health and future growth of the shipbuilding
industrial base.
15. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon and Rear Admiral Moton, included
in the NDAA was a request for procurement of CVN-82 to take place not
later than fiscal year 2028. Can you address the risks to our maritime
industrial base of procuring any later than fiscal year 2028?
Mr. Sermon, and Rear Admiral Moton. The timing and method of
procuring future aircraft carriers (CVNs) will be reviewed by the
Administration as we determine budgets and shipbuilding plans. Our job
is to inform that process regarding both the industrial-base
implications and the most efficient shipbuilding approach. Not
procuring CVN 82 by FY28 could result in the narrowing of the
industrial base and reduction in number of suppliers.
shipyards and automation
16. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, the number of public and
private shipyards in the U.S. has been halved over the last 30 years,
leaving only two private nuclear shipyards on the East Coast. Do we
need more shipbuilding infrastructure on the West Coast?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Navy is working to grow the capability and
capacity of our shipbuilding industrial base across the country, with
investments to strength our supply chain, modernize shipbuilder
infrastructure, generate capacity for key partners to take on work
traditionally executed by shipbuilders, develop the critical maritime
manufacturing workforce, and drive shipbuilding into the era of
advanced manufacturing and automation.
We are making targeted investments to address chokepoints in the
supply chain, with more than $1 billion invested to date to improve on-
time delivery of components that are build-sequence-critical for
nuclear shipbuilding programs. Navy investments are also helping
improve capacity and modernize infrastructure of new-construction
private shipyards, as well as address supply chain capacity constraints
by leveraging advanced manufacturing technology.
17. Senator Sullivan. Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker,
Rear Admiral Moton, and Rear Admiral Weeks, would building new
shipyards help the Navy use automation to better leverage advanced
manufacturing techniques, thereby reducing the number of hours needed
for fabrication and inspection?
Mr. Sermon, Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, Rear Admiral Moton,
and Rear Admiral Weeks. The Navy is focused on improving maritime
industrial base health by leveraging commercially mature advanced
manufacturing technologies, such as metallic additive manufacturing,
robotics and automation, artificial intelligence, and non-destructive
test to improve shipbuilding schedules and reduce maintenance delays,
alleviate chokepoints in key supplier marketspaces, and help mitigate
the demand for maritime manufacturing workforce.
It is vital we infuse advanced manufacturing technology into new
shipbuilding infrastructure, whether new shipyards or new facilities
with existing industry partners, while we modernize existing
shipbuilding infrastructure at the same time. For example, Austal is
building a dedicated modular submarine manufacturing facility designed
to incorporate advanced technology, such as autonomous welding and
inspection, digital shipyard architecture, and advanced training.
Similarly, the Navy is funding pilot programs to incorporate robotics
and automation technologies at our public shipyards, to improve
efficiency and alleviate workforce constraints.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Tim Kaine
australian investments
18. Senator Kaine. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, who is
responsible for ensuring the funds received from the Australian
Government are invested to support Virginia-class submarine production?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. The Navy is focused on improving
maritime industrial base health by leveraging commercially mature
advanced manufacturing technologies, such as metallic additive
manufacturing, robotics and automation, artificial intelligence, and
non-destructive test to improve shipbuilding schedules and reduce
maintenance delays, alleviate chokepoints in key supplier marketspaces,
and help mitigate the demand for maritime manufacturing workforce.
It is vital we infuse advanced manufacturing technology into new
shipbuilding infrastructure, whether new shipyards or new facilities
with existing industry partners, while we modernize existing
shipbuilding infrastructure at the same time. For example, Austal is
building a dedicated modular submarine manufacturing facility designed
to incorporate advanced technology, such as autonomous welding and
inspection, digital shipyard architecture, and advanced training.
Similarly, the Navy is funding pilot programs to incorporate robotics
and automation technologies at our public shipyards, to improve
efficiency and alleviate workforce constraints.
19. Senator Kaine. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, how will the
funds received from the Australian Government be executed and who
defines the priorities for investment?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. Per the Fiscal Year 2024 National
Defense Authorization Act, the President must specify to Congress how
the Australian contribution will be used, including specific amounts
and purposes. That requirement has been delegated to the Secretary of
Defense, Secretary of Energy, and Director of the Office of Management
and Budget for execution. The draft plan is under review within the
Department of Defense to ensure it aligns with Department of Defense
priorities.
20. Senator Kaine. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, who is
responsible for ensuring these investments produce the desired
improvements in submarine production?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. The Maritime Industrial Base,
along with PEO SSN and the AUKUS Integration and Acquisition Office,
are responsible for ensuring the investments meet the desired outcomes.
21. Senator Kaine. Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker, who is
responsible for messaging the results of these investments to the
Australian Government?
Rear Admiral (lower half) Rucker. In coordination with U.S. Navy
Policy, the Office of Secretary of Defense Policy, Indo-Pacific
Security Affairs, is responsible for sharing information related to the
use of Australia's submarine industrial base contributions to the
Government of Australia.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Jeanne Shaheen
maritime industrial workforce training programs
22. Senator Shaheen. Mr. Sermon, New Hampshire manufacturers and
suppliers along with Portsmouth Naval Shipyard are proud to be key
members of the Maritime Industrial Base. Workforce development remains
critical to their continued success and the health and readiness of the
MIB supplier network. Navy-funded machinist and welder training
programs at Nashua Community College and Manchester Community College
in my State are delivering well-trained workers and are an example of
partnerships that create employment opportunities and provide low-cost,
high-return solutions. Does the Navy intend to continue support for
these training programs? The Navy's long-term commitment to these
programs is critical to industrial base capacity and meeting production
objectives.
Mr. Sermon. The Navy has made significant investments to attract,
recruit, train and retain the maritime industrial base workforce, which
is the foundation of our shipbuilding and repair industrial base. These
efforts are making a real impact; the submarine industrial base hired
12,600 new workers in 2024, a nearly 200-percent increase since 2021
and close to our goal of hiring 14,500 workers annually, to meet the
demand for submarine construction.
This progress is only possible by working with a wide range of
partners, including shipbuilders, industry, academic and training
organizations, community groups, and State and local governments.
Initiatives like the Machinist Training Pipeline Program with Nashua
Community College and the Manchester Community College Workforce
Development Welding Program, both launched in partnership with Granite
State Manufacturing and the Southeastern New England Defense Industry
Alliance), are great examples of focused trades training programs that
will help to meet the demand for skilled workers across our maritime
industrial base.
We are focused on the full continuum of workforce development,
including attracting and recruiting today's workforce, providing world-
class training opportunities across the country, connecting trained
workers with career opportunities in the maritime industrial base,
upskilling the existing workforce, improving retention, and inspiring
the next generation of skilled maritime workers.
__________
Questions Submitted by Senator Mazie K. Hirono
adopting advanced technologies
23. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, I have concerns that the Navy lacks
an enterprise-wide, holistic process to identify, test, transition, and
incorporate commercially available advanced manufacturing techniques
that are capable of reducing construction and sustainment costs. I'm
introducing a provision in this year's NDAA that would establish a
program specifically focused on advanced technology transition and
adoption across the naval ship enterprise. What are your thoughts?
Mr. Sermon. To remain competitive and ensure our Nation has the
capacity to build ships at scale, our industrial base must quickly
adopt advanced manufacturing technologies such as automation, robotics,
additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and generative
scheduling to maximize productivity and efficiency.
The Department of the Navy (DON) is executing an enterprise-wide
approach to identify, test, and implement Advanced Manufacturing (AdvM)
technologies to address its most critical operational challenges. This
effort was initiated with the release of the DON Advanced Manufacturing
Strategy in December 2024 by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for
Research, Development & Acquisition. The strategy outlines three key
lines of effort: leveraging cutting-edge commercial technologies for
strategic advancement; expanding organic manufacturing capabilities,
including depot modernization; and enhancing warfighter self-
sufficiency. AdvM encompasses a range of technologies such as additive
manufacturing (e.g., 3D printing, cold spray), subtractive
manufacturing (e.g., CNC machining), robotics, automation, and AI-
enabled inspection and process control.
To implement this strategy, the DON has launched a coordinated
transition process across the enterprise. This involves identifying
components and processes that can most benefit from AdvM, assessing
their suitability, and progressing qualifying candidates through
engineering certification, standards development, and design generation
to enable commercial and organic production. This effort is supported
by the Chief of Naval Operations, Commandant of the Marine Corps,
systems commands, the Office of Naval Research, and program executive
offices.
The Direct Reporting Program Manager for the Maritime Industrial
Base (DRPM MIB) also plays a key role, integrating AdvM into
shipbuilding and ship repair to improve efficiency, reduce costs, and
modernize maintenance operations. For needs not immediately met through
existing technology, the DON continues to pursue research and
innovation with industry and academia.
The Navy appreciates Congress's support on this very important
issue. We are committed to continuing to work with this Committee as
well as our industrial base partners to increase adoption of new
technologies across the maritime industrial base.
supply chain disruptions and material shortages
24. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, the prior SECNAV's review and
congressional Research Service (CRS) report on shipbuilding highlight
supply chain vulnerabilities, particularly in securing key components
like propulsion and combat systems. These disruptions are further
exacerbating shipbuilding delays and increasing costs. What actions are
the Navy taking to stabilize the shipbuilding supply chain and ensure
timely access to critical materials?
Mr. Sermon. The Navy is focused on improving the capability,
capacity, and resiliency of our supply chain. Since fiscal year 2018,
the Navy has funded over 725 supplier development projects to add
capability, capacity, and resiliency to the supply chain, including
development of alternate suppliers for critical submarine components.
This includes investments with more than 50 single/sole-source
suppliers to address supply chain fragility, including establishing and
qualifying alternate sources of supply in key areas like castings, raw
materials, valves and fittings, and mechanical components. In addition,
the Navy has invested $1 billion to date to improve on-time delivery of
components that are build-sequence-critical for nuclear shipbuilding
programs.
The Navy is also addressing supply chain vulnerability by
leveraging advanced manufacturing technology such as automation,
robotics, additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and
generative scheduling. Driving advanced manufacturing at scale into the
supply base and operationalizing technologies like additive
manufacturing as an interchangeable manufacturing process is a critical
focus area for the Navy. This will help us reduce maintenance delays
and new construction schedules, alleviate chokepoints in key market
spaces such as castings and forgings, and mitigate the demand for
growing the manufacturing workforce.
25. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, what can be done to help mitigate
supply chain risks and improve resiliency in ship component production?
Mr. Sermon. The Navy is focused on improving the capability,
capacity, and resiliency of our supply chain. Since fiscal year 2018,
the Navy has funded over 725 supplier development projects to add
capability, capacity, and resiliency to the supply chain, including
development of alternate suppliers for critical submarine components.
This includes investments with more than 50 single/sole-source
suppliers to address supply chain fragility, as well as $1 billion
invested to date to improve on-time delivery of components that are
build-sequence-critical for nuclear shipbuilding programs.
The Navy is also addressing supply chain vulnerability by
leveraging advanced manufacturing technology such as automation,
robotics, additive manufacturing, artificial intelligence, and
generative scheduling. Driving advanced manufacturing at scale into the
supply base and operationalizing technologies like additive
manufacturing as an interchangeable manufacturing process is a critical
focus area for the Navy. This will help us reduce maintenance delays
and new construction schedules, alleviate chokepoints in key market
spaces such as castings and forgings, and help mitigate the demand for
growing the manufacturing workforce.
strengthening the shipbuilding industrial base
26. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, the shipbuilding industrial base is
struggling with capacity constraints, particularly in submarine
construction, where delays in Virginia-class and Columbia-class
production threaten both the attack submarine force and our strategic
deterrent. Strengthening the industrial base is essential to meeting
national security objectives. What targeted investments does the Navy
plan to make to expand the capacity of private shipyards?
Mr. Sermon. Since 2018, more than $10 billion has been appropriated
to address submarine industrial base capability, capacity, and
workforce with an additional $1.3 billion appropriated to support
surface ship industrial base efforts. The Navy DRPM MIB is leading
enterprise-wide efforts to help restore America's shipbuilding capacity
in a strategy focused on six key lines of effort: growing capability
and capacity in the supply chain; modernizing shipbuilder
infrastructure; expanding capacity of key suppliers to take on work
traditionally executed by shipbuilders; developing the critical
maritime manufacturing workforce; operationalizing advanced
manufacturing technology; and improving government oversight.
We are making targeted investments to address chokepoints in the
supply chain, with more than $1 billion invested to date to improve on-
time delivery of components that are build-sequence-critical for
nuclear shipbuilding programs. Navy investments are also helping
improve capacity and modernize infrastructure of new-construction
private shipyards, as well as address supply chain capacity constraints
by leveraging advanced manufacturing technology.
27. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, how is the Navy leveraging
partnerships with allied shipbuilders and best practices from foreign
shipbuilding industries to improve efficiency and productivity in U.S.
shipyards?
Mr. Sermon. The Navy is closely engaged with our allies to
understand their approaches to shipbuilding and how we can leverage
best practices to improve efficiency and productivity. For example, the
Navy is working to identify opportunities to leverage some of the
approaches that Japan and South Korea use in their shipbuilding sector,
such as standardized ship design, modular production techniques,
advanced manufacturing technology, and strong public-private
partnerships.
addressing navy cost estimation gaps
28. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, persistent underestimation of
shipbuilding costs often leads to major budget overruns once
construction begins. These miscalculations have impacted multiple
programs over the past decade. How is the Navy working to improve its
cost estimation process to provide more accurate projections for
Congress?
Mr. Sermon. We recognize good cost estimates across the
shipbuilding enterprise are key to informing the budget. The Navy
develops or obtains independent cost estimates for major defense
acquisition programs, consistent with statute and DOD policy. The
independent cost estimates ensure we leverage Government Accountability
Office (GAO) cost-estimating best practices.
29. Senator Hirono. Mr. Sermon, is the Navy considering independent
cost assessments for major programs to ensure greater transparency and
accountability?
Mr. Sermon. The Navy develops or obtains independent cost estimates
for major defense acquisition programs, consistent with statute and DOD
policy. The independent cost estimates ensure we leverage GAO cost-
estimating best practices.
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