[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 176 (Tuesday, October 31, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6913-S6915]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                 Building and Sustaining a Larger Navy

  Mr. WICKER. Mr. President, over the past year, our Navy has had four 
serious mishaps at sea, including fatal collisions involving the USS 
Fitzgerald on one occasion and the USS John S. McCain on another. In 
the McCain and Fitzgerald accidents, 17 of our sailors were killed.
  In response to these serious incidents, the Chief of Naval 
Operations, ADM John Richardson, directed the comprehensive review take 
place. Today, the Senate Armed Services Committee was briefed on the 
results of this comprehensive review. The results will be made public 
either tomorrow or the next day, and Americans will be able to see the 
serious situation we are in.
  There are various reasons for these collisions and these fatalities, 
including, regrettably, human error and unfortunate circumstances, but, 
also, the review makes it clear that we are not doing right by our 
sailors, we are not doing right by the Navy, and we are not doing right 
by the taxpayers, in terms of making sure these brave men and women 
have what they need.
  We need to work quickly with the Navy here in Congress to implement 
the recommendations that will be coming forward later this week. We 
need to enhance training and readiness, and we need to recognize--and I 
think the majority of this Senate does recognize--that the size of the 
fleet has contributed to the problems.
  Simply put, we need to acknowledge that the Navy has a supply-and-
demand problem. We have a demand for more naval action than the supply 
of our ships can produce. Our ship force has declined recently by some 
20 percent. We are asking too few ships to do too many things for 
American security, and that needs to be rectified.
  The consequences of this supply-and-demand mismatch were summed up by 
naval analysts Robert C. O'Brien and Jerry Hendrix in a recent National 
Review online article. They argue that the Navy is on the precipice of 
a ``death spiral,'' wherein more overworked and damaged ships place an 
increasingly greater strain on the remaining operational ships, thus 
eroding readiness across the fleet.
  I agree with Mr. O'Brien and Mr. Hendrix that this situation will 
result in ``more collisions, more injuries, and more deaths in the 
fleet.'' To avoid this death spiral, we need to commit to growing the 
Navy and meeting its minimum requirement of 355 ships.
  I have the privilege of chairing the Seapower Subcommittee, which has 
held a series of oversight activities, both classified and 
unclassified, on the Navy's 355 ship requirement. We have examined the 
security environment that drives the requirement to add about 80 more 
ships to the fleet. We have listened to Navy leadership, outside 
experts, and industry on options, capabilities, and considerations. We 
received perspective from the key players behind President Reagan's 
naval buildup in the 1980s.
  As the Fitzgerald and McCain collisions have demonstrated, the short-
term costs of ``doing more with less'' are simply unacceptable. The 
long-term implications will prove devastating to American power and the 
global order it underpins.
  The U.S. military's commanders have identified 18 maritime regions 
where the Navy must secure American interests. Our current naval 
strategy is designed to command the seas in those regions. The Navy 
needs a minimum of 355 ships to get this done.
  If the Navy cannot get the bare minimum it needs, then our naval 
strategy must change--and, I can assure you, it would be a change for 
the worse. Instead of a global command of the seas, what we would get 
would be a new, weaker strategy.
  What would this look like? In the National Review article I 
previously mentioned, authors O'Brien and Hendrix lay out two 
alternatives. Neither one of them are pretty.
  First, the Navy could strategically withdraw from certain maritime 
regions and hope our allies and partners will pick up the slack. Let 
Norway, Denmark, and Canada patrol the Arctic; let the Baltic States, 
Poland and Germany, patrol the Baltic Sea; let Turkey, Romania, and 
Bulgaria patrol the Black Sea. Really? Let Taiwan, the Philippines, and 
Malaysia patrol the South Sea China--and hope for the best or we could 
return to the pre-World War II unacceptable surge and exercise model. 
This strategy involved consolidating a smaller fleet into a few 
strategic hubs, deploying occasionally for exercises, and greatly 
reducing the number of missions the Navy could perform in peacetime and 
in crisis.
  In their article, O'Brien and Hendrix note that these two strategies 
``make the past eight years of `lead from behind' look like an 
assertive foreign policy.'' These two strategies would create dangerous 
power vacuums and shifting allegiances. Our adversaries would use the 
Navy's absence to rewrite the rules of global commons. Our allies would 
accommodate challengers to the American-led order. Abandoned by 
America, in some cases, they would have no choice but to cut deals with 
Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran.
  I know my colleagues in Congress want a different future. In fact, I 
am hopeful we can take the first steps this year toward building up the 
fleet. As former Navy Secretary John Lehman told our subcommittee this 
year, President Reagan ``reaped 90 percent of the benefits of his 
rebuilding program . . . in the first year.'' This took place in the 
early 1980s and made clear that President Reagan, Congress, and the 
Pentagon were serious about rebuilding the fleet. It sent a signal to 
our allies and to the Soviets that America and

[[Page S6914]]

our Navy was coming back in a big way, which makes 2017 and 2018 so 
important. I am confident Congress can establish a firm foundation in 
the coming months for a fleet buildup.
  To that end, I would note that both the House and Senate Defense 
authorization bills contain the Wicker-Wittman SHIPS Act, which would 
establish a 355-ship requirement as our national policy. Both bills 
also contain multiyear procurement authority for Virginia-class attack 
submarines and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Multiyear procurement 
will stabilize the industrial base for those ships and generate 
billions in savings, which would be plowed into more shipbuilding. Both 
bills contain cost-control measures to protect taxpayers. Although 
negotiations are ongoing, the final NDAA conference report should 
include the SHIPS Act, multiyear procurement, and acquisition cost 
controls.
  The Defense authorization bill is a good start, but Congress also 
needs to add funding for shipbuilding in upcoming appropriations 
legislation. We need an agreement that eliminates the Budget Control 
Act with regard to defense spending or at least provides relief.
  The bottom line is that a buildup will require more funding. 
President Reagan's first defense budget included a 35-percent increase 
for the Navy compared to President Carter's last proposed budget, and 
it was well worth it. More resources are needed to accelerate 
shipbuilding. It is time to end the two decades of low-rate 
shipbuilding that has brought us to this point. Compared to its earlier 
planned levels, the Navy's Accelerated Fleet Plan concludes that the 
shipyards can produce 29 more ships over the next 7 years. Investment 
is needed--particularly in submarine facilities--but the yards are up 
to the challenge, especially those with hot production lines.
  I was disappointed to hear that Acting Under Secretary Thomas Dee, an 
Obama holdover still in the Department of the Navy, said last week that 
355 ships is probably out of reach until the 2050s. Mr. Dee's pessimism 
about the Navy's own requirement is perplexing, when it is incumbent on 
the Navy to develop fleet buildup options within budget constraints. 
Those current and likely future physical environments were accounted 
for in the Navy's 2016 Force Structure Assessment of 355 ships. So we 
can do it, and the leadership of the Navy, with the exception of Under 
Secretary Dee, knows we can do it.
  CNO Richardson's white paper on the future Navy notes that we ought 
to achieve a 355-ship fleet in the 2020s--not the 2040s, not the 2050s, 
but the 2020s. Thank goodness for the foresight and positive attitude 
of the Chief of Naval Operations. He is right--a 355-ship fleet should 
be our goal for the next decade. Regrettably, Acting Under Secretary 
Dee must have been asleep for the last 9 months while Congress was 
talking about this and while we were on the verge of enacting 
legislation making a 355-ship Navy the official policy of the United 
States of America.
  Shipbuilding is indeed a long process, and a 355-ship fleet will not 
happen overnight. New ship construction is critical to achieve this 
objective, but the Navy should also examine service life extension 
programs for older ships and perhaps even reactivating ships in the 
Ready Reserve. It is irresponsible to retire ships early if they have 
useful life. Such ships may have to be reassigned to less stressing 
missions, but they should not be prematurely sold overseas or sunk as 
target practice. It is equally irresponsible to miss opportunities to 
reactivate retired ships if the benefits exceed the cost. Let's at 
least look at that.
  The Senate Defense authorization bill includes my amendment directing 
the Navy to look at service life extension and reactivation. The Navy 
needs to go ship by ship through the inventory and provide Congress 
with a thorough analysis of these options, and that is what the Navy is 
doing.
  As O'Brien and Hendrix write, ``Navies and international influence go 
hand in hand.'' A smaller Navy means a smaller role for America, and we 
can't afford that. We must cultivate the national will to avoid this 
fate.
  I urge my colleagues to help me, to help the Armed Services 
Committees in both Houses in an effort to begin rebuilding our naval 
power at once.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Rubio). The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Mr. President, there are few things we do here in the 
Senate that matter more or have longer lasting impacts on our Nation 
than confirming individuals to lifetime appointments in district 
courts, circuit courts, and the Supreme Court.
  It is the Senate's duty, as Alexander Hamilton laid out in the 
Federalist Papers, to ``prevent the appointment of unfit characters.'' 
Hamilton thought that this power would be used rarely because a 
President would seek to make sure that he or she sent qualified 
individuals to the Senate for confirmation, but we are seeing something 
quite different today. We are seeing the President engaged in a zeal to 
pack the court with extreme rightwing ideologues and to ram them 
through this confirmation process without due review.
  Just yesterday, the American Bar Association sent a letter to the 
Judiciary Committee saying that Leonard Grasz, President Trump's 
nominee to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, is not qualified to 
serve as a Federal judge. Yet his confirmation hearing is scheduled for 
this week.
  Putting extreme and unqualified people on the court is a disservice 
to America's judiciary. It will impact the protection of fundamental 
American rights for generations to come. It is critical for us, 
therefore, to have a conversation about what is going on at this 
moment.
  Just this week, we have four nominees for the court of appeals coming 
to the floor. Amy Barrett was confirmed just hours ago. There is 
another vote scheduled for tomorrow. These individuals, as I will go 
through in a moment, don't come here with the types of qualifications 
that really should allow them to be considered for lifetime 
appointments.
  Time and time again, we have heard from our Republican leadership 
that Democrats are engaged in a massive, ``often-mindless partisan 
obstruction,'' in the words of the majority leader. From where comes 
this evaluation? Well, he wants to move judiciary nominees faster, 
without due consideration. And certainly he does know something about 
obstructing judicial nominations since he spent the entire 8 years of 
the Obama administration leading the effort to obstruct consideration 
of nominees here in this Chamber.
  Eighty percent of President Obama's nominees waited 181 days or 
longer. That is certainly far more than under President George Bush, 
President Clinton, the first President Bush, or President Reagan--
obstruction taken to the maximum, 6 months or longer to work their way 
through the confirmation process.
  Throughout President Obama's entire 8 years in office, just 55 
circuit court judges were confirmed. That is the lowest number for any 
President. And by this point in the previous administration--in the 
Obama administration--just one nominee had been confirmed for a spot on 
the circuit court. But here we are taking a look at how in this time 
period just one had been confirmed for Obama, but we will have, at the 
end of this week--assuming each individual gets the full majority--
eight circuit court nominees confirmed. That is one for Obama and eight 
for President Trump. That number wasn't reached substantially into 
President Obama's second year in office.
  We can look at the average number of days that it has taken from 
committee report to confirmation for the first seven nominees. 
President Trump's first seven circuit and district court nominees 
waited 37 days for confirmation once they were reported out of the 
Judiciary Committee. Let's compare that to President Obama, where the 
Judiciary Committee held them up for 75 days. So once again Democrats 
in the minority are moving far, far faster to date than did our 
colleagues when President Obama was in office. Certainly by comparison, 
President Trump's nominees are sailing through at a rapid pace.
  So let's not hear any more about the preposterous false news coming 
from the majority side about things being slowed down when the facts 
are quite the opposite. But why this emphasis on

[[Page S6915]]

creating this false narrative? Perhaps it is because right now there is 
a lot of pressure on the majority to show that they are getting 
something done, and not much is happening that will help anyone in this 
country. They tried to get something done by trying to strip healthcare 
from 20 to 30 million Americans in 5 different versions of the 
TrumpCare monster. They didn't quite get it done, thankfully. And I 
doubt that the American people--in fact, I know that they certainly 
would not have been appreciative of the bill in which my Republican 
colleagues said: Let's strip all this healthcare away from 20 to 30 
million people so we can give massive, multitrillion-dollar tax 
benefits, tax giveaways to the very richest Americans.
  Wow. That is certainly not a way to win the hearts and minds of 
Americans--attack working Americans time after time in order to deliver 
the National Treasury to the very richest Americans. Perhaps my 
colleagues will be glad they didn't succeed in that effort.
  Now there is a tax plan on the floor--a tax plan being considered 
that will once again take $1.5 trillion out of healthcare to deliver 
several trillion dollars to the richest 1 percent of Americans. We see 
it time and time again--attack working Americans to deliver incredible 
gifts from the National Treasury--really a raid on Fort Knox. Has ever 
such an audacious theft been considered previously in U.S. history than 
the theft that my colleagues are trying to perpetuate both through the 
healthcare strategy and now through this tax strategy?
  But there is a bigger purpose at work here, and that is a goal to 
rewrite the vision of our Constitution. Our Constitution has this 
incredibly powerful, meaningful vision of government of, by, and for 
the people, but my colleagues don't like that vision, and they decided 
that the best way to change it is to put people onto the court who like 
a different vision--government of, by, and for the privileged and the 
powerful. We saw it in their healthcare bill, we see it in their tax 
bill, and now we are seeing it in their nomination strategy to the 
court--a GOP agenda that will tip the scales of justice to favor the 
powerful and privileged over working Americans; judges who want to 
legislate from the bench on behalf of the powerful; judges who want to 
legislate from the bench on behalf of the privileged, who want to 
support predatory consumer practices, who want to strip away individual 
rights of women to determine their own healthcare, who want to deny a 
fair day in court by allowing binding arbitration where the seller of 
the services gets to pick and pay for the judge. Judges, rather than 
pursuing neutrality, are pursuing government for the powerful--that is 
the radical rightwing agenda attack on working America.
  We should do all that we can to stop it, including having opposition 
in this Chamber.