[Congressional Record Volume 165, Number 110 (Friday, June 28, 2019)]
[Senate]
[Page S4672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT

  Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today, I wish to discuss the importance of 
strengthening the defense industrial base, particularly as it relates 
to shipbuilding.
  On July 21, 2017, the President signed Executive Order 13806, 
directing the Department of Defense to lead a whole of government 
assessment of the health of the manufacturing and defense industrial 
base of the United States. The report was released on October 5, 2018, 
and outlines current risks in the defense industrial base.
  Within the military shipbuilding sector, concerns range from an 
overreliance on single and sole source suppliers, to a capacity 
shortfall for maintenance and modernization work, to insufficient 
competition and unstable demand.
  The DoD report said: ``Industries involved in the manufacturing of 
shipbuilding components were among the hardest hit by the global shift 
in the industrial base over the last 20 years. Of the top ten highest 
grossing industries in Navy shipbuilding, six are in the manufacturing 
sector. Since 2000, these industries experienced a combined decline of 
over 20,500 establishments.''
  We cannot afford to shrink our military shipbuilding industry any 
further.
  These issues are particularly acute in my State of Virginia. Not only 
is Virginia home to Newport News Shipbuilding and Norfolk Naval 
Shipyard, we have hundreds of military shipbuilder suppliers, a number 
of which are considered by the Department of Defense to be fragile. 
These companies are essentially national treasures, from Hunt Valve out 
of Roanoke to Jo-Kell in Chesapeake, KITCO Fiber Optics in Virginia 
Beach, and Hampton Machine Shop in Newport News.
  These companies want stability and predictability in funding; they 
want to be certain our Nation is serious about a 355-ship Navy.
  These are issues that our committee has been working on for some 
time. In testimony last fall before the Seapower Subcommittee, the 
Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, James 
Geurts, told our committee that ``advanced funding and anything we can 
do to help the supplier base will drastically reduce risks going 
forward. What we are seeing in most of our construction programs as a 
key risk is supplier fragility, either single sources or single 
producers where we have to ramp up production.''
  Chairman Inhofe has paid close attention to those concerns, and I 
very much appreciate how far this bill goes to address the issues 
outlined in the industrial base report.
  This bill authorizes funds for the third year for the submarine 
supplier base initiative, which is helping critical suppliers across 
the Nation; authorizes additional funding along with incremental 
funding authority for both LPD 31 and LHA 9; accelerates the 
acquisition of LHA 9; adds funding for advance procurement for the DDG 
program; and requires DoD to assess the savings a multiyear procurement 
would yield in the LPD program, and the savings we could achieve 
through a block buy of two LHA's. The bill also reauthorizes CVN 75, 
the USS Harry S Truman. It leaves no room for indecision on the future 
of this asset.
  It is critical that the DOD's current and prospective shipbuilding 
programs, the Virginia class and Columbia class submarine programs, the 
new Frigate program, destroyers, specifically take action to maintain 
the domestic supply base and not allow foreign sources to undercut the 
pricing of the domestic supply base.
  We ask the administration to help us in every way to stay focused on 
helping our military shipbuilding industrial base meet the Navy the 
Nation Needs.

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