[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 207 (Tuesday, December 8, 2020)]
[House]
[Pages H6907-H6908]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          SUPPORTING THE NDAA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Courtney) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, in a few hours, the House of 
Representatives will be voting on the National Defense Authorization 
Act of 2021.
  This bill is our Nation's annual defense policy law that the U.S. 
Congress has approved every year for the last 59 years. It establishes 
the legal basis for thousands of operations of the Department of 
Defense, including military pay, the startup of new technologies, and 
investment in planes, ships, logistics, and infrastructure at military 
installations at home and abroad.
  This year's bill, like the 59 bills that preceded it, represents 11 
months of bipartisan work at the House and Senate Armed Services 
Committees, whose members and professional staff have worked with the 
entire Congress to produce a bill that will strengthen our security, 
support our servicemembers, and boost our economy in countless ways.
  As House chair of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, a 
body I have served on for 14 years, I want to spend a moment on our 
section of the bill which I believe is remarkable.
  The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee is vested with 
jurisdiction of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps as set forth in Article 
I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution. Those services today are engaged 
in the highest operational tempo in our military.
  In every part of the globe, the Indo-Pacific, the Atlantic, and the 
Middle East, our sailors and marines are in heel-to-toe operations that 
are straining our fleet and manpower. Our chief competitors, China and 
Russia, in these regions have been steadily growing their naval forces 
in both numbers and quality.
  China's navy grew to 355 ships and submarines this year, versus 292 
in our fleet. Russia's Navy continues to grow under Putin, particularly 
with the new, lethal Severodvinsk-class submarines.
  With this backdrop, it was quite surprising when, last February, the 
Trump administration submitted a budget with the lowest number of 
requested Navy ships since 2009. As the Congressional Research Service 
noted, the Trump budget asked for just seven new ships and, incredibly, 
cut one of the two planned Virginia-class submarines, a program that 
has successfully sustained a two-per-year build rate that began in 2007 
under the Obama administration.
  This baffling cut ignored all the warnings from commanders who 
testified at Seapower that our declining, aging fleet of 1980s-era 
submarines risk losing the one clear tactical advantage that we as a 
nation retain--namely, our superiority in the undersea domain.
  This chart shows the steep decline in the sub fleet in the 2020s, 
even with a 2-per-year build rate, and the red dotted line shows that 
the Trump plan worsens that slide.
  This cut would also disrupt the skilled workforce that has been 
assembled over the last decade to execute this highly complex 
production. At committee, administration witnesses, such as Secretary 
Esper, gave completely unsatisfactory explanations for this cut, 
leaving us in Congress with the job to clean up their mess.
  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to report that today's bill, in fact, does 
reverse this cut. Working with Ranking Member  Rob Wittman, Seapower 
led the way in restoring the second submarine with offsets and savings 
as required by the spending cap in the 2019 bipartisan budget law.
  We worked with our colleagues on the Defense Appropriations 
Subcommittee to ensure that this $2.6 billion change will be funded in 
their bill. And I want to thank retiring Chair Pete Visclosky for his 
strong support of this effort, as well as HASC Chair Adam Smith and 
Ranking Member Mac Thornberry.
  Having the two House defense committees united on this measure 
ensured that our position would prevail in conference negotiations 
since the Senate did not initially vote for full restoration.
  Ironically, late last month, with Congress deep in the process of 
negotiating this agreement, the Trump administration suddenly disavowed 
its own budget

[[Page H6908]]

and sent a letter to Congress asking us to fully fund the second 
submarine it wanted to cut just last February. Thankfully, the House 
had already acted responsibly to do just that earlier this year.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to salute Admiral Michael Gilday, Chief of Naval 
Operations, who foot-stomped the second submarine as the Navy's top 
unfunded priority this year and also wrote a powerful support letter to 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, I include in the Record that support letter.

                                           Department of the Navy,


                                    Chief of Naval Operations,

                                Washington, DC, November 13, 2020.
     Hon. Joe Courtney,
     Chairman, Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, 
         Committee on Armed Services, House of Representatives, 
         Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to follow up on our phone 
     call of November 12, 2020. As I detailed in the Navy's 
     February 19, 2020 Unfunded Priorities List, the second 
     Virginia Class Submarine in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 remains my 
     top unfunded priority. The FY 2021 shipbuilding budget 
     reflected a balance between requirements, capability, 
     affordability, and the need to sustain the industrial base 
     while maintaining a reasonable degree of risk.
       Increased funding to enable the Navy to procure a second 
     Virginia Class Submarine in FY 2021, the 10th under the 
     current contract of the Block V submarine build is critical 
     for a number of important reasons: it supports stability 
     within the industrial base and the workload ramp up for 
     COLUMBIA Class construction and helps mitigate the SSN trough 
     in the late 2020s. Additionally, recent DoD studies 
     highlighted the need to increase the number of submarines to 
     counter the threat.
       The Navy supports the President's FY 2021 budget request 
     and will consider the potential for restoring the submarine 
     in future budget submissions, ensuring the proper balance of 
     resources between investing in tomorrow's fleet and 
     sustaining today's fleet. However, if Congress has the 
     opportunity to add one ship to the FY 2021 budget, my 
     recommendation would be an attack submarine. Thank you for 
     your continued support for the United States Navy and its 
     submarine force. Please let me know if I can be of further 
     assistance.
           Sincerely,
                                                      M.M. Gilday,
                                               Admiral, U.S. Navy.

  Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Navy League and the AFL-CIO metal 
trades unions, whose members do such amazing work at our Nation's 
shipyards, also provided critical advocacy throughout this fight.
  Seapower's professional staff Phil MacNaughton, Dave Sienicki, Kelly 
Goggin, and Navy fellow Lieutenant Commander Cam Massey rose to the 
challenge and did the hard work to make this plus-up fit within the 
overall bill.
  In my 14 years on Seapower, this act of bipartisan congressional 
independence and leadership to pass a shipbuilding plan that faithfully 
addresses our Navy's needs stands out as its finest hour.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support the NDAA today.

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