[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.
____________________