Today, Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, made the following remarks, as prepared for delivery, on the Subcommittee's joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Readiness titled "U.S. Transportation Command and Maritime Administration: State of the Mobility Enterprise."
"I thank the gentleman for yielding and want to thank my Readiness colleagues for this joint hearing. I think this venue is particularly important to ensure Congress is focusing on critical and sometimes unheralded national security concerns. Additionally, I want to want to thank General Lyons and Admiral Buzby for testifying on the state of our mobility forces.
"Since reviewing this portfolio last year, one thing is certain: Our aged Ready Reserve Force of 46 ships, which averaged 43 years old a year ago, now averages 44 years old. With no recapitalization in place and only a distant hope that Navy will find this a priority, I continue to be perplexed how the Army and the Marine Corps expects to get to the future battlefield on these aged ships. Last year, the Navy proposed a three-tiered strategy of extending the service life of the existing force, procuring used vessels, and preparing a new construction strategy. Unfortunately, each of these three tiers has failed to deliver. And, on top of this, our logistics forces have continued to atrophy. Congress has done what needs to be done on this effort and authorized the procurement of seven used vessels to begin replacing the Ready Reserve Force—we've done the work on our end. Now, Navy needs only to lift their fingers and sign a contract to begin and procure these readily available vessels. I hope that we can begin to better address this deficient issue in fiscal year 2020. On a positive note, I am pleased to understand that General Lyons has also recognized this critical shortfall and has identified the surge sealift force as his number one readiness concern.
"As for our aerial refueling forces, the Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation, also known as OSD (CAPE), authored a recent assessment of the overall refueling forces force structure. In this assessment, OSD CAPE opined that the refueling force structure requirements today were the same as was previously identified in a 2013 mobility study. This is in sharp contrast to Secretary Wilson's force structure vision where aerial refueling forces represented one of the biggest shortfalls in her "Air Force We Need" proposal. Under the Secretary of the Air Force's plan, aerial refueling would have seen significant growth, increasing from 40 to 54 squadrons. I look forward to better understanding the aerial refueling force structure challenges General Lyons identified as his second most important readiness concern.
"Finally, I continue to be concerned about the modernization of our mobility forces and their ability to operate in a contested environment. While sensor nodes and defensive countermeasures exist in a multitude of our mobility platforms, I think that we need to significantly improve organic capabilities to ensure deep penetrating capabilities in a contested environment. I think that this concern is particularly acute with our tanker force structure. I look forward to better understanding how TRANSCOM expects to best posture their forces and their modernization plan to ensure mobility success in a contested environment.
"As I reflect on the state our mobility forces, I think that we have made great strides in our logistics and we constantly measure our success based on the mobilization that occurred during Desert Storm. I am reminded of Lt. Gen. Fredrick Franks, 7th Corps Commander, then responsible for our Desert Storm forces "left hook". In response to questions about his concerns during this operation, he indicated that if you "Forget logistics, you lose." My fear is that we have allowed our logistics forces to become a seam issue and our ability to project forces in a contested environment is becoming increasingly compromised. I look forward to pursuing options that we might begin to change our mobility forces so that we might become more agile and lethal when addressing our most challenging war fighting scenarios.
"I thank the Chairman for organizing this important hearing and I yield the balance of my time."
