Opening Statements

Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX), Ranking Member of the House Armed Services Committee, made the following remarks at the Committee's hearing titled "FY20 National Defense Authorization Request for the Department of the Navy":

"Thank you Mr. Chairman.

"Let me join in welcoming our witnesses and may I begin, General Neller, by expressing condolences to the Marine Corps and to the family and friends and colleagues of the three Marines who lost their lives yesterday in Afghanistan. I think it is important for their families and others to know that they were there to protect our country. That was their mission. We grieve their loss and honor their service.

"I also want to thank Admiral Richardson and General Neller for your service over many years. I am not quite ready to let y'all go yet. As we work through a number of issues, I am sure you will have a lot of interactions with the Committee, but I join the Chairman in appreciating what y'all have done.

"If you step back and look from when each of you first assumed your current position, in some ways things are on a better track. We have a national defense strategy. We have this year a budget that is- you can debate to what degree- but at least somewhat tied to that defense strategy; and is looking ahead and the challenges that we face before us. My sense- and this is what I am going to ask you in a minute- is that we have turned a corner, maybe, on readiness. I noticed that there was a study that was published yesterday that said for aviation, the Navy was slightly worse last year than the previous year. The Marine Corps was slightly better. But if you look at overall accident rates, it is somewhat better that it was, even though it is still way too high.

"I join the Chairman, Admiral, in appreciating the efforts y'all have made on the surface combatant accidents and training and so forth that y'all have tried to improve. And I will say – another way that things are getting better- I was heartened by the reports yesterday that finally there are some serious discussions going on about a cap deal. Because as all three of you have talked about before with this committee, it is the amount of funding and the consistency of funding that enable y'all to make the most use of the dollars that the taxpayers provide.

"So there will be a lot of questions today, a lot of issues – I'm going to avoid the border debate for the moment. The last thing I would say is even though we, in my estimation, are on a better track, the enemy always gets a vote. And they are not going to wait for us to get our act together. So there is still as sense of urgency dealing with the ship-building issues that the Chairman talked about and other things. I am sure we will talk about most of those today.

"Again, thank all of you for being here. "