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Today, Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, made the following remarks on the hearing titled “Logistics and Sealift Force Requirements” For testimony and to watch the hearing click here.

"Today the subcommittee convenes to receive testimony on Logistics and Sealift Fleet Requirements. I want to welcome our distinguished witnesses and thank them for the time and effort they expend on this most important issue.

Today, we have:
• The Honorable Paul N. Jaenichen, Sr.,
Maritime Administrator
U.S. Department of Transportation

• Lieutenant General Stephen Lyons, US Army
Deputy Commander
U.S. Transportation Command; and

• Mr. F. Scott DiLisio,
Director, Strategic Mobility/Combat Logistics Office of Chief of Naval Operations

Gentlemen, thank you for being with us today and for everything you do to defend our nation.

Since its earliest days, America has been a seafaring, maritime nation with a robust merchant marine. Today, merchant ships carry around '90 percent of everything,' with the total amount having more than tripled since 1970. This seaborne trade fuels our economy and creates critical links with the global commons. Unfortunately for our national security however, this seaborne trade is being increasingly outsourced to other nations and our own merchant fleet is in decline.

Between the years 2000 and 2014, our U.S. commercial fleet has shrunk from 282 vessels to 179 vessels, a reduction of almost 40 percent. This commercial fleet reduction is increasingly problematic for the U.S. military and specifically for the U.S. Transportation Command because these vessels support the military’s maritime lift requirements and their crews provide the manning for military’s mobilization forces. According to MARAD and TRANSCOM’s assessments, a reduction in the overall U.S. commercial sector has severely jeopardized our ability to sustain any level of prolonged military logistics support. Furthermore, we are perilously close to not having sufficient mariners to support even the initial mobilization of our Navy’s ready reserve forces.

Unfortunately, the administration fiscal year 2017 budget request accelerates this decline and weakens our military. The administration has proposed reducing funding for the Maritime Security Program by almost 20 percent. Such a reduction will, in my view, undoubtedly reduce the size of our commercial fleet below TRANSCOM’s military requirements and reduce our military’s surge capacity. I look forward to better understanding the administration’s proposal, but I am determined to change this dangerous trajectory.

Overall, I am concerned that this administration does not fully appreciate the connection between the health of our merchant fleet and our national security. Proposed changes to the 'Food for Peace' program, continue to hurt our farmers and our mariners. While these changes would have economic impacts, this subcommittee is focused today upon its harmful impact to military readiness and the security of our nation.

In 1897, Admiral Stephen B. Luce, the first President of the Naval War College said that 'Both from the military and economic view, an extensive marine commerce is of primal necessity to a country aspiring to be a naval power.' In the years since, America has become the greatest naval power the world has ever seen. But we must not let further decline in either our Navy fleet or our maritime commerce undermine our position."