Kelly Opening Statement at Hearing on the Posture and Readiness of the Mobility Enterprise
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Trent Kelly (R-MS), Chairman of the Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces, delivered the following remarks at a joint Readiness and Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee hearing on the posture and readiness of the mobility enterprise.
Rep. Kelly’s remarks as prepared for delivery:
Thank you, Chairman Bergman and Ranking Member Garamendi for leading today’s hearing and thank you as well to Ranking Member Courtney for his leadership on these issues. These two subcommittees have a long history of working well together to strengthen our mobility enterprise and I look forward to continuing that work today.
We are here to discuss the logistics capabilities that Transportation Command provides to support our force projection across all theaters. In a great power competition taking place in a theater halfway across the globe, TRANSCOM will need to overcome the tyranny of distance. The challenges to move and sustain people and platforms around the world are increasingly complex, but force projection is paramount to peace through strength.
Projecting American power in the Indo-Pacific and around the globe will involve both our organic logistics capability as well as commercial industry capacity. Within the Seapower jurisdiction, the FY25 NDAA made needed enhancements to two critical programs, the Tanker Security Program and the Maritime Security Program. These programs support US flagged and US crewed vessels that are active in commercial trade but provide critical sealift capacity to DOD for liquid and dry cargoes.
Last year’s stipend changes and increased authorizations will promote the health of these programs in the future, but more must be done to meet our logistics requirements. For example, we need to exercise and promote the Tanker Security Program to grow that fleet to the 20 authorized vessels. Regular consol tanking operations and short-term charters for DOD cargos may be options to increase the number of reps and to better prepare for the future.
Unfortunately, one of the vessels in the Tanker Security Program was struck by a foreign-flagged container ship in the North Sea just a few weeks ago. I know many of my colleagues share my concern about the resulting operational impacts of that incident, and we look forward to hearing more about that from General Reed today.
For our organic dry cargo sealift capacity, a new build sealift program must be prioritized to recapitalize our aging ready reserve fleet and bolster domestic shipbuilding capacity. This committee has provided authority in previous NDAAs to advance the design and construction of a new class of organic sealift vessel, but we are still waiting for meaningful progress. Used, foreign-built ships may be a suitable bridge solution, but are not in our best interests.
At this inflection point, we also cannot afford to reduce our air mobility. Strategic airlift, intra-theater airlift, and aerial refueling are integral to our force projection. Frankly, we need more capacity across the board. I remain concerned by the many reported struggles with the KC-46 program and hope we can fully utilize those tankers soon. We must address any operational shortfalls now to ensure that there are no gaps in air mobility for the future that could compromise strategic efforts.
As the PRC ramps up its hostile behavior in the Pacific, demonstrating our ability to overcome the tyranny of distance is more necessary than ever. TRANSCOM’s solutions to these fundamental logistical problems are critical to our ability to project power across the furthest reaches of the earth, and I look forward to today’s discussion of how we can best meet these challenges.
