Opening Statements

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Representative Mike Rogers (R-AL), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, delivered the following opening remarks at a hearing on the budget request of the Department of the Navy for Fiscal Year 2026.

Chairman Rogers' opening remarks as prepared for delivery:

I welcome our witnesses and thank them for their service to our nation. 

Today we’ll hear from the Department of the Navy regarding their FY26 budget request.

While I appreciate the budget documents received last week, we still lack the necessary details to fully evaluate how Congress can best support our Sailors and Marines.

As a maritime nation, our naval capabilities are central to our ability to deter our adversaries, especially China. 

We can’t do that without growing the surface and submarine fleet. 

But when it comes to shipbuilding, we remain woefully behind schedule and way over budget. 

We took the first step towards accelerating shipbuilding and rebuilding our maritime industrial base through the House-passed reconciliation bill.

This once-in-a-generation legislation will invest over $34 billion to expand the size and enhance the capability of our naval fleet. 

It includes funds to field critically needed new capabilities like the FA-XX and unmanned vessels. 

These capabilities are essential to deterring China.

It also builds capacity and improves infrastructure across our public shipyards and maritime industrial base. 

But it is not enough to fully rebuild our naval strength. 

We need continued investment in the out years. 

We need to send a clear demand signal to the industrial base of exactly what we’re buying. 

We also need to reform the way we buy ships. 

It starts with a broken requirements process.

We’ve seen it needlessly increase delivery timelines and costs.  

Shipbuilding isn’t the only area impacted by our flawed acquisition process. 

The entire Defense Acquisition System is too slow, rigid, and bureaucratic to meet our needs. 

To maintain American deterrence, we need to equip our warfighters with what they need, when they need it. 

Ranking Member Smith and I have introduced legislation to reform our flawed acquisition system. 

The bipartisan SPEED Act will be foundational to the FY26 NDAA. 

It streamlines and modernizes defense acquisition. 

And it ensures that our acquisition process is centered on one primary objective: equipping warfighters in the quickest and most cost-effective manner possible. 

I look forward to working with my colleagues and the administration on this effort.

I know Secretary Phalen has spent a lot of time examining the problems with the Navy’s acquisition process and shipbuilding capacity. 

I was happy to hear the Secretary is encouraging the use of creative teaming agreements between our traditional shipbuilders and our non-traditional defense companies to expand the nation's maritime and submarine industrial base.

I commend him for taking on these complicated issues with a new perspective and innovative solutions.

I look forward to hearing his thoughts and recommendations on how to make further improvements.  

Beyond our acquisition issues, I continue to be concerned with the overall readiness of our Naval fleet.

We need to realize the 80 percent surge-ready vision for the entire fleet, including our amphibious forces.

At the heart of the amphibious ship challenge is the Navy’s inability to adequately support the amphibious force structure.  

Half of the amphibious fleet is in unsatisfactory condition.  

As a result, we can no longer support heel-to-toe deployments of our marine expeditionary units.  

That is unacceptable. 

Our amphibious forces are the bedrock of our rapid response force and are essential for the projection of power in the INDOPACOM area.  

We need to fix this problem as soon as possible. 

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how we can work together to ensure our Sailors and Marines have the resources they need.