Seapower and Projection Forces (SPF) Subcommittee Chairman Trent Kelly (R-MS) delivered the following remarks at a hearing on Revitalizing Shipbuilding and the Maritime Industrial Base.
Chairman Kelly's Statement as Prepared for Delivery:
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for being here for today’s hearing on Revitalizing Shipbuilding and the Maritime Industrial Base.
We are joined today by our colleagues from the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, and I want to give a special thank you to heir chairman, my good friend and fellow Mississippian Mike Ezell, and Ranking Member Carbajal for being such great partners for Seapower Ranking Member Joe Courtney and myself.
The collaboration between our two subcommittees is more important than ever, given the dire straits in which we find our maritime industrial base.
Years of inconsistent demand from the government and the commercial maritime industry have wreaked havoc on production schedules for government shipbuilding and the domestic supply chain, exactly the kind of structural challenge the SHIPS Act is designed to address through more stable demand signals and long-term investment. Because of that we have seen costs continue to increase.
That is why I am leading the SHIPS Act with my good friend, Congressman Garamendi; I greatly appreciate his collaboration.
Now, as we reorient ourselves back to great power competition, we need the ability to project American power and influence across the farthest reaches of the globe, and we cannot achieve that capability without a thriving shipbuilding and maritime industry.
We can no longer afford to be complacent; we are far behind our near peer competitors when it comes to the pace of getting hulls in the water.
We are far and away better from a qualitative standpoint, but quantity has a value on its own.
There are currently just eighty U.S.-crewed and U.S.-flagged vessels in international commerce, and our military shipbuilding programs are slower and more hampered than those of our near peer competitors and even our allies. We need to take an honest account of what we see in the mirror, and more importantly, put forward a serious, actionable plan to close that gap, which is what the SHIPS Act is intended to do.
Fostering shipbuilding and commercial maritime industry will take action by all parts of government. Along those lines, I want to reiterate the importance of a new sealift program for the Department of the Navy. Procuring used vessels just is not going to cut it. A new construction program for militarily useful sealift can support close follow construction efforts for commercial industry vessels, reinforcing the SHIPS Act’s approach of aligning commercial shipbuilding capacity with national defense requirements.
These committees have also been critical to support for commercial industry through stipend programs that assure access for military needs. But that is not enough.
Critical reforms to defense acquisitions were passed as part of last year’s NDAA, and I was also pleased to see the White House encouraging investment in shipyards, ship building, and ship repair in the Maritime Action Plan that was released in February. But there is still more work to be done to reinvigorate our seagoing sectors, not only in government and industry, but in communities and among the younger generations.
Reviving our commercial and military shipbuilding is a complex challenge, one that we must attack from multiple different angles.
We are also lucky to have a range of perspectives from our witnesses. I know I speak for everyone on the subcommittees when I say that we are eager to hear your suggestions and recommendations and appreciate y’all being here today.
