Opening Statements

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) delivered the following opening statement at a hearing on the Department of Defense FY27 Budget Request, emphasizing the need to fund President Trump's $1.5 trillion budget request. 

Chairman Rogers' Statement 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 FY27 budget request.

As a maritime nation, our national security requires a strong and ready naval force, with sufficient vessels and capabilities to deter our enemies. That’s especially true now, as the Navy is instrumental to the mission of combatting narco-trafficking in the western hemisphere, ensuring Iran never obtains a nuclear weapon, and safeguarding freedom of navigation around the globe.

And of course, we have to remain vigilant to the threat from China, whose maritime strength continues to grow.

So it’s critical that America prioritizes growing our fleet. And doing that requires rebuilding our shipbuilding industry.

Years of uncertainty and inconsistent demand from the government and the commercial sector have significantly weakened our maritime industrial base.

That atrophy is apparent in both military and commercial shipbuilding and the statistics are grim. China builds 47 percent of the world’s ships. The U.S. builds one tenth of one percent.

This decline in our maritime industrial base is not surprising given how long we have been underfunding our national security.

Defense spending has shrunk dramatically both as a percentage of GDP and as a percentage of federal outlays. That’s resulted in a reduction in our shipbuilding capacity, our ability to scale production, and our fleet readiness.

To maintain deterrence and ensure maritime dominance, we need a robust constellation of shipyards with modern infrastructure.

Maritime dominance also demands a large, skilled workforce capable of meeting the increased demand for building and repairing ships.

The President’s FY27 budget request of $1.5 trillion is crucial to reversing that decline. The Navy topline of $377.5 billion provides the resources necessary to restore our shipbuilding capacity and reestablish our maritime deterrence.

We began the work of revitalizing shipbuilding last year via Reconciliation. That legislation invested $34 billion in Shipbuilding and the Maritime Industrial Base to expand the size and enhance the capability of our naval fleet.

We’re starting to see the results of that funding, and we will be paying close attention to how that investment is handled and how efficiently it’s being spent.

Last year, we also made critical reforms to make the Pentagon a better customer for the defense industrial base. We created a new, accelerated requirements process to rapidly seek innovative private sector solutions. We cut red tape and enhanced contracting flexibility. And we streamlined decision-making by centralizing acquisition programs under single Portfolio Acquisition Executives.

I’m pleased to see the progress the Navy is making on implementing these reforms.

However, I remain concerned with the overall readiness of our Naval fleet. If we are to strengthen our deterrence and protect our maritime interests, we need to realize the 80 percent surge-ready vision for the entire fleet, including our amphibious forces.

Nearly 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 forces.

I am a strong supporter of a continuous 3.0 MEU presence. Our amphibious forces are the bedrock of our rapid response force and essential for the projection of power.

I look forward to hearing from our witnesses on how we can work together to make these goals a reality and give our Sailors and Marines the resources they need to defend our nation.