During a House Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) questioned witnesses about the former failures in timely deliveries of Navy submarines.
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NewsTranscript
00:00I now recognize for five minutes Dr. DesJarlais of Tennessee.
00:04Thank you, Chairman.
00:05Ms. Oakley, last September, GAO issued a report outlining the challenges facing the Columbia-class
00:10submarine program. As you know, the timely delivery of these submarines is critical for
00:15the nation's nuclear deterrence posture. Yet the first submarine is projected to be delivered
00:19over a year late and hundreds of millions of dollars over budget. Can you provide a brief
00:24overview of the most pressing challenges affecting this platform? And your report includes
00:29recommendation for immediate reforms that the Navy should undertake, but is there any specific
00:34action that you believe Congress should take as well? Thanks for that question. Yeah, we've been
00:39looking at the Columbia-class program since 2017, and we've been identifying issues that were going
00:44to be challenges and risks for this program all along. Specifically right now, the biggest
00:50challenges that they're facing are with material availability and workforce shortages. And not
00:55just workforce shortages, also workforce capacity. So when you're trying to build up a workforce so
01:01significantly to be able to do the work that you need done, you experience the issue called green
01:06labor, where it just takes a lot longer for those folks to do things, and it also requires a lot
01:13more detailed information to be provided to them. And I think that's been one of the biggest
01:17struggles that that program has dealt with at this point in time. I think the one thing that I would
01:23also say is that we've made various recommendations to the Columbia-class program over the years to
01:28really do a critical assessment of the risks that are facing that program to ensure that everybody
01:35has a good understanding of what it's actually going to cost and how long it's actually going
01:40to take. And I think some of those risks are coming to roost now that they haven't critically
01:43assessed. One final thing I'll mention is that Columbia-class and Virginia-class are so
01:49interrelated. And any issues on Columbia-class are going to rightly affect Virginia-class
01:54because of the shared builders and the shared industrial base. We've been recommending since 2022
02:00that the Navy get the builders to update their integrated enterprise plan, which would identify
02:06the resources needed across the programs to be able to execute these programs at that 2 plus 1
02:11rate. And they have yet to update it since 2019. So I think that's one clear recommendation that I
02:17would call to your attention. Thank you. Your report also noted that the Navy has received
02:21billions in supplier development funding, yet there's little evidence that these investments
02:25have led to measurable improvements. What information should the Navy be collecting
02:28to assess the effectiveness of these programs? Yeah, absolutely. I want to be clear that it
02:33is going to take time to see results, right? You know, this is a long-term effort that's going to
02:39be required. But the problem is it's a short-term challenge. We're facing near-peer threats like
02:44we haven't faced before. And so what our concern is is that the Navy hasn't positioned itself to
02:50know whether or not the investments that it's making in the submarine industrial base are
02:55indeed paying off. They can tell you if a piece of equipment was bought or if workforce was hired or,
03:02you know, whatever the case. But really understanding is that moving us in the right
03:07direction in terms of the outputs that we need to be able to meet our goals? That's where we're
03:12pushing the Navy to develop those outcome-based metrics that they're going to be tracking. And we
03:16hope they do it. Because honestly, we can't get five years down the road dumping billions of
03:21dollars into this and realize that our investments didn't pay off. They have to be successful.
03:27Would it be helpful if this committee considered introducing reporting requirements on supplier
03:31investment effectiveness to improve transparency and accountability?
03:35I think any support that this committee can give to the Navy's action in this regard would be
03:39important. Okay. Are there any specific supplier component types that have consistently caused
03:44problems? If so, what steps should be taken to strengthen the supplier base as a whole?
03:51It ranges. You know, there's a number of issues. Forging is one of the biggest challenges. And,
03:56you know, the Navy is really doing a good job of trying to target what those key issues are in
04:01terms of the bottlenecks by identifying critical suppliers. And also, I would like to call out
04:08that the Navy is taking some steps to try and address some of these supplier-based issues
04:12through the use of technology and additive manufacturing. And I think that those are
04:16very promising approaches that if the committee were to provide support in terms of, you know,
04:25encouraging the Navy to continue down that path to address some of these challenges,
04:29it would be a good thing. Okay. Thank you all for your testimony today,
04:32Mr. Chairman. I yield my time. And Mr. Whitman's back.