Rick Scott Discusses Navy Shipbuilding Targets And The Importance Of The C130 To The Marines

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During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last month, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) asked Navy Secretary John Phelan about the Navy's shipbuilding targets and C130 cargo planes.

Transcript

00:00Senator Scott. First, I want to thank each of you for being here. Thanks for your service.

00:05I also want to thank President Trump for doing everything he can to create some stability in

00:10California. I want to thank him for calling up the California National Guard and for having the

00:15Marines ready. It's disappointing that the governor of California and the mayor of Los Angeles is not

00:20as focused on the security of the citizens as our president is. Secretary Phelan, thank you for

00:27being here. During your confirmation hearing, you'll probably remember I showed you a picture of a

00:30rusty ship pulling into shore as an example of the ways the Navy has fallen behind during the Biden

00:36term. I know you've made this a priority to get this fixed. I want to thank you for everything

00:43you're doing. Can you, well, let me give you some more facts. In the last five years, the Navy has

00:49taken delivery of 41 ships. Only four were delivered on time and on budget. So four were delivered on

00:55time and on budget. That's like under 10 percent. So you're a business guy. Both of us, if we had

01:0110 percent success rate, we wouldn't have been in business very long. And we wouldn't accept, we

01:05wouldn't accept that from anybody that, that ever worked for us. So, so for Secretary Ophelia and

01:11Admiral Kilby, can you give us, like, what are your top three things, each of you, that's going to improve

01:16the accountability of our shipbuilding? Whoever wants to go first.

01:22Hey, sir. Thanks for the question. One, I think the top three things we need to do is get the

01:28workforce right and stable. I agree with Secretary Phelan that we need an experienced workforce. We're

01:34seeing challenges that at multiple yards, whether they repair or shipyards. Two, for repair, we need to

01:41manage the package size so we can get it done in the time needed. Our delays are called in ship

01:49repair are caused by growth work, which means we discover something after the fact in the avail,

01:55that the avail has begun. So I alluded earlier about doing those open inspects earlier,

02:01definitizing the package, and, and costing it out to do that work and not hope that we don't have

02:06to do those work. And then finally, I think there's some opportunities in the, in the sparing accounts

02:12to do a better job, to have our parts available and ready when we need to do the avail so we don't

02:19have a growth work because we're waiting for a part that's not readily available.

02:24Secretary, you want, you want to add anything?

02:27Yeah, look, I think, Senator, what, what I've seen in, what, 72 days here is we've got a big problem,

02:34and the problem is the following. Number one, we have underinvested in our infrastructure.

02:41We've underinvested in our maintenance. We've, we've been maintaining ships at 50, 60% maintenance,

02:47which is not good. The bills for prior conflicts is where we've spent a lot of money and, and that,

02:55all those deferrals, all that underinvestment is coming due. So we have a very, very tough job in front

03:03of us in terms of trying to figure out how to appropriately allocate capital to these different

03:09areas. As it relates to, to shipbuilding, we do not have the capacity to handle the ships that we

03:15need to build today. Okay. And so we need to put all options on the table because I think I bucketed

03:23in kind of two ways. There's short term, which is how do I get holes in the water? How do I get them

03:28out of the yard? And then long-term, how do I get this maritime industrial base growing? We probably

03:33need to add shipyards. We need to bring in expertise. We need to digitize a number of things

03:39and add technology to things. When I went to the foreign yards, again, I saw things that were far

03:47more advanced than what we were doing. And we need to start to implement those and add those.

03:52So one thing, if you could do is just as early as you can, give us a timeline of when you can do

03:57these things. So let me ask you one other thing. So I know you have, we've talked about some of the

04:03issues the Navy's dealing with. And so the Marine, the Marines and the Air Force are 100% recapitalized

04:11on their C-130s. The Navy needs over 30 C-130s. And unfortunately, they yet to have a program for this

04:19critical tactical airlift platform. I think they only have one on contract. So first,

04:26General Smith, how important are the C-130s for the Marine Corps and Joint Forces?

04:30Senator, the C-130 is a workhorse. It's vital to be able to provide us organic mobility

04:36throughout the first island chain and globally. It's got global reach.

04:40Okay. So Admiral Kilby and Secretary Phelan, tell me, is this a priority? And if it is,

04:46what's the timeline? So it is a priority for the Navy. It's competing with a lot of other

04:52priorities. I'd say 50% of our C-130 fleet are C-130Ts. And then the other 50% are KC-130Js refueling.

05:01So it provides flexibility for us and is helpful for us kind of in that Pacific logistics challenge.

05:08But we are challenged with a lot of priorities, sir.

05:11Are you going to, will you be able to come back at some point and say, we got a lot of all these

05:16priorities. This is the list. This is what we're going to do. We're going to break these down one

05:20at a time. And this is how we're going to solve them. That would be helpful.

05:23Yes, sir.

05:25All right. Thank you, Chairman.

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