'Unbelievable Lack Of Accountability': Rick Scott Presses Admiral Over Navy Shipbuilding Delays

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During a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) asked Admiral Daryl Caudle, who was nominated by President Trump to be Naval Operations Commander, about the Navy's shipbuilding timelines.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Senator Hirono. Senator Scott. Sure. Thank you, Chairman, Admiral. You've got the

00:06right background. You're going to do an outstanding job, and I want to thank you for your years of

00:11service, and I want to thank your family for their sacrifice and their commitment to you.

00:17I think you're going to be doing an outstanding job. You are doing a fixer-upper. You got a lot

00:22of work to do. As an enlisted guy that joined after high school, I hope you remember all those

00:28young men and women that come right out of high school and have real core beliefs in our military

00:34and the opportunity that they have, and I hope you'll treat them with respect and help them give

00:39the opportunities that I had when I was in the Navy. Yes, sir. So I've been up here six and a half

00:45years. The federal government, in my opinion, has had an unbelievable lack of accountability.

00:50I'll just give you one of the Navy. The new destroyer, the DGG-125, was commissioned in October

00:552023, and yet it can't be deployed until at least 2028 because it has a radar that needs

01:01to be tested. It didn't seem to make much sense. So why do you have any idea why the Navy would build

01:08the ship and not test the radar on the ship before commissioning it? Senator, I share your frustration

01:14with that trend. I've seen it far too often. We're in the shipyard for years. We come out and immediately

01:20have to go across the pier and get into a modernization period to actually go get modernized

01:26before I actually deliver. I want to work very closely, if I'm confirmed, with our program offices

01:32on fixing that. The integration of all the systems, the timely delivery of all that, and the turnkey

01:38ability for that ship, once it's ready to be handed over to me, needs to tighten up. And if I'm confirmed,

01:44I'll work hard to try to assuage the problem that you've just described with the Lucas.

01:49So do you think that you will have the authority to hold people accountable, both the people in the

01:57military, the people, the civilian workforce, and our suppliers? Because it seems like it's all three.

02:05We haven't held our military leaders accountable, the people that work, the civilians, or I mean,

02:13these suppliers, I mean, give me a break. I'm a business guy. If this so happened to me,

02:19I mean, somebody would not be there and say, you know, you're really nice, but you're not going to

02:23work here. Senators, you and I discussed in our office call, you know, the holding of military

02:28program managers accountable I've struggled with in my career. You know, we have a very clear

02:34mechanism for operational commanders. It's not so clear with program managers. These are complex

02:40programs, multi-billion dollar programs. I know the Secretary of the Navy and I have discussed

02:45better ways to actually ensure outcomes are happening in our programs and accountability

02:50and measuring the performance of people better that do that type of work. On the industry side,

02:56it goes to my opening a bit about sole source. When I find myself in monopolistic type of environments,

03:02the contracting strategy that I can get to utilize to do any type of accountability and incentives

03:09is challenging, but it's not insurmountable. And I do think we need to improve there, sir.

03:14Yeah. Well, in business, my goal was don't deal with monopolists. I remember somebody told me I had

03:20to do business with them. I said, well, if I do, I will, but I figured out how not to do business with

03:24them. And so I saw them about six months later and he told his wife that's why we didn't make our

03:31numbers last quarter because we moved so much business.

03:34So, so if at the end of your time in this role, what's, what will be your, you'll say I succeeded

03:45or failed. What would be, what's your true north?

03:49Well, I think you would see a Navy that's got a ship count that's climbing commensurate with a four-year

03:55assignment where we're on pace with the delivery, meeting the contraction delivery dates and not over by

04:01one or two years as we currently experience. You'd see the gaps at sea on our ships have gone to zero.

04:07You see the munition floor requirements that we have completely met. So you can't win a war without

04:14munitions. You'd see the backlog of supply parts that we use typically as a bill payer frequently at the

04:20end of year re-zeroed out. So the lockers on board our ships are filled with the repair parts they need

04:26and that the world-class training that our sailors deserve is just firing on all cylinders. So if I

04:32can accomplish those things at the end of this assignment, if I'm confirmed, I'd be pretty happy.

04:36You're going to do a great job. Congratulations.

04:38Thank you, sir.

04:39We would be exceedingly happy.

04:42Senator Kaine.

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