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[Page S4672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT
Mr. KAINE. Mr. President, today, I wish to discuss the importance of
strengthening the defense industrial base, particularly as it relates
to shipbuilding.
On July 21, 2017, the President signed Executive Order 13806,
directing the Department of Defense to lead a whole of government
assessment of the health of the manufacturing and defense industrial
base of the United States. The report was released on October 5, 2018,
and outlines current risks in the defense industrial base.
Within the military shipbuilding sector, concerns range from an
overreliance on single and sole source suppliers, to a capacity
shortfall for maintenance and modernization work, to insufficient
competition and unstable demand.
The DoD report said: ``Industries involved in the manufacturing of
shipbuilding components were among the hardest hit by the global shift
in the industrial base over the last 20 years. Of the top ten highest
grossing industries in Navy shipbuilding, six are in the manufacturing
sector. Since 2000, these industries experienced a combined decline of
over 20,500 establishments.''
We cannot afford to shrink our military shipbuilding industry any
further.
These issues are particularly acute in my State of Virginia. Not only
is Virginia home to Newport News Shipbuilding and Norfolk Naval
Shipyard, we have hundreds of military shipbuilder suppliers, a number
of which are considered by the Department of Defense to be fragile.
These companies are essentially national treasures, from Hunt Valve out
of Roanoke to Jo-Kell in Chesapeake, KITCO Fiber Optics in Virginia
Beach, and Hampton Machine Shop in Newport News.
These companies want stability and predictability in funding; they
want to be certain our Nation is serious about a 355-ship Navy.
These are issues that our committee has been working on for some
time. In testimony last fall before the Seapower Subcommittee, the
Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development, and Acquisition, James
Geurts, told our committee that ``advanced funding and anything we can
do to help the supplier base will drastically reduce risks going
forward. What we are seeing in most of our construction programs as a
key risk is supplier fragility, either single sources or single
producers where we have to ramp up production.''
Chairman Inhofe has paid close attention to those concerns, and I
very much appreciate how far this bill goes to address the issues
outlined in the industrial base report.
This bill authorizes funds for the third year for the submarine
supplier base initiative, which is helping critical suppliers across
the Nation; authorizes additional funding along with incremental
funding authority for both LPD 31 and LHA 9; accelerates the
acquisition of LHA 9; adds funding for advance procurement for the DDG
program; and requires DoD to assess the savings a multiyear procurement
would yield in the LPD program, and the savings we could achieve
through a block buy of two LHA's. The bill also reauthorizes CVN 75,
the USS Harry S Truman. It leaves no room for indecision on the future
of this asset.
It is critical that the DOD's current and prospective shipbuilding
programs, the Virginia class and Columbia class submarine programs, the
new Frigate program, destroyers, specifically take action to maintain
the domestic supply base and not allow foreign sources to undercut the
pricing of the domestic supply base.
We ask the administration to help us in every way to stay focused on
helping our military shipbuilding industrial base meet the Navy the
Nation Needs.
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