WASHINGTON, D.C. — This week, Senator Rick Scott led his first Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower hearing as Chairman, addressing the state of conventional surface shipbuilding. As a Navy veteran, Senator Scott is focused on ensuring naval readiness to keep our seas safe, national security protected, and our forces ready to face threats from adversaries around the world. In the hearing, the Senator highlighted the need for naval readiness as adversaries like Communist China outpace the United States’ shipbuilding efforts and how the Navy must change course rapidly to protect Americans, use tax dollars wisely, and deliver on President Trump’s mission of peace through strength.

During the hearing, Senator Scott also questioned witnesses on how the Navy and shipbuilding industry are working to standardize the shipbuilding process to ensure readiness, how the military can hold contractors accountable for timeline and delivery, and how this can be addressed. See his full line of questioning HERE.

Watch Senator Scott’s full introductory remarks HERE or as prepared for delivery below.

Many of you have heard me talk about my father, Orba Scott, an Army veteran. I’m incredibly proud of his service – he made all four combat jumps with the 82nd Airborne during World War II. But the stories he told me of his service are why I joined the Navy. I served as a radarman aboard the USS Glover.

I am proud to be a Navy veteran, but we can all acknowledge that it is facing significant challenges and in need of a turnaround. President Trump has made clear that his administration is focused on making our military the lethal, fighting force it should be. And I’m glad we finally have a president focused on this.

In the past few years, we’ve seen the Navy failing to recruit, pass an audit and, most relevant to our discussion today, deliver ships on time and on budget.

In the last five years, 41 ships were delivered to the Navy. Of those 41 ships, only four were delivered on time and on budget--that’s 9.7 percent.

I’ve run businesses, small and large, my entire life. In no business would you consider a less than 10% success rate to be acceptable. You would make improvements, innovate and figure out how to deliver on the mission. Or you’d go bankrupt. 

Yet, over the past four years, we’ve seen the Navy failing to improve ships, innovate or deliver them on time and on budget. That’s a failure to the American people who expect their federal government to use their tax dollars wisely and expect their Navy to be on the cutting edge of innovation to defend our national security.

We clearly have to make changes. The Navy needs a turnaround, and fast.

In today’s Subcommittee on Seapower hearing, we will provide oversight on our Navy’s conventional surface shipbuilding efforts, see why our Naval readiness and shipbuilding are falling behind Communist China, and understand how we can work to rapidly change course.

I have serious concerns about the challenges to our maritime dominance. The United States is losing ground to Communist China in naval power, and our shipbuilding enterprise is failing to keep up.

Communist China’s Navy has over 370 ships and submarines with over 140 major surface combatants, and they continue to pioneer innovative designs, like large, unmanned surface vessels and carriers for unmanned aircraft.

In contrast, the United States has failed to recapitalize its naval shipbuilding since President Reagan led the production surge over four decades ago.

Our surface combatant fleet is growing old, with the average age of our ships exceeding 20 years.

Meanwhile, programs intended to modernize our force have completely failed – the cruiser replacement program, the Littoral Combat Ship, the Zumwalt-class destroyers…

This failure to modernize forced us to restart production of older DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class ships as a temporary fix, even though these ships were already in desperate need of innovation to begin with.

What’s even more concerning is that we don’t seem to be learning from our mistakes or taking any significant steps to improve the process.

Take the Constellation-class frigate, once intended as an affordable and mature design, as a glaring example of our ongoing challenges.

A recent GAO report attributed the program’s failures to an immature design with constant weight growth and slow approval processes that have delayed the lead ship by at least three years.

This crisis extends beyond combatant ships. Our logistics and support fleet, including oceanographic ships, towing and salvage ships, and fleet oilers, suffers from the same systemic failures.

The common thread here is ships aren’t being delivered on time, they are way over budget, and half the time, too often, they aren’t what we wanted.

We’re past the time for gradual changes. We need to take immediate, bold and transformative action to change how the Navy acquires ships and the entire design and building process.

If we don’t, we will continue falling behind our adversaries. The stakes could not possibly be higher. Communist China has chosen to be our enemy, and it’s our job to ensure the United States Navy has the tools and ships it needs to be ready for whatever may come.

Throughout today’s hearing, I ask our witnesses to put all options on the table because if we do not act decisively, the United States risks becoming a second-rate naval power, unable to defend our interests or deter aggression in an increasingly dangerous world. 

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