Engagements are and what the price being paid for those engagements really is. Good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, i call this joint hearing of the readiness and cpower and Projection Forces subcommittees of the House Arms Services committee to order. First, i would like to honor the 17 sailors who were lost in the uss fitzgerald sailors douglas, noe hernandez, and dakota rigsby, Carlos Victor subayung and the two uss john mccain sailors, kevin bushel, dustin doyen, timothy drake, charles finley, john hogeland, Abraham Lopez and kenneth smith, logan palmer and each one of them is so special to every person here. Over the course of the past six months our subcommittees have met with Navy Leadership to understand the causal factors that have led to gruesome and tragic incidents involving ships resulting in the death of 17 sailors. Our navy remains most powerful in the world. However, the navy is not alone in responsibility. As sales james mattis stated in august. Quote, it creates unpredicibility and makes us rigid and we cannot deal with new and revealing threats and we know our enemies are not standing still, end of quote. Passing another temporary measure com pounds the negative impacts for our military and some of those impacts are highlighted by the manning, training and certification gaps necessitated by increased operational demand. Speaker paul ryan and chairman mack dornberry have been clear and have been promoting the critical need of the robust appropriations bill. I believe the primary responsibility of the National Government is to provide for the National Security of its citizens and that is true of our sailors, soldiers and marines and therefore, it is our responsibility to better understand the readiness observation and have the review and comprehensive review are informing and assisting the department of the nafty in correcting any deficiencies and shortfalls. This week the Navy Announced additional actions for shipboard personnel involved in these collisions. Separate from these military actions, this committee remains concerned that Senior Officers who created the conditions for ships to not receive depotlevel repairs and the individuals who chose to repeatedly approve waivers of expired certifications and the individuals had the ability to balance and globally resource Operational Requirements are not being held accountable. Today the secretary of the navy, and the honorable Richard Spencer and the chief of Naval Operations and admiral John Richardson are here to testify to the Navy Strategic readiness review and the comprehensive review for our hearing on Surface Warfare at a crossroads. Our main concern about the navys training and certification processes and the approach to correcting deficiencies and shortfalls and the navys approach to improve accountability. I hope that todays hearing will address these concerns. I would like now to turn to our Ranking MemberCongress Member of guam for any statement she would like to make. Thank you for conjoining this important meeting on navys readiness and thank you to secretary spencer and admiral richardson for being here today. Following several mishaps in 2017 involving navy ships you each directed separate parallel reviews of Surface Fleet operations and readiness. The strategic readiness review and the fleet comprehensive review are important steps aimed at identifying and addressing the challenges that our snnavy facing today. However, actions speak louder than words and we must ensure that the recommendations included in these reviews are program. Ly considered and acted upon to improve the readiness of the fleet and prevent a repeat of the tragedies of 2017. Todays hearing is the first opportunity for members of this committee to discuss the recommendations of these two reviews. However, these committees oversight of these issues will not end with todays hearings. I hope that members of this committee can continue a frank and an open dialogue with the navys leadership as progress is made toward implementing these reviews recommendations. Without question, i think my colleagues would agree that the u. S. Navy is the most powerful fleet in the world. However, in the light of recent global events and the escalation of nearpeer threats around the world, we must ensure that the navy is properly manned, trained and equipped to conduct the missions that may be asked of them. As highlighted by 2017, the high operational tempo and the emphasis on ship maintenance and training have chipped away at the overall readiness of the fleet. One element of Navy Readiness that im concerned about is ship maintenance and specifically for ships operating in the pacific. Over the past several years, we have engaged Senior Navy Leaders regarding the navys redness requirements in the western pacific, specifically in depotlevel ship repair and dry dock capabilities and capacity. In the fleet comprehensive review, the navy identified capacity issues that the ship repair facility in yokosuka, japan. To our witnesses, i look forward today to hearing how the navy plans to address the ship capacity issue in the pa sivenlg and improve the immaterial con of the fleet. Furthermore, i look forward to hearing how that plan will align with the president s 2018 National StrategicSecurity Strategy to maintain a forward military presence capable of deterring, and if necessary, defeating any adversary which will be balanced with an Economic Strategy that rejuvenates the domestic economy. In addition to supporting proper ship maintenance, we must also ensure our Surface Warfare officers and sailors are receiving adequate training to perform the missions that are asked of them. We must empower ship Commanding Officers to express concerns up their chain of command without facing careerending repercussions when they are tasked with the mission that they feel their ship or crew are not properly trained for. This is a management and a cultural issue for the navys leadership to address and to that end, i look forward to hearing your plans to ensure sufficient time is allocated for training and maintenance. Two pillars for restoring the navy surface readiness. I fear that well be a long journey to return to proper readiness level, but i do assure you that this committee will try to help you where we can. Similarly, we will not hesitate to raise concerns and issues with you as we perform our oversight role. I believe the navy is in good hands, and i look forward to staying updated on the progress of your work to restore readiness across the fleet, and i look forward today, this afternoon, to your testimony. Mr. Chairman, i thank you, and i yield back. Thank you, Ranking Member mardeyo. I now turn to the chairman of virginia and chairman of the subcommittee congressman mark whitman for any remarks he may have. Thank you, mr. Chairman and thank you for yielding, and i want to thank secretary spencer and admiral richardson for joining us today and for being part of what i think is a very needed and, i think, productive process to go through to make sure that we are making the necessary course changes to address this issue. Let me start by quoting a Navy War College professor and he recently wrote an article entitled who watches the watchers in the United States navy . In this article he expressed concern about the apparent lack of accountability for the problems in the Surface Warfare community. He indicated the navy is quick in citing senior leaderships loss of confidence in Commanding Officers, but is at best circumspect when assessing fault to the system that drove these Commanding Officers to seek what he calls the normalization of deviation. This culture of holding the Commanding Officer accountable is very apparent with the decision announced on tuesday to bring the Commanding Officers and other officials from the uss fitzgerald and mccain before an article 32 hearing for negligent homicide. While i agree with the nave they officers should be held accountable, i am equally convinced that we need to reform the system that drove these officers to avoid additional incidents and to reduce future normalization of deviation instances. I think the navy has taken a tremendously important and good first step on is adressing the systematic areas and there are a multitude of other issues that need to be reform, and material readiness and serious training reform. While the comprehensive review and strategic redness review have identified the organizational problems facing the navy and i think it is time to take bold steps in creating the deficiencies and its time to flatten the organization, and manning, training and equipping authorities at Fleet Forces Command. It is time to reactivate the second fleet and eliminate fourth fleet to ensure the navy retains an emphasis on deployment credibility. It is time that we consolidate navy policy and led by colocating the threestar type commanders and it is time for congress to end restrictions that contributed to the disorganization and allow the navy to effectively reorganize. I am particularly disappointed with the deployed naval forces, particularly, with the different ship classes. I do not understand why four deployed naval forces are in the surface navy. They need to be the best. With regard to training, i have concern that as our ships become more technically challenging to operate, our Surface Warfare community has retained a generalist preference that contributes to the Surface Warfare malaise. I think it is time that we adopt specialists similar to the Aviation Community and foreign navys. We should require Surface Warfare officers to specialize in deck or engineering and allow needed Junior Officers time to develop basic skills. Further, the navy should consider adopting certification milestones similar to the commercial sector. The u. S. Navy needs to significantly improve the Surface Warfare pipeline to ensure Navy Officers are provided basic navigation and engineering skills. Finally asked to correcting material issue, i think it is time to start to take our insert process seriously and correct the material problems facing the deployed naval forces. The statutorily driven process that provides congress and our nation a sfap shot of the material condition of the fleet. I am concerned that it fails to provide our nation a reasonable perspective of the negative consequences associated with underfunding the readiness accounts. Navys should be prepared to publicly articulate the surface ship maintenance and we need to ensure that deployed navy forces are maintained with the forces that maintain the fleet. It is time that we routinely deploy ships that have been deployed for over 20 years. We have significant challenges that face the Surface Forces, but with time and resolve i am confident that we can right the Surface Forces that are perilously a skew. As to dr. Holmes question as to who watches the watchers . I will answer that this committee will continue to drive toward accountability and providing solutions to the systemic problems that face the Surface Warfare community. We will watch the watchers. I yield back the balance of my time, mr. Chairman. Thank you, chairman whitman and now to the gentleman from connecticut and Ranking Member of the forces Sub Committee for his remarks. Thank you admiral richardson for your presence to update the subcommittees on the result of your reviews of the ship cligs. This is the fourth engagement given the unacceptable level of fatalities in noncombat settings which occurred 2017. For many member, even those who hail from districts far from the western pacific these collisions strike home. In connecticut, two outstanding sailors and Electronics Technician second class dustin doyan and second class nguyen of watertown, connecticut, lost their lives. Give then drastic harm, it is the duty of all of us to ensure that bold, systemic change protections our ships from similar tragedies in the future. At the annual symposium held across the potomac, a panel of young officers assigned ships in japan discussed the challenges they faced with the 7th pleat and they describe high operational tempo of training and operations and long hours. They describe a system in which they cannot be certain they understood the risks that they were taking. One junior officer stated that following the collision of the fitzgerald and mccain, he asked himself i amor is t certain of position. He had just returned home from asked are we good at this or are we just lucky . These anguished staples describe issues that go far beyond the particulars of any ship and they speak to Operations Training in management of our Surface Forces. The comprehensive review and Strategic Review make dozens of recommendations for changes and reforms that are needed inside the navy. After meeting with each of you, it is clear that many of these recommendations have been or are in the process of being implemented internally in real time. I urge you to continue to make the implementation of these recommendations a top priority and to Keep Congress and the families of our lost sailors updated on your progress. Other recommendation, however, will need congress direct attention and action. For example, one of the areas where both reviews agree is that congress has contributed to these systemic readiness issues and the service forces. Specifically, recent defense Appropriations Bills have carried language which restricts the navy from realigning its equip functions under a single command. These congressionally mandated command and control restrictions have allowed an unusual situation to continue in the Pacific Fleet which is responsible for both deploying forces and determining when those forcers ready to deploy and to do so separate from the rest of the fleet. As the result of your respective reviews and as theyve made clear, this arrangement allowed ships to be deployed without basic certifications and without meaningful plans to minimize the risk to our sailors. While theres disagreement in Strategic Review about the best actual command and control structure for navy Surface Forces, it is clear that continued congressional limitation in this area is a hindrance to the the readiness of the fleet. Even before these recent collisions congress had seriously considered changes to these this restrictive language. In 2016, the house voted unanimously to remove the provision completely, but it was later restored by the senate in the 2016 ndaa, and an appropriations bill. It is my hope that we can once again work on a bipartisan basis to remove these restrictions from our funding bills and to see these efforts through to the end. Your input here will be invaluable in that effort. The other obvious mission can execute is to restore budget stability for the navy. We need repair work to move forward in a timely manner and we need to increase the supply of combatready ship available to Fleet Forces Command ready than letting shipbuilding languish because of crs and its operated under crs in eight of the last 12 months and it appears this week that that number is likely to grow to nine out of 15. This is hardly a road map to a 355ship navy and i think i speak for our colleagues that we create bold, new institutional change. We owe it to the memory of the sailors that we lost and we owe it to the families and we owe it to the forwarddeployed sailors who ask am i just lucky . Thank you, Ranking Member wyoming is present with us today. I ask unanimous consent that nonsubcommittee members be allowed to participate in todays briefing after all subcommittee members have had an opportunity to ask questions. Is there any objection . Hearing none, without objection, the nonsubcommittee members will be recognized at the appropriate time for five minutes. Secretary Richard Spencer, we now turn to you for your remarks and briefi ining on the sneb. Incident chairman, and wilson, Ranking Member, distinguished members of the committee, thank you for having us today to talk about our reviews and how were moving forward. We should keep the sailors lost on mccain and fitzgerald in our thoughts and prayers as we go forward. Over the past year our Surface Fleet continued to operate and train around the globe filling a Strong Demand signal to help preserve our National Security.