National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017

Floor Speech

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Mr. COURTNEY. Mr. Chair, I enthusiastically support the seapower portion of the defense bill, which is a strong bipartisan boost to our security on, below, and above the seas.

The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee worked hard this year examining the President's budget as well as the larger strategic maritime context that we are considering these programs in.

We have determined the following, that the demand for our naval fleet is higher than ever and so is the strain on the force. A casual review of the headlines explains why.

China's navy is militarizing the South China Sea, threatening good order and commerce on the world's seaways, completely in violation of international maritime law.

Russia's navy is recapitalizing its fleet, particularly its undersea fleet, and operating at a level not seen since the cold war.

These are just two examples of the up-tempo challenges that the Navy faces every single day. In this strategic context, the seapower portion of our bill builds on the work done by the Navy, the Obama administration, and this Congress to put us on a path to a 308-ship Navy within the next 5 years.

That is good, but it is clear we need to do more to ensure that we have the capability to keep pace with the growing and changing threats around the world. That is why this bill adds three new ships to the seven ships in the President's budget, a third littoral combat ship, funding to complete a third DDG-51 destroyer, and resources to add an additional amphibious ship.

Our bill also has another area of good bipartisan work. It is in the area of our undersea forces. Our bill not only sustains the two-a-year build rate of our advanced Virginia-class submarines, but also includes a measure that I pushed for to continue that build rate through the 2020s to provide the undersea capabilities our military leaders are pleading for.

Our bill also fully funds our Nation's top strategic priority, the Ohio replacement submarine. We also continue our bipartisan work to strengthen the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund to support this critical program outside of the regular shipbuilding account.

We provide this fund with new authorities to save additional funds during the course of building the Ohio class program--perhaps as much as 10 percent on components like missile tubes--on top of the billions in savings that already existing authorities in the fund were shown to garner by the CRS and the Congressional Budget Office.

The bipartisan seapower mark is a down payment on the additional naval capabilities and capacity that we will need to keep pace with the fast-changing security challenges around the globe. I am confident that it will emerge in the final enactment of the 2017 NDAA.

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