00:00Senator Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to comment on some
00:06of the comments that my colleague from Missouri made about the signal chat
00:13chain, talking about war plans. Well, I have planned and conducted strikes off
00:21of aircraft carriers, multiple strikes, into harm's way over Iraq and Kuwait. And
00:27I would agree with the senator from Missouri, this is not an entire war plan.
00:33What this is, is an operational plan for very risky combat operations off of an
00:41aircraft carrier. And it's not all the information, but the most critical
00:45information that we have in our government are things like launch time
00:51off of a platform, in this case of an aircraft carrier, type of airplane, F-18s,
00:58MQ-9s, weapons like tomahawks, time on target. It is very critical information.
01:07Somebody could argue that the piece of paper it came off of, the signal chat, it
01:12did not say secret or top secret. When you have pilots that are about to go
01:17feet dry over a foreign nation within an hour or two hours, and that
01:26information is being shared on a non-secure system, it puts those pilots
01:31at great risk. I agree it is not all the information, but some of the most
01:38critical information that you would not want to be released is what was in that
01:44signal chain. So, where I do agree with some of what you said with regards to an
01:51entire plan, sure. But the most critical pieces were shared publicly by, on an
01:58unsecure system, by the Secretary of Defense. So with that, I've got some other
02:01questions about maritime industry and the Ships for America Act, which is my
02:08legislation with Senator Young of Indiana. So Mr. Duffy and Mr. Michael, one
02:13issue I've been focused on for a long time is the state of our maritime
02:17industry. TRANSCOM relies on U.S. flag vessels and American mariners to
02:22provide strategic sea lift, and right now we don't have enough vessels or mariners
02:26to support sustained operations overseas. It's a national security issue for us. We
02:31also have a hollowed-out shipyard industrial base in the United States, and
02:35the only ocean-going ships we build in the United States now are Navy vessels,
02:40and that means constrained supply chains and increased costs for the Navy.
02:44These are all really pressing issues for our national security. So, Mr.
02:49Duffy first, and then Mr. Michael, what steps would you take to ensure that
02:55our cast-and-forged industrial shipbuilding base, from forging to supply
03:00chains and production, are ready for competition, crisis, and conflict?
03:05Senator, thank you for your concern about this very important issue. I had a chance
03:10to read the GAO's testimony this week with respect to shipbuilding, and one of
03:15the major concerns that sort of was revealing to me in reviewing that was
03:20that since 2003 we have not increased the number of ships in our Navy, which
03:24really puts us at a disadvantage when maritime supremacy is
03:28absolutely critical in terms of deterring our adversary and preventing
03:32future conflict. My understanding of the challenges in the shipbuilding
03:37industrial base include workforce and supply chain. If I'm confirmed into the
03:42role, it would be absolutely a priority for me to work with this committee and with
03:46you, and thank you for your leadership on the ships legislation, because I think
03:49where we've seen success in the defense industry is where we can leverage
03:53capability in the commercial industry, and I think that's one of the proposals
03:57of your legislation is how do we enhance both defense and commercial ship
04:01building within the United States. And then, Mr. Michael, would you agree that
04:05there are lessons that we can learn from the private sector when it comes to
04:08shipbuilding best practices? There are a lot of lessons learned. I think the
04:14most sophisticated manufacturers today have a very sort of dashboard-like
04:21understanding of where their supply chains are. Every supplier, they're
04:26required to build something so that they can eliminate bottlenecks, they could do
04:30just-in-time ordering, they know what's backlogged so they can start on other
04:34processes while they wait for the parts that are in short supply to come in. AI
04:39can help with that and look through and down the supply chain across countries
04:44and figure out where the materials are that we need and schedule labor to be
04:48efficient on that, and that's done very effectively in lots of industries today
04:53that we should be borrowing that technology or buying it or building it
04:56ourselves to do that in these industries given the amount of money we spend. And
05:00do you think having a vibrant commercial maritime industry is going to help us
05:06build Navy ships? I think you can. I think the the ancillary technologies that are
05:12built to manage supply chains and manufacturing and labor can be used to
05:17do the same thing in the military. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:22Thank you very much.
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