00:00Fisher and best wishes in the Appropriation Committee markup. Senator Hirono.
00:06Thank you Mr. Chairman. Congratulations Admiral and thank you and your family
00:10for your service to our country. To determine or to ensure the fitness to
00:16serve of the nominees who come before any of my committees, I ask the following
00:20two initial questions which I will ask of you. Since you became a legal adult, have
00:26you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or
00:32physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature? No Senator. Have you ever
00:37faced discipline or entered into settlement related to this kind of
00:40conduct? No Senator. Admiral, the Navy is currently building a new dry dock at Pearl Harbor
00:47to support the Virginia class submarine maintenance and this construction
00:54project is the largest in DOD history at nearly four point five billion dollars
01:00but has faced significant cost overruns including an eight hundred and thirty four
01:06million dollar increase just last year. Additionally the project is now about four
01:12months behind schedule. Should you be confirmed how do you plan to ensure the
01:16dry dock construction remains on budget and on time? Well Senator let me just say I'm a
01:23Hawaii sailor. My wife and I love the island, seven years there. I look forward to getting
01:28out there with you and touring that dry dock. It is a national asset. Yes. So I share your
01:33concerns. The Navy's ability at Naval Facilities Command has historically not been good at estimating
01:40the cost and schedule on our dry docks. We have improved in that area and worked
01:44hard to do that. Unfortunately the Hawaii dry dock is was subject to that. It's unfortunate
01:50that those cost overruns occurred. If I'm confirmed to CNO I will work with the team to do the best I can
01:56to get that back on plan and back on schedule ma'am. This is such a massive project that I do think that
02:02it requires your personal attention. So I'm glad that you intend to go to Hawaii and when you do please let
02:10me know when that happens because I would like to join you in that. Yes Senator. Would
02:17you commit to being personally engaged and making sure that this project comes in on
02:23time and on budget? Absolutely Senator. Thank you. As you well know in 2022-21 there was a giant fuel spill
02:33at Red Hill that impacted some 90,000 plus residents in Hawaii and there are some ongoing resources that
02:42will need to go toward the what is going on at Red Hill including the defueling and making sure that
02:52the environmental issues attendant to closing that facility is supported. So how do you plan to
02:59prioritize the necessary long-term environmental remediation at Red Hill and also ensuring that
03:08the Navy provides a safe drinking water system to the military and the surrounding community? Because
03:16that was one of the major problems that there were wells that were contaminating potentially the water
03:23system that the people of Oahu rely upon. Senator you have my absolute commitment on this. We want to
03:29finish the Red Hill defueling and cleaning process on time and on schedule. I look forward to working
03:37with you personally, my environmental team, and to make sure that all facets of the parts that the
03:44Navy's responsible for are completed on time and to the maximum extent possible. And I think you
03:50probably understand that the DOD is engaged in very important lease negotiations in Hawaii to enable
03:58mainly our Army and Marine forces to be able to train on the Big Island and that the entire incident
04:06involving Red Hill led to a lot of uncertainty and questions from the people of Hawaii as to the
04:13military's engagement in Hawaii. And so it is very important to engage with the community and I would like to
04:19have your commitment that you will prioritize that kind of sensitivity toward making sure that we do that the
04:28military does not continue to raise issues as to whether or not we can count on the military to do what
04:36is right. Senator, you have my commitment to that. I have some other questions for the record but let me get to
04:42one that I hope will be a very easy yes. As you know with the United States has not ratified our commitment
04:50or our participation in UNCLOS and especially as well what is going on with Russia etc. You have had,
04:58there have been your predecessors who have said that supporting U.S. accession to UNCLOS would be a good thing.
05:08Do you agree? Senator, I agree from the Navy perspective that those, the provisions and UNCLOS from
05:14maritime peace, my equities are captured by that. It is my understanding and I'm not steeped in this
05:22that the the lack of ratification of that deals more with you know at sea mining and some of the
05:27definitions and possible constraints that UNCLOS could have on our ability to do what we need as a nation.
05:33It's outside my lane. I would say that it's about time that we ratified our participation in UNCLOS,
05:39especially with what is going on with, as I mentioned, Russia and China's activities. Thank you very much,
05:48Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Senator.
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