John Garamendi

I particularly share your concerns about the location for Space Force. And certainly my view is that that entire process should be paused until we have those full reports from the two agencies.

Ladies and gentlemen, I call to order this hearing of the Readiness Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

You have really an opportunity and in fact a requirement to persuade us that the view of the world that you have is the correct one.

We need to understand the services and capabilities that commercial providers can give to them.

I want to take this in a slightly different way... civic education are absolutely correct.

The committee required that the U.S. military use the commercial fleet with minimal or very little exception.

We are in complete agreement with the need for a strong U.S. merchant fleet sailed by highly qualified mariners.

I want to pursue this strategy. Presently, we are bouncing from one thing to another here, and it appears to me we are not going to be successful anytime soon in rebuilding our sealift surge--our sealift capacity.

This is a significant security issue for the United States.

The strategy that we tried to put in place 5 years ago now was to give work to the private shipyards.

We are not putting good money into bad ships. We are putting money into the ships that we are going to keep.

The average age of the Ready Reserve fleet is 44 years old.

Congress heard you loud and clear, and we enacted legislation that prohibited the retirement of the KC-135 aircraft until 2025.

If you can't get to or sustain the fight, you have no chance of winning it.

We want you to be able to do your job, and we want to be a partner in getting that done.

We have been working on trying to energize the American shipbuilding industry using the export of natural gas and petroleum products.

One of the reasons that I am driving so hard for a 5-year, what are we going to do next year and the year after that and the next 3 years beyond is--I will give you an example.

That is a very, very good one.

Here is what I would like to do, and I will take this up with our committee members, is that I would like to have a specific plan for the next 5 years on each of those, on the government yards, the public yards, as to what you need to…

I applaud the Navy's development of this plan, which will overhaul antiquated facilities, recapitalize equipment, and reorganize workflow to reduce wasted time.

My sense of the Department of Defense over the last decade, but maybe longer than that, is it has neglected the maintenance across all services.

Clearly, we have a situation in which on the military side of it, space is a domain for war, and, unfortunately, we are all, not just the United States, China, and Russia, but others, rapidly militarizing space with the anticipation that…

The Marine Corps must be the Nation's premier fighting force. We can't become a Marine Corps that only cares about safety.

The Marine Corps failed--failed to adequately maintain the material readiness of the AAV fleet.

The tragic events of 30 July 2020 were preventable.