I appreciate your February 11 response, and I appreciate that you took the time to visit the facility.

I just have one final question for you, Admiral Smith. One of the issues that I had focused on as well is our servicemembers and our DOD civilians, you know, the jobs that they are doing--is ensuring that they have access to good…

You have not put it in place yet.

Thank you for your leadership and all that you have done for the country, for the Navy, and we are so grateful for the sacrifices and service of you and your family.

I appreciate that Admiral Smith took the time to visit the facility. However, I am concerned that he is saying the temperature problem in the rooms will not be addressed until 2018, and that is too long for my constituents to wait.

However, I am concerned that you are saying the temperature problem in the rooms will not be addressed until 2018.

I want to thank all my colleagues, including the ranking member and, of course, Senator Shaheen and Senator Hirono, for their support on this issue.

I really would appreciate, obviously, the focus on getting the military learning centers up and running as soon as possible at Portsmouth.

I just want to say, for the shipyard workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, I know they want to go and help the other shipyards.

This is a real issue for us, and I really appreciate your coming forward and testifying.

I want to thank all of you for being here. I want to thank you for your leadership and important positions of defending our country and serving our country with such distinction.

My sense is that naval shipyard dry-dock capacity is substantially inadequate to serve the future life-cycle depot-level maintenance needs of the U.S. Navy fleet.