Ranking Member Courtney Urges Lawmakers to Keep National Defense Bill Bipartisan

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Ranking Member Joe Courtney urged his colleagues to support the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – which includes authorization for a second Virginia Class submarine – and reject partisan poison pill provisions that distract from the purpose of the bill.

A vote by the full House on the NDAA is expected Friday following the bill’s overwhelming bipartisan passage (57-1) in the House Armed Services Committee.

Watch and download the full clip here.

Watch and download a 15 sec. clip here.

Transcript 

Mister Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 8070.

Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution mandates that Congress shall provide and maintain a Navy. The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee’s work clearly met that mandate, thanks in large part to the great leadership of my friend and Chairman of the Subcommittee, Trent Kelly.

The biggest challenge our subcommittee faced stemmed from the Navy’s proposal to eliminate a Virginia Class submarine from the FY25 budget. This is a sharp deviation from the two-per-year procurement rate Congress has authorized and funded for the last 13 years and, coming on the heels of last December’s passage of AUKUS authorities to sell three submarines to Australia, screamed out for the subcommittee to exercise its constitutional duty of review and oversight.

First, our analysis found that the Navy’s attempt to shield supply chain vendors from the impact of a cut falls short. It leaves out hundreds of critical suppliers whose investment in on-time deliveries has been identified as the number one strategy reduce construction delays. For these suppliers, cutting procurement means cutting orders for their business. That is a cure that worsens the problem and doesn’t fix it. Our professional staff confirmed that the Navy’s plan needs an additional $1 billion to achieve the Navy’s stated goal of avoiding vendor instability and hesitancy.  

All of us are concerned about construction delays aggravated by the pandemic. But the subcommittee also recognized momentum happening in real-time in the submarine industrial base. The 24th Virginia Class Submarine, the USS New Jersey, was delivered two months ago and the Iowa and Massachusetts are slated for delivery by the end of this year. Idaho and Arkansas will follow shortly after with deliveries in 2025 – bringing the program total to 28 submarines. In the New England shipyards, the production cadence has accelerated to 1.4 up from the COVID dip of 1.2. 

As a result of all of this, our bill takes a different path. It heeds the calls from our Combatant Commanders and builds on the surge in deliveries by restoring a second Virginia Class submarine to the Navy’s shipbuilding account and fully resources the supply chain. 

Under the able leadership of Chairman Rogers and Ranking Member Smith this bill passed 57-1 out of Committee after bipartisan input from all Members, an extraordinary achievement in a very polarized time in Congress. Hopefully all the members of this Chamber will work to maintain the successful approach and not load up the bill with divisive amendments. 

I also want to give special thanks to the talented committee staff for their outstanding work. I urge all members to support the Committee’s intent to focus on strengthening defense and rejecting obvious poison pills that undermine the 63-[year] bipartisan tradition of the NDAA.

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