Transcripts For CSPAN Chief Of Naval Operations Confirmation Hearing 20240714

The Committee Meets today to consider the nomination of vice admiral Michael Beauvais to navy admiral and to be chief of navy operations. Thank you for being here, also extending a welcome to your family and want to invite you to introduce anyone at the time that you are recognized for an opening statement. We have our eight boring questions that are required so if you would please audibly respond to them so that we can have them in the record. Have you adhered to the laws and regulations governing interests . Yes, senator. Will you ensure that your staff complies with the lines established for requesting communications, including questions for the record and hearings . Yes. Will you cooperate and will you cooperate and providing response to congressional requests . Yes. Will those witnesses be protected from reprisal for your testimony question mark yes. Do you justify upon the request before the committee . Yes. Do you agree to provide documents, including documents of electronic forms in a timely manner when requested or to consult with the Committee Regarding the basis of any good faith delay or denial in providing such documents . Yes, senator. Have you assumed any duties or undertaken any actions which would appear to presume the outcome of the confirming process . No, i have not. The National Defense strategy directs our nations military to prepare for the return of strategic competition. This means we must be prepared to deter and if necessary, decisively defeat potential near adversaries like china and russia. It is a different world now that we have had before. I mean most American People just assume that we in america had the best of everything and we have watched whats happened over the last decade, in fact, thats not true. With the alarming speed and modernization of both conventional and nuclear forces, china and russia present formidable threats to america and our allies. One example of this is according to the office of naval intelligence, the chinese navy is growing more than 20 times faster than our navy. 20 times faster than our navy. At a rate of about 11 ships annually and the capability of those ships is increasing as well. The stuff they have is new stuff and that is pretty scary. Our navy has a key role to play in this competition, however i am concerned that the navy may be out of balance in each of these areas. Our ships appear undermanned with destroyers manning roughly 85 , under maintained with more than 60 of ships running along and maintenance and more than 1. 8 billion in maintenance needs are unfunded, and the third area under equipped, the key capabilities like fully functional forward class carriers and the combat Ship Missions are significantly delayed. Overall it seems to me that the navy is having trouble maintaining todays fleet of 291 ships and the challenges will only grow as the fleet surpasses 300 ships by 2020, 310 by 2022 on the way to our 355 ship navy. Admiral, this is not just the problems that we have. You have had an operational career. You were involved in all of this stuff. You are inheriting it with this position. The navy must First Sustainable sustainably man and main our and maintain our current fleet. Technical risks must be better understood, major new systems without better acquisition performance in relation to competitive advantages that they will accelerate. This is a critical time for our navy, and your leadership is coming along just about the right time. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much mr. Chairman. I want to welcome admiral gilday. Particularly his mother, his wife, one of his sons. You have served the nation with Exemplary Service for many years. We thank you for that. And we thank you for your willingness to continue to serve. Admiral, you have an exemplary record. I believe you are well qualified to be chief of naval operations. If youre confirmed, you will be tasked with recruiting and maintaining a quality force and ensuring it has the levels to meet our nations current challenges and respond to tomorrows threats. The navy is already tasked with time and on budget, and it will be compounded by the need to capitalize the Ballistic Missile submarine fleet that was built in the 1980s. The navy is struggling to maintain and support the ships and aircraft we already have in inventory, including having some attack submarines unable to conduct operations due to delayed maintenance availabilities. In addition, if you are confirmed, you will face the challenge of implementing programs for readiness and professionalism in the navy fleet to avoid preventable accidents like the mccain and fitzgerald. I am interested in your vision of the navy and how would you go about making that vision a reality. The major focus of the committee this year has been the state of privatized military housing. I how this first hand in my i saw this first hand in my visit to navy housing in rhode island. You will also be responsible for ensuring that the navy quickly provides acceptable housing for all of it Service Members and changes the navy system for overseeing Family Housing to ensure that Navy Commanders assume a sense of ownership of the housing situation and prevent a repeat of the poor conditions that we found. We live in Tumultuous Times and many core values are being tested. I am concerned that such times can have a corrosive effect on our military personnel. It has never been more important that our navy has principal leaders who promote respect throughout the ranks and adhere to a moral code that can serve as an example to all. Admiral, we expect and demand, and i am confident that you will be that leader. Thank you for your commitment to the nation. I must apologize because i must go to a hearing at the appropriations committee, but i will return. Thatous west pointer said i shall return, thank you. Thank you, senator. We will await your return. Admiral, it is nice to have you. We would like you to proceed with your opening statement. Your entire statement will be made a part of the record. Proceed. Thank you for the privilege and the opportunity of appearing before you today. It is deeply humbling and an honor to be here. I am grateful for the confidence of the president of the United States, the secretary of defense, and the secretary of the navy in nominating me to be the next chief of naval operations. Most americans associate the strength of the navy with great ships at sea. But the true sources of our naval power are the people and the loved ones who support them. My family is no different. My father enlisted in the navy right out of high school. My mother, who is here today, raised five sons along his side until my dads passing a few years ago. For the past 24 years, my wife linda has been a constant source of inspiration. Despite moving around the world with me, she has maintained a successful career in both the private and public sectors while raising our two sons. Our oldest is a sophomore at the university of virginia and could not be here due to rotc training. His younger brother, michael, soon to be freshman at auburn is here today as well as other members of my family. But like countless military families around the world, my familys love, resourcefulness, and support have made my Naval Service possible. I owe everything to them. Our country and our navy face many challenges both now and in the future. If confirmed, i intend to ensure our navy remains focused on our role within the joint force and protecting the American Homeland and defending american interests. The priorities of the National Defense strategy are clear. Our true north is Great Power Competition against russia and in china. It is our duty to ensure that we can operate, fight, and win across the spectrum from peaceful presence to violent conflict. In all domains. In a word, it is about lethality, producing and fielding a combat credible naval force with global reach capable of deterring any potential adversary and protecting our nations interest at all time. If confirmed, sustaining our readiness and modernizing our navy will be my top priorities. Thoughtful, focused decisions to rapidly mature, acquire, and field cutting Edge Technologies and integrating them into joint operating concepts will be key to ensure that our navy always fights from a position of advantage. Among a network of allies and partners unmatched by any rival as the preeminent navy in the world. My commitment to you is a navy ready to respond to the nations call both now and in the future. Sailors and Navy Civilians retain our competitive advantage. We owe them principal leadership, transparent and accountable processes, and sufficient resources to do their jobs effectively. In that respect, i want to thank this committee for the continued, unwavering support of our navy team by providing adequate and sustained funding. I thank you again for your time and consideration today. Im truly honored to be part of the greatest navy in the world. If confirmed, i will work closely with this committee and this congress as we prepared to as we prepare to meet the challenges ahead. Im grateful for your consideration of my nomination, and i look forward to your questions. Thank you. Thank you. We will have five minute questions around. I will begin. I want to ask you a question that will be rather lengthy, then 2 short questions i will ask you to respond for the record. They will require lengthy responses. I mentioned the uss gerald r. Ford. It was accepted by the navy in complete, nearly two years late, in 2017, 2. 5 billion over budget, and nine of 11 weapons elevators still dont work with costs continuing to grow. The ford is a numerical replacement for the uss enterprise, which was decommissioned in 2012. Since then, we have had only 10 operational aircraft carriers, despite the cno requirement for 12. This mismatch continues to place a heavy burden on the fleet to do more with less. The ford was awarded to a contractor. Ature mature imm technologies that had next to no testing. A new radar, catapult, gear, and weapons elevators, which i mentioned in our opening statement. The navy entered into this contract in 2008, which, combined with other contracts, have ballooned the cost of the ship more than 13 billion without understanding the technical risk, cost, or the schedules. This should be criminal. I first became exposed to this when i was down there on site. It is a great ship. We have to keep up with other countries that are creating a problem and becoming competitive. We have to do a better job. Since that time, there was a level of arrogance that really didnt make a difference that the elevators dont work. If you are carrying ordinance in elevators and they dont work, that is not good in the field. Since that time, the secretary of the navy told the president the elevators will be ready when she pulls out or you can fire me. Remember that . They still dont work. At that time, the board was the ford was supposed to pull out of its maintenance period. The departure has since been delayed to october. Even with this delay, only 2 of the 11 elevators will be ready. Nine elevators will not be ready and likely not be complete until 2020 or later. The promise eight months ago indicates either poor knowledge or poor judgment. This is the latest example of navy leaders not being straightforward when it comes to the program. That is quite a charge. When you see this happening and you see there is nothing we can do about it and it will be dumped in your lap. I would like your thoughts on my opening comments about that particular ford class. Did we do a good job . I share your concern and agree with your assessment. Including the fact that we will likely only have 2, perhaps 4 elevators operational by the time ford leaves in the fall. It is still unacceptable. We need all 11 elevators working to give us the redundancy and combat readiness the american taxpayers invested in the ship. It is more than just the elevators. The other deficiencies i mentioned. We have had 23 new technologies introduced into that ship. 4 were immature when we commissioned ford in 2017. We have seen progress in the launching system, the arresting gear, and the dual band radar. The reliability of those systems is training in the right direction. It is where we want it to be, based on the last testing. The elevators are a remaining hurdle to get over to get the ship at sea and finally deployed. On that one, when you are confirmed, would you agree it would be wise to report to us on a monthly basis as to the progress being made . Yes, sir, i commit to that in complete transparency, as well as taking what we learned from the ford and making sure we do not make the same mistakes again with other ships we need to field in the future. Appreciate that. 2 for the record. The navy seems to be under balance, undermined and debilitated maintenance delays. Major acquisition delays. I would like to have you respond to your view on the overall state of the navy. It is a balance. Were positioning ourselves to a 355 ship navy. Many details will come out in the course of this hearing. The second question for the record would be by 2023, the fleet is projected to grow to 314 ships. With several new leaderships. This addresses the leadership performance problems we have been under. I would like to have you give an answer for the record on your view on the recent leadship performances and what you would do differently to ensure adequate technical foundations in place prior to the procedure. If you would do that for the record, i would appreciate it. Center. Senator. Congratulations on your nomination and thank you to you and your family for being willing to consider this position at this critical time in our countrys history. I also appreciated your visit last week. One of the things we talked about is our public shipyard. Obviously im very concerned about what happens at the Portsmouth Naval yard. You have been invited by senator king and i to come and visit the shipyard. We hope you will do that. One of the things all of our shipyards need is investment. I support the Navy Shipyard infrastructure Optimization Plan that we released in february of 2018. It focuses, among other things, on increasing drydock capacity and improving facility layout. Critical issues for the Portsmouth Naval shipyard. Do you believe the Naval Shipyards required significant Infrastructure Investment in order to increase capacity and modernize our forces . I absolutely do. As well as the communities around them. That Skilled Workforce comes in those communities. That partnership runs long and deep. Our requirements and acquisitions specialists, the partnerships we have with those shipyards and the people that provide Skilled Labor. You are committed to doing everything you can moving forward with that Optimization Plan . Yes. The other issue we discussed was secretary spencers visit to the shipyard and his reassurances that the Construction Projects on the drydock would continue moving forward, despite the president Emergency Declaration to take military Construction Funding for the border wall. Can you give us an update on the status of any funds that may be diverted for the border wall . Im not aware of any funds. At this point that are diverted to the border wall that will affect the portsmouth shipyard. Great. I appreciate that. One of the other challenges we have as we look at the virginia class submarines and the need to continue modernizing them is that we dont have the parts we need to continue to do what we need to for the virginia class. We are actually cannibalizing parts from other ships to update them. Can you talk about what else the navy can do to address this limited availability of virginia class submarine parts . Yes, maam. The challenges we have with virginia extend to other ship classes. We also have problems with parts availability. The focus of the department is to ensure we have the right parts and write requirements requirements identified before the ships go into the shipyard so we dont have delays, which have in part of the problem with the which have been part of the problem with the production line that we have seen over the past three years and the trends that the chairman indicated in his opening statement. I commit to you that i will take a deeper look at parts availability for virginia class and other ships. As part of other limiting factors that we need to take a look at to ensure the production line continues to flow as it should. One of the critical elements of that is our Small Businesses throughout this country who are suppliers to the bigger companies, but without those Small Businesses, we often have , we dont often have the other pieces we need in order to keep construction moving. A big part of that is making sure the Small Businesses have the opportunity to get contracts. I hope you will also do everything you can to ensure that continues. I will. I consider them part of the team. Your point is well taken on ensuring there are no constraints in being able to contribute to where we need to go. Thank you. Now i would like to ask about one of the conflict areas that we have in the world. Tensions in the persian gulf have escalated with iran attacking commercial shipping vessels and shooting down drones. Can you talk about what you think the situation is in the persian gulf and what we may do to deescalate tensions . Yes maam. The department of defense is firmly in support of a department of state led effort to bring iran back to the negotiating table on the nuclear deal. Right now, the focus of u. S. Central command with the navy in support of the other services is to have sufficient resources to protect the forces we have right now, and be able to respond should the iranians do some type of activity against u. S. Interests. We have taken great care not to be provocative against iran in both operations and our very moderate force into the region. The focus is protect and respond. I do believe the diplomatic effort really needs to have off ramps to bring iran back to the table so we can deescalate and get a better deal, and so we can send our resources back against the russians and chinese, in terms of our global posture. I appreciate that. I think diplomacy is the best resolution of the situation. War is not in our interest or irans interest. Thank you very much for your testimony today. Congratulations on your nomination. Lets continue talking about submarines. At the last Posture Hearing for the indo pacific command, admiral davidson said continuing to build our submarines is critically important to our force, because some of our most significant advantage in our domain is in the subsurface. Do you agree that the submarine force is maybe our most significant advantage over adversaries like china . Yes, i agree. The submarine force is an asymmetric advantage to both the chinese and the russians. Thats one reason why those countries are kind of racing to get more of their own submarines . Yes, sir, which is why we need to continue to outpace them. In the words of the National Defense strategy, submarines play a Critical Role in strategic deterrence, key control, and other central war fighting missions . Yes sir. Thats why the navy has singled out the Columbia Class Submarine Program as its top priority for fiscal year 2020. I remember my first Armed Services Committee Hearing with one of your predecessors were where they brought in a stoplight chart and the maintenance of the Ballistic Missile submarine deterrent was the only one that was greened. I believe that is the top priority . Yes it is. If i could expound. Columbia is definitely our number one acquisition priority. Secondly, right now, we believe we are on track as we enter the production stage to have 80 of the design done. That is double what we have at the virginia class. We have also taken lessons with the ford, in terms of ensuring any new technologies we introduced to those submarines are probably prototype models and have gone through simulation before going to production. You said in your policy questions the most significant risk to cost schedule and performance requirements for the columbia class is the strength of the submarine Industrial Base and shipbuilder performance. I assume it is probably correct that if that is the most significant risk to the columbia class submarine, also the most significant risk to the virginia class submarines . Yes, sir. I believe it affects all of the yards that service the navy both public and private. It is a competition for talent. Thats why i mentioned local communities are so important as part of the team that we ensure we sustain so we have those skill workers in place. In my advance policy question, i was speaking to the point in the partnership with industry, we need to make sure Skilled Labor is there, and the qualifications level we need work on those critical assets. Given all that, we may consider an expanded submarine construction as part of our overall naval deterrence strategy . I would prefer to speak to that in more detail in a classified setting. I noticed on your biography you earned a Commendation Medal with a b device. What were the circumstances . Not very common. I was on a cruiser during the gulf war. We struck 2 mines. I spent a lot of time as a result of that in a shipyard repairing the damage. I feel i have unique perspective when it comes to shipyards, the great work they do, particularly with a combat damaged ship that we saved. What rank were you during that attack . I was a weapons officer, a lieutenant at the time. It is good that your sailors know vice admiral gilday was once lieutenant gilday, like all of us when dinosaurs roamed the earth. They know what its like to be a sailor and a leader at the frontlines. Thank you again for your service. Congratulations. Thank you. Senator peters. Admiral, congratulations on your nomination. Thank you for your long distinguished record of service. I want to focus on what appears to be a troubling trend we see with the navys special warfare command. Im Ranking Member of the subcommittee on capabilities. We oversee special operations. Last week it was reported a platoon of seals from seal team seven was sent home from iraq midway through the deployment after reportedly abusing alcohol and other violations of good order and discipline. This was brought to light days after another report was released detailing seal team 10 operators abusing cocaine and other advanced substances and stated they often defeat military drug tests and told investigators those tests were a joke. A recent trial of a navy seal revealed unsatisfactory culture within the seal teams, including heavy drinking on the battlefield and unlawful behavior. These issues seem not to be isolated to one team and are reported from units stationed in california and virginia, which certainly raises a level of concern. My question to you is if confirmed, how do you plan to assist the Navy Special Warfare command to deal with what appears to be a troubling culture that may need attention . Those incidents you mentioned are still under investigation. I have not seen the results of them. I am eager to understand what the root causes are. I will say that ethics is a particularly important point for me. That begins for my leadership and extends through, as well as the officers. Right now through our chief petty officers to ensure every day we go to work. That we bring our values with us to work and it is especially that thosen combat values be maintained for all the reasons that we understand so well. I commit to getting a better understanding of those issues to Holding People accountable if and where they need to be held accountable, to get to the root causes. There is a problem with the culture of the community, that that is addressed quickly and firmly. Thank you, admiral. Emphasizedg guidance greater integration of capability between the navy and marine corps. I want to read from the document and get your thoughts on this. We must engage a more robust discussion regarding Naval Expeditionary forces regarding capabilities not currently resident within the marine corps such as coastal, construction and countermeasure forces. We must ask ourselves whether it is prudent to absorb capabilities to create a single Naval Expeditionary force. If confirmed you will work closely with the, not in future marine corps constant marine corps concepts and the commandant. I met with the commandant last week and there is no daylight between us. I am in fully support of his Planning Guidance. The idea that we better integrate them make sense particularly with the adversaries we face today. Advantage ifetric we come together in a synergistic way. To your point about how we get to this quickly through exercises, war games. We both agree to attend a war game at newport, rhode island later in august to begin to explore how we change our operating concepts to get better performance out of the teamwork from both services. As youre thinking it through and working it, do you think there will be impact on sea lift and support functions that the navy currently provides to the marine corps . I dont see that now, sir. I think were on a pretty good track with respect to sea lift in terms of focus that weve cross three lines of operations to sustain the ships that we have, and their service lives. Congress has given us authorities to look at purchasing used vessels, and we have some investments going in new ships as well. Thank you, admiral. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you, admiral for being here. I want to thank your family members for joining you. Thanks for years of wonderful support that youve been able to provide to the admiral. Admiral, senator peters and i Work Together on emerging threats and capabilities subcommittee. I would like to get into some of that information if i might. In a statement to the committee you said you would continue on a path toward a more lethal, agile sustainable force. If confirmed, are there emerging technologies you believe the navy should be prioritizing ahead of other emerging technologies . Yes, maam. On the top of the list, i would put Artificial Intelligence. I think there are capabilities resident today in industry that we can harness to our advantage. And what im particularly interested in is how we use data in a more innovative way to give a quicker flash to bang from Decision Making to action. Theres a lot of information at our fingertips every single day, it is getting the right information to the right people at the right time to make the right decisions faster than your opponent. And i think theres great promise there. Were doing experimenting now that im excited about, it will be a priority. Ai is one area. Hypersonics is a must that we have to get after quickly. I think were on a good track. Industry is our best partner working through this. Third is unmanned. Thats the future. We have to look more deeply at how we would operate with unmanned vessels on the sea, under the sea or in the air. To the point with senator peters, i would look at war gaming, concept development, and with experimentation. Weve almost doubled the amount of exercises were doing in the next year from 97 to 171. Thats a test. Were going to look at new technologies, if we fail, they can fail fast. If theyre something to invest in, put heat on it and field it quickly. Those are some of the areas im most enthused about going forward. Im excited about that. Thank you. I look forward to working on those specific areas with you and with other branch chiefs. You mention ai. One area we have seen significant savings, especially in the navy, is with Predictive Maintenance by using ai. I look forward to that. There are ways to utilize emerging technology not only with Autonomous Vehicles and other platforms but also the mundane things we dont typically think about as war fighters which would be logistics and everything admin behind the scenes as well. Thank you for your input on that. Would you be able to leverage expertise in Cyber Security as well as we move forward . I hope to, maam. I think it is an area that we have to leverage from current day operations all the way to future planning. It is intertwined in everything we do, whether in our personal lives or certainly in the military. I do have some ideas on things i would like to accelerate. While i worked at fort immediate at u. S. Cyber command and, i had partnerships with industry, some Small Companies, turning out great products that we could use and scale very quickly. I am interested in finding the Innovative Companies and to leverage them to make us more lethal. I appreciate that. You mentioned working with those companies and others. I think that is really important. A number of nominees that have come before the panel have repeatedly called for collaboration with academia and the private sector, and thank you for doing that. The collaboration does lead to innovation in not only emerging technologies area that im very interested in but also resource and timesaving methods we discussed. Academic innovation is coming out of all our states. For my home state of iowa, we focus on this with university. I know you mentioned some modernization goals. How do you plan to harness the talent you talked about in the private sector and maybe more specifically in academia to get us where we need to be . Maam, are you referring to how we recruit and retain . Moreso with the technologies that have been developed and that we can utilize from private industry as well as from our universities. University of Northern Iowa has partnered with the military on a number of different types of strategies, paint technologies and so forth. Are there ways to reach out and work better with our universities and talent within the universities . Yes, maam, there are, and there are great examples, particularly when i worked in cyber, we had great, i dont want to mention the specific universities, many of your states are represented in those partnerships that we have. I would say with respect to the direction were going in, u. S. Cyber command just created a shark tank like environment with double digit number of Small Companies bidding quickly on projects and developing prototypes quickly. It is a very exciting direction were heading in. Acquisition authorities received from Congress Allowed us to move more quickly with the new technologies that we need. Excellent. Thanks very much. I look forward to supporting your confirmation. Thank you, maam. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Chair. Welcome, admiral. Congratulations on your nomination. You and i talked about the ford in my office the other day. I want to dig into it as a case study. Three major issues have come to the committees attention in addition to just time and budget which preoccupied us a few years ago, and progress on that in the second in class looks to be going well, but issues we grappled with have been success of the launch, catapult system, which is a newly designed system, success of the arresting system which is newly designed, and now this issue with the elevators. Am i correct that both the catapult and arresting systems have now checked out and are working according to spec to your satisfaction . Yes, sir. For the electromagnetic launching system and advanced arresting gear, we have had almost 800 launches. For three successive days we had 100 in each of those days. It is right at the level we see from existing class. We think were on a good path with respect to reliability and generation rate. The other technology you didnt bring up but troubled us after the ship was delivered, the dual band radar. We are seeing reliability above 90 in that. The focus now is on the elevators. You and i talked about the issue of shore testing. Both the launch and arresting gear were short tested. They were developed by contractors not at the shipyard, shore tested, put on, worked it through, now they seem to be working, but the elevator system was not shore tested, it was built there in place . Correct. I met this week with the secretary of the navy staff to ask the question why. So of the 23 new technologies that we introduced to ford, they did not consider the elevator system to be high risk. So it wasnt prototyped to shore. Some of the 23 new technologies were shore tested, the elevator wasnt. Yes, sir. And it is critical when you talk about complex war ships and systems design, if we introduce new technologies that they are prototyped adequately and proven before production. Who made the decision of the elevator, was it the navy, the contractor . Not talking about a person, but which entity made the decision that the elevator would not be shore tested . Ultimately thats a navy responsibility. We own the risk and the Risk Mitigation strategy to keep the ship on time. So ultimately i would consider that a failure of the navy. Let me dig into it. Do you have the Research Dollars you need . Was it a research problem, was it a contract oversight problem, was it trying to introduce too many new technologies in the first in class . What lessons would you learn from that . I think money was a factor in speaking with the secretarys staff, but i dont think it was the overriding factor. I think as engineers looked at the existing design, they saw the risk as lower. They saw the risk as acceptable. But when you introduce something it was a new design. It was a new design, but that technology exists right now commercially. Warehouses and so forth. But ships that move, thats a different they need to be water tight. Right . In a warehouse, the elevator does not have to be watertight as in a ship. You can imagine to main water to maintain water tight integrity up seven or eight decks is a challenge. I think we want to dialogue about lessons learned, how theyre being implemented, not only in ship two, but if we didnt shore test, thats relevant to columbia class and other platforms. Let me switch gears, ask another question. The new commandant and i have spoken at length before his nomination about making sure theres close collaboration between the navy and marines on future operating concepts, procurement plans, and making sure that everybody is on board as we try to get to 355 ship navy. If the marines are still going shipborne, we have to make sure theres coordination. I want your commitment as were working on these issues, i dont want there to be a left hand right hand not knowing what the other is doing problem, to be mismatched. Can you tell me that you have that kind of communication relationship on the marine side and will work with the general in that way . I worked with general burger before. Our meeting last week was extremely positive. I am absolutely committed to you and to him to Work Together with the marine corps as a close team. Thank you very much. Thanks, mr. Chair. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Admiral congratulations on your , nomination. I look forward to supporting your nomination. Thank you. I do have on the gerald ford, when you see this project is about 14 years in the making, transcended three different administrations, endless crs, sequestration. I would like to see back to what senator kaine was saying, i would like a root cause analysis of the project from start to finish and to the extent that our actions in some way affected the movement to the right, it is important to understand that. With funding uncertainty, other changes in policy, i have got to believe, the root cause analysis, some of it was mistakes by people running the project. It wouldnt surprise me if some of the risk and delay was a result of congressional action or inaction. I think that would be helpful to us so it is instructive for future actions. Not necessarily asking you to respond to that now, but it would be helpful for that and i personally would like to see it. General burger talked about a new fleet design, talking about smaller more lethal platforms. In your opinion, what does that fleet look like, particularly i think he was motivated by his view of what we need to match up against china. What does the new fleet look like to you, and how do you balance that with a target of a 355 ship navy . I dont mean to be evasive in this answer. We have an ongoing force Structure Assessment that will give better insights into that. As i mentioned with experimentation and war gaming and exercises, that is where we really need to push ourselves, to think about how we operate differently than we operated before, how do we make things fundamentally more difficult for any adversary we face . I think that the willingness to do things we have not done before, even at the risk of failure, i think we need to push that envelope. I think we need to learn together. I think we need to build together in terms of capability. So i dont have the answers yet, but i think we have a blank slate with the marine corps in terms of thinking differently about how to partner together moving forward. Thank you. I want to focus on North Carolina a bit here. I think youre familiar with the damage we sustained at camp le jeune. Yes, sir. And cherry point, the river with the hurricane. 3800 military housing buildings affected. Weve got a backlog of 3. 7 billion at last count. Do you consider it a priority to accelerate that recovery in North Carolina . Yes, sir, i do. Frc east, we made progress with the lift fan facility, state Legislature Took the unusual step of appropriating money and sending it to the navy to do their part to get that facility modernized, lay ground work for the lift fan facility. We received, modified and returned every variant of the f35 there, i am sure you have been down there. Thats not necessarily a modern facility. It is virtually impossible to do what they need to do in terms of lean processes with the facilities that they have today. Do you agree that we need to make investments in facilities that will increase throughput and improve readiness . Absolutely, particular frces, they work on a dozen Different Air frames from rotary to fixed wing, including the f35. The f35 is a complex aircraft thats going to require a very nimble, agile, well resourced Maintenance Production line. What i owe you is to take a deeper look at that, get a better understanding of where were headed. I look forward to having open and transparent discussions on the progress. I think you also find that the state legislature and governor are prepared to do their part to remove barriers in the underlying infrastructure in and around cherry point to help facilitate that. I think it is important. They move the craft around, it is like theyre working a jigsaw puzzle to figure out how to wedge them in. When you talk about the most sophisticated war fighting plane thats flown, i think we need to step up our priority on modernization of the facilities. Last question that i have really again relates back to an issue in North Carolina and across the globe, military housing. Are you familiar with the military housing issues at camp le jeune . Not camp le jeune specifically, but i am with the failure with the housing issues we have over the last couple of months. It is important to accelerate it. We made progress. I am going to camp le jeune, doing a town hall, i will invite somebody from marine corps and navy to be with me. Interesting thing that happens when i do a town hall. I announce it six weeks before i do it and there is in amazing draw down on Outstanding Service requests before i get down there. I dont know why. I want to let housing lenders know i am going to camp le jeune and to fort bragg, i am going to press on this issue. I would appreciate your help. I look forward to supporting your nomination. Thank you, sir, it is a priority for me. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here and your family, all the dedication you have given to the country. We appreciate very much your service. I am concerned about china, russia, concerned about whats going on in iran, strait of hormuz. Just some of the things that keep us thinking about whats going on, look at china. The rapidly growing navy china has at a rate if continued will put them over 400 surface ships and 100 submarines in the next 15 years. Would you say thats an offense or defensive play for them . Thats an offensive play, sir. An offensive play. We know with the offensive play rapidly expanding in the South China Sea and pacific, theyre looking further than before what weve seen with intentions what may be on the one belt, one road. Yes, sir. Were on the same path on that . Were also very much concerned about whats going on with russia. Were seeing now that russia has resurgence in the north atlantic, arctic area. I came back from the arctic, going through all our arctic nations, seeing whats going on there, russia seems to be downsizing the surface combatants, retiring their aircraft carrier, cold water destroyers, but rapidly expanding the submarine force. Theyre now producing the Largest Nuclear submarine for so starting in f. Y. 2018, budget, weve been spending on nato base in iceland and they have been deploying the p. H. Class. I spent time in iceland. They have more substance, russian substance subs, russian subs through the north arctic than before the cold war. Offense or defense . Admiral gilday offense, sir. Senator manchin offense again. We spend 700 billionplus a ear. 250 is doing all this on billion equivalent. Russia is doing it on about 65 billion. How do i go back to my little state of West Virginia and explain to them how were getting the best bang for our buck when we are not keeping up with the deployment that we should, basically, the shipbuilding we should be doing, the modernization, replacement . How do we get that back on track . How do i explain the difference in values . Admiral gilday sir, there is a quantitative difference between us and some of the points you made with both the russians and the chinese. But i think that the joint force of the United States has a significant symmetric advantage, synergistic advantage over both of those nations militarily. I dont think we can necessarily meet them hull for hull or Weapon System for Weapon System, but part of this is using Innovative Disruptive technologies to our advantage. Some of this is not just about the science of war but the art of war and how were going to fight. Its back to the point i made with made a few minutes ago working more closely with the marine corps, how we will fight differently, how well leverage not space but cyberspace in our daytoday operations and war plans. I just think we need to the budget is what it is. Our production lines are what hey are. I think its up to us to do the most with what we have. We have the talent and the drive to do that. Senator manchin thank you. Ill move over to iran. We had the u. S. S. Lincoln strike group that has been in the gulf of oman since may in response to the attacks. We have been attempting to protect international shipping. Do we have the resources in order to protect the shipping lanes there . Because you know the u. K. Had one ship seized. And we were too far away at the time in order to come to response to help that ship, as i understand. Are we working with our ally allies in that area that use the shipping lanes that will have sufficient resources to try to avoid conflict, if you will, in order to have safe passage . It seems like were getting strung up pretty thin. Admiral gilday senator, we will have the resources and do have resources to get the u. S. Hips through the strait of hor straight of hormuz. There is not that has the transit. The fleet were going to have will have a much smaller u. S. Effort. Its primarily focused on providing intelligence support to those to the rest of the coalition. So we will escort our ships as they come along, but we wont be there in great numbers. The idea is for the is for the regional partners to bear the lions share of the burden. Enator manchin thank you. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Admiral, first of all, thank you for your service to our country. Thank you to your family for their sacrifices in putting up deployments you have made. I think youre the right person for this job at the right time. But id really like to hear from you some steps that you intend to take with regard to some of the challenges that we see right now within some specific naval operations. In particular, i am going to hit on some of the items you and i discussed in my office the other day. Im really concerned about depot maintenance. I want to work my way through this a little bit. You heard a lot of this before. I think the u. S. S. Boise is a great example what not to do when it comes to how you take care of assets that taxpayers have paid for already. Senator rounds u. S. S. Boise will have been out of service, waiting for refueling, for six years before its put back in service. You got four other, as i understand it, Nuclear Attack subs that could be in a similar circumstance tied up at dock waiting to get in to dry dock in order to be refueled which means they are not operational, which you means they are not able to be utilized, which means the crews assigned to them wont have that sea duty at the time when they are supposed to be out at sea. The fa18s, we had 40 that were operational. I think we moved it up to 60 right now. Thats what most people will see flying off the neck of a u. S. S. Carrier. The f35, which you is supposed to be the replacement, the sea model for the carriers, i dont know how many of the 4,300 spare parts that is on backlog belongs to the sea models. But most certainly, we have to move the aircraft and get them operational in a more timely fashion than what it appears we are. This is systemic. Its not just the navy, but it systemic within the department of defense. It clearly points to the fact that our acquisitions systems are not working the way that they should be for efficiency, second of all, the Maintenance Systems are not working the way that we would expect them to work, and most certainly theres got to be a better way to do it. If we talk about our competition with china and with russia, im not sure what their capabilities are. What i do know is were spending more money and it would appear that we are not as efficient as we should be. And i think its going to take some major overhauls within the way that we treat the equipment we got, and i dont even think it takes Artificial Intelligence to get spare parts. You and i spoke about this. I think you agree with me on that. Can you share with me and with this committee what the steps specifically are going to be that we start fixing the problem with regard to the inefficiencies in our Maintenance System today . Admiral gilday sir, the first thing i really need to do is to get an understanding of that whole life cycle from requirements generation on the ship. And that really comes down to the crew of a ship identifying whats what needs to be repaired with enough specificity so that the right parts are ordered, so that the right materials are on hand well before the ship ever hits the yard, and you also have the right Skilled Labor on hand whether theyre welders, ship fitters, in order to do it on time with the quality we need. I think we need to take a look holistically all the way from the ship through the planning process within the navy to the shipyards themselves, whether theyre public and private, and extends out i think to the local community that provides that talent to the shipyards. And so what id like to do is to take a more detailed look at what those constraints are. What those problems are that have caused us to run behind whether its parts of availability or front end and doing a poor job of outlaying he requirements. I know we are still catching up from years when we didnt have a fully funded maintenance budget and deferred a lot of work and catching up. I know on the other side of that is that we have to be able to produce readiness and need to do it with some stability or industry. If i could, admiral, and i took a lot of time asking the question, but heres what i ask, would you come back to this committee and lay out for us the plan ta you want to implement to get to the bottom of what we are going to do to fix this mess . Admiral gilday yes, i will. How devastating would it be if we are not able to put to go along the lines of the bipartisan budget agreement in which we would have consistent funding without any continuing resolutions for the next two years . Admiral gilday if we had to face Something Like that even or a year, it would affect all the new starts for the technologies that i just mentioned as well as the new ship builds we want to bring online and personnel budgets as well as those we want to move around the navy. It would be devastating in terms of our current readiness and also going to affect modernization and both of those are coequal priorities. For all the reasons that the senator said about russia and china. That would be devastating to any progress we had made. I look forward to supporting your nomination. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator reed there were wakeup calls. Can you tell us the investigations have taught the navy and how you implemented those findings. Admiral gilday firstly, i would like to extend my condolences to those families. I was the senior officer at one of those burials in arlington and one of the most difficult things i have done. Words cannot express my sadness or provide sole ace to that family. In terms of what we have done, i think from the individual level on board ships and in squadrons up through the team level on board ships and institutionally with the navy, we have taken a look at over 100 recommendations that we have compiled from the comprehensive review that we did, the Strategic Review we did loo along with a thorough look with the g. A. O. , we have done 104 recommendations. We are not calling them complete. I head back to the fleet to meet with sailors should i be confirmed is getting a better understanding of whether or not the culture has changed and the way we are training sailors have changed and the standards are where they need to be. I give you my commitment that this is going to be a top priority for me and that as the surface war officer, it really hits home. Senator reed has there been any noticeable recruit on retention or something that you will check into also . Admiral gilday our recruiting and retention numbers are pretty high. Some of our best retention are with those ships where the mccain and fitzgerald actually sailed. Senator reed senator rounds brought up appoint about having a capable navy, one that can get off the dock. The plan of 355 ships, we cant even maintain 300 ships. He touched on one of them. One is just simple capacity. Our public and private shipyards, do we have the capacity to maintain 355 ships . Admiral gilday we have to take a deep look at that. I think based on what we see today, one would be inclined to say we dont. I dont think we can say that with a high degree of accuracy. There are inefficiencies we have to turn around. The navy has gone out to yards to see if they are willing to get certified to find that excess capacity that exists in the country and tap into it. So im not ready yet to give you an affirmative answer but i agree it is something we have to look at if we put these ships in the water. Senator reed two issues, can you get a definitive sense of capacity and the efficiency of the shipyards. If we expand to private yards that are not part of the process, but i think before we go projecting 355 ships and if we cant maintain them, then we ave everything turned around backwards. Final question and i know critical the navy is to lead with preliminary and honor. There have been incidents in the past that have detracted from that core effort. What is your assessment of where the navy is with respect to core values like leadership, Selfless Service to the nation, things that have been called into question. Admiral gilday from my perspective in a joint assignment looking at the navy from the outside, im very optimistic about where we are and where we are headed. If we are confirmed, i want to take a better look at that. Well try and set the best example i can from the top and will lean on our flag officers, our commanders and in particular our chief petty officers to ensure that this is something that we bring to work every day and that it is something that we live whether its on or off the job. Ess than 40 of the navy ships are leaving maintenance on time and this is a very big problem. Look forward to your further assessment and plan. Lets talk about resilient communications. He Peoples Liberation in the vent of conflict with this country it would degrade our infrastructure and seize the information advantage. If confirmed, what investments you would recommend and prioritize to make sure that our c2 architecture with stands while under attack from the p. L. A. . Admiral gilday a couple of priorities. We need to move from legacy infrastructure to the cloud and we need to do that fairly quickly. When we do that that is a partnership with industry because at the end of the day hat may still be data. Im still responsible for the security of that data. That relationship i have with industry has to be one that gives me very timely actually continuous visket in the visibility in the security of that data and the navy can work side by side with that particular vendor to get after the problem. I do think we need to get off the legacy infrastructure we have. Likewise at sea. I think we have some work to do with respect to standardization and with respect to developing tactical clouds. Im optimistic about the future and im committed to look at the money we are spending on Cyber Defense and looking at our priorities and making sure that beyond networks we are looking at Weapons Systems and control systems. What role do you think military education might play enabling our forces to effectively fight in the communication degraded environment . Admiral gilday they call it ready relevant learning. What we are trying to do with respect to technology in a service that relies on technology and everything we do and all aspects of our work, we are looking at a Continuous Learning process throughout ones career. The brick and mortar schools, they wont go away, but people in those highend technical jobs are well versed of what is going on in the industry and the latest in terms of technology. Thats a challenge we have to get our arms around. Since you mentioned technology, i support the departments efforts to support a. I. I thought admiral richardson said we need to take an evidencebased approach when developing and integrating those technologies into the force structure. How will you support an evidencebased approach into the Naval Force Structure and operations . Admiral gilday i did not see that i didnt see his quote in full context, but i think the point was if we are going to make investments in technologies like a. I. And ships and aircraft, f35, that e have to be deliberate in our approach and make sure things are properly tested and modled before we introduce them to the fleet and that would be my approach as well. Its a cuttingedge between moving High Technology to the fleet quickly and ensuring that its mature before its introduced. O im committed. And n. D. S. Question, it prioritizes combat credible forces to deter chinese aggression. What does it look like, what does it mean to have combat credible naval forces postured forward . Admiral gilday presence makes a difference. You have to be there to make a difference and be there every day. And our presence in the South China Sea and East China Sea sends a message about the free independento indopacific region and sends a strong message to china and our partners that we will maintain that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Congratulations on your nomination. My dad was also in the navy at age 18 and he did not enlist out of high school but he decided that the navy was better for him than the last couple of months and he fudged a little bit and got in and that summer came home on leave in 1949, went out on a blind date with my mom and was married two weeks later and became a navy wife. Thank you for your service as well. As i understand, you have a son going to auburn this year . I will tell you my friends are amazed how many times my commitment to being bipartisanship. But congratulations coming to alabama and you will enjoy auburn university. I would like to ask you about something commandant berger said when he released his Planning Guidance document. He discussed something that he called composite warfare which he said the integration into the fleet will be a prerequisite to the successful execution of amphibious operations. Marines cannot be passive to the area. Can you elaborate on what you see is the composite operations warfare that he was discussing and do you agree with his assessment . Admiral gilday i agree. N my conversation with him late last week, one of the things we talked about was doing some experimentation that begins with the war game that we were going to attend in august up in newport, rhode island, to package exathes that we have and experiment with new capabilities to integrate them in what we have today and look at different ways we can approach leveraging cyber in space as well which admittedly we need to do a better job of. O i think as i mentioned before, i think its a blank canvass for us to use our imagination and how to do things differently. That leads to a question that i asked the general yesterday, that china, russia, north korea, iran are becoming more and more confident and challenging the United States below the level of military conflict what is called the gray zone. Cyber information, political coercion and other means. Does navy have a clear and comprehensive strategy for working with the other branches in anticipating deterrences as ell . Admiral gilday we are doing it right now. So the response options, the things we are doing right now. We are working together across all the services to present those options to leadership. And in concert with the current policy that we have. And so i think we can always do better and always keep at it. But we do work very well together. I think thats all i have, mr. Chairman. I look forward to your successful confirmation. Thank you for your service to the navy and our nation and i strongly support your onfirmation. So im going to raise a topic probably not going to surprise the chairman and senator king or you but it is a serious topic with regard to the arctic cold weather issues. And members of the pentagon view this as a bit of a parochial issue and nor sullivan talking about the arctic because of alaska. We have an interest in the arctic because of the fact that alaska is part of the United States. So it is true in that regard. But it is not a parochial issue and its an important issue. If you read the National Defense strategy and look at our adversaries, china, north korea and russia, it would be large scale, cold weather and mountainous, whether air, land or sea. My own view is that we are not ready for this. We dont have the capability for this. This is why i raise it all the time. I think there are a lot of facts backing up my view. Unfortunately or fortunately, that has not always been the case. The marine corps with regard to certainly one of the finest members in the battle of chosen reservoir, november, december, 1950 and the korean war, First Marine Division was surrounded by 120,000 chinese, communist chinese in the mountains. 30 below zero and the marine corps got out with its wounded, dead, equipment and ended up crushing the chinese forces. Estimates are that we killed or wounded 35,000 of them. We know how to operate in cold weather, we used to. And as you and i have discussed, the navy also does. Im proud of the fact that i have five uncles and greatuncles who fought in world war ii. My uncle tom was a lieutenant and did two runs. I would like to put in for the record the New York Times article 1992, 50 years later russia honors u. S. Navy sailors. Without objection. My uncle is picked in that. As you know that was incredibly difficult arctic operations, german uboats trying to sink our ships and convoys and the u. S. Navy did an amazing job. But what im worried about and i have a reference here, if you look over there, the navy times article recently is that the bureaucracy in the military discontinues to resist the idea of working on arctic ssues. So the navy times this last week, worst orders ever is the cover, talks about the strategic arctic ports we are pushing here, we have no capability. We dont have any infrastructure. That article highlights the issue but mostly in my view is whiney about how tough it would be to operate in the arctic. Tell that to my umping my uncle. We know its tough. And i talked to general berger quite a lot about this, the new commandant about of the marine corps. They put a new commandant Planning Guidance but it goes out of its way to say we are not going to focus on arctic operations. I was very surprised to see that. So there is a resistance and what i fear has nothing to do with me being a parochial senator from alaska, we are going to have a fight, i hope we dont in very cold weather environments at sea or in the air or in the mountains and not going to be capable of fighting he way we used to. If confirmed can you work with me and work with this committee on this very important issue whether its the navy or the marines or the army, we seem to have not wanting to focus on the ability to operate in extreme cold weather, largescale operations, navy included. We have no icehardened ships. And putin wants to own it. Can you take that personally seriously and wherever the middle level of the pentagon sludge that is resisting this, to work around them or through them so we can have a force rebuilding our military in away that has serious arctic cold weather capabilities to take on our adversaries and that climb. Admiral gilday senator, you have my commitment. Admiral what im about to say is open source information. Say you are commander of the gerald ford. Early in the morning and you learn that a Hypersonic Missile has been launched and you have 1315 minutes to react. The missile is traveling at 6,000 miles an hour and creates a plasma shield so radar is useless. The only sensor is infrared. What do you do . Admiral gilday defend myself as best i can, sir. Its a hypothetical, i have to look at the capabilities and what i can throw up against it. I have the responsibility to defend ourselves. And i would take whatever action. This is a disruptive change in the history of warfare. There was a battle french and english and it changed the course of european history. His is a similar change, i view. Hypersonic missiles are real. They have one called the ircon. The chinese are close behind we are woefully inadequate in terms of developing this capability ourselves but more particularly in coping with it. As i mentioned, radar is useless, infrared sensors are the only way to track. They are maneuverable. They are not as easy to hit such as a Ballistic Missile. I believe this is a place where we have really fallen short and im not talking to you articularly. We are doing research now, but this is an asymmetric vulnerability that we have to address and do so in a hurry. In the long run, probably the only real defense against this awful weapon is and by the way, these weapons can carry nuclear warheads, is eterrence. But the estimate from the technologists in the pentagon is we wont be able to field anything close or defensive measures until the mid20 20s. The only deterrence is if you have an equal capacity and inform your adverse area and therefore they wont attack. This is a very dangerous situation in my view that i dont think and im not sounding virtuous here and i dont think any of us have grasped the implications. When you are talking about something coming 6,000 miles an hour that you cant see that is maneuverable, that is a nightmare weapon. Admiral gilday i agree. I hope as you take on, because this could render unless we could solve this problem, it renders aircraft carriers obsolete. Every one we own can disappear in a coordinated. It is a matter of minutes. Thats 12 minutes at 6,000 miles an hour. Hope you will take that sense of urgency to the navy and Research Capacity and private sector that this has to be an urgent priority because otherwise we are creating a vulnerability that could in tself lead to instability. Im very serious and move to a slightly different topic. In your questions for the record, you indicated it was in the National Interests to ack seed to the law of the sea convention. Can you tell me why that is the ase. Admiral gilday it has been customary for the United States to recognize provisions of the u. N. Law of the sea that apply to freedom of navigation as well as overflight. And it would be my intention to continue to follow those provisions. If we are following it and not members of the convention and we are missing out on the opportunity to participate at the table. When the russians are trying to establish the lines in the arctic, thats correct . Admiral gilday yes, sir. It is a complex policy issue whether or not we agree to sign on to that treaty. I would provide my best devices to civilian leadership and i would study that issue vigorously and your best advice is in your q. F. R. . Yes. You are saying yes, we follow it, but i thought your aps was yes, we should go to the table. Admiral gilday yes, sir, it was. Im glad you brought up hypersonic. So many times you have heard me alk about the fact there is an assumption out there in america that we have invested everything in hypersonic, thats experimental. But its my understanding about 10 years ago we are leading, ut clearly now and i have some pretty good evidence that convinces me that both china and russia are probably you ould argue are ahead of us right now and what you bring p. Yeah, its a nightmare but something that is out there. I worry about things like that. I quit worrying about me years ago but i have 20 kids and grandkids. I have another issue i would like to bring up. Admiral, when you were questioned by senator king, i came up in your response talking about the uss gerald ford and the ford class, its everything going along pretty well except they are not there n the elevators. Did i misunderstand you . The elevators are the biggest challenge. Thats not what i heard you say. What i was trying to explain there were three other technologies that were also in the cure at the time the ship delivered in 2017 and that was the launching gear, arresting gear and the dual band radar and seen significant improvements in the lives of those three systems. I was trying to underscore the point that the elevators are a significant challenge. I understand that. And help me to understand its been back in port now for about a year, im talking about the uss gerald ford and they were out for a period of about a year and thats when you did some of the testing. Whats the proper terminology for that testing . The shakedown testing that they are doing after delivery. And they did about 750 admiral gilday 747 aunches. Now they had a according to the director of the the navys own requirement n the catapult is once every 4,000 and the arresting ear. It was every 10,000 cycles, am i correct . Admiral im not familiar with that detailed data. Its 7,000, that is correct, 4,000 and 10,000 respectively. My concern there that same Evaluation Board said they hadnt done anything on the radar. Thats some of the i would put that in the category of untested at this time. Admiral my undergo of the rely ability rates of that radar is close to 99 . I dont have the Details Behind the testing that was done to produce that figure but id be happy to come back with those details. I would like you to come back to me for that. I stumbled on this and spent time down there. My reason for being concerned had more source with the other problems we have and of course i listed all that in my opening statement, how much overbudget in all this stuff, how much longer its going to take and the secretarys response to that and the fact theyre convinced well have the elevator situation taken care f. I want to make sure the record of this meeting doesnt go on to imply the only problem we have out there is with the elevators, that the ordinance into a operational position, that that would be it, because in fact if its been one every 75 critical failure every 75 cycles during that period it was out there and the navys own requirement is 4,000 on the catapult and 10,000 times on the arresting gear, then id say we have an equal problem there. Its not just the problem at the elevator. Admiral gilday id like to look at that in more detail and get back to you quickly with a better response. Senator inhofe i want to be sure this record thats taken right now, this event were going through doesnt somehow give that. I know theres of course the senator from virginia is thats located in virginia so he has a different view perhaps than i do but i want to make sure that we are not operating where nuing to operate we have the failures and the premature deployment i found out after all the problems that were there had a second order. I just wonder where have i been during all this time. I want to make sure and make sure right now the record is going to reflect there are problems beyond just the elevator and those problems have been due with the arresting gear and having to do the the catapult and radar. Am i unreasonable to have this record reflected that way . Dmiral gilday not at all. Senator inhofe i hate to look at families when im critical. But i want you to know im very much supportive of your confirmation. But thats an area that id like to have you come out and a be even some type of hearing or meeting on this that could be public as to where we are today and the problems that still exist on that particular piece of equipment. Admiral gilday yes, sir. Senator inhofe senator blumenthal . Did we have king . Blumenthal, youre on. Senator blumenthal thank you, sir. Thank you for your service over a very long and distinguished career, an your family. I want to just pursue the line of questioning that senator inhofe raised. I dont know how i go back to my constituents and to the American People and make the the ford and others in its class take may follow it after the cost overruns and delays that weve seen and also the continued questions about whether aircraft carriers make sense in todays military environment. So i would just respectfully suggest now or in your answers questions afterwards that the navy might better explain to the American People why this class of weapons platforms has continued value that justifies the cost. Its not just that we might like to have another aircraft carrier, but theyre pretty expensive. Ed a myrrhal yes, sir. Senator blumenthal and you testified earlier and the entire navy has been commendably supportive of our undersea warfare capability, but i would just suggest that that case will have to be made to the American People. Admiral gilday yes, sir, i understand. Senator blumenthal i want to focus on a topic raised by senator tillis and senator reid briefly, military housing going from very hightech to nontech but very important to the morale of our navy and military families and having wonderful military family as you do, two of my sons served but neither were married and neither in military housing but we all know people who depend on it. In fact, i visited the navy subbase in london a couple times over the last 18 months to see the issues that are raised there on Privatized Housing programs and what i saw , and frankly i might not have seen it at all but for some of the reporting, the public reporting and the families themselves who raised it was really pretty deserving and led me to support and advance a bill of rights, a tenants bill of rights, im sure youre familiar with it, to implement a standard formal dispute process across all military installations and enable families to withhold housing if the private owners are not accountable, an important step to empowering tenants and local commanders as well. Local commanders often have been cut out of the process to hold these Privatized Housing Companies Accountable when they abdicate or disregard their responsibility. I would like your commitment that you will strongly support those measures which are now in the ndaa for this year and ask you what you will do to ensure proper oversight . Admiral gilday i agree its a very, very serious issue and it goes back to my opening comments about the fact the strength of the navy ultimately lies with the sailors and their families and a High Percentage of our sailors are married and depend on that housing and we owe them quality housing. In a single word it comes down to leadership with respect to the oversight that needs to be provided. And we obviously have taken our number he ball over a of years as we outsourced not only the function but we try to just ignore the responsibility and the risk involved to some of those families with respect to health issues. I spoke with the commander of Navy Installations command yesterday about the things were doing now to ensure that we have availability visibility on every trouble call and we understand what the progress is and feedback is from the customer that we are making contact with every Single Family on that basis and we need to continue to sustain that. Yes, you have my commitment i will handle this issue very seriously. Senator thank you, admiral. Ill be supporting your nomination as im sure the majority of our colleagues will and i wish you good luck and thank you very much for your service. Admiral gilday thank you, senator. Senator inhofe any further commnts or questions made to our witness . Hearing none, we appreciate it very much and i will look forward to that report because its something, i think he said it right. While i disagree with the senators comments whether or not we have a need for aircraft carriers but its the cost, its the sole source problems, its the delays, and id like to get into that with a lot more detail because thats kind of our job, you know. So if we would do that, that would be very helpful and i look forward in the future working with you to get you confirmed. Admiral gilday thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator inhofe thank you very much. [captions Copyright National [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2019] captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org the president has issued a proclamation about the shootings reading in part, our nation mourns with those whose loved ones were murdered in the tragic shootings in dayton, ohio, and el paso, texas and we share in the pain of those injured in the senseless attacks. We condemn these hateful and cowardly acts. The president ordered flags be flown halfstaff through august 8 in honor of the victims as he was leaving the private golf course in bedford, new jersey, the president spoke to reporters about the mass shootings