members read we are in the midst of voting. i like to welcome her awareness as to the hearing this afternoon. frederick stefany deputy secretary. that is a mouthful. welcome mr. secretary. assistant secretary of the navy for research development and acquisition admiral william galinis systems command rear admiral troy mcclelland program executive officer for industrial infrastructure and ms. diana maurer in the government accounting office. thank you for your service to the nation and for the truly professional service of the men and women under your command. i also want to recognize the ranking member senator cramer and senator kaine and senator sullivan and i appreciate my colleagues joining us to hold this joint readiness hearing on this very important subject. we stand at a crossroads today. the nation shipyards are in dire need of modernization to make sure to maintain the current fleet in the fate of the future. encourage the navy has finally gotten serious about investing and critical infrastructure that has been for far too long. hawaii we are proud of her naval shipyard is a contribution to our fleet readiness and i want to be sure we received the resources we need to keep our fleet in shape. i look forward to hearing from you about how fiscal year 2023 plan to the navy has begun a once in a generation program at to modernize its shipyards under the shipyard infrastructure optimization program or buyout. this 20 or program has been sorely for many years and we have to get it right. we are relying on the simulation ever to develop the most efficient or productive operations at the public shipyards. last year for example we added $250 million to fund the dry dock naval shipyard due to onyx -- unexpected ballooning of the estimated cost costs. we need to understand and make sure we have good cost estimates on the projects we are undertaking. this is important at the pearl harbor navy shipyard that will require significant dredging and filling. we also need to understand how the navy is structuring the effort to improve the efficiency of the navy shipyards to deal with the ship maintenance challenges. it's not limited just to derive docs that. extends optimizing the work on the shipyards and production facilities and other improvements configurations for this is why i've been so focused on the waterfront prediction or -- production workforce and i want to make sure the navy remains -- we need to maintain if we have if we are ever to reach the fleet required to respond to future threats. our success is critical to that goal. i once asked the navy to consider how the program could be accelerated without impacting it and i look forward to hearing how we can work together to make sure it's fully successful. i will now go to senator cramer. >> thank you chairwoman hirono as well as senator kaine the ranking member sullivan for holding this hearing gently to discuss our range of important naval ship issues. let's face it it's not just the issue of the day that the issue of -- with regard to the navy. as i think about her naval shipyards it striking how intertwined it is in our nations history. in other words they are really old. for example naval shipyard near and dear to senator kaine's cain's heart was established and seized seven years later during the revolutionary war. in the 1790s the uss chesapeake one of the first six u.s. navy ships authorized by congress was built there. later the first dry dock in western hemisphere opened in 1833 known as dry-docked one and now it's a historical national landmark and still use today. it's 189 years old. suffice it to say our public shipyards have storied histories international at the structure just over 100 sold the poor condition of the shipyards as having a serious effect on fleet operation today. this is not a future problem but it's here now and one we must work together onto salford while there's a lot to discuss i appreciate chairwoman hirono's opening comments what she had to say. i've plan to focus my porsche on how congress can help in terms of authority's workforce development and funding. last point i'm hopeful that by the artisan of the structures working on the shipyard act many of whom are in the room today. i look forward to the testimony. thank you madam chair. >> thank you. to turn to senator kaine the chair of the ranking committee. >> thank you chair hirono. the subcommittees are fun but bs joint meeting and i want to thank the chair and the witnesses for being here today and for your dedicated service to the country. we have some friendly faces as we constitute support for neither shipyards and at the same time they have significant challenges regarding the implementation of siop especially the ability or inability to be on time for the budget. there's no doubt that these are necessary investments. big conditions of our shipyards in terms of infrastructure workforce and the aging shipyards as indicated by his mr. cramer we have to do our part in congress. when we look at how we execute the project to date i have some concerns and i also see some positives. on the concerned side how do we average a billion dollars a year in budget request of the next 20 years. the dry dock replacement in portsmouth in maine not virginia was estimated by the navy to cost $250 million in the cost doubled and that it increased another $250 million as a result the first contracts of today i'm particularly interested in hearing from you on how we build permanent lessons learned for the siop portfolio. the navy has invested well over the statutory required 6% investment program since 27 -- the work of the jail has never been more important it is today so i'm glad to have the testimony before the committee. the navy can modernize it's capital and shipyard operations the madam chair thank you for leading the charge in this hearing to discuss ocean -- in detail. >> thank you madam chair and i want to thank you and senator kaine and all of my colleagues for conducting this hearing, very important hearing and senator cramer's discussion of history and the latest movie midway. it's quite a good movie and it has got a scene where the shipyard i believe in hawaii did a miraculous job getting the yorktown back on line to go fight for the shipyard pointed out what senator cramer's really made history in that article battle that was one of the most important world war ii and one of the most important battles in our nations history. that's how important the topic of discussion is. this is ariba noted the average age of naval shipyard facilities are over 60 years old and the average dry dock ages approaching 100 years old. we have seen the readiness of shipyards weekend as decisions were made to prioritize ship building over ship maintenance. we initially developed the shipyard optimization bill of $21 billion over 20 years and that number has increased in the last few years and it's a topic i hope we can discuss in detail today. additionally according to the gao the navy cannot currently complete all required maintenance for aircraft carriers and submarines with our existing dry-docked capabilities. how can we balance these capitol investments with existing maintenance requirements? i think we find ourselves in a challenging situation as it relates to operational demands, ship maintenance and conditions of the fleet. not to mention the challenges of pacom theater and where china is with regard to its shipbuilding and maintenance capabilities. another issue that i think impacts is conventionally powered ships delayed overhauls of surface combatants that escort nuclear aircraft carriers and impact readiness. i believe one option in that regard is to conduct lower-level maintenance and not mall or private shipyards to free up more space for more complex maintenance at our larger private shipyards. i hosted the secretary of the navy a couple of years ago to our shipyard in ketchikan alaska that has enormous capabilities and let to do a lot of work for the u.s. coast guard. we have another shipyard in seward alaska that just completed $11 million worth of work for the navy rescue and salvage vessel delivered on time on budget and received outstanding -- this is an all hands on deck need and i think they are shipyards across america including my state that can participate and help out with regard to the challenges. thank you and i look forward to hearing from her witnesses. >> thank you sullivan and i suggest we all good see the midway movie because it highlights the importance of our public shipyards. we will hear from senator -- secretary stefany first. >> i will be reading a statement for all three of us. chairwoman hirono chairman kaine ranking members cramer and sullivan distinguished members of the subcommittee on behalf of myself vice admiral galinis and mcclelland thank you for allowing us to appear before you to discuss the infrastructure optimization program known as siop. modernizing british shipyards are the strength of our national security. we appreciate the strong support this committee and particularly the subcommittees have shown for infrastructure optimization. we are committed to maintaining transparency throughout the planning and execution of the siop. as mentioned siop is a once in the center opportunity to revitalize or nations public shipyards ensuring that these critical national security facilities are properly positioned to meet the current and future needs of the navy. it's about modernizing aging facilities equipment and dry docks that have served our fleet for generations in doing that modernization without disrupting our current maintenance that supports readiness. we also need to upgrade the spezza lovelies and equipment to support new classes of ships such as the aircraft carriers and the virginia block five sufferings. at the same time making the shipyards more efficient and more effective in maintaining all of our ships returning to bring them up to modern standards and ensure they are resilient to climate change at all this will take years of consistent funding instruction and leadership at all levels. the complete future years defense program for fiscal year 23 budget includes her strongest siop funding since the program was established. $1.7 billion with a sustained commitment of a $.3 billion. in fy23. their quest would support modernization of capitol equipment and will enable advanced to today's and require and then set -- environmental assessment. it will enable critical projects such as the start of the replacement of the dry-docked three at pearl harbor and the continuation of multimission drydock one in maine and dry-docked eight in portsmouth virginia as well as the planning of the dry dock it warmer to an in washington. multiple navy command play key role in siop's execution. navy facilities assistance program builds and maintains the shipyards. to ensure discipline oversight while maintaining a narrow to support the fleet the navy as treating siop as if it's a major to vent acquisition program. if established an executive officer late last year for developing an overall siop acquisition strategy and we are developing individual master plans that cost schedule and performance baselines for each of the shipyards to measure our progress as we go. we understand that for siop to succeed we must plan and execute by work without impacting the shipyard's ability to execute their mission. balancing seiyu's needs with the fleet and the shipyards is and will continue to be critical and an iterative process. we are committed to working as a team to ensure the program is -- and conversely the ship maintenance availabilities did not impact downstream siop projects. with governance and can assist in finding we will explore if this long-term edition. strengthening maritime dominance and without we look forward to your questions. thank you. >> ms. maurer. thank you very much and good afternoon chairwoman hirono chairman kaine and ranking member cramer sullivan and other members of the staff. it's good to be back before the committee today. over the past five years we have issued a series of reports about the poor condition of infrastructure at the navy shipyards. 37,000 skilled overhauled repair carriers and submarines at the subtleties that are important -- and using equipment that's well past its expect its service life. as was mentioned the shipyards of both well over a century ago to repair windows team powered ships. it's far from -- moving people equipment and parts necessary to repair some things like trying to drive a century old -- perhaps most significantly the navy does not have enough drydock capacity to meet the future maintenance needs of the fleet. in 2017 we found the navy the competence of plan for addressing the significant problems for the navy to its credit developed as siop created a program office to manage it and kept navy leadership informed of its programs. in late 2019 we took an in-depth look at siop and we thought it was a decent first step essentially a series of plans to improve each apparent that time the navy admitted 20 years and spend $21 billion to implement planned improvements. we found the initial cost estimate was unrealistically low. among other things at the 21 million-dollar price tag did not factor in inflation did not not include the cost to improve underlying facilities could be recommended to maybe improve its cost estimates to help manage the program can provide congress the information you need to help make funding decisions and those recommendations are still open. fast-forward to today today the navy has refined its planned identified resource needs and enhance leadership engagement. this provides a reasonable framework for eventually proving shipyard infrastructure but the reality of the shipyards have not significantly changed since her 2019 report. in a report that we should yesterday we found that overall facility conditions at all were shipyards remains for and among the lowest across the entire enterprise. the average age of equipment has increased up beyond its expected service life and the backlog restoration and modernization project has grown to $7 billion. the navy faces real time pressure. work class carriers and expanded virginia class submarines will need drydock capacity the navy currently does not have. her remains to be seen how the navy will specifically address these problems. proposed actions are complex and many years away from being fully implemented. we have a number of concerns about the siop limitations. first the navy's estimated date to complete the shipyard is 2020 fornes result we don't know the full details of whether the navy will upgraded optimize and how long it will take and what it will cost. second as was mentioned the estimated cost of the first drydock improvement projects have grown from just under 1 billion to nearly $6 billion through this does not bode well for the future cost of the 11 other projects. we are concerned the increasing guide. drydock cost could impede other improvements. dry dock should be a top priority but they aren't the only brady. as maintaining that top level support will be vital because this effort spans many administrations in many congresses. gao will continue our dependent oversight of shipyard improvements. later this month we will start her next review focusing on the navy's cost estimates and schedule for siop projects. our continued oversight will help inform congress and enhance the navy's efforts to improve its shipyards which are vital for ensuring naval readiness. madam chairwoman and mr. chairman thank you for the opportunity to testify this afternoon and i look forward to your questions. >> admiral mcclelland are you the person that is charged with overseeing siop? >> yes, senator. i am admiral jorge mcclelland i'm assigned the opposite infrastructure in siop is in my portfolio. i will note that i've worked very closely with the naval facilities engineering systems command the construction agent for design and construction and naval sea systems command. >> you are the point person to oversee siop? >> yes senator, i am. mao one of the major issues leading to the modernization program and that is a vast difference between the cost estimates is a prime example of the difference between the estimate and what it would cost to modernize those shipyards and what the contract goes out for it. what is being done or has been done to make sure as you embark on the naval shipyard modernization that the estimates are accurate? >> thank you senator for that question. a mechanism for early contract engagement has been installed by the construction agent naval facilities engineering systems command and specifically it's an acquisition strategy that allows us to have early engagement with multiple contractors so we can discuss means and methods and talk to them about the cost and implement lessons learned as we develop the program and that has been done for the pearl harbor work senator. >> do you think that is a lesson learned from the portsmouth example? >> thank you senator. i would hope that the navy has learned lessons in terms of cost growth. >> future microphone on? i'm having a little difficulty hearing you. i would hope it's clear from the navy's reporting that they have listed a number of -- and one of the items that they are learning lessons from the portsmouth project as well as others. that's something we will be looking into much more depth and we start her new review and schedule estimates for some of the larger siop projects. i would note as well there has been a significant cost growth for the pro harper project as well which is a critical capability that is required and there has been significant cost growth as well as increase in the overall scope. >> mr. stefany in view of the challenges that u.s. had in making sure that our cost estimates are accurate and in the 2023 budgets 1.7 billion going forward what i heard today was 82 billion for a siop project. do you think that's going to be enough? and do you see any challenges in the cost estimates? >> one of the other lessons we want to bring up was giving the design much more measure before you put out the formal estimate and that's a lesson we learned as well. the projects and the designs are mature enough to wear confident that there will be continued growth in those projects and do we have enough funding to do the work we have planned for those five years? yes maam. i think we'll talk about accelerating. guess in the five years we have enough money to do the work we need to do. >> i think we are going to be very much focused on making sure that there's enough funding to proceed with siop. public shipyards are counting on us to be able to move forward and i have been very focused on the waterfront facility to a don't quite understand why that production facility which allows the workers to be more efficient in the work that they do i don't understand why the part of the modernization is not happening at the same time as the drydock facility. can you comment very briefly? i'm running out of time. >> in the previous budgets like we had to make a hard choice to push the design in the planning of the waterfront facility off because of budget constraints in the previous cycle and now we are looking to see if we can bring it back. the decision to post the facility out two years down the drydock itself. looking into the next budget cycle can we bring this forward and try to lighten them up as i'd really be like to have them lined up in a perfect world. >> the maurer testified a lot of the equipment is -- and if we don't have the waterfront facility next to or near worth the drydock is we better make sure equipment they are using is -- i would like to recognize senator cramer. >> thank you chairwoman and thanks again to all of you. sticking with the lessons learned it seemed looking forward to you have any advice for us for a streamlining process and authorizations which is obviously funding but what if we learned that we could be helpful with in making this process efficient and effective? >> i will start with a couple and i will see if admiral mcclelland has a couple more. we need to fund the mac are mentally over time which you have provided in the past and continuing for large projects and looking at a multiyear type increment where we can see if we can get the most efficiency by building a set of projects together and a multiyear contract. they are to authorities that might be worth looking at to give more flexibility in negotiating space to our team. i wanted to ask admiral mcclelland if he is any more specifically. >> mr. stefany that i would emphasize what mr. stefany said really the multiyear work relative to repair and maintenance. these are complex projects and i sometimes think prepared maintenance could give the impression of less complexity of the multiyear relative to say at drydock we are repairing and the way that relates to operation or inability which is absolute critical to our ability to have a flexible approach multiyear funding is certainly going to help us execute over time senator. >> thank you for those. there is another challenge that we are hearing from everybody. seasonal, farm and hospitality workers to surgeons and sophisticated technology workers and everything in between. i presume you have seen the same thing. do you have any thoughts and what you're trying to do to recruit and retain employees but also if there's anything you think we could be doing. >> it would be best to address the workforce. >> we are seeing the same thing as well. our rates are higher than what we have planned and our rates are lower than what we planned. what we are doing is we offer pretty good training as we bring people there are prentice programs so that's one rope positive trait the other thing we are looking at right now is we are looking at wages and for entry-level decisions. we are competing at a wage that is less than what some businesses and the local area for example whether the amazon or starbucks or example. typically the starting wage for mechanics is in the 14 to 15-dollar an hour so right the minimum wage level and what we are finding in some areas where the shipyards are located puget sound in particular the going wage is higher than that so we are working through leadership at the human resources organization to look at that wage grade where paying folks. >> i commend you on that. clearly when you are competing with starbucks in the seattle area it's a tough competitor. we have to have the best. we certainly want to be competitive. their 18th co-sponsors and a lot of them on this committee for the shipyard act speaking of resources. maybe he could generally comment on what you know about it and how helpful it may be mr. secretary. >> the navies of ports that idea of having a commitment of all the funding and not a time limit. spending the funding most efficiently in the knowledge at all in this case the total dollar value is there and could help the industry most effectively is the best practice. it's always tough to apply the time value. thank you madam chairwoman. >> senator kaine. >> i have a couple questions for you. in her prepared testimony you talk about the gao finding that the average condition of facilities and public shipyards improved and three of the four from 2016 to 2020 now would be remiss if i didn't say the one that got as the norfolk naval shipyard and explain your and the gao's findings. >> we are summarizing information that collect in all the public shipyards by the navy. norfolk was one of the four had worsened over the course of a three-year period. some of that is related just to the sheer age of the facility both in terms of the facilities as well as some of the equipment. some of it may been related to a change in the methodologies that the navy is using to assess facility conditions that have been part of it as well. big picture all for public shipyards are. as poor in terms of overall condition and we are gravely concerned about that. >> the gao issued a report yesterday that you're team found applying leading practices and more transparent reporting helped reduce risks posed by the $1.8 billion maintenance backlog. can you talk about the gao's recommendations to reduce risks associated with a backlog? >> we go duscher were yesterday focused on the amount of backlog which is the hon can pleaded maintenance across. nearly all of that $1.8 billion was in some of the ships that the navy is identified and for decommissioning. we made recommendations to encourage the navy to be more transparent about how reported the information on backlog both internally as well as to congress. we also felt the navy could do a better job of applying best practices of tracking that broken backlog in assessing its progress and whittling it down or fears. >> one more question for you ms. maurer in prepared testimony is that the gao offered nine recommendations and the navy has implemented five of them today. can you talk about why they have not been implemented? >> the four that are open three or related to cost estimations and that's been frankly one of the major problems the cost estimates that have not been on point and off point from the initial plan developed in 2018. we are encouraged by what we are hearing today that the navy is taking steps to get their arms around that problem. if we will continue them to encourage them to implement the three recommendations we have. the other remaining recommendations around tracking overall progress. >> thank you. if the navy witnesses talk to us about what you are doing. i think the question was asked by another colleague. let me ask one thing about the pandemic. everything everybody's had to do is to change because of covid and ship tolling and the operation of your enterprise along with it and we aren't out of the yet. i think we are seeing improvement. what pandemic related impacts have you observed as a relates to shipyard operations and supply chain related challenges? >> thank you for that question. we have seen some impacts across shipyards and i will tell you the men and women in our shipyards and the leadership in the shipyards we kept every shipyard open every day during the pandemic and they did a tremendous job. that things said as they pandemic ebb and flow across the country we were able to mitigate that to some extent by activating a reserve force and that played tremendous benefits. we activated the rivers -- reserve force for nine months for the cases of the pandemic cannot help us mitigate that. we are at his table work environment and we are seeing almost year pre-pandemic levels every day inside the shipyards. we are starting to see the impacts of the supply chain and that's been discussed in several different forms. that's her biggest impact. >> as i had back to the chair as ice have time since shipyards in virginia i ventured complement on how well you are doing with the pandemic. one of the ship repairs are minded me you have to remember weise think about safety first. not every office puts safety beginning at the first briefing of everyday and they said this is an industry that does it so it's easier for us than others to come up with the right protocols to continue continued to divinations work and is safely so i have flawed our ship boulders and ship repairs. >> senator sullivan. >> thank you madam chair. i want to go back to my york town historical moment. that was a ship that was severely damaged in battle and was very rapidly repaired in the battle midway. mr. mcclelland and ms. maurer the gao report in the's ability to repair battle damaged ships from the alarming shortcomings. i want to know how we are addressing this contingency. let's assume we get into a serious naval battle with the chinese led by the chinese communist party. what is our capability to for example repair of battle damaged aircraft carrier for submarine my understanding from reading the gao report is that those ships would have to go back to the united states for repair and is that true and are we trying to address many of the shortcomings revealed in a 2021 -- and admiral why don't we hear from you first and then ms. maurer on this question. >> let me write it and tell you i feel like we are challenged in that area and that something better team is working on closely. we have conducted a number of different exercises, tabletop exercises as well as real-life exercises on battle damage repair. i will give you a couple of examples. the bond homer shard we worry able to is we were bringing her around in two this ship dismantling yard in the gulf coast we conducted a number of exercises bearer we sent teams of major terror experts to go tearing conduct bout damage assessment to start to exercise some of that capability. we are also some of r&r mall repairs and the uss chance of go which is in dock in japan replacing a shaft out there looking at that and you get about that differently the initial estimate to replace that shaft was in the range of 142150 days. we got that down to 90 days so just by changing our processes and thinking about things different. we are exercising that type of repairs. >> is a true word nuclear aircraft carrier and submarine is battle damaged and the only place for it to be repaired to be a ship yard in the continental united states? >> we could do some of that work. we have docking facilities in the whole range of ship repaired capability. >> ms. up 16 do you think the rather alarming shortcomings revealed in a 2021 gao report on this topic that addressed or are they still pretty glaring? i'm talking about the topic of battle damaged ship repair. like we did with york town. >> senator. he continues to be a challenge to do regularly-scheduled maintenance. completing it in our estimation it would be a significant challenge to repair a battle damaged ship as well. on encouragement side we have seen increased focus on the recommendations we made in a report which we are seeking to bring central leadership and focus to ensure battle damage assessment and repair. we are encouraged by that and we will continue to watch this closely. you set the yorktown example obviously the ships that the navy is using her much more technologically sophisticated and creates a more substantial and significant challenge for the navy or a >> thank you. >> thank you chair. thank you to all of you for being here and mr. stefany thank you for your hard work on your shipyards. you think we have a enough shipyards are they the right size and is that the right labor force and are we where we need to be? >> thank you senator. i will start with the nuclear base and i would say yes. the four nuclear shipyards we have are able to do nuclear repair work and i think they are sufficient. the siop improvements that we'll get him siop as well as of the perfect given the improvements for a naval sustainment system will provide the capacity among those six to meet the demand going on the private shipyards that's an industrial base and i believe we have the right number of private shipyards as well. >> how but the labor force? >> laborforce we are tapping out in each of those regions. restart of pop couple of pot pilot projects bringing in skilled workers to mother parts of the country into the areas where shipyards are. it's not enough for them to support the shipyards in most areas of my concert may give you areas we are working toward developing this around the country. >> admiral mcclelland would you add anything? >> we are considering the future capability needed as we are working on the capacity as well and it's all three and siop to help us relative to the capability and the capacity and that's innate drydock of course as well as restored dry docks as well as recapitalization to restore buildings and equipment upgrading the equipment is vital for the capacity of the public ship eretz. all of those are being considered and thought through accordingly senator. thank you for the question. >> as i understand it we produce half of all the ships built globally to are we facing long-term risks with national security? >> from the ship building capacity perspective predominantly the ship is done in the united states is military vessels. both on the nuclear side as well as thece side and we have good capacity in the area. newport news in virginia in the northeast as well. we have good capacity and certainly not near what our competitors have. the capacity we have is fully utilized right now. >> i would like to offer that other competitor companies have a -- the beads are military so anything you can do to help expand the u.s. commercial side that's something we would look favorably upon to help our military. >> siop focused on the availability a and the depot lel maintenance so that goes hand-in-hand as weroven our efficacy relative to the operational availability and siop in conjunction with process improvements and i think that will help overall with fleet availability. >> thank you senator. some of our work has seen some of the trade-offs that can be made between construction resources towards maintaining ships. sometimes those trade-offs can be made talk a little bit about the workforce challenges in that second significant constraint as well. they shoot a reported three or four years ago on the workforce challenges facing the entire enterprise not just the public shipyards and that continues to be a challenge and a more significant one that certainly an issue that would need to be addressed. but the private as well as this public there. spun senator hawley. a few weeks ago admiral kohn testified and you are here for this the first and second profile for the shipbuilding report did not meet or support the operational requirements. can you help me understand why the navy would include to ship the link profiles in the plan with doesn't support the pacing scenario? >> yes sir senator. the plan was to provide options in different ranges of options to you and the rest of the department. one option clearly is if we had a fiscally constrained approach would be that the navy we could have at the fiscally strained approach. a fiscally constrained approach. that's a high-risk approach. that's a level servers to meet the threat. >> how does the siop allow us to meet the pacing challenge? profile. think it is. >> profile three as you look at the ships a bill that are about compared to the capacity we are greeting to the siop program as we look further out into the 30s and 40s siop will enable us to maintain a fleet. >> so the siop does support that profile. >> i yes sir go. the profiles are not that different. >> is it accurate that 20% of the navy submarines are behind schedule that for the record. >> does anyone else know? let me ask you this more generally how does the navy plan to overcome the certification backlogs? go ahead admiral. >> there are three areas we are working on and one is the siop piece that we are talking about today. the secondary is how we operate the shipyards which is through the sustainment system for the shipyards that secretary cramer a talked about. that's how we plan the availability and how we get material into the yards improving those processes. i talked a couple times about some. training programs that we have bringing people in. i will tell you one of the things we are seeing is the hiring folks is more of a challenge bringing them in with some level of experience. at the apprentice level we are finding more folks are coming in with little skills and we have to put them through the entire training program and that's something we continue to see over the last couple of years. back on the naval sustainment system piece a lot of work going in there. think about the complexity of overhauling a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in nuclear submarine getting and planning right up front and getting it right up front so a lot of focus on that. the procurement and basic day-to-day execution. >> admiral do you have the manpower and dry docks available to address the current maintenance backlog? >> we have 37,000 folks inside of her shipyards. we need to improve our production capacity. >> i'm wondering if we are having this much trouble servicing our current brain -- submarine force will we have enough in what will require in the coming year's? >> improving that capacity part of the processing that how we managed the shipyards is to look for opportunities to outsource particular at the component level. i think that would free up the mechanics inside the shipyards to get them working on the vessels. >> thank you madam chair. >> i'm going to take a second round and actually it's a follow-up to senator hawley's questioned about the certification that log. we are having challenges in making sure we are preparing in making ready our current ships. i'm not talking about the new dry docks. admiral galinis you mentioned are there specific things you are doing to address the certification backlogs programs instances specific things you're doing. >> inside the shipyards i talked about the number of various we are working on. on the production the production workforce for example the waterfront operations how we manage the work day-to-day. over a ship over a week over a month are we getting the work completed that we have planned. when you start to dig into that you'll ask why is that not happening? mechanics don't maybe have the right materials and in some cases we talked about the industrial planning equipment, we may not have the fully operational. there are issues in each of one of these areas that we have two get two and others a lot of that gets under my control and we are doing that in working with admiral mcclelland in the siop program and in other areas information to colacci. we haven't talked much about that. that continues to be a challenge inside the shipyards. we have a. some of the computers in the network's going to the shipyards. those are the things that we are getting out there today to improve capacity inside of our shipyards. >> in determining how to train the workers to be more efficient to you also get the workers input and do they see you are making changes and some of the changes may be very simple such as locating the equipment closer to where the repair work is being done. >> we absolutely are maam and i'll tell you a couple of ways we are doing now. through the process we have right now and you are familiar with rebates. we target their workforce for specific things in terms of where do they see the roadblocks? leadership within my organization may personally getting into the shipyards down the waterfront and sitting down in small groups of mechanics and supervisors to say okay just to have a discussion and talk about what the shipyards really is and doesn't really match the challenges that they are seeing day-to-day in the work that they are doing. in some cases we are seeing that in other another cases where not forget the piece you mentioned really is the ownership. we are starting to really see the trade level to supervisors embracing some of the improvement initiatives we are putting in place and that frankly is where it needs to start to sustain what we are doing. >> i think that's really important. i've visited the ship at a number times and it means a lot to them to have the changes made that will enable them to meet their deadlines. ms. substance and i'm looking at here gao recommendations in there where a number of recommendations that were met but there were a bunch of things such as include metrics meeting a siop goals. it's indicated that has not been met. that accurate? >> that is correct senator. they still have some work there, yes. >> inflation program to these utilities environmental remediation when developing a cost estimate. has that been done? >> that has not been done completely, nope. >> without using cost estimates best practices in developing the second cost estimate? >> that has not been completed either. >> and obtained a cost estimate of the naval shipyard program prior to the start of the project? >> that's something part of her new work that starts later this month. >> that think they are doing that with regard to the dry dock being built. the other questions i have i will submit for the record. do we have the second round? >> madam chair i have a couple. if you want to go vote i can handle it from here you want me to. i'm going to submit my second round for the record. >> senator hawley to hawley to get hawley to give a second-round? >> i just have one or two questions briefly madam chairwoman. this could be for anybody. as part of the deal we pledged industrial support to our allies haven't we? >> we will support and what we do versus uk and australia. >> here's where i'm going with this. given how the tight we are in maintenance support for our own ships how are we going to meet and do we need to do to clear the maintenance backlog? >> ahca's effort brinkley is the 1820 years out before the requirements come to fruition and by then that's the period of time we expect the siop numbers will provide capacity. >> in other words being able to execute up to these particular terms depends on us really not going down and clearing this backlog in getting up speed up is that fair to say like >> also the public and private -- yes sir. thank you madam chairwoman. >> i just want to note is that whether i ask if the gao recommendations have been met i would ask the navy witnesses. particularly admiral mcclelland who is overseeing siop you will meet those recommendations. do you agree with these recommendations that you have not met as he had? >> senator certainly from the lessons learned respect to many of the items gao notes were in our lessons learned and active plans are being developed to be put in place and in some incidences we will immediately use implementation wrote as you mentioned the workout of pearl harbor for example dry dock in other places. very much leaning forward on the recommendations and creating the processes to implement those recommendations senator and i look forward to doing so. >> as we continue to focus on siop i for one would like to see the navy meet these other are recommendations of gao but that is going to leave the record open for five days for additional question from members and with that this hearing is -- thank you very much. [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations]