Senate subcommittee: U.S. shipbuilding repeatedly late and over budget; GAO urges tougher business cases
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Summary
At a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power oversight hearing, committee leaders, Navy officials and a Government Accountability Office witness described persistent schedule and cost problems in U.S. surface shipbuilding and urged changes in acquisition practice, design maturity and industrial-base investment.
Senator Tim Scott, chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Sea Power, opened a hearing on the Navy's conventional surface shipbuilding program by laying out what he called a crisis of delivery and cost: “In the last 5 years, 41 ships were delivered to the navy. Of those 41 ships, only 4 were delivered on time and on budget. It's 9.7%,” he said.
The hearing brought testimony from three witnesses: Dr. Brett Seidl, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition; Vice Adm. James Downey, commander of Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA); and Shelby Oakley, director for contracting and national security acquisitions at the Government Accountability Office (GAO). Each witness acknowledged chronic problems but described different priorities and fixes. “Simply put, we need more ships delivered on time and on budget,” Dr. Seidl told the panel. “Costs are rising faster than inflation, and schedules on multiple programs are delayed 1 to 3 years,” he said.
Oakley, the GAO witness, blamed persistent optimism in Navy business cases and recommended more rigorous upfront knowledge before awarding construction contracts. “For over 20 years, GAO has been reporting that the Navy's approach to shipbuilding is fundamentally flawed,” Oakley said. She told senators that the Navy had issued many recommendations since 2015 but had not implemented more than 60 GAO recommendations tied to shipbuilding planning, design maturity and program oversight.
Vice Adm. Downey described current NAVSEA efforts to improve contract alignment, digitize designs and centralize oversight. He told the subcommittee that NAVSEA currently has 92 ships under contract, with 56 actively in construction, and said NAVSEA is piloting governance and contracting changes to improve waterfront productivity and surveillance. Downey said the command had surged engineers and review teams to sites where design shortfalls were delaying production.
Committee members pressed witnesses on several recurring themes: design immaturity before contract award; the prevalence of fixed-price arrangements on first-of-class vessels; repeated cost growth and weight increases; the need for modular designs and digital tool sets; and the industrial-base factors'from workforce hiring to shipyard infrastructure'that affect production.
Senators also raised strategic concerns about pacing threats. Scott and other members contrasted the United States' aging surface fleet and delayed modernization programs with competitor shipbuilding that is expanding numbers and experimenting with unmanned platforms. Several senators asked for options that included both accelerating production of traditional combatants and investing in smaller, more rapidly producible autonomous systems.
The subcommittee left the record open for three days to receive questions for the record and requested further detail on specific program timelines and implementation plans.
Ending: The hearing did not produce binding decisions; instead senators pressed for accelerated implementation of GAO recommendations, greater design discipline before construction and continued oversight of NAVSEA's plans to stabilize production and the industrial base.