Here's how Trump's pick to lead the US Navy wants to fix the submarine shipbuilding problem

Yahoo

27-02-2025

President Trump's nominee for Navy secretary said the service's shipbuilding problem is a top challenge.
Phelan said he wanted to examine the core issues, particularly with the Navy's submarine projects.
US shipbuilding issues are multifaceted and not easily solvable.
President Donald Trump's pick for Secretary of the Navy offered up his vision for fixing the sea service's submarine construction shortfalls on Thursday.
A bunch of Navy shipbuilding projects are delayed, with a Navy review finding last year that the Block IV Virginia-class attack submarines are years behind schedule. The new Columbia-class ballistic missile subs are also dragging. Submarines are considered a Trump administration priority, as well as a key capability the US needs to confront top adversaries.
The president's nominee for SECNAV said that Trump's priorities are clear: "shipbuilding, shipbuilding, shipbuilding." He also said the Navy is "at a crossroads," grappling with "systemic failures" that include inadequate maintenance, massive cost overruns, and delayed shipbuilding.
Early in his confirmation hearing Thursday, John Phelan, a businessman with no prior military experience, was asked what he plans to do to get the submarine construction programs back on track.
Phelan, who identified Navy shipbuilding as a top challenge in his answers to advanced policy questions, wants to start by reinvigorating the US industrial base.
"That could come from a couple of different angles," he said.
Phelan pointed to several ideas from the SHIPS Act, such as incentivizing the private sector to invest in shipyards and helping make a shipbuilding career attractive to skilled workers with competitive pay. He also said there were some lessons to learn from foreign shipyards, something previous Navy secretaries have highlighted as well.
On submarines, Phelan said the priority Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarine is critical. He said he needed to examine the "root cause analysis" of the delays and cost overruns on the major programs, including in industry.
"I do think we need to analyze ways to create more competition for some of the components" for the submarines, he said, and that comes from working with and incentivizing the private sector.
"What you want to try to do is make it so that the private sector, you make the pie bigger, and so they can have a smaller slice of a bigger pie," he said. "And I think if we can create the right incentives, that's the right way."
In answers to pre-hearing questions, Phelan said he wanted to "push for a more agile, accountable, and flexible shipbuilding strategy by streamlining procurement, enhancing budget flexibility, strengthening partnerships with the defense industrial base, and holding contractors accountable for cost and schedule overruns." He also said modernization with the help of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence is key.
During the hearing, Phelan, who highlighted his experience as a businessman as a complement to Navy expertise already available in the department, said he is "candidly fearful" for what he will discover once he starts reviewing contracts.
He added that if confirmed, he wants to return to the concept of shared risk, saying that while it's okay for the private sector to make a profit, it should be based on their share of the risk.
General Dynamics Electric Boat, which is building Virginia-class and Columbia-class submarines, announced earlier this year that it plans to hire 3,000 additional workers in 2025, building on the expansion of its workforce.
At Phelan's confirmation hearing, Sen. Roger Wicker, a Republican from Mississippi and the committee chairman, didn't mince words when describing the Navy's shipbuilding problems.
"If we threw a zillion dollars at the Department of the US Navy today, we couldn't build the ships because we don't have the industrial base. We've got to fix that," he said.
Navy officials, industry leaders, and experts have said that US shipbuilding problems are complex and not easily solved.
Many top Navy projects are seriously over budget and behind schedule. While the Navy has attributed these delays and overruns to COVID's lasting impact on the workforce and supply chain, the problems run deeper.
Many issues stem from the post-Cold War slowdown in Navy ship demand, which shrunk industry and the workforce, ultimately hollowing it out. Industry leaders have said the long-term consequences of that left them with less experienced shipbuilders and uncertainty, making it hard to produce ships at scale.
The increasing complexity and sophistication of Navy warships exacerbates that challenge, as do shifting requirements.
The US Government Accountability Office has said inconsistent demand signals from the Navy have been a major problem for industry and shipyards, often involving changing the number of ships ordered or scrapping entire programs altogether.
Speaking Thursday, Phelan identified budget shifts, cost, and spending transparency as major issues he'd tackle, which falls in line with both Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's priorities for the military and broader government.
The budget for the Pentagon is a bit of a moving target at the moment. Hegseth has ordered the military to reallocate $50 billion to Trump priorities by pulling funding for certain legacy programs. The cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, has also been invited in to find fraud and waste in the Pentagon.
That could involve sacking thousands of probationary employees within the Department of Defense. During Phelan's hearing, senators expressed concern about how the cuts could affect the Navy's public shipyards. Outside of the hearing, other lawmakers have likewise taken issue with the cuts.
Rep. Joe Courtney, a Connecticut Democrat, wrote a letter to Hegseth Thursday outlining "the danger of your department's disastrous layoff plans" and expressing his concerns over how they could impact firefighters at the Navy's Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut, home to a bulk of the Navy's submarine force.
Courtney said firefighters are "an essential component of force readiness and safety," handling emergencies such as shipboard fires, hazardous material incidents, medical emergencies, and mutual aid support. "Reducing their numbers in the name of efficiency does not enhance our military readiness," Courtney wrote. "It weakens it."
Read the original article on Business Insider