▶ 0:15:41Chair Wicker: Good morning. We are starting 15 minutes earlier than usual to accommodate our members were also due to participate in a very important deliberations on another committee, so welcome very much to our hearing to consider the nomination of a very fine candidate for -- to be chief of naval operations. Admiral caudle and his family.
▶ 0:16:12Chair Wicker: As commander for the past four years, admiral caudle has been responsible for the deployment of naval forces and is uniquely suited to guide the navy through today's complex challenges. The U.S. navy handles critical maritime missions that no other nature -- nation could shoulder. Our nation is unmatched in its capabilities.
▶ 0:16:36Chair Wicker: No other navy can operate complex naval exercises in the pacific, defend israel from iranian ballistic missile attacks, and prosecute a campaign against the houthi terrorists in yemen. Executing all these missions nearly simultaneously. A complete all these objectives is no easy feat.
▶ 0:17:00Chair Wicker: Admiral admiral caudle has champions a fleet, targeting a goal of 80% combat readiness to ensure forces are deployed for rapid deployment. He started the important task of rethinking force duration models to consider how we can more effectively generate combat power. We will start addressing the global demand for united states naval presence by increasing supply of ready ships, personnel, equipment.
▶ 0:17:29Chair Wicker: Last week, the committee released the text of the national defense authorization act for fiscal year 2026. In addition to reforms proposed by the act, our bill seeks to address maintenance challenges faced by the navy surface fleet. The senate plan adjusts the contracting strategy for ship repair.
▶ 0:17:52Chair Wicker: We would like to see the navy give a clear demand signal to each shipyard and bring them into the planning process earlier. Additionally cannot we proposed authorities meant to reverse the inefficiencies in current processes empowering the fleet to oversee maintenance. I would like to hear from our witness about these reforms and his strategies for boosting readiness to meet global demand.
▶ 0:18:22Chair Wicker: The committee would help correct serious deficiencies in the navy budget by proposing support for the service. The lens of dollars are misaligned between the navy budget request and the regionally enacted reconciliation law. If confirmed, he must navigate fiscal realities to keep readiness and modernization on track.
▶ 0:18:48Chair Wicker: I'm hopeful congress will unite to raise the defense topline, closing these gaps to ensure our navy remains the preeminent maritime force. The reconciliation gives the navy a transformative opportunity, including $18 billion for shipbuilding, 5 billion dollars for unmanned systems, $5 billion for rebuilding the maritime industrial base, 5 billion dollars for munitions and missiles and $10 billion for
▶ 0:19:18Chair Wicker: Ship spare parts. These investment are necessary but no substitute for good management. We are going to be expecting that from our nominee. Leadership starts at the top and I hope our nominee and secretary build an immediate partnership. The next chief of naval operations will lead our navy into the most dangerous threat window our country has faced in generations. Let me quote and admiral.
▶ 0:19:49Chair Wicker: In everything we deal, we must ask ourselves, does this advance our preparation for war? We all seek peace, but the surest path to preserving pieces is by building strength. I look forward to hearing from our witness on how we can strengthen our navy to meet the challenges we need. With that, I turned to my friend and teammate, ranking number read.
▶ 0:20:16Sen. Reed: Admiral caudle, welcome and congratulations on your nomination. Thank you for stepping forward to continue a long career of service to the nation and navy and let me extend my appreciation to your family because they have been with you every step of the way. You have been nominated to be chief naval operations and I believe it is important to start buying knowledge and the unusual conditions around your nomination.
▶ 0:20:46Sen. Reed: In february, president trump dismissed admiral lisa friend cutting -- admiral lisa french eddie -- franchetti, who served the nation of distinction and honor and led the navy with skill. The committee then waited five months for nomination in this hearing.
▶ 0:21:12Sen. Reed: During that time, and admiral worked tirelessly to cover the duties of the acting chief of naval operations and vice chief. I want to commend the admiral for his commitment and performance, but the question remains as to whether the actions of the administration have and will continue to have an effect of undermining the ability of naval leaders to do their job. I hope in fact that they will do their jobs.
▶ 0:21:43Sen. Reed: I think we are all glad to consider your nomination today. You've experienced to bring to this role, including your current position and prior leadership assignments and strategic command and importantly as a submariner appear in the U.S. navy remains the finest maritime force in the world but has struggled to maintain his fleet. Several years of service has fallen short of its shipbuilding and plumbing plans.
▶ 0:22:12Sen. Reed: A number of vessels, including multiple destroyers and frigates , are behind schedule, and some cases by several years. I would also note the submarines are critical for maintaining our undersea advantage and nuclear deterrent against competitors like china are both facing delays over a year.
▶ 0:22:38Sen. Reed: I am concerned that deferred ship maintenance and cancels training may have created readiness problems within the navy. And I will ask going forward for your views on these challenges. I would note that the united states's greatest comparative advantage over china is our global network of allies and partners. The agreement between australia and the united kingdom and united states to collaborate on nuclear summary and production through the partnership is a meaningful step forward.
▶ 0:23:09Sen. Reed: Successful implementation of the plan will require responsible oversight and a stable industrial base. I hope you will share your views on the capacity to produce now into the future and how we can revive the budget resources to match the demand. Our highest priority must be ensuring readiness of sailors to go on missions. The navy has struggled with quality of morel challenges.
▶ 0:23:35Sen. Reed: If confirmed, you will be expected to support trust and teamwork through the fleet and champion the care and well-being of sailors. How are you playing to carry out these responsibilities? Thank you for your willingness to step forward and leave the navy at this important time. I look forward to your testimony.
▶ 0:24:00Chair Wicker: Thank you, ranking member reed. Admiral caudle, we ask you for your opening statement.
▶ 0:24:09Adm Caudle: Thank you, chairman wicker, ranking number read, and distinguished members of the committee. It is an honor to appear before you today. I'm grateful for the confidence of the president, secretary of defense, and secretary of the navy and nominating me to be the next chief of naval operations.
▶ 0:24:31Adm Caudle: I view this nomination as an opportunity to ensure our maritime dominance is never surpassed by competitors or adversaries. I know full well the number of american families who depend on our armed forces to keep them and our american way of life safe from harm. This knowledge comes first from my own family. My parents who are watching from heaven right now imparted upon me the significance of service to our nation.
▶ 0:25:03Adm Caudle: My late father was an army veteran from the korean war. He knew what service and sacrifice to a higher calling meant firsthand, like so many americans who serve their country's infectious pride from time and service may clear the honor and fidelity that comes with wearing the cloth of our nation. I mother, who was proud of my naval service, had a way to see the quality in a person.
▶ 0:25:28Adm Caudle: The qualities that can only be instilled and honed by the american way of life that we can never lose or allowed to become revised. I'm forever proud and grateful for the unwavering love and support of my four daughters and their husbands. Luke is a marine corps officer. Morgan and jordan. He is a navy sailor on the uss mason. Noel and billy down in charleston, south carolina.
▶ 0:25:58Adm Caudle: And here with me today, haley and her boyfriend from portsmouth, new hampshire. My wife, also here today has been by my side for the last 21 years, not only providing continual support to me and the family but also embodying a steadfast dedication for improving quality of life cannot readiness, and resiliency for navy families.
▶ 0:26:21Adm Caudle: She knows like me that our sailors are the most enduring competitive advantage and that a stronger navy means a more effective navy fleet. We are both cap young and motivated by our incredible grandchildren, who are truly the game changers in our life.
▶ 0:26:40Adm Caudle: Our country and its citizens are in the midst of a crucial era, defined by global competition and technological saturation and unprotect both threats that challenge our american dream. In this context, our navy finds itself central to what will likely be the most important chapter in the 250 year history of the incredible story that defines american naval dominance .
▶ 0:27:06Adm Caudle: Years of thinking fleet size and diminished shipbuilding capacity have manifested themselves as persistent challenges, with unquestioned naval supremacy through the last three decades.
▶ 0:27:20Adm Caudle: As china continues to grow is naval strength and it grows as -- at a steady place -- the veil is lifting on the impacts of poor choices made decades ago which leverage a perceived as perceived myopic peace dividend and out press rises and over subscribes our decision space for the challenges -- choices we face today. The choices will ripple into our future.
▶ 0:27:48Adm Caudle: With impacts that could without intervention shape future design and over match of our great navy. Our maritime fighting forces must continue to be lethal, resilient, agile, and globally present, capable of deterring conflict and when called upon achieving decisive victory, delivering peace through strength from our incredible and persistent combat power.
▶ 0:28:11Adm Caudle: We must be on an enduring path to deter and defeat threats into the future, but we must also be ready now to fight tonight if called upon. This duality of urgency, being ready today and tomorrow, means we cannot choose one of the sacrifice of the other. The protection and prosperity owed to the american people demands both seamlessly integrated but realistically affordable, and highly effective.
▶ 0:28:38Adm Caudle: To achieve this if confirmed, I will pursue full-spectrum readiness, modernizing our fleet cabability, scaling readiness capacity, and forging a resilient and resourceful sailors who bring all that combat power to life. From sea, air, cyberspace, and like never before.
▶ 0:29:03Adm Caudle: Mass effects for platforms and environments, integrating these effects with the joint force and our allies and partners. To outpace our adversaries, we must lead them with thoughtful approaches to warfare, harnessing innovation to take longer strides at a faster space , relying on ingenuity, skill, and brilliance of the american workforce and reimagine the industrial base by leveraging modern, modular, and scalable platforms, investing in human
▶ 0:29:35Adm Caudle: Capital, and integrating capabilities across all domains, my sites are locked in on a navy that is not only lethal and survivable but also adaptable and sustainable, ready to fight and win for decades to come, securing freedom of navigation and projecting power when and where it matters most. I'm honored for the opportunity to continue to serve in the most powerful navy. I look forward to work closely with this committee and with our elected rational leadership.
▶ 0:30:05Adm Caudle: I'm grateful for your time today and with your consideration I look forward to your questions.
▶ 0:30:14Chair Wicker: Let me point ■outa number of our members are being excused to go to an appropriations committee markup. We will work with them and get a number of questions. Thank you for your powerful statement and I agree with it wholeheartedly.
▶ 0:30:41Chair Wicker: We have standard questions that we ask all military nominees and I will ask them now simply keep your microphone on and answer yes or no. To exercise its oversight responsibilities -- it is important this committee and other appropriate committees of congress be able to receive testimony briefings and other communications of information. Have you adhered to applicable laws or regulations governing conflict of interest?
▶ 0:31:12Chair Wicker: Do you agree when asked to give your personal views even if those views differ from the administration and power? Have you assumed any duties or undertake actions which would appear to presume the outcome of the confirmation process? Will you ensure your staff complies with deadlines established for requested communications, including questions for the record in hearings, even this hearing?
▶ 0:31:39Chair Wicker: We cooperate in providing witnesses and -- in response to congressional request? Will those witnesses be protected from reprisal for their testimony or briefings? Do you agree to appear to testify upon request before the committee?
▶ 0:31:55Chair Wicker: Do you agree to provide documents, including copies of electronic forms of communication in a timely manner when requested by a duly constituted committee or to consult with the committee regarding the basis for good faith delay or denial in providing such documents? The let me ask a question which we have asked of all our nominees this year.
▶ 0:32:23Chair Wicker: Much of the funding in the defense reconciliation bill is unspecific because of our rules and will technically be at the discretion of dod. We have provided recommendations for them. Do you commit to follow congress spending recommendations and defense reconciliation unequivocally? Thank you. And now let me -- I notice he mentioned manpower.
▶ 0:32:55Chair Wicker: And I appreciate that. On recruiting, there is talk that the -- we might in addition -- in attempting to get our numbers up, we have lowered standards. How do you plan to ensure it does not become reliant on permanently lowered standards?
▶ 0:33:24Adm Caudle: Let me say thank you for the time we got to spend together in our various meetings recently. And that you quoted in your opening. Part of michael secure his principles into the -- if confirmed. His standards are the heart of my philosophy as a career long submarine officer.
▶ 0:33:48Adm Caudle: In no way have we lowered any standard to what we deliver, which is our most precious resource and to meet recruiting obligations, there have been changes to policy in the last several years that I would characterize as increasing access to our navy and utilization of future sailor preparation course and how we leverage that to ensure they enter boot camp at the highest levels coupled with their scores.
▶ 0:34:19Adm Caudle: I think it has in no way lower the standard and at the end of the day all sailors that graduate from boot camp meet the rigorous standards of that course to the letter. The scores they have to pass meet those standards to the letter. Be aware there is that concern and we wish you well on that.
▶ 0:34:42Adm Caudle: I have served as a junior member of this committee for a long time and then as chair and ranking member and in that connection this committee has become convinced over time that programs in high schools like junior rotc can build a long-term recruiting pipeline and when we are moving away from pretending like that is not a great recruiting tool.
▶ 0:35:12Adm Caudle: And as such, we have directed, not just a request or suggestion, we have a quote -- directed that we raise the number of junior rotc opportunities around the nation.
▶ 0:35:29Adm Caudle: Will you commit to following the law as we have put in over the past and increasing investments and programs like junior rotc with long-term recruiting pipelines? I commit to that. I am a fan of that. I would say we maybe have not gone deep enough and we ought to be reaching into middle schools to make sure we are making people aware of the navy and service to our nation.
▶ 0:36:00Chair Wicker: And they have the added benefit of building citizens, good citizenship and agreement to go extra steps in responsibility. We get better high school graduates and better attendance. And better preparation in the civilian job market. Ok.
▶ 0:36:31Chair Wicker: There is a navigation plan. You are familiar with that. Ok. With regard to integration of autonomous systems, 80% surge, enhancing training through virtual environments and strengthening maritime operation centers, do you support that and is there anything that needs to be substantially changed in that
▶ 0:37:03Chair Wicker: Plan?
▶ 0:37:06Adm Caudle: The navigation plan I think did a great job at identifying the critical capabilities that we need to fight and win. The prioritization of those has been invested in our ability to deliver capabilities against our most pacing threat of china.
▶ 0:37:28Adm Caudle: If confirmed, I will probably reemphasize my obligation to sailor quality of life, which I think is important, and quality of service, which is the combination of quality-of-life and quality of work and what I term the foundry from my time at fleet forces, which is the compilation of unaccompanied housing, infrastructure, really the bedrock by which we launch the navy I think needs additional attention, so in
▶ 0:37:59Adm Caudle: Addition to capabilities captured in the navigation plan as it currently exists, my emphasis will be on sailors and their ability to conduct business in a most effective way.
▶ 0:38:10Chair Wicker: We may go into that further. Senator kaine, you are recognized.
▶ 0:38:19Sen. Kaine: Thanks to you and your family for your commitment to this country. And for your willingness to step into this important role. First I want to convey some congratulations through you to your mates in the navy for the performance of the navy and red sea.
▶ 0:38:37Sen. Kaine: I have to mention at least one of those vessels was a destroyer, but I have had multiple briefings which are extraordinary and reacted to a difficult situation extremely well, so if you would please convey congratulations and thanks to this committee -- of this committee and the congress for that bit of bravery, courage, and military technology and manpower, it was a great
▶ 0:39:07Sen. Kaine: Effort. I also want to thank you and the navy for sending ships to maine. I want to emphasize why that is important. We were talking about recruiting. One of the problems in our country today is we have closed so many bases and young people do not see people in uniform anymore.
▶ 0:39:35Sen. Kaine: Having a ship at the lobster festival or fourth of july parade or other coastal communities in this country makes a difference in showing the flag, if you well. I hope you'll continue that practice because I think it fits into the recruiting effort but also notifies are citizens of the importance of the navy and what you are able to project.
▶ 0:40:02Adm Caudle: I agree. Thank you for the time we got to spend together and what main gives the navy, from our broadcast site to the bottom in the disputed location of the shipyard. Thank you. You can say it is in maine. I appreciate that now.
▶ 0:40:25Adm Caudle: One of your important roles is as a military advisor to the president and it is critically important through history and at this time that you be willing to give your best military advice regardless of the preferences of the president. This is a famously strong-willed president. Are you willing to give the president advice he may not want to hear based on your best military analysis?
▶ 0:40:55Adm Caudle: I'm ready to do that. I swear an oath to do that. If confirmed, I will do that with my utmost ability.
▶ 0:41:04Sen. King: I appreciate that. He may be tested on that, but that is the attitude. Otherwise, we are not serving the president or country well. We talked about industrial base. It was touched upon. One of the things that has been missing is a 30 year shipbuilding plan. We talk about the industrial base. One of the things the industrial base needs is a consistent demand signal.
▶ 0:41:32Sen. King: Part of that is a 30 year ship building plan that says to the private sector here are the ships we are planning to build. Here's is what we are looking for. I hope that can be one of the things you tend to on your watch , producing that overdue 30 year shipbuilding plan.
▶ 0:41:51Adm Caudle: I often joke at my office you cannot change a 30 year ship building plan every year. That is called a one year ship building plan.
▶ 0:41:59Sen. King: That is what we have had.
▶ 0:42:01Adm Caudle: Changing year 31 is ok but not year one. You have my commitment on that and I am a big fan of multiyear procurement incremental funding, anything that can stabilize our precious private and public workforce with clear planning demand signal I am an advocate for.
▶ 0:42:23Sen. King: That is an important observation. The consistent demand signal allows the ship building community to hire and maintain their workforce. We cannot have troughs in terms of the demand.
▶ 0:42:40Sen. King: You and I talked in my office about the issue of availability and my observation has been if carnival cruise line had the same availability level as the U.S. navy they will be out of business. I know there are more complicated ships, but we can do better than 50% or 60% availability.
▶ 0:43:03Adm Caudle: I agree. I had an opportunity to meet with norwegian cruise line executives. We need a better approach to how we are doing maintenance and learning from the best in the world should be on the table. I'm committed to learning from them. The ship classes are different. The practices of how the due availability is for us to learn from.
▶ 0:43:30Sen. King: I hope you will pay attention to the subject of directed energy, which I think is important. A directed energy shot is cheaper than a $4 million missile, so the budget the prior administration underfunded directed energy. I hope that is something you will look at carefully and support because that is I think the future of naval warfare.
▶ 0:43:55Adm Caudle: My masters degree from the naval postgraduate school is in directed energy. My thesis is high-powered lasers. I have not seen the navy to adequate amount of effort translating research and develop into shipboard use. We had the one. It is not enough. I agree if confirmed I will make that a priority because it is the infinite magazine, especially against certain targets.
▶ 0:44:23Sen. King: Thank you, admiral. You just got my vote.
▶ 0:44:28Sen. King: I am sure all of us will be asking for copies of that thesis by noon today. >> my thanks to you and your family for your years of sacrifice to this country. The recent operations in the red sea showed us how fast munitions are expended in these modern conflicts.
▶ 0:44:52Sen. King: It highlights the need that we have for a more robust defense industrial base so we can quickly replenish those nations stockpiles. Do you have any suggestions on steps that you would take to help increase that munitions production capacity?
▶ 0:45:17Adm Caudle: Thanks for the time we got to spend together and conversations we got to have. That is a large project but I can tell you some priorities I look for.
▶ 0:45:30Adm Caudle: First, we have too many sole-source vendors that are under producing, so what happens is we try to hold our contracts accountable for crimes, but they are being held accountable, which delays delivery of munitions. We need to work through that.
▶ 0:45:52Adm Caudle: There are steps where we move around munitions, so those are just way steps so how we actually gear and tune our industrial base to streamline more efficiently has to be part of that, so I often talk to my team and every 20 hours -- it takes me greater than a year to build an sm six.
▶ 0:46:16Adm Caudle: It is not acceptable so the defense industrial base has to come along with the navy, working with his committee with innovative ideas on how to streamline the process before we get -- where we translate the incredible r&d side of what we are able to do in united states with more emphasis on production side. I do not know that the existing defense industrial base is geared as well as it should be for the reduction side of all our business.
▶ 0:46:47Sen. Fischer: I hope you will be firm and your suggestions on how we can better approach that the columbia-class summary is delayed by about 17 months. What more do you think we can do to get that back on schedule?
▶ 0:47:06Adm Caudle: We anticipated some delay. If you look on the first of class, the navy routinely delivers the first one from the initial concept from his first deployment anywhere from 15 years on but -- at best to up to 20, 22 years. That is not good, but it is where we find ourselves, so columbia is an incredible platform that will take us into the 20 80's.
▶ 0:47:34Adm Caudle: The technology is like no other ship ever built, so the program manager is the navy and the electric boat -- we are a team on this, so we are working hard to try to pull that schedule. It is about 18 months behind, so we are working to make sure we do not fall behind on advanced procurement of materials and returning -- turning anything we see that may be estopped to the component assembly of those production parts so there is no
▶ 0:48:05Adm Caudle: Good answer to that other than just kind of some great project management and leadership at the worksite.
▶ 0:48:13Sen. Fischer: I am concerned about the current nuclear modernization programs of record . They are necessary but not sufficient. The force design structure was decided in 2010.
▶ 0:48:28Sen. Fischer: If confirmed, how would you work with stratcom to determine the force structure that we need, that is going to be sufficient to really be a credible deterrent to two nuclear peers that are threatening our homeland and the world?
▶ 0:48:45Adm Caudle: I am concerned about that, too. It is a math problem. They're going from a force that has 20 tubes out of commission due to new start and a class that has 14 ships with 24 potential tubes to -- down to a class of 12 with 16 tubes.
▶ 0:49:05Adm Caudle: So there's going to have to be some sophistication and thinking about how we do operational plans because general cotton bears the risk of that new force structure design, so we have to work closely with strategic command to understand that and how the peer competition is growing in the nuclear space with china growing and how it is going to be handled with the new columbia force structure.
▶ 0:49:33Sen. Fischer: As all of you work with stratcom to meet these threats and come up with a plan that will be sufficient, how important is it for the committee to listen to you?
▶ 0:49:45Adm Caudle: I think it is very important for you to listen to me. We bring a lot of experience. I'm a 40 year veteran in this and so there are things we can always learn, but we do have a lot of experience in this problem set. Thank you, senator.
▶ 0:50:04Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator fischer. Best wishes in the appropriations community -- committee markup.
▶ 0:50:16Sen. Hirono: Congratulations, admiral, and thank you and your family for the service to this country up into ensure fitness to serve of nominees who come before my committees, I ask the following two questions, which I will ask of you. Since he became a legal adult, have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature? Have you ever faced discipline or entered a settlement related to this kind of conduct?
▶ 0:50:48Sen. Hirono: Admiral, the navy is currently building a new drydock to support the virginia class summary maintenance and this construction project is the largest in tod history at nearly $4.5 billion, but has faced significant cost overruns, including an $834 million increase just last year.
▶ 0:51:13Sen. Hirono: The project is now about four months behind schedule. How do you plan to ensure the drydock construction remains on budget and on time?
▶ 0:51:25Adm Caudle: I am a hey why you sailor -- hawaii sailor. I look forward to getting out there with you and touring the drydock. It is a national asset so I share your concerns. Navy ability and able facilities command has historically not been good at estimating cost and schedule on our dry docks. We have improved in that area and work hard to do that. The hawaii drydock was subject to that.
▶ 0:51:54Adm Caudle: It is unfortunate those cost overruns occurred. If I'm confirmed, I will work with the team to do the best I can to get that back on plan and schedule.
▶ 0:52:03Sen. Hirono: This is such a massive project that I think it requires your personal attention, so I am glad that you intend to go to hawaii and when you do please let me know when that happens because I would like to join you in that. You commit to being personally engaged in making sure this project comes in on time and on budget? Thank you.
▶ 0:52:31Sen. Hirono: As you know, in 2022, 2021, there was a giant fuel spill that impacted some 90,000 plus residents in hawaii and there are some ongoing resources that will need to go toward what is going on at red hill, including the fueling and making sure that the environmental issues attended to closing the facility is supported, so how do you plan
▶ 0:53:03Sen. Hirono: To prioritize the necessary long-term environmental remediation at red hill and also ensuring that the navy provides a safe drinking water system to the military and surrounding community? Because that was one of the major problems, that there were wells that were contaminating potentially the water system that the people of a relied upon.
▶ 0:53:29Adm Caudle: You have my commitment on this. We want to finish the red hill d fueling and cleaning process on-time and on schedule. I look forward to working with you personally. My environmental team, to make sure all facets of the parts that the navy is responsible for are conceded on time and to the maximum extent possible.
▶ 0:53:55Chair Wicker: You probably understand the dod is engaged in important lease negotiations in hawaii, to be able to train in the big island, and that the entire incident involving red hill led to a lot of uncertainty questions from the people of hawaii as to military engagement in hawaii, so it is important to engage with the community and I would like to have your commitment that you will
▶ 0:54:27Chair Wicker: Prioritize that kind of sensitivity to making sure that we do -- that the military does not continue to raise issues as to whether we can count on the military to do what is right.
▶ 0:54:41Adm Caudle: You have my commitment to that.
▶ 0:54:46Sen. Hirono: I have other questions for the record. As you know, the united states does not -- has not ratified our commitment or participation especially as what is going on with russia. Your predecessors have said that supporting U.S. succession will be a good thing. Do you agree?
▶ 0:55:14Adm Caudle: From the navy perspective that the provisions from a maritime peace -- my equities are captured by that -- it is my understanding that the lack of ratification of that deals more with at sea mining and definitions and possible constraints on our ability to do what we need is a nation. It is outside my lane.
▶ 0:55:39Sen. Hirono: I would say it is about time we ratified our participation with what is going on with this. I mentioned russia and china's activities. Thank you.
▶ 0:55:56Chair Wicker: Senator scott
▶ 0:55:58Spirit Sen. Scott: You have the right background. You are going to do an outstanding job. I want to thank you for your years of service and thank your family for their sacrifice and commitment to you. You are going to do an outstanding job. You're already doing a fixer-upper. You have a lot of work to do.
▶ 0:56:19Spirit Sen. Scott: As an enlisted guy that joined after high school, I hope you remember those young men and women right out of high school who have core beliefs in our military and the opportunity they have and I hope you will treat them with respect and get the opportunities I had when I was in the navy. So I have been up here six and half years. The federal government has had a lack of accountability. I will give you one.
▶ 0:56:47Spirit Sen. Scott: The new destroyer was commissioned october 2023 and cannot be deployed until 2028 because it has a radar that needs to be tested. Does not seem to make much sense. So why -- do you have any idea why the navy will build a ship but not test the radar before commissioning at?
▶ 0:57:07Adm Caudle: I share your frustration with that trend. I have seen it too often. We are in the shipyard for years, we would come out and have to go across and get into modernization period to actually go get modernized before I actually deliver. I want work close if I'm confirmed with our program offices in fixing that the integration of the systems, timely delivery of all that, the ability for that ship once it is ready to be handed over to me needs to tighten up.
▶ 0:57:38Adm Caudle: If I'm confirmed, I will work hard to assuage the problem you have just described.
▶ 0:57:43Sen. Scott: Do you think you will have the authority to hold people accountable in the military, the civilian workforce, and the -- our suppliers? Because it seems it is all three. We have not held our military leaders accountable, the people that work -- the suppliers -- give me a break. I am a business guy.
▶ 0:58:12Sen. Scott: If this happens to me -- somebody would not be there.
▶ 0:58:18Sen. Scott: As we discussed in our office call, the holding a military program managers accountable I struggled with in my career. A very clear mechanism for operational commanders. It is not so clear with program managers. These are complex programs. I know the secretary of the navy and I have discussed better ways to ensure outcomes are happening in our programs and accountability and measuring performance of people better that do that type of work.
▶ 0:58:49Sen. Scott: On the industry side, it goes to my opening a bit about sole-source. When I find myself in moan -- monopolistic environments, a contracting strategy I can utilize to do any type of accountability and incentives is challenging but not insurmountable. I think we need to approve there.
▶ 0:59:09Sen. Scott: Michael is do not deal with monopolists. Somebody told me I had to do business with them. I said if I do, I will. I figured out how not to. So I saw them about six months later and he told his wife here is why we did not make numbers last quarter. Because we moved so much business.
▶ 0:59:31Sen. Scott: So at the end of your time in this role, what will be your -- you will say I succeeded or failed? What is your true north?
▶ 0:59:44Adm Caudle: You would see a navy that has a ship count climate commensurate with four year assignment where we are on pace with delivery, meeting delivery dates, not over by one or two years as we currently experience. He would see gaps on our ships have gone to zero. He would see the munition floor requirements that we have completely match, so you cannot win a war without munitions.
▶ 1:00:10Adm Caudle: You would see the backlog of supply parts that we used typically as bill payers re-zeroed out so the lockers on board our ships are filled with repair parts they need and that the world-class training our sailors deserve is just firing on all cylinders, so if I can accomplish those things I would be happy.
▶ 1:00:29Sen. Scott: You are going to do a great job. Congratulations.
▶ 1:00:33Chair Wicker: We will be exceedingly happy. Senator kaine?
▶ 1:00:38Sen. Kaine: Good to see you again. Senator scott talked about at the beginning about please respect the sailors. I want to share with my colleagues admiral caudle and I have worked together on a thorny problem. We had two clusters of suicides among sailors in the hampton roads.
▶ 1:01:00Sen. Kaine: A number of sailors connected with this long refueling where they were in talk in a pointless situation and also a number sailors who were assigned to limited duty status at the maintenance center. I want to share with my colleagues along with everything else he was doing to make sure we could win battles -- I'll ask about that in a second.
▶ 1:01:26Sen. Kaine: He really took this seriously and made a number of changes in both units and more generally through the navy that I think is -- demonstrates a focus on the success of each individual sailor and I want to thank you for that. With respect to winning battles, I do not think you have gotten enough credit. I do not think the navy has gotten enough credit for the work in the red sea. I know my colleague just brought that up.
▶ 1:01:52Sen. Kaine: We have in getting briefings about the work against the houthis keeping shipping lanes open for global commerce. A lot of those have been in classified settings. I am not sure the public is fully understood the degree of danger the navy has been under, the daily assaults and attacks the navy has been under and essentially you have been 1000% during this.
▶ 1:02:19Sen. Kaine: Talk about the success of the navy and operations.
▶ 1:02:25Adm Caudle: Thanks for the time you afford me and our partnership in the hampton roads area is crucial. The industrial base and would bring to virginia so thank you for that. Thank you for the acknowledgment of the sailors and strike groups and destroyers that have been part of those operations. Let me highlight real quick the importance of the heroes on board the ships. Those are the real weapon systems.
▶ 1:02:55Adm Caudle: They are training and you can watch any of these crews in these combat centers in the way they are aligning their panels in a complex environment and defending the carrier strike group so can conduct operations. The rate of learning and the turnaround between when we get an engagement dataset back to community of practice, which is our warfare development center, to digest that to make sure the shock doctrine and weapon
▶ 1:03:26Adm Caudle: Selection -- the algorithm used by the combat system is perfectly tuned and made adaptions in real time is world-class on that and finally this is the evolution of attacking each attack with the right munitions so using more air to air assets, which are cheaper than sm to and using electronic warfare to do that one possible so that learning curve has been great and the section of care we have given those warriors starts in the red
▶ 1:03:58Adm Caudle: Sea. We give them a hero's welcome when they return and we continue to follow up with them afterward and make sure they get the care they need.
▶ 1:04:09Sen. Kaine: We have been aware of the learning we are all doing but this battlefield and the red sea where the navy has performed so well has created eve aleutian of practice in ways that will -- that can bear mac fruit -- that can bear fruit going forward. My colleagues have heard me talk about this, but I want to raise again. By including defense spending, we have some strange issues arise.
▶ 1:04:39Sen. Kaine: The example was the pentagon made assumptions about virginia class subs but that turned out to be off by $2 billion. We fixed a portion of that deficit and the chairman was key to that. There still remains a gap, so I'm concerned there could be a cascading effect over the next several years but one thing that could give us clarity on the issue going forward would be timely delivery of 30 year shipbuilding plan.
▶ 1:05:06Sen. Kaine: Should you be confirmed, you commit to timely delivery of the 30 year ship building plan with the budget request so we can make sure we are aligning our needs with our resource allocation?
▶ 1:05:19Adm Caudle: I will work diligently with the secretary of the navy to deliver that on time.
▶ 1:05:27Sen. Kaine: What is your assessment of progress and what might congress do to keep it on track?
▶ 1:05:35Adm Caudle: There is no question that australia submariners have served on submarines for decades and I'm personal friends with the chief of staff of the navy there and he and I are good friends for a long time, so the question of australia's ability to conduct undersea warfare is not in question by me or anyone.
▶ 1:05:57Adm Caudle: As you know, the delivery pace is not where it needs to be to make good on the agreements, which is currently under review by our defense department. So I think rightly so we do have to understand whether or not the industrial base can produce submarines required so we can make good on the actual pact we have made with the u.k. And australia, which is around 2.2 to 2.3 virginia class summaries per year.
▶ 1:06:26Adm Caudle: That will require transformational improvement, not a 10% improvement. In a 100% improvement.
▶ 1:06:32Sen. Kaine: We need to do that.
▶ 1:06:35Chair Wicker: We need that transformational improvement.
▶ 1:06:38Adm Caudle: Absolutely, chairman. We need transformational improvement and ability to deliver twice the capacity we are currently delivering.
▶ 1:06:48Chair Wicker: If I can follow what the senator asked, we need to quickly and resolutely get to where we need to be to fulfill our obligations and move on to pillar two. Is that a true assessment?
▶ 1:07:12Adm Caudle: My set would be pillar 2 -- we need to have that on steroids already. The technology transfers and things we're are doing with artificial intelligence and cyber and undersea unmanned vehicles, those types of things we can collaborate with our great partners in the united kingdom and australia need to be parallel.
▶ 1:07:35Adm Caudle: We need to improve the output of the two yards producing our virginia class submarines. There needs to be creativity, ingenuity and outsourcing improvements. Stop the attrition levels currently there today at those low -- at those yards. We need an all hands on deck approach. >> do you commit to doing that?
▶ 1:08:02Adm Caudle: I deal. I want to work closely and your committee and the entire congressional team to actually improve production.
▶ 1:08:14Chair Wicker: I'm glad senator kaine raised this spirit I'm glad we were able to nail that down so thank you.
▶ 1:08:26Sen. Budd: Is great to see you. I enjoyed our conversation a week or so ago. It is great to see a north carolinian here. I think we even share roots in forsyth county. I'm glad to see your family here as well. You said that many other navy leaders talked about rebuilding and boosting production of our navy fleet and it is a decade plus endeavor.
▶ 1:08:56Sen. Budd: My concern is our adversaries are not going to wait for that decade. They are going to try to outpace us. I am concerned that they next conflict not look like what we are building toward. It might included but it is also more than that. What steps will you take to invest in unmanned systems, whether aerial surface, underwater -- how do you see them used for projecting power?
▶ 1:09:24Adm Caudle: It is great to have a north carolinian here with me. I appreciate the time we got to spend. There is question that unmanned systems will be part of modern warfare going forward. The learning we have had from russia ukraine we see in spades. We see it from the israel conflict. We are all learning from this, including our adversaries.
▶ 1:09:49Adm Caudle: There has to be robust -- autonomous systems. There has to be command-and-control and good concepts of operations, good ideas on how we deliver capabilities so they are not just powerpoint deep. There has to be good sustainment. They need to be attributable.
▶ 1:10:15Adm Caudle: So we can spend money -- the navy is not necessary to in that area where we need to just be able to get a paradigm shift but I agree with you and if confirmed you have my commitment that this idea of a hybrid fleet will be part of my vision for the future of the navy.
▶ 1:10:35Sen. Budd: That was a question about how we play offense, but let's talk about how we play defense as well. What would you do to protect naval installations and assets from unmanned threats and work across federal agencies to make sure we do not have a modern-day pearl harbor and other attacks?
▶ 1:10:55Adm Caudle: I'm also the naval component commander, so it is my responsibility for force protection and so this idea of having good unmanned aerial systems that are installations is important to me and something I have worked closely with the commander on. It got highlighted with the uavs seen around langley and put this on the map.
▶ 1:11:24Adm Caudle: It is something we have been watching for several years. We were not well-equipped to handle that threat, so this ties to section 130 for covering bases and assets and making sure all bases have those authorities. These are best-of-breed practices as joint solutions. Some of my sister services have better solutions than the navy.
▶ 1:11:49Adm Caudle: I need to learn from that and fields of those capabilities, but at the heart of that is good common operational picture so the base commander can see the environment and a range of ways that they may encounter and that has to be nonlethal and lethal effects.
▶ 1:12:07Sen. Budd: If confirmed, how would you direct the navy's acquisition system like you talked about? How would you do that to streamline contracting and speed of delivery of critical systems? Drill down to the first 90 days.
▶ 1:12:31Adm Caudle: I need to get smarter on the impediments that currently exist in law. For most of my career, I have been somewhat of a victim of it and not necessarily a person able to take charge on it, but now I find myself in a position to do that. I know there is a lot of red tape and antiquated laws. I know there are acquisition processes.
▶ 1:12:57Adm Caudle: I know there are authorities that need to be pushed down with better delegation, commercial solution of offerings, agreements we need to leverage to get capabilities faster and more effectively to our war fighters and a quick ability to actually experiment and get this out in the actual deployment cycle so we are actually cutting the entire navy's hands-on approach to operating more efficiently.
▶ 1:13:23Sen. Budd: Any thoughts on operating cash working with other partners?
▶ 1:13:29Adm Caudle: The state of our maintenance and other areas is all hands on deck, so I would be remiss if I did not consider partners that want to help me until I get my ship industrial base in the united states along with the department of defense in this is a whole of government approach. So I do agree that allies and partners can be crucial in helping us in this interim time.
▶ 1:14:02Adm Caudle: To the place it needs to be.
▶ 1:14:03Chair Wicker: As you drill down on obstacles that may exist in law, do you think you will be led to a number of provisions that exist mac the committees?
▶ 1:14:18Adm Caudle: Looking from where I sit now, and I'm not deep in it, I agree we need to streamline and make more efficient the acquisition process. We need better commercial solutions. We need better authorities to push that down to a level with decisions and the right dollar amount tied with the decision delegation.
▶ 1:14:42Adm Caudle: We need to improve that we are t drowning under the paperwork of getting these types of capabilities. The devils are in the details, as you and I talked about. I do have title x authorities, and so does the secretary of the navy.
▶ 1:15:00Adm Caudle: Anytime you try to short-circuit , make things quicker, I just want to make sure that the equities and requirements that I'm required to have, to ensure these capabilities that I can organize, train, and equip sailors to operate and sustain them is not short-circuited. If that is the case, I'm very much behind it, sir.
▶ 1:15:20Chair Wicker: It happens that we will not be able to put our ndaa forward next week in all likelihood, so you have four weeks to really drill down on some obstacles that we might be able to remove for you as we go forward. So thank you so much for that. Senator reed, you are back in the room. Glad to have you.
▶ 1:15:44Sen. Reed: Welcome again, admiral. The commandant of the marine corps, general smith, indicated the need for three marine units, actually his northstar, as he called it, essential to the marine corps.
▶ 1:16:09Sen. Reed: The ndaa, congress amended title x, so the navy should maintain 10 amphibious ships. What other backlog issues, we were only able to deploy one vehicle and sometimes two. Do you agree with the commandant that we need three? What do we need to get them?
▶ 1:16:31Sen. Budd: General smith -- adm.
▶ 1:16:34Caudle: General smith and I are partners, friends generally. I do view what he sees as a requirement to deliver three. The last time we were able to do that was in the 1990's. It took about 30 amphibious ships to do that. I'm committed to making sure that I comply with the law of 31 amphibious ships. I want to make sure that's clear.
▶ 1:17:00Caudle: 31, with our model that we currently have, even with the maintenance challenges I can discuss with our amphibious readiness were not in play. 3.0 presence would not be present with a 31 force structure. Four to five to make 100% of the time.
▶ 1:17:21Caudle: I'm committed to that goal, delivering the most combat power that force can deliver while getting the readiness of those units improved which it desperately needs, which means adopting a lot of the best practices that we do with other ships that quite frankly we have not apply to the amphibious force until late.
▶ 1:17:39Sen. Budd: Thank you --Sen.
▶ 1:17:43Reed: Thank you. Contested logistics. We have been operating frankly since world war ii with air superiority, the ability to move supplies anywhere we want. We won't have that if there is a conflict in the pacific. As napoleon reminded us, I think the navy moves on its stomach also.
▶ 1:18:15Reed: What capabilities will you need, what can you do to ensure that we get the support we need to our troops?
▶ 1:18:23Adm. Caudle: Senator, this is the come if not the most complex problems that the indo pacific commander has and the pack fleet commander has, to rearm, resupply, repair, replenish our units conducting high-end warfare in a very contested environment. A lot of energy and focus in and experimentation and war game has gone to this.
▶ 1:18:51Adm. Caudle: Command structures are being built to command and control it effectively. At the heart of it it will take a healthy combat logistics force. I have work to do there it confirmed as cno to deliver the combat logistics force that the pacific force commander needs. Everyone is subject to targeting in a theater. All the effort that we are doing for counter targeting to make our units resilient so they are not under target, being examined as a target has to be a part of that.
▶ 1:19:21Adm. Caudle: A moving target is hard to hit. All the technologies that we are doing underway improves resiliency, makes us do those things that we were talking about. The allies and partnerships that we will need will be crucial. There will have up to be a full-spectrum approach to ensure that we are able to do this. I commit to do that if confirmed.
▶ 1:19:43Sen. Reed: Thank you very much of the areas, too, we don't have a robust merchant marine fleet. We will either have to borrow it or somehow find it. That is another one of your issues that you must confront. Quickly, a comment.
▶ 1:20:04Sen. Reed: We are having a difficult time in training effective cyber operators, more importantly, retain them. I hope that is something that you can look into closely and see if we can enhance both the training and retention of these personnel.
▶ 1:20:23Adm. Caudle: Ranking member read, cyber is an incredibly important aspect of modern warfare, incredible part of our own warfare structure, ability to defend, conduct offensive operations, exploitation operations. These are critical skills. The teams that we build for U.S. cyber command, the navy has not filled in all the requirements.
▶ 1:20:46Adm. Caudle: We have definitely improved, created ratings, and os for the navy, designators for the officers to improve that, but the attrition of those forces because they are so highly trained are in high demand from everyone. There is a model there that I need to understand better, to make sure I can actually pull this off, working with the joint force, to make sure we can deliver what we need as a service in this critical domain. I'm committed it confirmed to doing that, sir.
▶ 1:21:14Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator reed. Senator rounds.
▶ 1:21:19Sen. Rounds: Thank you, Mr. chairman. Admiral, thank you to your service to our country, your family for their sacrifice as well. Let's talk about spectrum. We did in my office, I want to get it on the record. This committee would be disappointed if I did not follow on this line at some point.
▶ 1:21:38Sen. Rounds: I've heard from over 30 senior dod officials in the last few years including every service chief, combatant commanders, that vacating the three point one to 3.45 gigahertz band of spectrum would have a significantly negative consequence for our war fighting capabilities. The department of navy previously estimated that relocating your systems to a different spectrum band would cost them $250 billion.
▶ 1:22:07Sen. Rounds: Both the navy and marine corps intent to make extensive use and capabilities which require the electromagnetic spectrum to function in the western pacific against china. Admiral, does the navy have capabilities operating on a three point one to 3.45 gigahertz band and the seven and eight gigahertz bands of spectrum which would be used in a conflict with china?
▶ 1:22:29Adm. Caudle: Senator rounds, thank you for championing this, for our time in the office. I appreciate you hammering it. It is so vital. All of my critical weapon systems, electronic warfare systems, communications systems, everything I do that conducts high-end warfare operates in these bands. Asking me to maneuver outside of that, I'm not sure how we came up with a number 260, but I would have given you infinity.
▶ 1:23:00Adm. Caudle: This is a 100-year project to be two in the navy's combat system to move outside of that band. I would implore anyone thinking about doing that to not do that and allow the navy to actually operate in the bands you described, senator.
▶ 1:23:13Sen. Rounds: The other question I would ask is, some people think there is an easy way to simply share the bands with commercial operations. Would you care to comment on that?
▶ 1:23:25Adm. Caudle: My experience in my current role as U.S. fleet forces, there are strict rules that the faa and fcc and others actually have in the sharing. With our certification events, composite training exercise, to certify our strike groups for deployment, requires careful navigation in these frequency bands just to get the authority to do our training.
▶ 1:23:53Adm. Caudle: If I get constrained further to do that, I just think it would have detrimental effects to our navy, ability to deliver combat ready forces.
▶ 1:24:00Sen. Rounds: Thank you. We discussed in my office a likelihood of being engaged with multiple adversaries in multiple theaters at some point in the future. Most observers assess that our adversaries would seek to press their advantage in the event we are committed in another area, particularly given the increasingly close coordination between china, russia, iran, and north korea. How can the navy be better postured to maintain deterrence in multiple theaters?
▶ 1:24:31Adm. Caudle: Senator, let me say first, we only have regional complex since world war ii because we have a nuclear deterrent. There can be no chinks in that. If there is a conflict, that it doesn't go global. We continue to find all legs of the strategic triad. That goes without saying.
▶ 1:24:53Adm. Caudle: The second part is, we need the navy, the nation needs, from the amount and capacity, so the presence and posture into the critical areas to squelch any opportunism is put at bay right away. We will not be able to do that alone, senator. That will have to be with allies and partners. Making sure nato carries their weight on the making sure partners in the western pacific carry their weight and are with us with this, to give us the capacity that we need if we are going to confront two theaters.
▶ 1:25:22Adm. Caudle: I think the partnerships are crucial to that, as well.
▶ 1:25:25Sen. Rounds: Admiral, the navy's shipbuilding plans offer long-term investments to modernize fleet, undersea deterrence. Let me ask you a question. It's about time we start talking about how we fix the existing stuff we have got out there. Since 2017, I've asked about the uss boise as an example, los angeles-class attack submarine.
▶ 1:25:55Sen. Rounds: It has now been out of service, not even able to dive, I believe since 2017, 2018. Almost 10 years now at least in that neighborhood being out of service, sitting in the dock, waiting for its half-life to be completed. Is it time that we simply pull the plug on that one and start looking at other stuff?
▶ 1:26:17Adm. Caudle: Senator, it is like a dagger in my heart when you bring up boise to me because it is in an acceptable story. But it's a story of where we walked away from a private capacity, private your capacity to do in-service repair decades ago. As a relief valve to an oversubscribed public yard, we decided to induct three ships into huntington, a couple in the last several years into electric boats.
▶ 1:26:47Adm. Caudle: Because of the lack of investment in those areas, because we did walk away from that, both of those yards had some learning to do before they were able to get up on the step. That learning has not been quick and effective. Without a clear demand signal of what units are coming after boise, I worry that that effort will not be applied to boise to get her completed. Working with the secretary of the navy, I want to take that on if I'm confirmed, look at that hard. The decision to walk away from boise is a big one.
▶ 1:27:18Adm. Caudle: I want to make sure I clearly understand that the directory and trends. I hear you loud and clear on how it an acceptable it is, how long she has been in the yards.
▶ 1:27:26Chair Wicker: Thank you. Let's continue to have a dialogue about that so we can move to a decision. Senator warren, I understand you are next. You are willing to trade spaces with senator peters, is that correct? Senator peters, you are recognized.
▶ 1:27:49Sen. Peters: Thank you, senator warren for that. Admiral, thank you for your service to our nation, certainly congratulations on your nomination. As we discussed during our meeting last week in my office, consolation-class frigates will have a personal mission capabilities to conduct a variety of operations including air, surface, antisubmarine warfare.
▶ 1:28:19Sen. Peters: These frigates will be a key part of the U.S. navy's service fleet and support your critical missions in the indo pacific, as well as beyond. I am proud that michigan workers who aided these key missions make up about 40% of the workforce building constellation-class frigates.
▶ 1:28:43Sen. Peters: What current capabilities cap will be filled by the constellation-class frigates, and secondly what additional initiatives will be started in these in a potential future conflict?
▶ 1:28:56Adm. Caudle: Thank you for the time that we spent together and thank you for the workers in michigan, we need them. I appreciate their efforts on these critical roles for the navy. The frigate plays an important role. It fills a gap that allows me to not have destroyers conducting these operations where the frigate is more suited to conduct. They historically have been world-class at undersea warfare, submarine hunters.
▶ 1:29:23Adm. Caudle: That is really the design of that, to have exquisite variable sonar, capabilities to detect submarines, to do that mission most specifically. They will also have a great radar system, combat system, can actually be more vertical launch, add mass and effects, to get to the question that senator rounds asked, about the capacity I need for multi-front conflicts going forward.
▶ 1:29:53Adm. Caudle: They add mass to the navy in a very important way. The small combat ship, frigate, is a vital role in the capability that it brings.
▶ 1:30:01Sen. Peters: The virginia-class and columbia-class submarines will be the cornerstone come as you know, of our nations determine efforts in the indo pacific. In recognition of their important since 2018, congress has appropriated $9 billion to bolster the submarine industrial base. As we also discussed in our office -- I appreciate the conversation -- the navy continues to invest these funds.
▶ 1:30:30Sen. Peters: They also need to look beyond the traditional areas that are closed to shipyards to accelerate the manufacturing process and bring in a wide range of talent that exists all around the country. For example, michigan stands ready to support the navy's efforts. We have very unique commercial, automotive, aerospace, as well as advanced manufacturing expertise.
▶ 1:30:55Sen. Peters: My question for you, if confirmed, how will you harness the nationwide talent in places like michigan and other places around the country that have the specialized talent that haven't been tapped in the past, and yet can do incredible work, as we build these new submarines?
▶ 1:31:11Adm. Caudle: The question is so on point. My experience with shipyards is the recruiting radius, who we bring into these yards, is generally close to the yard itself. Unlike other sectors like my daughters are in, who recruit nationally, like a company would do, we tend to have a very localized approach.
▶ 1:31:35Adm. Caudle: I think we need to open up the spigot a bit to a campaign plan that builds submarines.com, a lot of you have seen that, is where that is heading. Getting folks educated and understanding they can be a part of serving their country at our major yards. That has to continue and there is more that can be done there. There is more outsourcing opportunity that we need to do for our virginia-class.
▶ 1:32:00Adm. Caudle: The modular approach of how those ships are built with the floating decks, how they can be better outsourced to different vendors like we are doing in austin, one example of that. I think there could be more room for some of those ventures, as well. We talked about improving and increasing the capacity. It cannot be business as usual. This has got to be a country-level effect. I guess I would end -- and I heard this quote recently.
▶ 1:32:32Adm. Caudle: Probably a good as time as ever. It goes the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second best time to plant it is today. Whatever solution we have on going forward, if a new yard is what we need, if I start today, in 10 years, it will be firing on all cylinders. I think that has to be on the table. I am worried that we just don't have the capacity with efficiency increases alone, to deliver the 2.3 needed by our nation.
▶ 1:33:02Sen. Peters: Thank you, admiral. Appreciate it.
▶ 1:33:06Chair Wicker: Let's do it. Senator cotton.
▶ 1:33:13Sen. Cotton: Admiral, welcome, congratulations, thank you for your service. Thank you to the family for your sacrifices as well. As we discussed, the united states is in a munitions crisis, more munitions of all kind, faster. Do you believe the navy needs to increase the number and kind of munitions, and if necessary, to help fight and win a war in the pacific?
▶ 1:33:35Adm. Caudle: Yes, senator, wars are won with munitions.
▶ 1:33:41Sen. Cotton: Would you say that we need to take in all of the above approach in leveraging our organic base as well as private industry in producing the munitions that our war fighters need?
▶ 1:33:51Adm. Caudle: Yes, sir.
▶ 1:33:52Sen. Cotton: What steps will you take if confirmed at cno to confirm the navy doesn't that get those munitions it needs?
▶ 1:33:59Adm. Caudle: Thank you for our time together, the conversations we had on this topic. No question this is an all hands approach. It is really easy to figure point in this world of constraint and oversubscription, underperformance.
▶ 1:34:17Adm. Caudle: I would like to break down that and get to the brass tacks, get a clear mapping of each of the mission lines in my head with my team, understand where the critical stoppage points are on the flow of these munitions, where the sole source are that are behind, and actually approach this from a common sense way of thinking about unleashing the logjam of places where we return these missions at pace and meet our congressional deliveries on
▶ 1:34:47Adm. Caudle: Time. It will not do any good with the money that you like to budget for me if I cannot translate into the actual delivery. I need to work with partners, make sure the navy is clean on how we do qualification and validation, certification steps. I am doing my role along with the industrial base to deliver these critical munitions.
▶ 1:35:06Sen. Cotton: We heard a lot of talk about shipbuilding. You have spoken extensively about the need to increase the readiness of our naval fleet. Of course, readiness depends on having ships that are prepared to be at sea. Shipbuilding is only as good as our maintenance plan is for those ships once they are at sea. What can we do to address the maintenance backlog that the navy faces today and get those ships out of dry and back into sea faster?
▶ 1:35:35Adm. Caudle: Senator, that is a massive venture that I want to spend, if confirmed, my heart and soul into get turned around. There are some things I can give you that all shipyards need to adhere to. And that is giving the shipyard a clear demand signal for when the unit is coming in for their maintenance period. That is the maintenance plan.
▶ 1:35:59Adm. Caudle: That planning needs to be stood up with sufficient time that the yard knows it is coming, as the funding in the workforce ready with a clear signal and stable workforce. Long lead time material. We want the actual parts in the hand of the worker when it is ready to be assembled. The technical more documentation is part of that, as well.
▶ 1:36:20Adm. Caudle: The planning time horizon, the location of where the actual maintenance will take place, readiness to start day one, solid project management, and workforce to the limit and skills are all part of all solutions to your questions.
▶ 1:36:34Sen. Cotton: Thank you. Final question. I think china poses the most severe long-term threat to our nation. That is primarily a maritime domain, not exclusively, but primarily. At the same time, the navy has to be ready and postured for threats around the world.
▶ 1:36:53Sen. Cotton: Part of the outstanding operation midnight hammer that devastated iran's nuclear programs, also led the way in the fight against the houthi rebels in yemen earlier this year. What do you see as the biggest challenges the navy faces to be prepared not to just a the china threat but ensure american leadership around the world on the seas?
▶ 1:37:16Adm. Caudle: Senator, I think overall the biggest challenge is a capacity problem. That makes us have to think. When you don't have enough stuff, you have to put your brain to your schemes of maneuver, your ability to do cap you, counter-isr, to actually have synchronization. There's an old saying that position beats power and timing beats speed every time. We have to bring that.
▶ 1:37:45Adm. Caudle: Typeof thinking in at the end of the day, mass will matter. That is why I need the munitions, neither ships, need to posture them correctly with great intelligence sources, to know when and where to do that best. I do want to thank you for calling out the navy's role in the midnight hammer. Our air force partners get a lot of the credit but there were a lot of things shot by the summary force as well. I appreciate that.
▶ 1:38:10Sen. Cotton: They all did a great job. Thank you.
▶ 1:38:13Chair Wicker: Senator warren.
▶ 1:38:19Sen. Warren: Congratulations, and thank you, admiral caudle on your nomination. For years, defense contractors have slipped fine print into contracts that limit the department of defense's ability to fix its own ships and fighter jets. Mri machines, radar systems. The last month, secretary phelan told this committee that he saw firsthand that sailors on the gerald r.
▶ 1:38:43Sen. Warren: Ford carrier could not fix ovens or elevators themselves because they had to wait for contractors to come and do it. The government accountability office estimated that repair restrictions are costing the navy billions of dollars. And also costing the navy opportunities to train sailors to repair their own equipment in the field. In peace time, that is expensive and inconvenient.
▶ 1:39:15Sen. Warren: In the middle of a conflict, that actually puts our security at risk. Admiral caudle, you have commanded sailors in the pacific. If there equipment breaks in a war zone, is it a problem if contractors are not able, or not willing to come to the front lines to be able to fix it?
▶ 1:39:34Adm. Caudle: Senator warren, let me say thank you for tamping this right to repair initiative. It is so vital. It is so ridiculous that sailors cannot actually enter a piece of equipment because of a contractual reason, warranty violation. It goes back to the heart of what we call self-sufficiency. I don't like it in peacetime, certainly do not want it in more time. It is not sustainable, it's dangerous.
▶ 1:40:05Adm. Caudle: I'm 100% committed to understanding and more fully. I guess the language of the right to repair piece, but the idea of what you're describing, I'm fully committed to.
▶ 1:40:16Sen. Moran: I really want to hit the point as well, if sailors are not getting the chance to prepare this agreement in peacetime, you cannot say, if war comes, you go ahead and repair it because they don't get the opportunities to repair it, know how the pieces work. Is that a fair statement?
▶ 1:40:31Adm. Caudle: 100% fair. It ties to how we build our schoolhouses. The curriculum will change when I have the right to repair the equipment that I currently don't have the right to repair. It has the second and third order effects as well.
▶ 1:40:45Sen. Warren: I appreciate your enthusiasm for making a change in this area. The army has said it will require contractors to provide the technical data and diagnostic tools necessary for the army to be able to maintain weapons systems itself. Makes us more resilient, enhances competition, grows the industrial base, helped to train more people.
▶ 1:41:12Sen. Warren: I worked with senator sheehy and the members of this committee to secure provisions in the ndaa that you just referred to that will provide a right to repair for all of the services and the house bill now includes similar language. Why are we still talking about this? Because the lobbyists for the defense industry are now pushing back.
▶ 1:41:35Sen. Warren: They like being able to get restrictions on your ability to repair because it means that they cannot only charge you the initial price to sell you the piece of equipment but they also can charge pretty much whatever they want if they have a monopoly on this to charge you for all the repairs and maintenance down the line.
▶ 1:41:54Sen. Warren: Admiral caudle, as a commander, what difference will it make to the war fighter for the navy to have broad authority to secure the rights necessary to keep our fighter jets flying and our ships sailing where ever we need to keep americans safe?
▶ 1:42:10Adm Caudle: Senator, it is vital. There should be nothing on board a ship that a sailor cannot repair. It is said that simply. That is how we make sure we are ready to fight. Things break all the time on our ships. That is why this is not just a wartime. It is dangerous where we operate now even in peace. They are not there just sailing around, we are acting as a deterrent.
▶ 1:42:41Adm Caudle: We are a vital part of that at the ready. When a piece of equipment is down and our readiness is not 100%, and it is because I cannot repair it, that is on acceptable in my mind.
▶ 1:42:51Sen. Warren: I appreciate that. Thank you. Appreciate your statements here, look forward to working with you on this. I also want to say, I appreciate the qualifications you bring to this role, but we have to acknowledge the circumstances surrounding your nomination. The first woman to serve as chief of naval operations was removed by the president without any explanation. That is not on you.
▶ 1:43:18Sen. Warren: But we need the best and brightest in this country to serve in the military, and we are not going to be able to compete with china or anyone else if women know that their talents and hard work are going to be tossed aside. Everyone in this room need to take a hard look at what is happening at the pentagon right now. Firing good people who do their jobs does not make us safer. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:43:41Chair Wicker: Thank you. Senator sullivan.
▶ 1:43:46Sen. Sullivan: Thank you. Admiral, thank you for the visit last week. I really enjoyed our discussion, appreciate your service, your families service, all of the navy team that you are part of. Thank you to everybody here.
▶ 1:44:03Sen. Sullivan: I want to follow up on senator reed's discussion on 31 amphibs, 3.1, there is a little bit of a disconnect in this year's ndaa. We have conference report that tasks the department of defense my vice chairman of the joint chiefs to work with you and the marines defining that requirement.
▶ 1:44:33Sen. Sullivan: And the law is 31 amphibs. I was involved in writing that. The language about temporarily unavailable, the acting see in his testimony here a couple weeks ago stretched that definition really far.
▶ 1:44:56Sen. Sullivan: We are tightening that definition up in the ndaa this year to make sure you cannot have a temporarily unavailable ship in dry dock for 14 years to qualify as one of the 31 amphibs . You and I had a good discussion on that. Can you give me more of your thinking? I know you talked about it with senator reed. But the combat command signal on this is very high.
▶ 1:45:22Sen. Sullivan: We want marines out there deployed, really important force projection capability. The united states cannot do it without the amphibs, but we need time to get to a higher number. What are your thoughts on that, admiral?
▶ 1:45:36Adm Caudle: Senator sullivan, thank you for the couple of sessions that we got to have together. Certainly enjoyed our time. I want to stay for the record, that is the law, I will comply with that, no question. I'm also committed to delivering the most combat power with our good friend eric smith, that that 31 will deliver. We have had challenges in our amphibious readiness.
▶ 1:46:03Adm Caudle: I've been a part of the comprehensive review of that with admiral maclean as our service force commander. There's a lot of things in that report that we need to do to get that in previous fleet healthy. I'm committed to that as well. Most of that deals with maintenance and parts support. There's a bit of expertise that I need to improve on as well. To the 3.0 part about that, I consider that to be a commitment I have with eric smith. I cannot deliver that today with a readiness I have.
▶ 1:46:34Adm Caudle: That is his requirement that he needs to build his force structure assumptions. I recognize that. He and I have talked about that. Going forward, it's my goal to put the effort and energy in to deliver the most our amphibious force can do. It's an important role in I'm committed to it if confirmed.
▶ 1:46:51Sen. Sullivan: Thank you on that. A couple weeks ago, the secdef testified that he received and inspired question about the department of defense meeting congressional intent when it comes to spending particularly on the $150 billion in budget reconciliation, where this committee focus very much on a lot of things relating to the navy, $29 million expenditure
▶ 1:47:22Sen. Sullivan: For shipbuilding in the maritime industrial base, we also provided the navy billions and other expenditures, munitions we have talked about, support infrastructure upgrades, including in places like the arctic and north pacific. By the way, I showed you that chart in my office, russian and chinese incursions in the north pacific and arctic. We have to update that chart. Last night, the russians were again there. Our military did a great job intercepting them.
▶ 1:47:52Sen. Sullivan: Will you commit, like the secretary of defense did come understand the congressional intent behind these budget reconciliation expenditures for the navy and following our congressional intent on the spending of the very significant funds that we just passed in the congress?
▶ 1:48:08Adm Caudle: Senator, I not only commit to it, but if confirmed, I advocate that it is spent in that way.
▶ 1:48:14Sen. Sullivan: Thank you. Finally, Dr. shipbuilding. Again want to complement the chairman here on his leadership. Crs put out a report, congressional resource service, call the navy's biggest shipbuilding crisis. Building, maintaining, and manning ships in almost half a century. That will be a huge priority of yours, I know.
▶ 1:48:41Sen. Sullivan: The fleet this year with regard to china is surpassing 400 ships. That is 120 ships bigger than our fleet. I recently saw the 1984 through 1988 reagan 600 ship build up. I want to submit this for the record, Mr. chairman. It is remarkable whatever country did with a much smaller workforce, much smaller economy, to get essentially 600 ships made.
▶ 1:49:12Sen. Sullivan: 124 new construction ships, new ships completed from 1984 to 1988. I know that we focus a lot because they are so important -- what you think the future shipyard looks like? One of the things that I got in the ndaa talks about the navy looking at west coast shipyards, the need for that. I know a lot of leadership in the navy things that we need that.
▶ 1:49:41Sen. Sullivan: Quick answer, shipyard of the future, what that looks like, to get out of this crisis and catch up with the chinese?
▶ 1:49:48Chair Wicker: You may want to give a brief answer and supplement that on the record.
▶ 1:49:52Adm Caudle: It will take in world-class workforce, one that is not -- in double-digit. More robotic autonomous systems to get the production and quality done on time. It will take more competition, less single source vendors.
▶ 1:50:11Adm Caudle: It will just take an all hands on deck approach to the project management, the actual workforce management that you referenced, back in the 1980's, was able to do it. Why can't they do that today? That is a people problem. I need to get my hands on that so that we are delivering these on time.
▶ 1:50:30Sen. Sullivan: Thank, Mr. chairman.
▶ 1:50:33Chair Wicker: Thank you. Senator kelly.
▶ 1:50:37Sen. Kelly: Thank you. Congratulations on your nomination for this very important role. As you know, the navy, spent 25 years in the navy, very important to me. We have a great navy. There's always opportunities to improve it.
▶ 1:50:52Sen. Kelly: I want to follow up on senator sullivan's question about shipyards but also from the angle of our merchant fleet, our ability to move combat power across the ocean, especially the pacific ocean. The chinese between 2020 and 20 about 1200 commercial ships.
▶ 1:51:26Sen. Kelly: In that time period, we built six. 1200 versus six. The reason I bring this up, we have a military sealift command that can move weapons, people. We have pre-positioned ships in other places around the world. That helps a lot at the beginning of a conflict.
▶ 1:51:54Sen. Kelly: We are better than any other country in contested logistics, logistics in general. When you get further into a conflict with some attrition, we could find ourselves in a very challenging spot. I am very concerned about this.
▶ 1:52:14Sen. Kelly: I have introduced come along with senator young, some colleagues in the house, bipartisan, bicameral bill, the ships for america act, to rebuild our commercial shipbuilding and our entire maritime industry including the workforce which is also a challenge. Right now, just the merchant ships that we have, the 80 oceangoing vessels in international trade, we are sometimes at a loss at finding crews.
▶ 1:52:46Sen. Kelly: Admiral, if confirmed, what steps would you take to ensure our industrial shipbuilding base is ready for competition and crisis and conflict?
▶ 1:52:54Adm Caudle: Senator, thanks for that. For championing this, quite frankly. It's an important issue. Our combat logistics force, pretty much all of our ships with a t at the beginning, we are not in a good place. Predominately, that comes from a couple of challenges we face. Challenges with having the right number of masters, first mate's, chief engineers, and some of the able-bodied seamen, as well.
▶ 1:53:27Adm Caudle: We have a crewing problem that we are addressing. Campaign plan, making sure that composition is adequate, leave accrual, so we are not holding mariners on station without knowing where release is coming from. We are working on all that. We have some delivery of our new class problems. We get the ships late. Sometimes they require additional work before we can put them in the field. That is something that we need to work on as well.
▶ 1:53:56Adm Caudle: All of the shipbuilding and emphasis that the administration, department of defense is putting on that will be a tide that raises all boats, if you will. It will help me with my civilian mariner problem, problem of accountability. After getting my fair share of those mariners, something I'm also working on. It's a lot to your question. If confirmed, you have my commitment I will work and focus on it.
▶ 1:54:21Sen. Kelly: I'm a graduate of the U.S. merchant marine academy , 1986, left with a third mate's license, third assistant engineer. The merchant marine academy puts out more mariners that actually go to sea than I think the state schools combined.
▶ 1:54:46Sen. Kelly: All of these schools do a fine job educating mariners that we need for our national security. I was meeting with sean duffy, secretary of transportation, about this and some other things about a week ago. One of the things he stressed was the infrastructure problem at the U.S. merchant marine academy.
▶ 1:55:11Sen. Kelly: He has committed to work with me, we are reviewing our legislation to make sure we have the necessary resources, to try to get the administration behind this. Because if we properly fund the U.S.
▶ 1:55:24Sen. Kelly: Merchant marine academy and the state schools and provide the training vessels we need to educate this workforce, that will better position the united states navy to have the mariners it needs to man those oilers and supply ships and others. Thank you, admiral, for your continued service to this nation.
▶ 1:55:49Chair Wicker: Let me give a hearty bipartisan endorsement to senator kelly's remarks about the merchant marine academy. Senator tuberville.
▶ 1:56:03Sen. Tuberville: , thank you, admiral, congratulations. You have earned this, looking forward to working with you. We talk about shipbuilding. We do a lot of that in my state of alabama. In the summer in business. I was also in the education business. 500,000 electricians short in this country. In our lifetime, we cannot catch up. We will have to use our allies to build some things.
▶ 1:56:33Sen. Tuberville: What are your thoughts about that? In korea, they build five to our one. What are your thoughts in working with allies to help build ships in the future?
▶ 1:56:44Adm Caudle: Thanks for meeting with me. I enjoyed our time in the office. I want to work with the secretary of the navy and department of defense to work at this hard. Again, this is an all hands on deck. I don't know how we do what we need to do without bringing in international partners into the capacity problem that we have. While we build our capacity. We need ships today. There are no magic beans to that, nothing that will just make that happen.
▶ 1:57:15Adm Caudle: The solution space has got to open up. Part of it has to look at international partnerships to give us a little bit of a relief valve while we work on our own organic industrial capacity.
▶ 1:57:25Adm Caudle: As you said --Sen.
▶ 1:57:28Tuberville: As you said, we need them yesterday. Our workforce problem is not going away. We have to use the best that we know how. We have to build ships and we have to build on fast. But they have to be good ships. Working with our allies will be one way for us to address this problem. What are your thoughts on unmanned vessels like drones that we make in our state of alabama? Are you familiar with those?
▶ 1:57:55Adm Caudle: I am familiar with them. Those are types of technologies that are crucial. So we'll drones are part of the fabric of how we improve our maritime domain awareness. I'm sure you've heard about what we have had with our task force 59 in the arabian gulf, using those technologies. We've had them in the gulf of america with our southern border watch, using them there.
▶ 1:58:21Adm Caudle: Yes, that is exactly what we need to network persistent capabilities where I don't want manned vessels spending time just collecting things that unmanned can do much more affordably and effectively.
▶ 1:58:35Sen. Tuberville: Those have been used well down in the caribbean, on the war on drugs. We are proud of how they have worked. We need to continue to expand that. I don't think there is any doubt about that. A lot of allies out there that we don't have to man and train people. It is good that you are going along with that.
▶ 1:58:58Sen. Reed: Chair wicker: thank you, senator tuberville. Senator shaheen.
▶ 1:59:05Sen. Shaheen: Thank you, admiral caudle. Thank you to your family for your willingness to serve the country. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me when we have the opportunity to discuss among other things the portsmouth naval shipyard. I very much appreciated your commitment to ensuring that the shipyard is able to hire the workers that they need. I know that secretary phelan has also committed to that.
▶ 1:59:35Sen. Shaheen: As we talk to folks at the shipyard, there is still a challenge when being able to onboard the folks that they would like to hire. There is still not clearly coming from the department of opm, other federal agencies about the fact that they are supposed to be exempted from the reduction in force full stop.
▶ 2:00:05Sen. Shaheen: Again, I appreciated your commitment to work on this. If you can just let me know what you think is the challenge, how we assure public shipyards, that they are exempt from that hiring freeze.
▶ 2:00:22Adm Caudle: Senator, things for meeting me. I did bring my portsmouth clan with me. They are happy to sit here. Part of the great city of portsmouth, which we talked about quite a bit. I love that shipyard. It's an incredible national treasure. Any delay to onboard a worker who want to serve their country and build our ships needs to be eliminated.
▶ 2:00:48Adm Caudle: You have my commitment it confirmed, I will work with the secretary of the navy and the administration, omb, my team to streamline the onboarding of workers who want to go and build our ships and repair our submarines. You have my commitment on that.
▶ 2:01:04Sen. Shaheen: I appreciate that you have a portsmouth contingent. That means you will come up to our neck of the woods on a regular basis, so if I can ever be helpful and meet you at the shipyard to talk about the good work they are doing there, please let me know. We also talked about the shipyard optimization, infrastructure optimization program. Some of the challenges it has had.
▶ 2:01:34Sen. Shaheen: Obviously, the portsmouth naval shipyard is the first to have the program, doing great work. But there are competing priorities at the four public shipyards for those funds. Can you talk about how you think about those priorities, how you will evaluate those computing needs that each of our shipyards have?
▶ 2:01:58Adm Caudle: The heart of my discussion today has this at the very point of it. I would like to get out of the competition for those funds. That means advocating for more topline to get that, I may need to advocate for more topline. I cannot say that I want to increase the repair capability and then underfund the exact thing that needs to be done to actually do that.
▶ 2:02:25Adm Caudle: If I am forced to do that, I will have to make my advice and recommendation to the secretary of the navy and how we build out our budget recommendations. I would rather just make sure that we are fully funding the siop program lines so we are not faced with that.
▶ 2:02:42Adm Caudle: There is nothing more crucial than portsmouth operation of what they are doing at the super base, super flood base and refueling docs there to actually refuel the los angeles class submarines needed to add capacity to our submarine force in a period of time when I'm trying to get back to 2.0 per year on virginia-class. These los angeles class refueled play a vital role in bridging a trough, plays an important role in the overall defense strategy.
▶ 2:03:10Adm Caudle: I'm committed to prioritizing to the extent I can portsmouth venture to make sure that that project is not delayed because of the nature of that work being so vital.
▶ 2:03:18Sen. Shaheen: Thank you. I appreciate that, and I share that view. With that in mind, could you talk about the challenges that it presents for the navy as you are looking at these competing priorities and trying to fund, fully fund your request, what a continuing resolution does to your efforts to ensure you have the resources you need?
▶ 2:03:42Adm Caudle: Yes, senator. Continuing resolutions are highly disruptive. As many have said, it prevents us from having good planning horizons. It tampers with the timing of contracts for maintenance. It prevents me from necessarily having the long lead time materials purchase, so when these maintenance periods start, I know I can accomplish these in a timely fashion.
▶ 2:04:11Adm Caudle: Continuing resolutions are highly discouraged because it really tampers with my ability to stabilize workforce, have good streams of supply parts, do all the things necessary that we talked about in our office call to make sure we are delivering the submarines on time.
▶ 2:04:27Sen. Shaheen: Thank you. I hope this congress can do a better job so that you are not faced with continuing resolutions. Thank you, Mr. chairman.
▶ 2:04:35Chair Wicker: Thank you you, senator shaheen. Senator banks.
▶ 2:04:41Sen. Banks: , congratulations, thank you for this important nomination. I love the united states navy, veteran of the united states navy reserves. I can't imagine someone better at a time like this to lead the navy than you. We appreciate your service to our country. You attended the crane naval surface warfare center breakfast on capitol hill a month or so ago. You are familiar with crane, you have been there before.
▶ 2:05:10Sen. Banks: It's very important to the great state of indiana, third-largest navy base in the world and that happens to be landlocked in southern indiana. Can you talk about its importance to the U.S. navy and our national security?
▶ 2:05:23Adm Caudle: Senator, thanks for our meeting and for advocating for crane. It is a jewel, such an apparent part of our combat systems, strategic systems programs. As I spoke at the breakfast, and I was honored to do that, I learned more about crane and the preparation for that, what it does for electronic warfare, spy systems, for admiral wolf's strategic programs, his role in
▶ 2:05:55Adm Caudle: Developing other nuclear weapons get abilities. As we talked about, I'm not sure a lot of people know what happens there because it is in his position. But you have my full commitment to make sure that crane gets the promise it deserved because it is a world-class organization.
▶ 2:06:12Sen. Shaheen: Would be great to have you come back and visit to see how far it has come since last time that you were there. I hope to host you when you come back in your new position. Can you talk about what congress can do to further support the programs that are happening at crane?
▶ 2:06:28Adm Caudle: They tied directly to our modernization programs. Our navy budget when we are trying to modernize our capabilities, those funding lines you to make sure they are whole because where that world-class work on making sure those extraordinary, exquisite systems that are part of our aegis systems, active defense systems, surface ships, all done there.
▶ 2:06:59Adm Caudle: They tie directly to our point defense, to our offense. When we modernize the ship, put the best kid in the world -- and I'm already constrained incapacity, the professionals at crane are part of that.
▶ 2:07:15Sen. Banks: I want to work with you to support that important work. You have talked a great deal already about shipbuilding. How we have to do better to build ships faster. To build them more cost efficiently. In the big beautiful bill that we just passed, the reconciliation bill, it included $450 million for autonomy and ai enabled shipbuilding.
▶ 2:07:45Sen. Banks: How can commercial ai software speed up shipbuilding to make our workforce more effective?
▶ 2:07:48Adm Caudle: Senator, I think we're on the tip of the iceberg of leveraging it. When you think of the thousands of work documents that have to be processed to build a ship, but largely which models can do to do that much more effectively than humans can do, but just using the volumes of records we already have as the data source, that is one area.
▶ 2:08:12Adm Caudle: Ai can go and look for trends, look for bottlenecks, examine large volumes of data much more effectively than humans can do, so that we can attack things that are slowing us down. Ai can actually drive robotic systems in the system so that the assembly lines and areas for production welding, other things being done with autonomous systems are optimized. There are countless ways that this needs to be incorporated. I think our yard need to embrace it more.
▶ 2:08:40Adm Caudle: That will take workforce developer to get the right people there to make sure we can deliver the type of capability in those yards.
▶ 2:08:45Sen. Banks: What are the downsides to deploying ai to speed up the shipbuilding process?
▶ 2:08:50Adm Caudle: I see no downside. There is often the narrative that it takes jobs. I don't agree with that. It shifts and jobs. We want workers to be trained to different areas, double of the algorithms. It still has to be managed and overseen, the production part of that still requires high-quality jobs. I don't see a reduction, actually see an increased opportunity for more workforce.
▶ 2:09:13Sen. Banks: I completely agree and fully support your nomination. You are going to be a great cno. Thank you come Mr. chairman. I yield back.
▶ 2:09:24Chair Wicker: Thank you senator rosen.
▶ 2:09:28Sen. Rosen: Thank you for holding this hearing. Admiral caudle, we had such a great conversation and I thank you for your lifetime of service, your families lifetime of service, your willingness to's serve our country. You brought up the great work of task force 59 moments ago. I just have to mention I was able to visit task force within the night when I was in bahrain a few years ago along with the fifth fleet. They are doing amazing things to map, protect our waterways.
▶ 2:09:56Sen. Rosen: I look forward to seeing all the development's they bring to us. I am going to move on to phalen naval air station and its modernization. Nevada is proud to host naval air station phalen, home to top gun and our nation's premier air carrier wing and cl training centers. I was also corrected by a marine earlier this week who said don't forget to talk about the marines that train there.
▶ 2:10:25Sen. Rosen: The nevada delegation works closely with the navy, federal agencies, tribal governments, local stakeholders for years to secure the fallon rates complex training modernization in the fy 23 ndaa, expands the range by over 600,000 acres to make critical national security training needs. Now the navy is moving forward with modernization.
▶ 2:10:48Sen. Rosen: I again want to underscore the importance of fully meeting the legal requirements that raising permit holders will no longer be able to use this land that they received their full and complete compensation for lifetime of losses. Unfortunately the initial payment offers to the ranchers on the b 16 range have fallen well below their expectations and estimated value.
▶ 2:11:11Sen. Rosen: Appraisals must not only consider land value but also fsa loans, ground water, and a lifetime worth of lost business itself. Current losses should be treated as a complete loss, not a buyout. This means for example valuing heads of cattle at the full market rate over time.
▶ 2:11:30Sen. Rosen: Admiral caudle, will you commit to reviewing, reassessing the payment offers on the latest input as a team in northern nevada has received from many departments, to ensure that permittees are making whole and that we calculate this value over time?
▶ 2:11:46Adm Caudle: Senator rosen, thank you for the office call. Fallon is another national treasure. I get out there at least once a year if not more often. They do certify our air combat and strike fighters, world-class fighters that they are. In fact, I've had several of the worker development commanders work for me, so I have a little imprint out there.
▶ 2:12:12Adm Caudle: What I committed to you in the office, and will again here, is a transparency in this process. Fully committed to that. I want to understand the algorithm by which the compensation is being reviewed, will work with my team, it confirmed, make sure to work with your team, talk with people if necessary, to make sure that we compensate this in accordance with the regulation, rules, and law to the best of my ability if confirmed.
▶ 2:12:37Sen. Rosen: I hope that you can commit and scheduled a meeting with my team, impacted stakeholders, and they can speak for themselves, bringing up to speed as we embark on this journey.
▶ 2:12:47Adm Caudle: Thank you. I commit to that.
▶ 2:12:50Sen. Rosen: You talked about the remoteness of naval air station fallon, major assets that provides all the trading range that is needed to ensure the fleet is deployable and operationally ready. Designated as a remote duty installation since 1989. A lot of quality of life challenges as many folks have to live in reno or carson city, well over one hour away. It's actually the only naval base in the continental U.S. dosing to do critical housing shortage.
▶ 2:13:22Sen. Rosen: It is really challenging, as you are going to expand the range, you do not only military housing but civilian housing, as well. We know that you'll enter into a public-private venture to build 172 new homes in fallon but we need more infrastructure, water treatment plants and other things.
▶ 2:13:42Sen. Rosen: Will you commit on up me on the status of this project and also in order for us to go forward, we have to talk about infrastructure like the wastewater treatment plant, hoping we can schedule a meeting to discuss that, as well.
▶ 2:13:55Adm Caudle: Senator, I commit to all of that.
▶ 2:13:58Sen. Rosen: You have to have all the pieces and parts in order to grow. We just have to continue to keep pace with the infrastructure. Last thing, we talked about the shaklee reserve outside the fallon naval air station. Experiences frequent flooding over the past decade. Floods are b 16 range and it renders training, cannot happen when it is flooded.
▶ 2:14:24Sen. Rosen: The bureau of reclamation owns the reservoir but the flooding is on the navy base, and so again, it is just a meeting of the minds to get this done. When it floods -- and we have seen flash floods in texas and other places. The vet prone to that. We have to get this done so people can complete their training and mission. I hope that you'll commit to meeting with me.
▶ 2:14:47Adm Caudle: I will. I will find out who owns this. Everything is about ownership. We will figure it out.
▶ 2:14:53Sen. Rosen: Thank you, sir.
▶ 2:14:55Chair Wicker: Thank you, senator rosen. This concludes today's hearing. Thank you to the witness for his testimony. Question for the record will be due to the committee by 12:00 noon tomorrow, friday, july 20 five. We are adjourned.