Pork Ships

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative Speier for yielding. I appreciate the gentlewoman being the leader on this issue, looking after the public dollar and looking after our national security making sure that we don't waste any money but that we put our energy into making sure that we protect the American people at the most proper cost because a dollar that we waste is a dollar we cannot use to do anything else. So the gentlewoman's advocacy here, I think, is absolutely important.

I would like to thank the gentlewoman for organizing this hour to highlight an area of incredible waste of funds, the littoral combat ship. The Operational Test and Evaluation office in the Pentagon said in January that the ship is not reliable.

The Pentagon wants to pay for only two of these ships in 2017, enough to preserve competition and to make sure that taxpayers get the best deal for their money. Yet some in Congress want to force the Pentagon to buy three ships. Key Members of the Congress have expressed their concerns about the ship.

Senators John McCain and Jack Reed do not believe that the littoral combat ship could defeat an enemy fleet ``unless the enemy fleet consists of a small number of lightly armed boats at extremely short range.''

The GAO thinks the problems with the littoral combat ship are severe enough to merit a complete production pause. The GAO recommends that Congress not fund these ships in 2017. The last of the Navy's survivability tests will not be completed until 2018, giving us the answers we need to guide future development.

The events of this week only reinforce the GAO's recommendation. The Navy ordered all littoral combat ship crews to stand down and halt operations in order to review procedures and engineering standards. Every single sailor with an engineering role on the crew will need to be retrained. This is due to ongoing challenges. That ought to be enough for us to take notice.

Yet Congress is not listening to the facts. The House appropriated an extra $348 million for this ship in 2017. $348 million goes a long way to buying other things that can promote national security, but also things that can help domestic security--things like housing, things like food, jobs, all these kinds of things that we have urgent needs to address. We haven't taken up the Zika. We haven't dealt with Flint. Many urgent needs.

This is not a worthwhile meritorious expenditure. Somebody is getting paid, and it is not right. The American people's interest should be upheld first. That is $348 million above what the President requested for a ship that is not even working.

There are better uses for the taxpayer's money. Like I said, Zika. Let's make sure that our veterans are stably housed and support mental health programs. How about universal child care for working families? There are so many urgent needs that the American people have. Or, if we stick to military needs, let's support our troops overseas for an entire year, not just a few months.

I want to thank the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Speier) for bringing to light this critical issue. She always is at the forefront when justice needs a champion. I want to urge Ms. Speier to keep up the fight. We are very proud of her and the work that she does. We will always be standing by her side.

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