Ensuring A Strong National Defense
Floor Speech
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Mr. COURTNEY. Madam Speaker, just a few days before Christmas, on December 21, President Joe Biden issued a Presidential determination with little fanfare under the Defense Production Act of 1950.
The Defense Production Act of 1950 is a Korean war-era law that allows the government to accelerate production of critical materials and technology. It is the same law that Presidents Trump and Biden used to stimulate production of COVID-related ventilators and PPE during the pandemic.
In his memorandum to the Secretary of Defense, Biden noted that: ``Ensuring a robust, resilient, and competitive domestic defense industrial base that has the . . . workforce to meet the Virginia-class submarine undersea warfighting mission is essential to our national security.''
To accomplish that mission, the President invoked DPA authorities to expand the domestic production capability for ``large-scale fabrication, shipbuilding industrial base expansion for resilience and robustness, and maritime workforce training pipelines.''
As chair of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, which oversees the Virginia-class program, I strongly support the President's decision because it is based on both strategic national defense considerations and industrial base demand.
Indeed, just a few days after Christmas, the President signed into law the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act, which contained provisions my subcommittee authored that are completely aligned with the President's DPA order.
Specifically, the new 2022 NDAA added funding for new facility construction for submarine production, as well as a boost for workforce training and supply chain development. All of these provisions were plus-ups from the Navy's initial budget request last February and based on our own analysis of strained shipyard capacity.
The more consequential issue contained in the DPA, I believe, is its finding that the Virginia program ``is essential to our national security.'' That finding is a blaring signal to the Congress and the entire country that we need to bolster our undersea deterrent capability to counter aggressive, coercive actions in the maritime domain--specifically, the behavior of both the Chinese and Russian navies that has been overwhelmingly repudiated by the United Nations Law of the Sea Convention, the former in the South China Sea in 2016 and the latter in the Black Sea in 2019.
In both cases, despite the International Court's scathing rejection of both countries' intrusions on protected waters, there is no sign that lawlessness has abated. China's encroachment on territorial waters in the Philippines and Vietnam continues, as does its illegal island building and militarization of artificial landmasses that the court condemned. In the Black Sea and the North Atlantic, Russian claims to sea control and its seizure of Ukrainian naval ships are blatantly in violation of the international rule of law.
Madam Speaker, today, China has the world's largest navy, and Putin is aggressively increasing the size of his submarine fleet.
For the U.S. Navy, what is particularly concerning is the development of sophisticated missile technology by both countries that increases the vulnerability of our surface fleet that has been working in conjunction with allies like France, Japan, and Australia to reassert post-World War II principles of freedom of navigation visibly and peacefully. The joint sea patrols in the international waters of the Indo-Pacific and Black Sea are a reassertion of principles that, since the end of World War II, have successfully reduced the risk of conflict while enhancing trade and prosperity.
To counter ongoing threats to rule of law, the Biden administration has been diplomatically reconnecting, all throughout 2021, with U.S. allies in both regions, as well as reevaluating the highest and best use of limited defense spending. The DPA issued on December 21 is a logical extension of that process. Given the new challenge posed by missile technology to our surface ships, stepping up production of the Virginia-class program makes perfect sense since those submarines are not at risk from even the most sophisticated airborne missiles, and the Chinese and Russian navies know that.
Madam Speaker, in addition, last September, the new AUKUS security alliance between the U.S., Australia, and the U.K., whose centerpiece is the sharing of nuclear propulsion technology for a new class of Australian submarines, is another powerful, tangible statement about the importance of strengthening our joint allied undersea capability.
As David Ignatius, a longtime observer of U.S. foreign policy, recently wrote in The Washington Post: ``The AUKUS alliance with Australia and Britain to build nuclear submarines and share other military technology might be the most important strategic move'' by the U.S. ``in decades.''
The Biden DPA order last month and the AUKUS agreement last September are a powerful, tangible signal by the U.S. to our allies and friends who support a collaborative action to uphold international rule of law, which is critical to maintaining a peaceful coexistence among the world's nations.
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