releases: https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/floor-statements?ContentRecord_id=B618CA78-4EE8-4F56-B72B-8721051A2426
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/floor-statements?ContentRecord_id=B618CA78-4EE8-4F56-B72B-8721051A2426 | OPENING STATEMENT BY SASC CHAIRMAN JOHN McCAIN AT OVERSIGHT HEARING ON THE NAVYS LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP | 2016-12-01 | 2016 | 2016-12 | Republican | House | AZ | John McCain | M000303 | www.mccain.senate.gov | legacy | Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, delivered the following opening statement today at a hearing on the oversight, acquisition, testing, and employment of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) and LCS mission module programs: “The committee meets this morning to receive testimony on the oversight, acquisition, testing, and employment of the Littoral Combat Ship and LCS mission module programs. We welcome our witnesses who are key officials responsible for acquiring, testing, employing, and overseeing these programs. “The Honorable Sean Stackley, Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, has been the Navy’s acquisition executive since 2008. “Vice Admiral Thomas Rowden, Commander of Naval Surface Forces, is responsible for manning, training, and equipping Navy’s in-service surface ships. “The Honorable J. Michael Gilmore, Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, has been the senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense for operational and live fire test and evaluation of weapon systems since 2009. “And Mr. Paul Francis, Managing Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management at the Government Accountability Office, whose 40-year career with GAO has focused mostly on major weapons acquisitions, especially shipbuilding. “The Littoral Combat Ship, or LCS, is an unfortunate yet all too common example of defense acquisition gone awry. Since the early stages of this program, I have been critical of fundamental LCS shortcomings. And here we are 15 years later with an alleged warship that according to Dr. Gilmore’s assessments can’t survive a hostile combat environment and has yet to demonstrate its most important warfighting functions, and a program chosen for affordability that, as the GAO has reported, has doubled in cost with the potential for further overruns. “Like so many major programs that preceded it, LCS’s failure followed predictably from an inability to define and stabilize requirements, unrealistic initial cost estimates, and unreliable assessments of technical and integration risk, made worse by repeatedly buying ships and mission packages before proving they are effective and can be operated together. “What is so disturbing is that these problems were not unforeseen. In 2002, the Navy first requested Congress authorize funding for the LCS program. After reviewing the Navy’s plan, the consensus of the Members on the two Armed Services committees was ‘LCS has not been vetted through the [Pentagon’s top requirements-setting body, called the] Joint Requirements Oversight Council,’ and ‘the Navy’s strategy for the LCS does not clearly identify the plan and funding for development and evaluation of the mission packages upon which the operational capabilities of LCS will depend.’ “Despite such serious concerns, it will not come as a surprise to many of you that Congress then approved funding for LCS. And when the Navy awarded the first LCS construction contract in 2004, it did so without well-defined requirements, a stable design, realistic cost estimates, or a clear understanding of the capability gaps the ship was needed to fill. “Taxpayers have paid a heavy price for these mistakes. The LCS was initially expected to cost $220 million per ship. But the cost of each ship has more than doubled to $478 million. The LCS’s first urgently needed combat capability in mine countermeasures was supposed to deliver in 2008. That capability is still not operational, nor is it expected to be until 2020. 12 years late. 12 years late. “Today, 26 ships of the planned 40-ship LCS fleet have either been delivered, are under construction, or are on contract. In other words, taxpayers have already paid for 65 percent of the planned LCS inventory. “LCS’s combat capability is supposed to come from three mission packages—mine countermeasures, surface warfare, and anti-submarine warfare. Taxpayers have invested more than $12 billion to procure LCS seaframes and another $2 billion in these three mission packages. “Yet for all this investment, all three of these mission packages are years delayed with practically none of the systems having reached initial operational capability. So far, the LCS has fielded only the most basic capabilities—a 30 millimeter gun with a range of two miles and the ability to launch and recover helicopters and small boats. The surface package was 5 years late. The mine package is 12 years late. The anti-submarine package is 9 years late. “The Navy failed to meet to its own commitment to deploy LCS seaframes with these mission packages in part because, for some reason, Navy leaders prioritized deploying a ship with no capability over completing necessary mission package testing. “In other words, the taxpayers have paid for—and are still paying for—26 ships that have demonstrated next-to-no combat capability. This is unacceptable. And this committee wants to know, Secretary Stackley, who is responsible and who has been held accountable. “And let me be the first to say that Congress belongs on the list of those responsible. We could have intervened more forcefully and demanded more from the Department of Defense and the Navy. We did not. But as long as I am chairman, this committee will. “Mission packages are not the only problem. Keeping the LCS seaframe underway at sea has also been challenging. Despite commissioning the first ship eight years ago in 2008, the Navy continues to discover “first-of-class” problems. Since 2013, five of the eight LCS delivered have experienced significant engineering casualties, resulting in lengthy in port repair periods. “Amazingly, despite nearly no proven LCS combat capability and persistent debilitating engineering issues in both design and operation, the Navy is charging ahead with an ambitious plan that keeps most ships deployed more than half the time, stationed around the world far from support facilities in the United States. In contrast, most Navy destroyers are planned to be deployed from the United States for less than 25 percent of their service lives. The rush to put four ships forward in Singapore by 2018 without proven combat capability, and to maintain a deployment tempo more than twice that of destroyers, is a recipe for more wasted taxpayer dollars. “Although the LCS may yet deliver some capability, the Nation still needs a capable small surface combatant that addresses the LCS’s critical shortfalls, including the ability to: attack enemy surface ships at over-the-horizon ranges with multiple missile salvos; defend nearby non-combatant ships from air and missile threats as an escort; conduct long-duration missions, including hunting enemy submarines, without frequent refueling; and exhibit robust survivability characteristics. “The recently concluded LCS review was long overdue. And it yielded some promising initiatives. But I am concerned that several critical foundational assumptions of the program were not challenged, including: excessive operational availability goals, insufficient in-house technical support for LCS, unexamined manpower requirements, and no urgency in transitioning to a new small surface combatant. “Fortunately, the Department of Defense is curtailing the LCS program at 40 ships and down-selecting to a single ship design. Given the cost overruns, mission package testing woes, and rate of engineering failures, reducing the size of this program is a necessary first step. And I’m prepared to go even further by taking a hard look at any further procurement of ships until all of the mission packages reach IOC. “It is up to the Navy to explain to this committee and to American taxpayers why it makes sense to continue pouring money into a ship program that has repeatedly failed to live up to its promises. “The LCS continues to experience new problems, but it is not a new program. That is why the Department’s leaders must not delay in reconciling their aspirations for the LCS with the program's troubled reality by demanding accountability and reducing the size of this program.” ### | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |