A House Oversight Committee subcommittee is holding a hearing on shipbuilding in response to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro’s statements about China’s capabilities relative to the US. (U.S. Navy photo by Senior Chief Musician Adam Grimm/Released)
WASHINGTON — A House Oversight subcommittee is seeking testimony directly from two Navy program executive officers for a hearing on naval shipbuilding next week, an unusual congressional move.
The two officers expected to testify on May 11 are Rear Adm. Thomas Anderson, PEO for ships, and Rear Adm. Casey Moton, PEO for unmanned and small combatants, according to a May 4 committee statement.
“According to senior leadership within the Navy, China currently has a massive advantage on the United States operationally when it comes to shipbuilding. Given the astronomical amount of U.S. taxpayer funding put towards this effort, that is unacceptable,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman, R-Wisc., the chairman for the national security, border and foreign affairs subcommittee.
Grothman is referring to statements from Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, who has publicly acknowledged China’s shipbuilding capacity is overtaking the US.
“They have 13 shipyards, in some cases their shipyard has more capacity — one shipyard has more capacity than all of our shipyards combined. That presents a real threat,” he said in February, adding that it is difficult for the US shipbuilding industry to compete with a country using “slave labor.”
It’s an admission that has not sat well with lawmakers, particularly those who are keen to see the Navy’s fleet grow and have codified into a law a variety of requirements as to fleet size the Pentagon is supposed to meet, though those laws have generally lacked any penalty for the military if it fails to meet the standard.
The Oversight Committee has a broad jurisdiction — for perspective, statements about the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food and Drug Administration and the US Attorney for the District of Columbia all neighbored the one about shipbuilding on the committee’s website — and it’s not unprecedented that PEOs testify directly to lawmakers, for instance, before the Armed Services subcommittees. But it is rare to see the Navy’s PEOs called to testify to an oversight subcommittee prompted by their boss’ comments.
Program executive officers in the military are charged with developing and building the military’s latest planes, ships and weaponry. They are often engineers by trade and have worked their way up the ladder through billets focused on project management.
In contrast to the more high-profile jobs of senior civilian leadership and service chiefs, the job of a PEO, like Anderson or Moton, is not to make decisions about how many ships the Navy should or will build, but rather ensure the programs directed by the brass are executed under cost and on schedule.
The Navy billet that is most attuned to the country’s private shipyards is the assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition, the senior executive to whom all the Navy’s PEOs report. The White House’s nominee for that job, Nickolas Guertin, remains stalled in the Senate’s confirmation process, according to Congress’ website that tracks nominees. The position, also called the “acquisition executive,” has remained filled by acting officials since Hondo Geurts became the service’s acting undersecretary in February 2021 and later exited the Pentagon in August of the same year.
In contrast to the Armed Services committees, whose leaders often tout the bipartisan nature of their work, the Oversight Committee often invites a much more charged partisan environment, meaning the Navy PEOs could be in for some rough waters.
