Pingree Blasts Republicans, Trump for Being “All Talk” on Supporting US Shipbuilding

Today during the House Appropriations full committee markup of the FY2027 Defense funding bill, Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) spoke out against Republicans' outrageous $1 trillion bill that, despite it's enormous price tag, fails to support American shipbuilding. In her opening remarks, Pingree contrasted the Trump Administrations' claims to support American manufacturing and long-touted "America First" mantra, while at the same time seeding the prospect of buying ships overseas. She noted that as maritime competition is intensifying, especially in the Indo-Pacific, Republicans' funding bill provides funding for only one DDG-51 destroyer, which are built at Bath Iron Works in Pingree's district.

"These ships are the backbone of our Navy, and they are essential to preserving our military superiority. And only one of those ships is provided for in this bill," Pingree said. "I often hear bipartisan agreement about how we need a larger, more capable fleet. And last year, the president himself said he wanted to 'resurrect the American shipbuilding industry.' But without investment or a strategy, that is just talk. And it's especially just talk in a bill that gets over $1 trillion. If we're serious about naval readiness, we cannot continue under investing in our ships and in our shipyards and the workforce that is needed to sustain that fleet."

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I'm going to trust my colleagues because I know there have been a lot of opening remarks, and they'll continue to be to make sure that everybody understands the problems and challenges of this bill. But I do want to emphasize that it is $1 trillion. That's $1 trillion for the Pentagon.

At the same time, we're cutting and we've all been through a lot of subcommittee hearings here or markups. We're cutting over $13 billion for domestic programs that would actually support working families while we're spending this much on defense. And we all know what we've been cutting childhood cancer research farmers through the USDA, education, housing, childcare it's all on the chopping block. And every time we fight back, someone says, but there isn't enough money, but there's always enough money for this bill.

This bill also abandons our allies in Ukraine, continues the unchecked spending on unauthorized operations in the Middle East. It's got a lot of big challenges in it.

But I want to use my time just to focus on the impact on our Navy and on shipbuilding and that industry. You know, maritime competition is intensifying, especially in the Indo-Pacific. But this bill provides funding for only one DDG-51 destroyer.

These ships are the backbone of our Navy, and they are essential to preserving our military superiority. And only one of those ships is provided for in this bill. I often hear bipartisan agreement about how we need a larger, more capable fleet. And last year, the president himself said he wanted to "resurrect the American shipbuilding industry." But without investment or a strategy, that is just talk.

And it's especially just talk in a bill that gets over $1 trillion. If we're serious about naval readiness, we cannot continue under investing in our ships and in our shipyards and the workforce that is needed to sustain that fleet.

I'm sure many of you remember, because I love to talk about it, that Bath Iron Works, one of our important defense shipyards is located in my district. We're very proud of the shipbuilders and the work that gets done there. And we love to say that "Bath built is the best built" because they do an amazing job building ships. And for all of you, when you take your vacation in Maine this summer to get a lobster roll and ride on a ferry, I hope you'll come by and get a tour of this shipyard, because it's an amazing thing. It's a miracle to watch these ships come together. They're complex. They require incredible skill and incredibly skilled workers. Stability in the prediction of how many ships are going to be built and having sufficient orders is what helps to recruit and retain a workforce. These workers can't just be reassigned if there's no ships to build until there's more money, or until there is sufficient procurement planning done.

Many of them are machine operators, highly skilled, highly specialized. They've been there for years, and not having ships impacts the production line. Multi-year contracts lower the cost, ultimately saving money. I know the chairman in his opening remarks, talked about advanced procurement and how critically important that is in these complex industries that happened in our country. It's especially difficult to hear about the lack of sufficient shipbuilding in this contract when you put it in a broader context, and that is Russ Vought in OMB now signaling that they're thinking about buying ships from foreign shipyards. I'm going to say that again. They're thinking about using their waiver authority to actually buy ships offshore. And we know how important our six shipyards here are here in this country. And it's antithetical to think that they would ever suggest that.

But a senior OMB official has said, if you look at the average cost of a destroyer construction in Japan or Korea, $1 billion of fairly nominal cost associated with destroyer construction. Just yesterday, I was driving in for votes and I turned on C-SPAN radio in my car, and I heard President Trump talking to a big Pennsylvania gathering, I think he was at a Mack truck facility saying how important American workers and American manufacturing was and how he's on top of that. And that's what we're going to do in this country. And in fact, when we got out of votes and I drove away, you'll not be surprised that the president was still talking to the Pennsylvania gathering, and he was still talking about American workers in American manufacturing.

Yet his official at OMB is now saying, we're thinking about building ships offshore in other countries. Really? Our defense industry? We're thinking of moving that manufacturing offshore? This bill's increase over FY 26 is more than the entire funding of Labor [Health and Human Services], and Education. And we're talking about buying destroyers from foreign nations rather than investing in our own shipyards.

I appreciate that this committee has put language in to curb the president's authority to do so. But the fact that it's even being considered is shameful. Adding this language while still selling our shipyards short doesn't make sense. We need to use this bill to make strategic investments in American readiness, which includes a skilled workforce, a skilled union workforce. And we cannot stand by where the administration drives decline of our industrial base.

I yield back. And I thank the chair.