Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro speaks at an all-hands call to officer candidates at U.S. Navy – Officer Training Command Newport (OTCN) on Aug. 08, 2024. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st class Jared Mancuso)
SURFACE NAVY 2025 — Outgoing Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro had some sharp parting words for lawmakers today, saying he rejects their accusation that the service has failed to be transparent with Capitol Hill. Rather, he asserted the delays in communicating funding gaps can be traced back to the legislators’ own inability to pass an annual budget on-time.
“The bottom line is on this most recent issue where members of Congress have criticized the Navy about not being transparent. That’s just not true at all. It’s false is what it is,” the secretary told a group of reporters today. “The fact is that Congress has an obligation to pass budgets every year. And for the past several years they have delayed passing those budgets and have had continuing resolutions that really have a negative impact on the military services’ ability to execute their programs across the entire threshold.”
Del Toro was referring to accusations lawmakers made in their recent defense policy bill, which claimed the Navy failed to notify either Congress or the Office of Management and Budget about plans the service was developing with industry to rectify issues in the submarine industrial base.
The secretary said his service has been “transparent all along” and that lawmakers’ claims are “false accusations.”
“The reason why the final gaps in funding were … discovered and actually reported to the Congress is largely because there was a six- to seven-month gap associated with the continuing resolution that the Congress imposed upon the executive branch, and their [Congress] failure to pass budgets on time,” Del Toro said.
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Del Toro also took fire from Capitol Hill today, as Sen. Dan Sullivan took him to task for what he said was Del Toro’s misplaced focus on “climate change” over warfighting.
“This is killing our military readiness,” Sullivan, R-Ala., said at a confirmation hearing for Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Fox News host Pete Hegseth.
Speaking to reporters, Del Toro said Sullivan’s remarks were also “completely false.”
“I’m proud of the actions I’ve taken to strengthen shipbuilding and the submarine industrial base. … That is where I spend the bulk of my time. People can continue to read the same talking point over again, but it’s just unacceptable when it’s devoid of the truth and it’s just not right to tell lies,” Del Toro said.
“People who just constantly are climate deniers. They’re just telling lies is what they are,” he added.
Valerie Insinna contributed to this report.
