It’s not likely this has happened often, if ever, in the annals of haggles over U.S. military budgets: Congress is demanding the Navy float more boats than it wants to.
But that’s the case with the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee approving a proposed spending plan that calls for construction of nine battle-force ships, which the Navy asked for, but extends the service of five of 11 ships it wanted to mothball.
“It is critical that we continue to grow the Navy’s capabilities. The president’s budget, however, proposed to build only nine ships in [fiscal year] 2024, only seven ships in 2025. The administration also chose to divest eight ships before their expected service life,” subcommittee chair Rep. Trent Kelly (R-Miss.) said. “This is not the right signal to send China as they continue on their trajectory to build a 500-ship fleet by 2030.”
The Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee was one of six House Armed Services Committee panels that quickly, and unanimously, on June 13 each adopted their components of the proposed $874.2 fiscal year 2024 national defense budget.
Next stop for the draft National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), filed as House Bill 2670, is its first hearing before the entire 59-member House Armed Services Committee on June 21. From there, it moves onto the Senate for adoption before fiscal year 2024 begins on Oct. 1.
The overall $874.2 budget includes $841.5 billion for the Department of Defense (DOD), an increase of nearly $26 billion, or 3 percent, over the fiscal year 2023 enacted NDAA, and $32.26 billion for the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons programs.
Marines Best Navy in ‘Amphib’ Tussle
While the Navy will get the nine new ships it sought, the panel’s $32.28 ship-procurement proposal includes $750 million for an amphibious warfare ship the Marine Corps lobbied for, but that the Navy didn’t request, while canceling about $1.6 billion in proposed construction contracts for a submarine tender, service craft, and auxiliary personnel lighter.In June 2021, in its first annual update the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding plan, the Biden administration scaled down the size of the fleet planned during the Trump administration, from 400 ships by 2050 to between 321–372, with 355 ships the target.
In its fiscal year 2023 budget, the administration requested funding for nine new combat ships while decommissioning 16. Congress agreed to build the nine ships, but only consented to mothballing four of the 16 targeted for the scrapyard.
In its fiscal year 2024 budget request, the administration proposed building nine new ships while divesting 11, including three cruisers, three amphibious dock-landing ships, and two littoral combat ships.
The ship-building plan that will go before the full House Armed Services Committee calls for construction of two Virginia-class submarines; one Columbia class ballistic missile submarine; two Arleigh Burke destroyers; two guided missile frigates; a fleet oiler; and the amphibious transport dock ship (LPD) that the Marines requested.
In addition, the panel’s plan halts the retirement of three amphibious ships and two cruisers the Navy wanted to mothball.
The cruisers are among 17 Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers the Navy wants to replace with Arleigh Burke-class Flight III destroyers. The Navy’s plan calls for all 17, built in the 1980s through mid-1990s, to be mothballed by fiscal year 2027.
The Navy’s fiscal year 2024 plan called for retiring three amphibious ships among seven Whidbey-class landing dock ships (LHDs) being replaced by San Antonio-class amphibious transport dock ships (LPD).
The LHDs/LPDs are among a fleet of amphibious ships that include helicopter assault landing (LHA) ships and multi-purpose amphibious assault (LSDs) ships that resemble small aircraft carriers designed to support Marine expeditionary forces.
The Navy maintains two Marine expeditionary units (MEUs) at sea at all times to respond to unfolding crises. To support those two MEUs and five other MEUs training ashore, a 2019 Amphibious Force Requirements Study determined a 31-vessel fleet of amphibious assault ships was “the bare minimum necessary” and Congress installed that number as a statutory baseline.
The ideal 31-ship alignment is 10 LHD/LHAs and 21 LPD/LSD ships, according to the Navy. But under its budget request, three LDHs were designated for divestment with no replacement other than incremental finding for an LPD with no delivery date. This would trim the current 32-ship “amphib” fleet to 29 ships.
“It is my view the president’s budget makes a critical mistake with the decision to press ‘pause’ on the Marine’s amphibious ship-building program,” Kelly said.
“Let me be clear here: we should maintain a minimum of 31 amphibious ships so the Marines can meet their operational needs to project strength both in peace and in times of conflict,” he continued, “because it sets a better course for U.S. seapower by building on our naval strength countering China, supporting our industrial base, and providing for important oversight.”
Despite Criticism, a Bigger Shipbuilding Budget
Ranking member, and the subcommittee’s lead Democrat, Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), noting the plan comes with unanimous bipartisan endorsement from a panel that reflects “a healthy corner of Congress,” said despite a growing consensus on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon that the 30-year shipbuilding plan needs revision, the proposed fiscal year 2024 budget “is $300 million higher than last year” and represents “the highest top lines in U.S. history for shipbuilding.“I think it is important to zoom out a little bit and keep perspective on that critical fact,” he added.
Courtney said the spending plan includes $7.13 billion to continue “the two per-year procurement cadence of the Virginia-class [attack submarine] program and the first tranche of funding for the second boat of the USS Columbia class,” noting the SLBM boomers are the Navy’s “number-one acquisition priority.”
The boosted spending with other aspects of the proposed budget provides “unprecedented workforce and supplier development investment,” which “sends a definitive signal to our industrial base in the wake of the pandemic that we are fully committed to restore the two-per-year production level of the Virginia program and beyond at this especially critical time to bolster our capabilities and meet our own domestic needs,” he said.
Kelly said the proposed budget the panel will send before the committee “fully supports key features and enablers, including the Columbia ballistic missile class submarine and the B-21 bomber programs, which are critical efforts to modernize two legs of the Triad.”
It also “continues oversight of K-46 alpha tankers, the extensive modernization of the B-52 bomber. and the continued recapitalization of the KC-135 aircraft,” he said.
The panel’s spending plan keeps 271 C-130 aircraft in service, blocks KC-135s from being downgraded to backup aircraft inventory, and prohibits expeditionary fast-transport vessels from being entered into a reduced operational status.
The proposed budget includes multiyear procurement authority for MK-48 torpedoes, boosting the fiscal year 2024 allocation by $43 million to $351 million, calls for the purchase of two used sealift vessels for the ready reserve sealift fleet, and requires market research of used commercial vessels available for this purpose over the next five years.
“I’m still very frustrated with the Navy and the maritime administration that has prioritized used vessel acquisition to meet sealift requirements in a time of increasing uncertainty of availability on the commercial market,” Courtney said. “I am concerned the used [ship] market is not sufficient to meet our needs.”
Kelly said he is encouraged that Navy planners are supplementing the fleet with “platforms like unmanned vehicles” and with advances in the newest Constellation-class frigate,s but to “maintain our competitive edge over China,” the nation will needs more newer warships.
“I’d like to reiterate that we should be expanding our naval fleet rather than allowing it to contract,” he said. “The recent 30-year shipbuilding plan indicates that the administration is taking the wrong approach by proposing to shrink the fleet.”
