{"id":17418,"date":"2021-06-17T21:38:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-17T21:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/uncategorized\/2021\/06\/17\/lawmakers-crunching-the-numbers-on-potential-surface-navy-additions-to-fy22-spending-plan\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:41:54","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:41:54","slug":"lawmakers-crunching-the-numbers-on-potential-surface-navy-additions-to-fy22-spending-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/defensenews\/naval\/2021\/06\/17\/lawmakers-crunching-the-numbers-on-potential-surface-navy-additions-to-fy22-spending-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers crunching the numbers on potential surface Navy additions to FY22 spending plan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Lawmakers seem interested in adding to the surface Navy budget in fiscal 2022 and are doing some early number crunching to figure out what that might look like in a fiscally constrained environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee hearing, Chairman Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., inquired about the cost of keeping seven cruisers in the fleet: five of which the Navy had already planned to decommission in FY22, and two of which the Navy is newly asking to decommission early instead of finishing their modernization. That\u2019s because the cruiser modernization program is proving more costly and timely than expected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Navy has insisted the cruisers need to go to free up money from the ships\u2019 staffing, operations, maintenance and modernization and allow that money to go to current and future ships that are more useful to the fleet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though several lawmakers oppose the move to get rid of the large combatants that each carry 122 vertical launching system cells for offensive and defensive missiles, Vice Adm. Jim Kilby, the deputy chief of naval operations for war-fighting requirements and capabilities (OPNAV N9), said there\u2019s more to the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more than just VLS cells; it\u2019s what is the sensor that the ship brings, what are the capabilities of that combat system, and what\u2019s the confidence and the reliability we have in that hull to get underway,\u201d he said at the June 17 hearing, noting that reliability is the big issue with the aging cruiser fleet today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIn 2017, I was the strike group commander for the Carol Vinson Strike Group. My air and missile defense command ship was the Lake Champlain; she missed roughly one-third of the deployment because of maintenance things \u2014 not because her radar was down, not because her combat system wasn\u2019t capable, not because she didn\u2019t have a full magazine, but she had tank top cracking that required her to get that fixed to be safely underway,\u201d Kilby added. \u201cVella Gulf missed a month of her previous deployment and has missed two and a half months of her current deployment, [both with the Dwight D. Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group]. So all that, in my mind, has to go into the mix when we factor the availability and reliability of those ships. Those missile tubes will only count if they\u2019re underway alongside the carrier.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Princeton (CG 59) transits the Strait of Malacca on Feb. 5, 2021. Princeton is part of the Nimitz Carrier Strike Group and is deployed conducting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts. MC2 Greg Hall\/US Navy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Courtney, already seeing interest among lawmakers in restoring funding for the cruisers and barring the Navy from retiring them \u2014 which lawmakers have done for years each time the Navy looks at decommissioning some subset of its cruiser fleet \u2014 inquired about the cost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf, again, there was a decision made at the appropriations committee or HASC to restore the cruisers that you\u2019re proposing to decommission, that carries a price tag with it. Can you sort of walk us through what that would result in, in terms of having to find offsets in a constrained budget?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kilby replied that retaining the seven cruisers over the five-year Future Years Defense Program would cost the Navy $5 billion; keeping them for two years would cost $2.78 billion. The price tag to finish the partially completed upgrades on two cruisers \u2014 Hue City and Anzio \u2014 would cost $1.5 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because the Navy did not include any funding for these ships in its FY22 request, if Congress wanted the Navy to keep the ships, lawmakers would have to find billions of dollars of cuts elsewhere in the budget to make it happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Courtney noted that the Navy\u2019s FY22 budget requested to retire the cruisers \u2014 which first and foremost perform the role of air defense in a carrier strike group, accompanying an aircraft carrier and monitoring the airspace for incoming threats to the capital ship \u2014 as well as to cancel the purchase of a Flight III Arleigh Burke-class destroyer that will take on the air defense role after the cruisers are all retired.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, the Navy asked for $1.66 billion for the destroyer in its unfunded priorities list, a separate list not vetted by the Pentagon or White House that elaborates on funding needs that didn\u2019t make the final cut in the administration\u2019s official budget request.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo me, it was noticeable that, on the one hand, restoring the DDG was No. 1 on the list, but there was nothing in that unfunded priorities list regarding restoring the cruisers,\u201d Courtney said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kilby said he supports the request for a second destroyer because the capability is needed and would be best for the industrial base. He made clear that retiring the cruisers will be the best fiscal decision and would not create any gaps in deployment capability.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m an Aegis cruiser guy: I\u2019ve done four of my six ships on Aegis cruisers, I love them. But our average age of our cruisers is 32 years. They were built for 30 years. Four of our ships are over 34 years,\u201d Kilby said. \u201cSo I\u2019m really trying to look at the most valuable ship that we can fund, the most valuable program within our budget to make our force equal across all functions \u2014 air, surface and subsurface \u2014 to align to the threats as we see them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe guided-missile cruiser USS Philippine Sea (CG 58) launches a Standard Missile-2 during a training exercise in the Atlantic Ocean on July 16, 2020. Philippine Sea is part of Carrier Strike Group Two and is homeported in Mayport, Fl. SN Jason Bailey\/US Navy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
On the issue of adding the destroyer back into the budget, Courtney lamented twice during the hearing that the Navy had punted a hard shipbuilding decision to Congress. The Navy has multiyear contracts in place with the two DDG builders \u2014 General Dynamics Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding \u2014 and had planned to buy at least two of the warships in FY22. Instead, the request that came out last month included just one, with funding for the second topping the Navy\u2019s unfunded priorities list. If the administration\u2019s spending plan were enacted into law, the Navy would have to break its contract with one of the two shipbuilders and pay a $33 million penalty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOnce again, our panel is tasked with making sense of an unexpected cut in steady-rate production of the DDG-51 class destroyer program. I am deeply concerned that sudden course change threatens the stability of the industrial base, undermines confidence in multiyear procurement agreements, and threatens our ability to meet our defense strategy,\u201d Courtney said in his opening statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During the FY21 budget process, the Navy similarly cut a planned buy of its Virginia-class attack submarine program from two to one, and then asked Congress for the second boat in its unfunded list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Courtney noted last year that \u201cwe rejected a proposed cut of a Virginia-class submarine and enacted a final shipbuilding budget of $23.2 billion, well above the $19 billion request and actually still above this year\u2019s request from the administration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo just like last year, we have a tough job ahead of us,\u201d he said, suggesting that the sea power panel would find a way to add on to the administration\u2019s request of $22.6 billion in shipbuilding for four warships, four auxiliary ships, and a handful of connectors and other items. \u201cToo many recent budgets have fallen short of these fundamentals only to rely on Congress to fill the gaps. For example, this is the second year in a row, under two different administrations, that the Navy has presented a budget that removes a planned major combatant vessel only to list it as their No. 1 unfunded requirement. That is not a trend any of us here on this committee relishes or wants to see become the new normal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if the committee isn\u2019t happy about the position it\u2019s been put in, it\u2019s increasingly clear that members want to supplement the administration\u2019s surface Navy plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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