By Jen DiMascio

Continuing to purchase more ships and reining in the cost of the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program are high on the list of priorities for the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee this year.

Part of buying more ships is turning around the cost growth on the LCS program, ranking member Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) said yesterday after a speech in Northern Virginia. He noted that the Navy’s current plan to buy 313 ships is predicated on buying 55 LCS ships.

During an interview shortly before Congress left for its winter recess, Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), the subcommittee chairman, said his priorities for the new year would be to again include 10 ships to the budget and resolve the LCS situation.

In addition, Taylor said he would press to ensure that language mandating the Navy design its next cruisers with nuclear propulsion systems remains viable and does not get rolled back.

Taylor said yesterday he will emphasize that point this week when he meets with Adm. Michael Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Bartlett fleshed out some of the rationale for the provision on nuclear vessels when he spoke yesterday at a military energy alternatives conference on the national security implications of world oil production.

The world has already reached a peak in its ability to find and process oil, so the nation’s national security depends on its ability to find alternatives, Bartlett said, adding that as a whole, the Defense Department does a good job of pursuing alternative energies.

Aside from shipbuilding, the subcommittee will continue its quest to make the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle (EFV) as survivable as Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles.

During hearings last year, Taylor and Bartlett asked the Marines to redesign the EFV with a v-shaped hull that would better be able to withstand mine and bomb blasts.

Late in the year, the Marines came back with a plan that has not fully satisfied the lawmakers.

Taylor said yesterday he appreciated that the Marine Corps commandant made an effort to address their concerns. But, he added: “I’m not convinced they’ve come up with the right solution.”

The new vehicle would continue to have a flat bottom, but would be made with a kit so Marines could apply an aluminum alloy plate for additional protection.

That would mean that the Marines would have to know upon landing whether mines were on the beach or subsequent road and in that case, a Marine would have to crawl under the vehicle to attach� the aluminum alloy protection, Bartlett said.

“We had a lot of really serious questions,” he said.

Another priority for Taylor is to try to get the Navy and the Coast Guard to work better together on programs like the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program. As part of that, he plans to talk with HASC Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) about making Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) an ex-officio member of the seapower subcommittee. Cummings is a member of the HASC and has investigated the Deepwater program; he is the chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure’s Coast Guard subcommittee.