By Emelie Rutherford
The Pentagon’s top weapons buyer told lawmakers yesterday “it’s very plausible” the Navy will reduce the estimated cost of the budget-busting SSBN(X) by more than 25 percent.
Lawmakers and senior Pentagon officials have been sounding alarms about the price of the Ohio-class ballistic-missile submarine replacement program, which has been projected to cost more than $100 billion and dominate the Navy’s shipbuilding budget in the 2020s.
Ashton Carter, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, told the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) the Pentagon is committed to proceeding with the SSBN(X).
“It’s more a question of ‘how’ than ‘whether,'” he testified. “On the other hand, if you don’t get the ‘how’ right you’re going to get the ‘whether’ wrong….So, we don’t want to get ourselves in a situation with SSBN(X) where we design a submarine that we know we don’t be able to afford.”
Carter will review the SSBN(X) in November to determine if the nascent effort can enter into the Milestone A phase of development,
In a Sept. 14 memo to military acquisition professionals, Carter said the Navy has been successful in paring back the per-submarine cost, which previously was pegged at $7 billion.
The sea service already has lowered the estimated average procurement cost by 16 percent, with a goal of a 27 percent reduction, he said.
The Navy has done an “excellent job” in the last several months examining all the design-drivers for the submarine, “looking at where…one of the design features, or one of the requirements that drives the design features, can be changed in such a way that the cost of the submarine is reduced without sacrificing in any way essential military capabilities,” Carter said. “This kind of disciplined systems engineering job really does work.”
Having already reduced the estimated cost by 16 percent, he said, “it’s very plausible that they’ll get down to the 27 percent.”
Carter said the program is on track to achieve a “significant engineering achievement” that will make SSBN(X) affordable and prevent it from becoming “one of these programs that collapses under its own weight.”
The HASC hearing examined Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ four-track plan to free up overhead costs within a fiscally constrained defense budget so those monies can be spent on war-fighting and modernization needs.
Gates’ attempt to close U.S. Joint Forces Command (JFCOM) in Suffolk, Va., dominated the hearing, with lawmakers from Virginia and beyond denouncing the proposal.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said a bipartisan mix of lawmakers want HASC leaders to subpoena Pentagon officials for more information on the rationale for closing JFCOM if the lawmakers are unsuccessful in garnering that information.
Some Senate Armed Services Committee members on Tuesday also railed against shuttering JFCOM, though committee Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he supported the closure.
At yesterday’s HASC hearing, Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.) warned he and most of the committee would not support any cuts to the Pentagon’s budget.
“The national security challenges this nation faces around the world dictate that we maintain the recent growth in our ground forces, the Army and the Marine Corps; that we modernize our Air Force; and that we grow our Navy,” Skelton said. “To do this, we must continue to grow the base defense budget for some time to come.”
He told the Pentagon officials they had to “persuade us that this (efficiency) initiative is not part of an agenda to cut the defense budget, and that it is consistent with this committee’s longstanding priorities in a number of critical areas.”
HASC Ranking Member Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.) said he is concerned how Gates will achieve saving $100 billion over the next five years without impacting weapons and services needed to address current threats. McKeon further said he fears Gates’ efficiency push will turn into defense budget cuts.
“I am extremely concerned that no matter what the intentions of…Secretary (Gates) may be, the administration and some in Congress will not allow the secretary to keep the savings,” McKeon said. “This summer, the White House supported a teacher bailout bill that was funded in part with defense dollars. Once these savings from this efficiencies initiative are identified, what’s to stop them from taking this money, too?”
Meanwhile, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen in comments to reporters yesterday warned against making major cuts to the defense budget, particularly those impacting troop levels and war requirements.
Mullen said poor-performing weapons programs will continue to be scrutinized, according to media reports on his comments at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast.