The House Armed Services markup of the fiscal year 2025 defense authorization bill approved a measure limiting international maintenance of Navy ships at 21 days.
This provision, included in the committee chairman’s fourth en bloc amendment package, specifically says preventive maintenance of a deployed naval vessel performed outside the U.S. or Guam is limited to 21 days.
During a May 3 House Armed Services Committee hearing, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro explained the Navy’s FY ‘25 budget request included up to six continuous maintenance availabilities under 90 days each at foreign shipyards “so that we can then now go and assess which foreign shipyards will be able to do this work effectively during times of peace.”
He argued if Navy ships suffer damage during a conflict in a place like the Indo-Pacific region, the closest U.S. depot for repairs may be far away, given the size of the region.
“I hope we never have to go to war, but if we should have to go to war, we will then have full knowledge of which shipyards and what countries we could actually send these ships to be able to do the damage repair that’s going to be necessary,” Del Toro added.
The provision limiting this to 21 days was proposed by Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee. His district also includes General Dynamics [GD] Electric Boat’s facility that builds submarines for the Navy.
He said the provision was written with feedback from U.S. ship repair providers.
“I think we got it right. I think we really balanced what I think is some of the really obvious benefits of having the ability to make repairs, particularly when they’re far from public shipyards, the Indo-Pacific is a vast area in particular,” Courtney told reporters on Thursday.
He argued the 21-day limit will give the Navy the authority to replace valves and “so what I think are sort of repairs that are connected to just keeping the ship moving and safe, as opposed to overhauls and repair availabilities, which obviously are much bigger enterprise…we kind of, I think, struck a really nice sort of medium in terms of the different arguments surrounding this.”
Courtney confirmed there was some pushback from U.S. companies to prevent wholesale repair availabilities being outsourced overseas.
He said this “common sense” amendment should ensure that if a submarine is in Perth, Australia, as is set to occur with increasing frequency due to the AUKUS agreement, necessary repairs under the drydock level can occur there.
“We did talk to some of the stakeholders while that sort of language was being drafted, and what we got back was a high comfort level, in terms of that approach, because again, it’s just the tyranny of distance that is so blindingly obvious has to also be addressed in terms of the Indo Pacific region.”
Late last year, Under Secretary of the Navy Erik Raven said the Navy and Australia are planning to conduct the first U.S. submarine maintenance period in Australia this upcoming summer. The work will use the USS Emory S. Land submarine tender with 30 Australian exchange sailors deploying with the tender to help build an Australian submarine support base (Defense Daily, Dec. 1).
Del Toro has promoted working with allied country shipyard companies in South Korea and Japan, hoping to get them to invest in smaller U.S. shipyards to increase overall Navy shipyard and shipbuilding capacity. This is akin to how Italy’s Fincantieri manages the Marinette Marine shipyard in Wisconsin and Austal has a U.S. subsidiary building naval vessels in Mobile, Ala. (Defense Daily, April 10).
In turn, the companies have expressed interest in repairing U.S. Navy ships posted to East Asia.