The House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) FY 2020 defense authorization bill adds over $1 billion in Navy funds from the unfunded priorities list, according to the chairman’s mark.
The majority of Navy unfunded list projects from HASC Chairman Adam Smith’s (D-Wash.) mark consists of $814 million for submarine maintenance funding shortfalls. This is specifically tied to $290 million for the Los Angeles-class USS Boise (SSN-764), $306 million for the USS Hartford (SSN-768), and $57 million for the USS Columbus (SSN-762).
The Boise has been a focus for congressional attention in the submarine maintenance backlog. SSN-764 was first scheduled to enter the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in 2013 but is now due to receive maintenance work at Huntington Ingalls Industries’ [HII] Newport News shipyard in FY ’20
Last month, the House Appropriate Committee (HAC) decided in its bill to move funds from a third Virginia-class submarine to advanced procurement and maintenance on these boats (Defense Daily, May 14).
The HASC bill draft also adds $161 in surface ship maintenance shortfalls, as asked in the unfunded priorities list.
This is split between $40 million for deferred maintenance availabilities for the USS Stockdale (DDG-106) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112), $70 million for additional Continuous Maintenance Availabilities to recover the deferred maintenance backlog created in FY ’19, $3 million for Naval Shipyard direct material and overhead/non-labor minor property, $6 million for Navy Type Command direct material, and $2 million for Southwest Regional Maintenance Center overhead/non-labor.
The bill also adds three additional P-8A Posiedon aircraft to the Navy Reserve, while the unfunded list asked for two aircraft at a cost of $393 million. This matches the HAC bill, which added $469 million for three Navy Reserve P-8As.
The Navy originally requested $1.2 billion for six aircraft in FY ’20, but HAC’s draft defense bill documents noted the Navy’s new P-8A warfighting requirement is 138 aircraft, up from 117, while only requesting enough to achieve 117 P-8As (Defense Daily, May 20).
The HASC chairman’s mark also adds one additional Northrop Grumman [NOC] E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft to the Navy’s request. The service first requested $744 million for four aircraft, after subtracting $126 million in advanced procurement funds.
The service’s unfunded priorities list then requested two more aircraft for $346 million to “maximize the production line capacity while aligning the force structure with requirements.”
The HAC bill already funded the requested two extra aircraft for a total of six E-2Ds at $1.07 billion while the Senate’s authorization bill matches HAC with six E-2Ds (Defense Daily, May 23).
The full HASC is set to markup the full FY ’20 National Defense Authorization Act bill on June 12