By Emelie Rutherford
The House and Senate are set to battle over a proposed Navy shipbuilding requirement that would limit the service to retiring two ships for every three new ones commissioned.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates is said to not like this provision, which is in the fiscal year 2011 defense authorization bill the House passed last Friday. And the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) highlights the ship-retirement proposal as a major concern in its Statement of Administration Policy issued on the House legislation.
The vessel-retirement language was championed by Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s (HASC) Seapower and Expeditionary Forces subcommittee.
The legislation, he said on the House floor last Thursday, “takes some far-reaching steps, one of which is directing the (Chief of Naval Operations, Adm. Gary Roughead) CNO that in the future, that in order to go to the fleet, he may only retire two ships for every three ships we commission.”
“I think this is very important language,” Taylor added. “This is the third CNO who has said he wanted 313 ships (in the Navy’s fleet), but ironically, they keep submitting budgets to Congress that actually shrink their fleet rather than grow it.”
Yet not everyone sees such a mandate as a way to overcome the hurdle, which frustrates many lawmakers, of figuring out how to significantly boost the size of the Navy’s 287- vessel fleet.
Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he sides with Gates in not liking the proposed ship retirement-to-commissioning ratio.
“From what I know of it I think it’s a mistake,” Levin told Defense Daily. “I believe that kind of formula is just arbitrary.”
The SASC did not include any such ship provision in its version of the defense authorization bill, which Levin unveiled to reporters last Friday. And aides said the proposal will likely end up a matter that will be hashed out by House-Senate negotiators in a conference committee after the Senate passes its version of the legislation.
OMB’s official statement on the House-passed bill raises concerns with the ship-retirement language as well as a provision that would ban the Navy from decommissioning two amphibious ships, LHA-4 (USS Nassau) and LHA-5 (USS Peleliu).
Rep. Mike Coffman (R-Colo.) helped add this LHA-retiring ban via an amendment to the bill when it was in committee. The legislation states the two vessels can be decommissioned after LHA-6 and LHA-7 are delivered to the Navy.
OMB’s May 27 statement declares the “administration strongly” opposes the proposed requirement to retain the two ships and the limitation of decommissioning no more than two ships for every three ships commissioned.
“The (Defense) Department is committed to replacing older, less capable ships that have become increasingly expensive to maintain and operate with ships better suited for current and future needs that will provide forces the capability to meet a wider range of Combatant Commanders’ requirements,” OMB says.
OMB also takes issue with a House proposal, stating the Navy cannot decommission any battle-force vessel of the active fleet without notifying lawmakers. Those notifications would have to include an analysis of how the decommissioning would impact other ships’ deployment schedules, include a certification from the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman that retiring the ships would not hamper combatant commanders’ critical missions, and spell out the budgetary impact of keeping the ship in the fleet. OMB calls this proposed mandate “burdensome.”
However, the White House budget office doesn’t go as far as threatening to veto the House defense bill over theses three Navy ship provisions it finds objectionable.
It remains to be seen how soon the Senate will take up the Pentagon authorization legislation. Levin wants the chamber to act before Congress breaks for its July 4th recess. However, hot-button items in it, such as a change to the Pentagon’s policy on gays in the military, could delay its passage.
The SASC-approved bill does attempt to help the Navy with its shipbuilding woes. For example, the legislation includes language intended to improve the “likelihood that shipbuilding programs will be successful” by “requiring that the Secretary of the Navy certify basic and functional designs are complete prior to starting construction of the first ship of a new shipbuilding program,” according to a bill summary.