By Emelie Rutherford
As dozens of lawmakers from both chambers and parties lobby President-elect Barack Obama to boost shipbuilding funding, a powerful congressional budget writer said their goal to budget 12 Navy ships per year is too optimistic.
“I think 10 is what we need,” House Appropriations Defense subcommittee (HAC-D) Chairman John Murtha (D-Pa.) told Defense Daily about the annual buy of Navy ships needed to increase the fleet.
Murtha said he hopes bumps with Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program smooth out, thus allowing the nation to purchase more of the relatively affordable ships as part of a 10- vessel yearly buy–more ships than have been annually requested by the Bush administration or built in recent years.
“If the LCSs get worked out, we’ll have 10 a year,” Murtha said yesterday, the first day of the new two-year congressional session.
The lawmakers backing a 12-ship annual buy, meanwhile, said they will continue pushing the message that number of ships is needed to help the Navy reach its goal of boosting its fleet from 283 to 313 vessels, and that Obama also should support a robust budget for building other military and commercial vessels, in part to bolster the shipbuilding manufacturing base.
This stance was described to Obama’s transition team in two letters, including one, dated Dec. 10, sent by Reps. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) and Rob Wittman (R-Va.), co-chairs of the Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus; The 41 other signers include HAC-D members Reps. Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.), Steven Rothman (D-N.J.), and Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio.).
A comparable letter was sent Dec. 17 from Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) and the ranking Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and Mary Landrieu (D-La.), a member of the Senate Appropriations homeland security subcommittee; Its 16 co-signers include Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Seapower subcommittee, and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), ranking member on the Senate Appropriations Committee (Defense Daily, Dec. 18).
The Obama administration will submit a proposed fiscal year 2010 Pentagon budget early this year.
Taylor, the chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee, would like Obama to include shipbuilding funding in the forthcoming economic stimulus bill the future president is crafting.
“If the president-elect is talking about building things in the economic stimulus, which he is, (an option for) doing that is rebuilding the Navy fleet,” Taylor told Defense Daily yesterday. Of course, Taylor added, “When he puts in his defense request I would hope he keeps these things in mind.”
Wittman, a Seapower subcommittee member, told Defense Daily that he expects to talk to House members this week, the first week of the new congressional session, about factoring shipbuilding support into the economic-stimulus package.
“We’re going to make sure that it’s at least part of the conversation with the president-elect’s office in determining what’s to be in the economic stimulus package,” Wittman said.
“If we’re talking about kick-starting the economy, we’re talking about building infrastructure and those sort of things, we might be able to talk about shipbuilding as part of that stimulus package, again to create jobs,” he added. He argued the country would do well to buy steel now for Navy ships, while the metal’s price is low.
Beyond the economic stimulus legislation, he said the larger goal is to impress upon the new administration that spending on Navy ships should increase from roughly $14 billion each year up to $20 billion.
“This would just be a real shot in the arm to our manufacturing base, in addition to meeting the strategic needs of this country,” Wittman said. “So I think it’s a win-win, and I think we make a pretty compelling argument to the president-elect and his team, and I am cautiously optimistic that since it’s coming from people on both sides of the aisle, that they will look at this very seriously.”
The Taylor-Wittman and Collins-Landrieu letters were written in response to a resolution passed at the American Shipbuilding Association’s last annual convention.
“I was very pleased that I was able to secure such a strong number of senators from both parties to put the shipbuilding issue on the radar with the upcoming administration,” Collins told reporters Monday.
In addition, HASC Seapower subcommittee member Rep. Joseph Courtney (D-Conn.) sent Obama a letter dated Dec. 30 seeking continued support for the Virginia-class submarine program when the new administration scours the budget for savings. Courtney’s letter is co-signed by 27 House members, including HAC-D Vice Chairman Norm Dicks (D- Wash.).
The missive notes Congress’ support for doubling production of Virginia-class submarines to two per year starting in 2011, a year ahead of the Navy’s previous schedule.
“As we make difficult choices about military spending priorities, we cannot lose sight of the need to ensure that our submarine force is able to fulfill our security needs both now and in the future,” Courtney’s letter says. “To this end, we urge your strong support for the continued investment in the Virginia-class submarine program and the continued acceleration of the build rate to two submarines a year.”
How Obama’s administration will approach shipbuilding funding remains to be seen.
A defense fact sheet on his transition team’s Web site states cites the need to “recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century.”
“Obama and (Vice President-Elect Joseph) Biden will add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore and invest in smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore and the reach to rapidly deploy Marines to global crises,” the defense fact sheet states.
A separate Obama campaign defense plan–updated shortly before the Nov. 4, 2008 election–also cites his desire to “ensure the maximum interoperability between the Navy and the Coast Guard,” “prioritize fixing the naval acquisitions system,” “work to maintain the shipbuilding design and industrial bases,” and “support increased R&D for naval forces.”