The Navy and Marine Corps would not be able to meet requirements for fiscal 2013 if Congress extends a continuing resolution through the remainder of the year rather than passes an appropriations bill, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus recently warned.
The current continuing resolution that runs through March locks the Navy and Marines Corps into lower fiscal 2012 spending levels for operations and maintenance (O&M) accounts despite the services taking on increasing responsibilities, which drains on resources, Mabus said in an internal memo distributed Friday.
Mabus said the decision earlier this month by Congress to delay sequestration by two months until the end of February forces the Navy and Marines to shift toward preparing for the downfalls that could arise if another continuing resolution (CR) is enacted.
“Because sequestration was delayed, our focus must now shift to the impacts of the CR, which creates significant shortfalls in operation & maintenance…, Mabus said. “Unless a spending bill is passed quickly by the new Congress, we may be forced to operate under the same CR that has been sustaining us since the beginning of the fiscal year,” which was Oct. 1.
“Should Congress decide to extend the CR through the end of FY-13, the Navy and Marine Corps would not have enough money to meet FY-13 requirements in these (O&M) accounts,” he said. Another CR would leave the two services $4 billion short in the baseline O&M accounts, he said.
The memo said that given the uncertainty, the Navy and Marine Corps “must enact prudent, but stringent belt-tightening measures” for maintaining operations in the event of an extended CR. Those include, among others, scaling back administrative support services, travel and modernization.
“These steps will not solve the problem completely. We will only be able to sustain current fleet operations,” Mabus said. “We will not be able to sufficiently maintain and reset our forces for future operations.”