The Army would see an impact of at least $6 billion to programs if it has to operate under a six-month continuing resolution, the service’s civilian leader said Tuesday.
Army Secretary Christine Wormuth specified that a CR extending into early spring would delay or disrupt eight to 10 new procurement starts, around six planned production rate increases and 22 military construction projects.
“I think it’s important to not lose sight of the fact that every time we go into a CR, we’re essentially spending the money we have much less efficiently. And a time when we are dealing with the pacing challenge of China [and] supporting Ukraine against Russia, it makes no sense to spend taxpayer dollars inefficiently,” Wormuth said during a discussion at the Politico Defense Summit.
Wormuth’s comments arrive as the Army has already operated for nearly a month-and-a-half under the current CR and with Congress having only a few days left to pass another stopgap funding measure to avoid a government shutdown.
“And if we go to a shutdown, which I hope we don’t and I hope if it happened it would be brief, our uniform folks could keep working but all of our Department of Army civilians, that provide services at installations around the country and overseas, won’t be coming to work. All of our civilian instructors at places like West Point or Army War College in Pennsylvania won’t be able to teach classes. And that’s going to have real impacts on our students and our families who rely on those services,” Wormuth said on Tuesday.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has proposed a two-step, or “laddered,” CR measure that would temporarily fund a handful of agencies and programs, such as those covered by Military Construction-VA, Agriculture, Energy-Water and Transportation-HUD spending bills, until Jan. 19 and all remaining agencies and programs, to include defense, until Feb. 2 (Defense Daily, Nov. 13).
Another CR, which restricts the Pentagon from starting new programs or initiating production rate increases, is required to allow Congress additional time to complete work on passing final FY ’24 appropriations bills.
Wormuth said the Army would likely start to feel the impact of the CR on modernization programs if the government has to operate under a stopgap funding measure for longer than six months.
“We’ve sadly learned to adapt our business practices to manage through these more short-term CRs. I think, heaven forbid, if we went closer to a year-[long] continuing resolution then, yes, some of our new modernization programs would be significantly disrupted,” Wormuth said.
A six-month CR would also negatively impact the Army’s organic industrial base, Wormuth added, as the service continues efforts to ramp up production of critical munitions to replenish its own stockpiles and meet international partners’ requirements.
“We are budgeted to spend over $2 billion on the Army’s organic industrial base this year and some of that money would be disrupted. So, yes, I think we would see some slowdowns,” Wormuth said.
Wormuth on Tuesday also urged Congress to consider the White House’s $106 billion supplemental spending request, noting the Ukraine aid included in the package is required to continue weapons assistance efforts as DoD is “running out of drawdown authority” (Defense Daily, Oct. 20).
“We need the supplemental from Congress to be able to continue increasing both the speed of our production, the volume of our production and us being able to buy back equipment that we’re giving away,” Wormuth said. “If those supplemental resources don’t keep coming, we’re not going to be able to continue to ramp up.”
Doug Bush, the Army’s top acquisition official, told reporters last week the $3.1 billion in the supplemental request to boost 155mm artillery ammunition production is required to ensure the service can meet its aim to build 100,000 such rounds per month by late 2025 (Defense Daily, Nov. 8).