House defeat sends Navy submarine fleet toward budget uncertainty

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A bipartisan group of House lawmakers tried and failed this week to get the chamber on board with a $1 billion plan to reverse the shrinking of the Navy’s attack submarine fleet and counter China’s growing undersea menace.

In the end, concerns over the price tag sank the 2019 defense budget proposal and kicked any debate over buying more of the Virginia-class subs into the future.

“I know we are behind in submarines. We need to do that. I completely agree with that but not this way and not now,” Rep. Kay Granger, R-Texas, who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, told the Washington Examiner.

The Pentagon is now flush with cash as Congress rolls out the second and final year of a budget agreement to hike defense spending and rebuild the military services. But the outlook for next year’s defense budget remains deeply uncertain.

Spending caps set by the Budget Control Act in 2011 are set to return and could cut deep into Pentagon programs such as sub procurement. With no new overarching deal to raise the caps, Congress has no idea whether it will have more funding for the subs or how much.

“If you are going to [buy more subs], you also plan for it. Until we know what our [topline defense funding] number’s going to be we really don’t know what we’re planning for,” Granger said.

Without a budget deal, Rep. Pete Visclosky, D-Ind., the ranking member on Granger’s subcommittee, warned that the coming caps could cause “great disruption” for the military by slashing $71 billion from the $675 billion funding in the House’s 2019 defense appropriations bill passed on Thursday.

“I know senior leaders in the Pentagon are not taking chances and have begun to identify programs to cut in 2020 that will carry the least associated risk for the warfighter if these caps are not adjusted,” Visclosky said on the House floor.

The failed $1 billion budget proposal floated this week by Reps. Rob Wittman, R-Va., and Joe Courtney, D-Conn., who lead the House Armed Services seapower subcommittee, would have provided advanced funding to bump up annual nuclear-powered attack sub purchases from two to three in 2022. The subs are manufactured by Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and General Dynamics Electric Boat in Connecticut.

The budget amendment was defeated in a 267-144 floor vote on Thursday. Most Republicans and about half of Democrats voted against it.

The Pentagon played an important role in the defeat, according to Granger.

Deputy Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan sent a letter to lawmakers Monday that said the amendment would force the military to cut $6 billion from other ship programs for destroyers, oilers and fast frigates.

“Going forward, I will continue to advocate for this funding as I don’t want to look back and think we could have done something and we didn’t,” Wittman said in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

The Navy is negotiating a new purchase contract called Block V and could finalize an agreement this year.

That means the window for adding boats to the agreement is closing and any purchases approved by Congress in future budgets will likely be more expensive, Courtney told the Washington Examiner.

Courtney said he was frustrated the amendment did not pass but that the House’s version of the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act still includes language that could allow the Navy to negotiate for more subs. The final details of that bill must still be negotiated by the House and Senate.

“In NDAA we are going to try to keep legal authority out there as a signal that we’re still interested in taking advantage of a larger block buy but we’ll see how it unfolds. Obviously my amendment would have really enhanced that opportunity,” he said.

Wittman and Courtney argued that China is rushing ahead with its own sub construction and is set to outnumber the U.S. fleet by 70 to 41 over the next decade, partly because the Navy is retiring its Los Angeles-class submarines more quickly than it is building the newer Virginia-class subs.

“There’s a math problem here. When you’re retiring Los Angeles-class at a faster clip than two a year then you’re ending up with a net smaller fleet and that doesn’t align itself with what the strategic needs are out there from the combatant commanders,” Courtney said.

Two of the Navy’s former top officers wrote letters to Congress warning that the military’s underseas superiority is being threatened and urged passage of the legislation.

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