Navy advocates see rough waters ahead
Virginia Republican says defense budgets have not been adequate to meet the needs of the Navy and Marine Corps.
Navy Secretary Ray Mabus, while refusing to talk about the fiscal 2011 defense budget, promised the Surface Navy Association Wednesday that he is "working to ensure that the surface Navy will have all the money it needs to fulfill its mission," and meet its training and maintenance needs.
Addressing a Navy and defense industry forum in Arlington, Va., Mabus focused on Navy efforts designed to reduce the cost of buying new ships. He promised the large number of industry representatives in the audience greater transparency and more stability in shipbuilding programs, and called on them to cut costs of the new ships.
"If costs continue to rise, we will not get the Navy we need," he said.
Speaking before Mabus, Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., said the defense budgets have not been adequate to meet the needs of the Navy and Marine Corps. Wittman represents a Tidewater district heavy in Navy and shipbuilding activities. He particularly faulted the shipbuilding budget he said was half of the $25 billion a year needed to build the 313-ship fleet the Navy wants.
"It's hard to believe 313 will become a reality anytime in the near future," Wittman said. Instead, "we're looking realistically at a 270-ship Navy," he said.
A member of the House Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee, Wittman said the panel's chairman, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., has been talking about boosting the annual shipbuilding account to $20 billion. Getting that much in the tight budget environment everyone expects would take "an extraordinary effort," he conceded.
Wittman also expressed concern about rumors the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is to be released next month, perhaps a few days before the fiscal 2011 budget, would call for cutting the Navy's aircraft carrier force "by one or two" from the current 11.
"That would not be considered lightly on the Hill," he said.
Whitman also said congressional defense committees would be unhappy if the Navy reversed the plan to start building two Virginia class attack submarines a year.
Adm. Thad Allen, Coast Guard commandant, also voiced concerns about the prospect of flat future budgets and the possible impact on his Deepwater modernization program, which is huge by Coast Guard standards.
"We can't stop recapitalization. Our cutters are too old," Allen told the audience.
Faced with a choice, Allen said the Coast Guard would prefer to curtail missions rather than cut its ship procurement program. Allen told reporters that would be an application of the risk-management process traditionally used to balance resources and needs.
Allen also repeated his warning that with the increasing activity in the Arctic due to the diminishing ice cap, the nation must make a decision soon on building icebreakers, to replace the two 30-year-old ships assigned to the job.