Navy watches clock on littoral ship plan

The chief of naval operations says he's confident he has support on Capitol Hill for plans to buy two versions of the service's Littoral Combat Ship, but he acknowledged that it will be a challenge to obtain congressional authorization to do so by mid-December.

The Navy announced on Nov. 3 that it wants to abandon its winner-take-all approach for the next 10 shallow-water warships and instead award a contract for 10 vessels apiece to the two competitors, Lockheed Martin and Austal USA.

But the Navy needs Congress to give it the go-ahead by Dec. 14, when the firms' current proposals for the lucrative shipbuilding contract expire.

"I know procedurally there is probably some challenge there," Adm. Gary Roughead told National Journal this weekend. "But the fact of the matter is, it really is an incredible, incredible opportunity with regard to locking in the prices on 20 ships."

Roughead, who was interviewed on a flight back to Washington from Wilmington, N.C., where he attended the commissioning of the newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, said he could not think of any other shipbuilding program that was able to get a firm commitment up front for so many ships.

Under original plans for the program, Lockheed and Austal had been expected to continue ship construction through at least fiscal 2011. Each has been building ships based on different designs at different shipyards, with Lockheed Martin using a yard in Marinette, Wis., and Austal doing the work in Mobile, Ala.

But after LCS costs more than doubled since its inception less than a decade ago, the Navy last year decided on a radical overhaul of its plan to get the high-profile program back on track.

The Navy's new plan, announced in 2009, was to inject competition into the program by requiring both teams to compete for the $5 billion contract for the next 10 ships. In fiscal 2012, the Navy had said it would hold another competition to award a contract for five more ships of the same design.

After the first 15 ships, the shipbuilders would continue to compete for ships throughout the life of the program, which will total 55 ships, under this plan.

Now, however, the Navy says the competition has already cut program costs. But the latest plan to award both contractors 10 ships merits congressional authorization, officials have said.

Lawmakers, including Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member John McCain, R-Ariz., have demanded more information as recently as last week. On Tuesday, McCain, who had been extremely critical of the program's past cost overruns, said the Navy has to have a "strong reason" to change its procurement strategy now.

But Roughead and other Navy officials have been reaching out to lawmakers -- including a discussion between the four-star chief and McCain on Thursday -- to build support on Capitol Hill for their change of plans.

Roughead, a former chief of Navy legislative liaison operations who is well-respected by lawmakers in both chambers, said he has been fielding questions. In general, he said, lawmakers have been receptive -- and "in some quarters, very receptive" -- to splitting the 20-ship contract award.

The Navy believes that the offers are so good, and the benefits of competition so great, that it will override any costs or other logistical issues incurred by having two ships for coastal warfare missions.

"That was an area that I looked at very carefully because I wanted to make sure that, 10 years from now, somebody wasn't going to look back and say, 'What the heck was that guy thinking?' " Roughead said.

Aside from locking in a price on the next 20 ships, there are other benefits to having two ship designs in the program -- including the ability to do a wider set of missions. The Lockheed LCS, for instance, is believed to have better features for supporting small-boat operations, while the Austal ship may be better suited for supporting helicopter and unmanned aerial vehicle missions.

"Both are called LCS, both can easily do the LCS mission," Roughead said. "But they're very different designs."

The admiral would not elaborate on how he envisions using the ships differently or on the specific prices and cost savings realized by the Navy's new approach, because without congressional approval, the service will have to award one contract to one of the firms.

With the clock ticking down to Dec. 14, it appears Congress has a few legislative options at its disposal. Lawmakers could approve the Navy's revised procurement strategy as a stand-alone bill, similar to the legislation pushed through both chambers earlier this fall to authorize a cost-saving multiyear procurement deal for the Navy's F/A-18E/F Super Hornet fighter jets and EA-18G Growler electronic attack aircraft.

Alternatively, lawmakers could use a continuing resolution or an omnibus spending bill as a vehicle to allow the new LCS approach to proceed, or try to attach language to the fiscal 2011 defense authorization bill.

But the authorization measure is stalled in the Senate, and the prospects for the bill's final passage by Dec. 14 are uncertain.

"I think all those options ... are obviously things that we have been discussing," Roughead said. "As a former chief of legislative affairs, I never try to opine as to what I think Congress should do, because that [decision is] really theirs."