May 11, 2005
House panel adds three ships to defense budget
By William Matthews
Times staff writer
A House subcommittee voted May 11 to add $2.3 billion and three ships to the 2006 defense budget.
The projection forces subcommittee unanimously approved adding two DDG-51 destroyers and a T-AKE dry cargo ship to the $419.3 billion defense budget that President Bush requested from Congress for 2006.
The extra ships, added during a brief markup” of the subcommittee’s portion of the 2006 defense authorization bill, will cost an additional $3.3 billion. Subcommittee staffers said $1 billion has been trimmed from a variety of other defense programs under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction.
The president’s budget called for buying only four new ships in 2006. Lawmakers have criticized the number as “an all-time low.” Bush’s spending plan includes money for one Virginia-class attack submarine, one amphibious transport, a littoral combat ship and a cargo vessel.
That’s not enough ship construction to keep U.S. shipyards alive, House subcommittee members said. The extra three ships provide “an opportunity to use the work force that we will need in the future” to build ships, said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., subcommittee chairman.
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., emphasized that the ships are needed so the United States can continue “projecting a strong naval presence around the world.”
In addition to adding ships to the budget, the subcommittee voted to establish a $100 million Shipbuilding Industrial Base Improvement Program under which the U.S. government will buy advanced shipbuilding technology for shipyards.
Taylor said subcommittee members “were taken aback” when they visited European shipyards and discovered that they were more technically advanced than those in the United States. “It should not be that way,” he said.
But U.S. shipyard owners do not want to invest in advanced technology because of the year-to-year uncertainty of the shipbuilding budget of their only customer — the U.S. government.
So the government will buy advanced equipment and provide it to the shipyards, Taylor said.
If the yards ever land commercial work, they will have to lease the equipment from the government to avoid violating international regulations against government subsidies, he said.
Bartlett said the DD(X) destroyer was a central player in the president’s 2006 budget request.
The ship is most prominent in the 2006 budget by its absence. Bartlett said the ship has become increasingly complicated as new technology has been added to it. It has grown from 8,000 tons to 14,000 tons and from less than $1 billion to “pushing $4 billion.”
As a result, the ship is late in development, and the number of ships the Navy can afford has dropped to five.
“Essentially, it is a technology demonstration program” whose technology has not yet matured, Bartlett said.
The DD(X)’s problems led the subcommittee to add two DDG-51s to the budget, he said.
Markups by House and Senate Armed Services committees continue. The Senate’s markup sessions are closed to the public.
The next step is action on the 2006 Authorization Act by the full House and Senate committees. A vote by the House committee is scheduled for May 18 and a vote by the full House could come the following week.
House panel adds three ships to defense budget
By William Matthews
Times staff writer
A House subcommittee voted May 11 to add $2.3 billion and three ships to the 2006 defense budget.
The projection forces subcommittee unanimously approved adding two DDG-51 destroyers and a T-AKE dry cargo ship to the $419.3 billion defense budget that President Bush requested from Congress for 2006.
The extra ships, added during a brief markup” of the subcommittee’s portion of the 2006 defense authorization bill, will cost an additional $3.3 billion. Subcommittee staffers said $1 billion has been trimmed from a variety of other defense programs under the subcommittee’s jurisdiction.
The president’s budget called for buying only four new ships in 2006. Lawmakers have criticized the number as “an all-time low.” Bush’s spending plan includes money for one Virginia-class attack submarine, one amphibious transport, a littoral combat ship and a cargo vessel.
That’s not enough ship construction to keep U.S. shipyards alive, House subcommittee members said. The extra three ships provide “an opportunity to use the work force that we will need in the future” to build ships, said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., subcommittee chairman.
Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., emphasized that the ships are needed so the United States can continue “projecting a strong naval presence around the world.”
In addition to adding ships to the budget, the subcommittee voted to establish a $100 million Shipbuilding Industrial Base Improvement Program under which the U.S. government will buy advanced shipbuilding technology for shipyards.
Taylor said subcommittee members “were taken aback” when they visited European shipyards and discovered that they were more technically advanced than those in the United States. “It should not be that way,” he said.
But U.S. shipyard owners do not want to invest in advanced technology because of the year-to-year uncertainty of the shipbuilding budget of their only customer — the U.S. government.
So the government will buy advanced equipment and provide it to the shipyards, Taylor said.
If the yards ever land commercial work, they will have to lease the equipment from the government to avoid violating international regulations against government subsidies, he said.
Bartlett said the DD(X) destroyer was a central player in the president’s 2006 budget request.
The ship is most prominent in the 2006 budget by its absence. Bartlett said the ship has become increasingly complicated as new technology has been added to it. It has grown from 8,000 tons to 14,000 tons and from less than $1 billion to “pushing $4 billion.”
As a result, the ship is late in development, and the number of ships the Navy can afford has dropped to five.
“Essentially, it is a technology demonstration program” whose technology has not yet matured, Bartlett said.
The DD(X)’s problems led the subcommittee to add two DDG-51s to the budget, he said.
Markups by House and Senate Armed Services committees continue. The Senate’s markup sessions are closed to the public.
The next step is action on the 2006 Authorization Act by the full House and Senate committees. A vote by the House committee is scheduled for May 18 and a vote by the full House could come the following week.
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