The Virginia-class attack submarine Pre-Commissioning Unit Minnesota (SSN 783) pulls pierside at Naval Station Norfolk from a scheduled underway. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Alex R. Forster/Released)
WASHINGTON — Lawmakers are rebuking the Navy for negotiating a plan with industry to bolster the Virginia-class submarine program’s industrial base without, they say, informing either Capitol Hill or the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), potentially putting in jeopardy the service’s recent supplemental funding request.
“We are concerned with the lack of transparency that has occurred between the Navy and Congress over the last 18 months,” lawmakers wrote in an explanatory statement accompanying a compromise version of the next defense policy bill published over the weekend.
“The Navy negotiated a funding strategy with industry that would have addressed cost growth, future cost to complete, workforce wage increases and infrastructure investments at both shipyards,” the statement continues, referring to General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding, where Virginias are produced. “The Navy did this in isolation and failed to not only inform Congress but also the Office of Management and Budget.”
The statement goes on to reference the Navy’s $5.7 billion supplemental funding request to address shortfalls in the program that the OMB sent to lawmakers last month. That plan “will require an undisclosed amount of additional appropriations above the future years’ estimates in the president’s budget for fiscal year 2025,” according to the explanatory statement.
Lawmakers said the Navy failed to alert them to the “large cost growth” on the submarines in question, and the service’s “lack of communication” leaves “Congress with few options to address this situation and likely none that will rectify it going forward.”
Breaking Defense has reached out to the Navy for comment.
As it is, the compromise NDAA language authorizes $3.9 billion for Virginia-class program procurement, $357 million above the president’s budget request. That money will need to be matched by congressional appropriators before it makes it to the Navy.
The statement’s inclusion in the explanatory text means it has the backing of both chambers of Congress and defense-oriented lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — a veritable warning shot across the bow for Navy brass who remain in place when the new administration takes power in January. It comes just weeks after OMB sent an emergency supplemental to lawmakers that would shore up the production for three Virginia-class submarines, as well as provide authorities to keep the Columbia-class submarine program on track in the event of a continuing resolution.
“Our Virginia-class fast attack submarine program is not where it needs to be right now. The program and the shipyards are not producing submarines at the rate that our national security strategy and the national defense strategy require,” a senior Navy official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters at the time.
Additionally, that funding would be used to boost wages at General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding.
