When it comes to Capitol Hill, all the military services play budget games. Politicians are getting more vocal about the Navy, in particular, however. Members are dismayed by a lack of candor, straightforwardness, and timeliness when it comes to long-range shipbuilding plans.

“[Is] today the day you’re going to come before
Congress and actually tell us what we need and why?” Rep. Elaine Luria
(D-VA) said she often jokingly asks of the Chief of Naval Operations Admiral
Michael Gilday.

But few are laughing. Indeed, members of Congress are signaling deep discontent in salty report language accompanying the defense policy bill for this fiscal year.

The armed services committees express ongoing
concern about the Navy’s inadequate plans for a next-generation destroyer. This
comes even though the current multi-year purchasing contract for Arleigh Burke
destroyers (DDGs) ends this year.

Yet the Navy has no plan for buying the follow-on ships even though they’re needed for many good reasons. It’s the latest in a series of “self-inflicted wounds,” such as the last-scrapped would-be successor to the Burke, the DDG-1000 Zumwalt destroyer, according to Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-WI).

As if a lack of preparation were not enough,
Congress said it’s even more egregious given the Navy’s budget request this
year cut a planned destroyer and therefore violated a current contract. This
breach will cost taxpayers over $33 million for no reason and delay higher ship
counts “during a period of increasing demand, particularly in countering threats
from China and Russia.”

Congress long ago rejected a “one shipyard acquisition strategy” for destroyers. A “winner take all” approach between the two yards building destroyers would permanently put one shipbuilder out of business before the new combatant is out of design stages and ready to be built.

For reasons unknown (as in, it shouldn’t be necessary to state such obvious knowable facts again to Navy leaders), the Hill reminds service planners that the “absence of a proper overlap plan [for destroyers] may adversely impact both the Navy’s overall shipbuilding numbers and the associated shipyard’s ability to adjust their production line accordingly.”

In the same report language, Congress demands a smooth transition from Arleigh Burke destroyer production to its successor. The committee is telling the sea service in no uncertain terms that the transition to the DDG(X) should “implement some type of overlap shipbuilding schedule, which would mitigate shipbuilding issues related to stops in lead ship build design and construction.”

Again, Rep. Luria on budget games: “We all know in this room that the only ship that is built on time, on budget, on schedule right now are DDGs, so why would we only request to build one?”

Navy, are you listening?

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