Lawmakers seek answers on fate of U.S. shipbuilding

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned the Navy's top civilian official on future shipbuilding plans during a hearing Thursday.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., told Navy Secretary Gordon England the service should consider waiting until the department completes its quadrennial defense strategy review later this year before deciding to reduce its aircraft carrier fleet from 12 to 11 ships as proposed in the Pentagon's FY06 defense budget.

England said the Navy's ability to put combat power forward using "better airplanes, better precision weapons and better intelligence" allows the Navy to "mothball" the USS John F. Kennedy and utilize a smaller carrier fleet. Warner noted that the previous defense review in 2001 indicated a need for 12 carriers. England said the decision to reduce the fleet was driven in part by budget constraints.

Warner also questioned England's response to Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who pressed England to conduct a study on converting the Kennedy's Florida home port into a nuclear-capable facility. England said he would make a decision on the study in the next week, but Warner maintained such a review should await the outcome of the Pentagon's 2005 round of military base closures.

England said the port study could be conducted independent of the base closure process, but Warner was unconvinced. He stressed it was important to maintain the integrity of the BRAC process. "By golly, I'm going to make sure the steps that both the executive branch and legislative branch follow are consistent with the law," Warner said.

Warner joined Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, in questioning the Navy's shipbuilding budget, particularly its plan to reduce the number of ships built each year. Together, the senators sought England's support for using creative budgeting -- including incremental funding, advance procurement and research and development money -- to pay for more ships.

England welcomed the idea, but emphasized that such actions would not necessarily lead to more ships. "At some point we still have to pay the full cost of those ships," he said.

Warner and Collins also questioned the Navy's plan to hold a new competition between two of the nation's largest shipyards to construct its next generation destroyer -- the DD(X). Both Collins and Warner said the plan could shut down one of the two yards, devastating the shipbuilding industrial base.

But England said the previous plan, which had the two yards alternately building the ships, would have been more costly than forcing the two yards to compete outright at the risk of going under.

"I believe we are on the right path in terms of competition," England said. "I don't have the authority to just subsidize" the two shipyards, he added. "But I do have the authority to compete the programs."

England said if the Navy could afford to build more than one ship per year it would make sense to have more than one large shipyard. But because the Navy is transforming to a lighter, leaner, faster and more agile force, the need for large and expensive ships will gradually lessen.

"Frankly, the Navy is changing and the industrial base will need to change with the Navy," England said.