Lawmaker to Navy: Cut new destroyers, build cruisers faster

House Armed Services Seapower Subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., Thursday proposed cutting the Navy's planned fleet of seven DDG-1000 destroyers to two hulls and instead speeding up production of the military's next-generation cruiser. Taylor's proposal, offered during a hearing with Navy officials, essentially would trade one hometown program for another. Taylor's southern Mississippi district includes Northrop Grumman's Pascagoula shipyard, one of two yards that build the DDG-1000. But the ship's $3 billion-plus price tag has concerned several lawmakers, including staunch shipbuilding advocates such as Taylor.

The Pascagoula yard is expected to build many of the Navy's CG(X) cruisers, which the Navy planned to base largely on the DDG-1000 platform. Under its funding and development plans, the Navy will not field the CG(X) for another decade. Limiting the DDG-1000 purchases to two ships -- a move that has the support of Seapower Subcommittee ranking member Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md. -- would essentially make the high-tech destroyer a technology test case for the next cruiser. Ending DDG-1000 production after the second ship would likely require the Navy to start production again on the DDG-51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, many of which were also built at Pascagoula.

Taylor also asked the Navy to consider enlarging the DDG-51 destroyer and making it a nuclear-powered vessel -- a move that essentially would make the DDG-51 the basis of the hull design for the CG(X).

"I'm not a marine engineer or a naval architect, but I'm not sure that that hull form can upscale to that," Chief of Naval Operations Gary Roughead said. Taylor and Bartlett, who have long urged the Navy to use nuclear power on its large ships to save fuel costs over the long-term, attached a provision to the fiscal 2008 defense authorization act mandating that the CG(X) be nuclear powered. The Navy, however, has bristled at the efforts, arguing that the up-front costs of nuclear power, which are estimated at between $600 million and $800 million per ship, could ultimately jeopardize other areas of the service's long-term shipbuilding plans.

Also Thursday, House Armed Services ranking member Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., warned the Navy against decreasing the aircraft carrier fleet from 11 ships to 10. Navy officials are urging Congress to temporarily waive a statutory requirement for 11 aircraft carriers to allow them to retire the USS Enterprise three years before the USS Gerald R. Ford joins the fleet in 2015. The Navy has said it would cost $2.2 billion annually to keep the Enterprise operational. But Hunter balked at their request and questioned whether the Gerald R. Ford would join the fleet on time.

"What I am beginning to conclude is that the Navy is not committed to 11 aircraft carriers and I fear that granting such a waiver will provide tacit approval to the Navy to further degrade its power projection capabilities," Hunter said. Taylor said he expected any proposal for a waiver to reduce the carrier fleet would be "dead on arrival" with the committee. But to gain congressional support for the carrier waiver, Taylor suggested the Navy consider an "alternate proposal" that would allow them to spend the $2.2 billion a year on other shipbuilding efforts, such as nuclear submarines or cruisers.