CQ TODAY: Navy Official Testifies That Carrier Maintenance Could Be Delayed Under CR

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Washington, Sep 13, 2012 - By John M. Donnelly, CQ Staff

The continuing resolution that the House is set to vote on this week does not, as currently written, fund a major Navy priority: nuclear refueling and overhaul work on two U.S. aircraft carriers.

The lack of funding to continue maintenance work on the USS Theodore Roosevelt and to begin work early next year on the USS Abraham Lincoln is “where our concern is greatest” about the bill, the Navy’s assistant secretary in charge of acquisition, Sean J. Stackley, said Tuesday at a House Armed Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations hearing.

He said a setback in the schedule of maintaining those carriers would create “havoc” in the form of delays to other programs at the yard that performs the work, Huntington Ingalls Industries’ Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia, and at its various subcontractors.

The funding could be added later by a subsequent act of Congress. But until it’s corrected, it could not only disrupt work at the critical facility but could ultimately delay the carriers’ availability for deployment.

The work is also important because the shipyard is one of the biggest employers in a state that could prove pivotal in November’s presidential and congressional elections. So how the matter is handled going forward could carry political resonance.

“I think it’s your testimony that this is really bad policy; it’s really bad for our country,” said Rep. Scott Rigell.  Rigell’s district is close to the shipyard.

The continuing resolution, or CR (H J Res 117), would fund federal programs for the first six months of fiscal 2013 at essentially the same level as fiscal 2012, with a less than 1 percent increase across the board. But new starts and increased funding are not permitted unless an “anomaly” is stipulated in the law allowing for them.

Defense, nuclear weapons and cybersecurity programs were among the categories of programs that were favored with several anomalies.

But the carrier work was not among them, despite the fact that it was “at the top of our priority list as an anomaly for the CR,” Stackley said.

Separately, Stackley said the Navy believes the stopgap spending bill would enable the Navy to move forward with plans to procure two new Virginia-class attack submarines in fiscal 2013. The boats are built at the Virginia yard and at the General Dynamics Electric Boat facility in Connecticut.