New Shipbuilding Plan Underfunded, CBO Says
While the U.S. Navy intends to cut down on the number of ships it will purchase over the coming three decades, the service’s updated shipbuilding plans will require more money to support the fleet, according to a recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
CBO notes that the recent Navy 30-year shipbuilding report—issued in February and covering fiscal years 2011-40—contains “some significant changes in the Navy’s long-term goals for shipbuilding.”
The Navy now wants to buy about 20 fewer ships in the next three decades than it’s been saying for the past few years.
Testifying March 9 before the House Armed Services Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces subcommittee, Eric Labs, CBO senior analyst for naval forces and weapons, said: “The new plan appears to increase the required size of the fleet compared with earlier plans, while reducing the number of ships to be purchased—and thus the costs for ship construction—over the next three decades.”
Despite those reductions, Labs said, “the total costs of carrying out the 2011 plan would be much higher than the funding levels that the Navy has received in recent years.”
CBO’s estimates of the costs of the 2011 shipbuilding plan are about 18% higher than the Navy’s estimates overall.
“Language in the 2011 shipbuilding plan and in related briefings by the Navy implies that the service’s requirement for battle force ships . . . now totals 322 or 323—up from 313 in the Navy’s three previous long-term plans,” CBO notes.
The battle force fleet currently numbers 286 ships. The 2011 plan calls for buying a total of 276 ships over the 2011–40 period: 198 combat ships and 78 logistics and support ships.
“That construction plan is insufficient to achieve a 322- or 323-ship fleet,” CBO says.
The previous shipbuilding plan (for 2009) envisioned buying 40 more combat ships and 20 fewer support ships over 30 years, CBO notes.
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