Navy, Marine Corps Unfunded Lists Draw Appropriators’ Gaze

The military’s “unfunded” lists have gone to Capitol Hill. The military services deliver their unfunded priorities lists to Congress each year, highlighting the disparity between their true funding needs and the annual Pentagon budget submission.

The lists, which detail projected shortfalls in the forthcoming fiscal year, are an unofficial Washington ritual driven by the venerable ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Ike Skelton, D-Mo., who calls on the service chiefs to submit their unfunded requirements shortly after the administration’s budget is sent to Congress in February.

The lists are often disparaged among senior Pentagon leaders, but they never fail to attract attention from certain lawmakers with a stake in the department’s myriad funding programs.

Last month, the Navy and Marine Corps revealed a combined $3.83 billion shortfall in 2005 funding for critical programs, one of which piqued the interest of Republican Sen. Thad Cochran, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.

The Mississippi senator’s constituency gives him a vested interest in naval and maritime projects, including the Navy’s planned LHA(R) amphibious assault ship, for which the service identified a $250 million shortfall in 2005. During a subcommittee hearing last month, Cochran took issue with the funding gap and the effect it will have on the LHA(R), which is slated for delivery in 2013. Cochran told the Navy’s top two officials he was worried the construction delay would increase the cost of the program and potentially jeopardize its future, which observers expect to involve Ingalls Shipbuilding, Pascagoula, Miss., where the Navy has historically built its amphibious warships.

Gordon R. England, Secretary of the Navy, said his plan to begin construction of the ship in 2007 had slipped by one year due to lack of funds. He explained the Navy is required to fully fund the program in any given year, and that, “frankly, we did not have the resources to do that.”

Cochran said the delay could harm the U.S. shipbuilding industrial base, which has been hit hard by the Navy’s post-Cold War transformation and a decline in the number of ships it plans to acquire.

“It does leave us with a problem right now in terms of the yard, because we would like to start at least advance procurement,” England said.

In addition to the LHA(R), the Navy needs $141 million to replace Tactical Tomahawks expended in Iraq and $23 million to move intelligence information faster and to deploy more linguists to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s $401.7 billion budget for 2005 did not include money to cover costs associated with ongoing operations in those countries.

Relying on the Kindness Of Congressional Appropriators

Other lawmakers with pet projects include Senate Majority Whip Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican concerned with the Navy Department’s reliance on congressional adds to fund modernization of its lightweight, large-caliber Mk45 gun. Overhaul of the naval surface ship gun takes place at an ordnance station in Louisville, Ky., a depot that was privatized in 1996 and distributed between United Defense, Hughes Missile System Co., the local government, and a small federal workforce.

“The Navy’s request today contains no provision for Mk45 gun modification,” McConnell said during a hearing last month.

The Mk45 is designed to hit shore targets. Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee told McConnell the Marines “like that gun,” but that while the service’s near-term precision naval surface fire support is inadequate, it can’t afford to pay for its modernization. Naval precision fires are an essential part of the service’s power projection capabilities. In addition to the Mk45, efforts to upgrade these capabilities include development of an advanced gun system (AGS) and extended-range guided munitions.

During the hearing, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark backed Hagee, asserting, “I do not have all the resources I’d like to have.” But he noted that even with the forthcoming AGS, “we expect this gun is going to be around for a long time.”

UAV Quandary: To Compete, Or Not to Compete?

Top Navy officials say they may compete a contract for the service’s maritime surveillance drone, though the Navy already is planning to use two Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to demonstrate its broad area maritime surveillance (BAMS) capability.

England is considering whether to sole-source the BAMS UAV to Northrop Grumman Corp., which makes the long-range, high-altitude Global Hawk. An alternative is to compete the contract among a variety of UAV manufacturers. Any competition is sure to garner attention from Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Defense Subcommittee, who is proud of the Coast Guard’s recent success in using General Atomics’ Predator B drone for maritime border patrol off the coast of his state.

However, if the Navy did choose Global Hawk it could cash in on joint research and development with the Air Force, a concept not lost on Air Force Secretary James Roche, a former Northrop executive, and Chief of Staff Gen. John Jumper. Both men urged the service to consider a sole source for Global Hawk in February letters to their Navy counterparts.

V-22 Software Problem Could Affect Test Schedule

Stevens is keeping a close eye on the V-22 Osprey’s testing after flight restrictions were put on several aircraft in December. Stevens, who has flown in one of the Marine Corps’ next-generation tiltrotor aircraft, asked Hagee during a subcommittee hearing last month whether the V-22 flight restrictions would delay ongoing tests of the aircraft.

“On the operational test, we’re not quite sure on that,” Hagee said, adding that by April or May the Marines would have a better feel for the impact of the software problem that caused Osprey No. 10 to experience yawing during a flight in December. “We haven’t come to complete closure on how to solve that,” Hagee said. “We are very confident that we can.”

House Panel Piles on Funds To Coast Guard’s Deepwater

Last month, a House subcommittee approved $1.1 billion for the Coast Guard’s Deepwater program in the Coast Guard Authorization Act for fiscal year 2005. Deepwater involves modernizing or replacing ships, aircraft and communications equipment. The contract — worth $17 billion over 20 years — was awarded in 2002 to Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS), which is responsible for delivering an integrated system of assets to meet Coast Guard requirements.

The Coast Guard authorization had originally included $858 million for Deepwater — roughly $180 million over the administration’s 2005 budget request — but Coast Guard & Maritime Transportation subcommittee chairman Rep. Frank LoBiondo, R-N.J., offered an amendment passed by voice vote that increased Deepwater funds to $1.1 billion. The panel fully funded the research and development budget request at $18.5 million, but LoBiondo emphasized the money was intended solely for the Coast Guard.

The House panel also included $35 million for a new Pacific-based helicopter squadron, a measure not included in the Coast Guard’s request, and added $75 million for Lockheed Martin’s HC-130J maritime patrol aircraft, along with another $89 million for non-Deepwater programs. But it is unclear what the added $422 million will pay for within Deepwater.

At presstime, the measure was slated to go to the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure.

GAO Says Coast Guard Mismanaging Deepwater

Meanwhile, more than a year-and-a-half into the Deepwater contract, the Coast Guard is failing to properly manage the program, according to a February report by the General Accounting Office (GAO).

As the research arm of Congress, GAO was asked by Sen. Ernest “Fritz” Hollings, D-S.C., the ranking minority member on the Senate Commerce Committee, to look at the Coast Guard’s management of the contract and assess its use as a model for future competitions. GAO found that the integrated product teams, the Coast Guard’s primary tool for overseeing ICGS, are struggling to collaborate and hampered by changing membership, understaffing, insufficient training and inadequate communication among members. The Coast Guard has also not fully addressed the frequent turnover of personnel in the program and the transition from existing service assets to Deepwater, the GAO report said.

Further, the Coast Guard’s original plan for measuring progress on an annual basis has slipped, and a time frame for when it will be able to hold the contractor accountable for progress against these goals has not been established. GAO said this is critical to the Coast Guard’s decision about whether to extend ICGS’s contract after the first five years.

In a Feb. 11 response to the GAO report, Coast Guard Adm. Patrick M. Stillman, the Deepwater program executive, said he felt the agency had mischaracterized the service’s ability to assess contractor performance. He disagreed with the context of GAO’s draft assertion that the Coast Guard had scored the contractor’s award fee at a level higher than was merited. Stillman said the award level was fair and accurately represented the contractor’s peformance.

The GAO’s summary, however, goes on to state that, “The Coast Guard welcomed GAO’s observations and concurred with GAO’s recommendations.”

And, indeed, Stillman’s letter states: “We appreciate the opportunity to share our lessons learned, successes and growing pains in an open environment as we continue to embrace the tenets of a successful learning organization.”

Navy to Study Options For Increasing Submarines

Concerned with the size of the Navy’s submarine fleet, Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, will be anxiously awaiting a new study that will examine options for buying more in the future. The Navy is currently acquiring only one new submarine a year and, despite the service’s requirement for 55, at that pace it will have only 30 by the end of the next decade.

Inouye, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, has said the best way to ensure the future of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, where the majority of the Pacific Fleet’s attack submarines are based, is to get more submarines based there.

England says the study will be part of the Navy’s fiscal year 2006 budget deliberations, but he emphasized during testimony before the subcommittee last month that the service is locked into a five-year, five-boat multiyear procurement process until near the end of this decade.

Tracy is Second Submariner To Command Cruiser Group

Rear Adm. Michael C. Tracy, who pinned on his second star last year while serving as director of the Navy Staff’s Submarine Warfare Division, is being assigned as commander, Cruiser Destroyer Group Two (USS Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group), based at Norfolk, Va. This is only the second time in more than 30 years that a submariner has held such a post.

In 1971, submariner Adm. Harry D. Train II commanded the USS John F. Kennedy battle group as commander of Cruiser Destroyer Flotilla 8. Tracy has served as commander, Navy Region Northeast/commander, Submarine Group Two, Groton, Conn., and as chief of staff for the commander of Submarine Force, U.S. Atlantic Fleet.

Reporting by Sea Power Correspondent Amy Svitak Klamper and Associate Editor Hunter C. Keeter.