Dire words had not yet erupted into war when the looming conflict began to roil the budget-hearing season on Capitol Hill. For the second time in George W. Bush's presidential tenure, White House decisions played havoc with the traditional February-March series of congressional committee hearings into the proposed Navy budget. In 2001, Bush's hard look at Pentagon programming had delayed events by four months. In 2003, it was war with Iraq. Some hearings were pushed off because lawmakers were not available, others because admirals, generals, and senior Navy civilians were occupied with preparations for battle.
But one event went ahead as scheduled: the annual Capitol Hill symposium of the American Shipbuilding Association. It was held in late February, several weeks after the Bush administration released its fiscal year 2004 proposal to spend $114.7 billion on the Navy. The White House plan would purchase seven ships, but it would send even more into retirement.
The situation alarmed many at the ship-building industry function, who calculated that Navy plans would see the fleet slip well below 300 ships before it could begin to grow again in the uncertain future.
"We have come a very long way from President [Ronald] Reagan's 600-ship Navy," Representative Jo Ann Davis (R-VA) said sadly. But Pentagon and Navy officers and civilian officials who took to the Hill were more upbeat about their approach to modernizing, if not expanding, the fleet.
"The decommissioning is in fact to provide some money for building," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told the House Budget Committee on 27 February. "It's a conscious decision: if we go down now, we'll have some money to go up faster in the future.
"The Navy, for example, this year is retiring several quite usable surface ships early in order to save operating costs to invest in the Navy of the future," he said. "I think that was an absolutely sound judgment."
Within weeks, the country was at war with Iraq, and the congressional clamor over the shrinking fleet ebbed. At least for the moment, lawmakers' thoughts turned to questions of paying for combat operations instead of recapitalizing the fleet.
Aftermath of 11 September 2001
A year ago, Congress was working hard to pass the first federal budget of the post-11 September era. The White House had asked for $379 billion, including $108.3 billion for the Navy.
The spending plan included just $8.6 billion for five warships, the lowest annual total in many years: two Arleigh Burke (DDG-51)-class guided-missile destroyers, one Virginia (SSN-774)-class nuclear-powered attack submarine, one San Antonio (LPD-17)-class amphibious transport dock, and a Lewis and Clark (T-AKE-1)-class advanced auxiliary cargo ship. Two nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines would be converted into cruise missile launchers, and a single Los Angeles (SSN-688)-class nuclear-powered attack sub would be overhauled and refueled.
The small number of new ships dismayed lawmakers, who bring themselves to go along with the explanations by then-Secretary of the Navy Gordon England: that the money would be better spent to pay outstanding shipbuilding bills and put the service's financial house in order.
Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA) and Jeffrey Sessions (R-AL) pointedly suggested that the service reconsider its plans to save $1 billion by retiring 19 Spruance (DD-963)-class destroyers before the end of their planned service lives. The lawmakers, who run the Senate seapower subcommittee, maintained that keeping the fleet numbers up was more important than keeping the fleet up-to-date.
"You've got a big area to cover and at some point, you've got to have ships, no matter how modern or unmodern," Sessions told then-Commander of the Pacific Fleet Admiral Thomas Fargo at a late-April hearing to confirm the flag officer's appointment as Commander, U.S. Pacific Command. "You've got to have a ship on the scene."
Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), put it another way in a June op-ed piece: "Numbers do matter."
Still, the ship numbers remained steady, even as the spending total wavered from spring through summer and fall. On 9 May 2002, the House endorsed a $383 billion version of the 2003 authorization act. The bill would have provided the largest real increase to defense spending since 1966 and the largest defense budget (in inflation-adjusted terms) since fiscal year 1990, according to House Armed Services Committee staff. But the number was cut to $354.7 billion in the House, and the appropriations bill passed on 28 June.
The low shipbuilding rate moved Representative Davis to offer a solution of sorts. In July, she introduced a bill that would make it U.S. policy to build the fleet up to 375 ships "as soon as possible." The number came from the May suggestion by Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Vern Clark that a 375-ship Navy would be about right to meet anticipated threats with an acceptable level of risk. Representative Davis's bill attracted some attention but failed to make it out of Congress.
Finally, on 16 October 2002, both legislative houses overwhelmingly passed a $355.4 billion defense authorization bill for the fiscal year that had begun 15 days previously. The bill, passed 409-14 in the House and 93-1 in the Senate, boosted defense spending by $34.4 billion over the previous year.
Although lawmakers ultimately acceeded to the Navy's five-ship spending plan, they enclosed some parting shots in the conference report that accompanied the authorization bill. A clause inserted by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) demanded the Navy lay out its 30-year shipbuilding schedule in its upcoming 2004 budget request. The report also slammed the service's early-retirement plans for warships.
"Absent more immediate investment, the Defense Department will have to reduce the number or scope of missions assigned to Navy ships," the report said.
One last doubt remained. Congress, bowing to lobbying by veterans' groups, had inserted clauses to allow qualifying military retirees to draw pensions and Veterans Administration disability payments simultaneously. The veterans called the idea "concurrent receipt." The White House called it unwarranted double-dipping and had threatened to veto bills that contained such provisions.
But the President eventually relented and signed the authorization bill into law on 2 December.
The Next Carrier
Meanwhile, Representative Davis continued to agitate for shipbuilding—especially aircraft carriers. On 21 October, her office released a Defense Science Board report that recommended the Navy begin construction of CVNX-1, the next-generation aircraft carrier, as early as 2006. The 107-page report by the Pentagon advisory panel boosted the hopes of carrier supporters, who had not yet recovered fully from reports that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, though a former naval aviator, thought carriers might be too expensive for the 21st-century military. Rumsfeld had, in fact, proposed a one-year delay in starting construction on CVNX-1. Rumsfeld aide Steven Cambone even had suggested axing CVNX-1 and putting the money toward a CVNX-2 to be laid down no sooner than 2009.
Virginia lawmakers who represent the thousands of engineers, pipefitters, welders, and other workers at Virginia's Newport News Shipbuilding, the country's only shipyard capable of building nuclear-powered carriers, responded with an open letter to Secretary Rumsfeld.
"We urge the administration and the Department of Defense to take whatever budgetary steps are necessary" to start CVNX-1 construction on time, wrote Davis and Representative Robert C. Scott (D-VA) in the November letter.
The cause was a popular one on Capitol Hill; building the carrier, as the letter pointed out, would help pay the salaries of more than 28,000 workers in 41 states. Indeed, Congress had tucked into the soon-to-be passed 2003 budget proposal an extra $160 million, unrequested by the Bush administration, to keep the carrier on schedule.
The authors had collected more than 200 signatures from lawmakers and Hill staffers for the letter, which pointed out that if the ship's timeline slipped, the Navy could be left with just 11 carriers when the nuclear fuel of the Enterprise (CVN-65) ran low around 2013.
The letter also argued that delays to the work could make it more expensive, or even impossible, to maintain the skilled workforce that builds the giant ships.
The pleading may have hit the mark. After meetings with Navy leaders in early November, Secretary Rumsfeld declared himself more enthusiastic about the Navy's proposals to make the first carrier after CVN-77 much more advanced than previously proposed. The ship would have electromagnetic catapults, a more powerful nuclear reactor, and a stealthy hull.
In December, Navy officials revealed more details: the $10 billion ship would soon be renamed CVN-21, an echo of the DD-21 surface-ship concept that had itself recently been renamed DD(X). The carrier would be designed to carry an electromagnetic rail gun and enough automation to reduce the crew size from more than 2,000 to just 800. Construction would begin in 2007.
A New Congress
Just a few weeks after lawmakers finished their work on the 2003 defense budget bills, national elections tipped the balance of power in the Senate, giving the Republican party control of both legislative houses. Mississippi Senator Trent Lott (R-MS) ascended to the majority party's top Senate post, a move that promised to increase the flow of naval shipbuilding dollars to the Litton Ingalls yard in Pascagoula. But Lott stepped down from the job little more than a month later, after a furor erupted over his declaration that Mississippi was proud to have supported Strom Thurmond's 1948 presidential bid on a segregationist platform.
In January 2003, the 108th Congress convened, bringing new members aboard the House and Senate armed services committees. In the Senate, new faces included Jim Talent (R-MO), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), John Cornyn (R-TX), Hillary Clinton (D-NY), and Mark Pryor (D-AR).
In the House, they included Frank LoBiondo (R-NJ), Tom Cole (R-OK), Jeb Bradley (R-NH), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Michael Turner (R-OH), John Kline (R-MN), Candice Miller (R-MI), Phil Gingrey (R-GA), Mike Rogers (R-AL), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Jim Marshall (D-GA), Kendrick Meek (D-FL), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), and Rodney Alexander (D-LA).
In January, Representative Davis reintroduced her bill—similar to the failed bill in 2002—that would make it U.S. policy to build the fleet up to 375 ships "as soon as possible."
2004 Budget Proposal
The White House opened the 2004 budget season on 3 February, sending to Capitol Hill a $379.9-billion defense spending plan. The Navy department's slice was $114.7 billion, up about $3.5 billion and 3% over last year's request. (Larger increases were predicted for out-years; 4.6% a year until fiscal year 2009.)
The $115 billion would be split thus: $33 billion for operations and maintenance, $35 billion for personnel, and $46 billion for acquisition. At seven ships, the 2004 shipbuilding proposal was slightly richer than the previous year's; it included one Virginia-class submarine, three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, one San Antonio-class amphibious ship, and two Lewis and Clark-class dry cargo ships. It would also pay for the conversion of the final two nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines into SSGN nuclear-powered cruise-missile-and-SEAL-delivery boats. The budget proposal also outlined how the fleet would fall and rise in size in coming years: 292 in 2004, 291 in 2006, and back up to 305 in 2009.
On the aircraft side of the ledger, the 2004 plan would bring 42 F/A-18E/F Super Hornets; 2 E-2C Hawkeye early-warning aircraft; 9 V-22 Osprey transports; 13 MH-60S helicopters; 15 T-45TS jet trainers; 6 MH-60R helicopters; 9 UH-1Y/AH-1Z utility and attack helicopters; 2 UC-35 executive jets; and 1 C-40A airlifter.
Given a top line that barely outpaced inflation, Navy leaders had worked to wring savings out of existing programs. Some of their ideas included integrating Navy and Marine Corps tactical aircraft squadrons and operations, axing support for 50 kinds of weapons and computer systems, and eliminating 70,000 computer programs through standardization. The most controversial was the decommissioning of 11 ships—which would bring the fleet to 292 in fiscal year 2004—and the retirement of 70 aircraft. Lawmakers cried out that retiring ships made little sense when the fleet was shrinking. Sorry, Navy officials said, but we have to find money somewhere, and getting rid of aging, expensive warships and aircraft is how.
These savings, they explained, would free $1.9 billion, which would allow the service to boost its buy to 7 ships and 100 aircraft, which is 2 and 5 more than planned last year. It would also allow more research-and-development of CVN-21, DD(X), Joint Strike Fighter, the advanced Hawkeye, and the new Littoral Combat Ship.
Nontraditional Funding
But Navy officials wanted more than just money from Congress; the service wanted approval for several nontraditional methods of funding the research, development, construction, and purchase of warships. For example, the 2004 proposal would fund the construction of Virginia-class submarines across several years and pave the way toward a multi-year purchase of several of the subs. Both of these measures were intended to bring the skyrocketing price tags of the subs under control by ensuring the nuclear-powered sub shipyards of several years' worth of work.
Another example is the Navy's request for permission to fund the lead Littoral Combat Ship out of research-and-development funds, allowing the service to keep shipbuilding money for later ships. The idea, service officials suggested, was that the first ships in each class might be considered prototypes, which in the aerospace world are always funded by research funds.
Finally, Navy officials wanted the right to buy more ships in batches, the way Arleigh Burke destroyers had been for several years. All of these moves would help the Navy plan better and help them feed U.S. shipbuilders a steady diet of work, both of which should lower the cost and raise the yield of buying warships.
But Congress, which always has guarded its responsibility to approve federal expenditures each year, generally has been very wary of arrangements that commit taxpayer funds beyond the current fiscal year.
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) was dubious. "Of particular concern is the fact that this budget projects a Navy fleet of 290 ships by 2006—well below the 310-ship fleet characterized as a 'moderate risk'-sized fleet in the September 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review," Representative Hunter said at the committee's 26 February posture hearing on the Navy budget.
Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim rose to defend the plan a day later at the House Budget Committee hearing. "Clearly, multi-year works well for everyone, simply because it allows the corporate planners to have a sense of the labor force they're going to have and what they need to have on their order books from subcontractors and allows the Navy to plan," Zakheim told lawmakers. "It is an integral part of the plan that the deputy secretary just talked about that will start ramping us up above 300 ships in the out years."
Navy officials pounded that theme during the sporadic hearings held as the drums of war grew louder. "Shipbuilding, while not at the optimal 10 ships per year, represents a significant increase and a step in the proper direction," acting Secretary of the Navy H. T. Johnson told the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on 2 April. "We are convinced that selecting near-term divestment of platforms least relevant to our future is the fastest and most efficient way to recapitalize and modernize and transform the Navy and Marine Corps without compromising our ability to accomplish the ongoing missions."
Several Senators gently probed the matter of just how many ships the Navy wanted: 310? 375? Admiral Clark responded that the Navy was retiring older ships now to free up cash to buy new ones soon. The fleet's size would shrink first, then rise to 375, a number that would include large numbers of smaller, presumably less-expensive Littoral Combat Ships.
But there was another important principle at work, Admiral Clark said: receiving congressional permission to buy ships over several years. "We need to be planning on a level fund of $12 billion a year in new construction so that we get the best kind of balance," Admiral Clark told the defense subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on 2 April. "We have done studies, for example, with war games, actually, with the shipbuilding industry that said if we could get to a level funding approach, we actually would produce more product. . . . We would be a better partner, and we would produce more product for each dollar that the taxpayer puts into ship building. Multiyears are good," he said.
Meanwhile, war was raging, and the main question on Capitol Hill soon became, "just how much is this going to cost?" Even before the Bush administration finally asked in late March for $75 billion to supplement the 2003 defense budget, Navy officials had been prepping lawmakers to expect a second bill to cover the cost of ongoing Afghanistan operations and the buildup for Iraq. "A couple of months down the road, we're going to be flat out of money" unless Congress approves the extra spending, Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Fallen told lawmakers on 18 March.7 Admiral Clark made it clearer in 2 April testimony: operations and maintenance shortages will start in early June without a supplemental.
Other Notes
In January 2003, the Navy formally gave up its nearly four-year losing battle to use the eastern tip of Vieques Island off Puerto Rico as a firing range. Local residents' simmering resentment about the Navy's use of the range burst into flame after an errant bomb killed a security guard in April 1999. In a report to the Senate Arms Services Committee, then-Secretary England declared victory and withdrew. "The Navy and Marine Corps have outgrown" the Vieques range, England wrote. The gunners who fired live rounds onto the range, the aviators who bombed it, and the Marines who stormed ashore nearby would get better training by using several East Coast ranges and computer simulation programs.
Senator John W. Warner (R-VA), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he would take Secretary England's word for it, ending any likelihood of last-ditch congressional resistance.
Also in January, several lawmakers introduced a bill—H.R. 277—that would allow sailors and Marines (as well as soldiers and airmen) to assist the new Department of Homeland Security in preventing "terrorists, drug traffickers, and illegal aliens" from entering the United States and inspecting "cargo, vehicles, and aircraft at points of entry" to stop drugs and terrorist weapons and equipment.
Amid a simmering public debate about the societal benefits of having most youngsters serve a hitch in military uniform, House and Senate bills were introduced in January to require U.S. citizens to serve two years between the ages of 18 and 26 in the active military, the reserve, or some other civil defense outfit. They were followed quickly in the House with a bill seeking to repeal the Selective Service Act.
And as in every year, 2003 brought several congressional attempts to micromanage the Navy's budget to their own districts' benefit.
Among the examples is H.R.1198, a March proposal to amend the 1990 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act to prohibit the shuttering of "any installation used for undergraduate pilot training." Its sponsors include Representative Charles "Chip" Pickering (R-MS), whose district not coincidentally includes Naval Air Station Meridian. The next round of base closing decisions is slated for 2005. Another example is February's H.R. 628, offered by rust-belters Representatives Bart Stupak (D-MI) and Steven La-Tourette (R-OH) to forbid the Pentagon from purchasing foreign steel or steel products unless no domestic alternatives could be found.
Mr. Peniston is managing editor of Defense News and the author of Around the World with the U.S. Navy (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1999).