The House on June 11 passed its $578.6 billion defense spending bill for fiscal year 2016, after members voted to eliminate a prohibition on transferring funds for the Ohio-class replacement submarine to the National Sea Based Deterrence Fund created last year by Congress.
The House Armed Services Committee’s authorization bill recommended moving $1.39 billion from Navy accounts to the deterrence fund, but House appropriators in their defense spending bill tried to reverse course, including language stating that “none of the funds provided in this or any other Act may be transferred to the National Sea Based Deterrence Fund.”
Photo: U.S. Navy
The top two members of the House Armed Service’s seapower and projection forces subcommittee—Rep Randy Forbes (R-Va.), and Ranking Member Joe Courtney (D-Conn.)—offered an amendment striking the prohibition. It passed overwhelmingly last night in a 321-111 vote.
The Navy will begin procuring the Ohio replacement in four years, and the program’s projected $92 billion cost would likely constrain shipbuilding accounts to the point where the service may not have enough money to pay for other vessels it needs, Forbes said. Using the deterrence fund, Congress and the Defense Department could save for the ships over a number of years, with both the defense secretary and the legislature able to push money into the account.
Opponents of the fund argued that the money has to come from somewhere and, in this case, the deterrent fund would force the Pentagon and other services to split the cost of the submarine rather than making the Navy responsible for finding the funds necessary to procure it.
“We recognize the submarine will be expensive,” said Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-N.J.), chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. “However, the National Seabased Deterrence Fund will not make the submarine any less expensive…and will not increase resources to the Department of Defense.” Rather, it would likely limit congressional oversight and give the Defense Secretary too much power over funding.
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), who co-sponsored an amendment to the authorization bill last month that would have eliminated the deterrence fund, opposed the amendment.
“Our friends on the appropriations committee have the difficult job of trying to balance these priorities and have the big picture available to them. I think they have done exactly the right thing. I think this needs to be subsumed within the overall budget,” he said. “There is no magic money.”
Because of reductions to the ground and air legs of the nuclear triad under the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, submarines will bear the majority of the burden of the nuclear deterrence mission, lawmakers said. That makes it a national priority, not just a Navy requirement.
“Unless Congress acts, these boats will consume half of the projected shipbuilding funding for a decade, causing crippling shortages,” said Rep. Jim Langevin (D-R.I.).
House lawmakers may have to reiterate arguments in favor of deterrence fund when they go to conference with the Senate later this year. While Senate authorizers didn’t prohibit the use of the fund, it also kept its money for the Ohio replacement program in the Navy’s budget.
The House appropriations bill passed in a 278-149 vote this afternoon, after 36 amendments were added.
Late last night, the chamber passed an amendment from Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) that prohibits the retirement of the Air Force’s EC-130H Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft. Fifteen such aircraft are located in McSally’s home state at Davis-Monthan AFB, Ariz.
The House also voted to adopt an amendment increasing funding for the Army National Guard by $2 million to support border security operations, with offsets coming from the defense wide operations and maintenance account. The amendment was offered by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)
A statement of policy from the White House issued on June 9 said that President Barack Obama’s senior advisers would recommend he veto the House bill, which increases wartime spending to circumvent congressionally-mandated caps on the base budget. Obama and congressional Democrats have said that defense spending should not be augmented unless domestic spending is as well.