The fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill approves three Virginia-class submarines for Australia under the AUKUS partnership, as the U.S. Navy readies for a $3 billion infusion from Australis into the U.S. submarine industrial base.
“Effective beginning on the date that is one year after the date of the enactment of this act, the president is authorized to transfer up to two Virginia-class submarines from the inventory of the Department of the Navy to the Government of Australia on a sale basis, and transfer not more than one additional Virginia-class submarine to the Government of Australia on a sale basis…during the 20-year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this act, to implement the trilateral security partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States,” said the conference report on the bill.
AUKUS has two pillars–Australia’s buy of conventionally armed, nuclear submarines from the U.S. and trilateral development of hypersonics, counterhypersonics, quantum, undersea, cyber, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence technologies.
The U.S. has wanted to sell three to five new and used Virginia-class submarines to Australia in the 2030s (Defense Daily, Nov. 14).
In 1958, Congress revised the Atomic Energy Act of 1946–the “McMahon Act”–to permit the U.S. to share nuclear technology with Britain for the construction of its submarines, yet, until now, the U.S. has not sold its nuclear-powered subs to another country.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia announced AUKUS on Sept. 15, 2021, and President Biden, U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met in March to announce implementation steps.
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee’s seapower and projection forces panel, told reporters on Dec. 14 that the “core authorities” for the two pillars of AUKUS are in the final defense authorization conference bill.
Courtney represents General Dynamics‘ [GD] Electric Boat. The latter and HII [HII] build the Virginia-class submarines.
In addition to the sale of the three submarines authorized in the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill, “there is also authority to allow access to U.S. shipyards for the Australian work force that needs to be skilled up in terms of acquiring proficiency for submarine construction,” Courtney said on Dec. 14.
Bill provisions for AUKUS Pillar Two include streamlining of export controls “to allow AUKUS to be executed,” Courtney said. “It was a major step forward in carving out AUKUS-related exports that are necessary to make sure that the Pillar Two technologies move forward. It was not a complete carve out for Australia and the U.K, but there’s no question that AUKUS-related technologies and capabilities are gonna be given a much more fast track approach.”
While the fiscal 2024 defense authorization bill does not exempt the U.K. and Australia from U.S. State Department-required International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR) certification and licensure to receive U.S. defense exports–an exemption that Canada has, the legislation “does modify the existing system, which requires sales to both countries to have to jump through all the hoops,” Courtney said.
“There will be an AUKUS carve out where certification by the president that the three countries have similar protections in terms of leakage of critical technologies would allow the sale of AUKUS-related technologies…in that fast lane,” he said. “The certification that the president would be required to find would be that Australia has created and enacted its own system of protecting the back doors so that the technology, when it’s sold and shared, would not escape to malign actors.”