By Emelie Rutherford
The future of the Navy’s Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) program will likely become more clear today, when a Senate panel steered by a critic of the Navy’s proposed change in acquisition strategy plans to hold a hastily-scheduled hearing.
Sources said late yesterday that the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) made plans to receive testimony at 2:30 p.m. this afternoon. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus and acquisition chief Sean Stackley are expected to testify.
They are expected to be grilled by SASC Ranking Member John McCain (R-Ariz.), who requested the hearing, about the service’s proposal to buy the next batches of the shore- hugging LCS ships from both companies competing to build them, instead of choosing just one design as previously planned.
McCain said last week he would not support the Navy’s proposal. His spokeswoman, Brooke Buchanan, said yesterday he remained opposed to the LCS change and would block its approval in the Senate.
The service last month asked Congress to approve the new LCS buying scheme by today, when the confidential ship bids submitted by Lockheed Martin [LMT]-Marinette Marine and Austal USA were due to expire; however, the Navy said yesterday that both shipbuilders agreed to extend the prices they submitted under the LCS solicitation until Dec. 30.
“The extension provides time to process the LCS contract award if Congress provides authorization for the dual block buy or in the event that we proceed to a downselect to one company,” Capt. Cate Mueller, a spokeswoman for Stackley, said yesterday morning in a statement.
The Navy has said if Congress does not approve the dual procurement this month, it will proceed with its previous plan to buy just one LCS design, from either Austal USA or the Lockheed Martin-Marinette Marine team. Under either the dual-buy or downselect scenario, the service said it plans to have another shipbuilder help build future copies of the chosen ship design or designs.
The House last week approved the new LCS plan by including language in a continuing resolution that would fund the government in fiscal year 2011 largely at FY ’10 levels.
The Senate is expected to take its stab at the FY ’11 budget for the Pentagon and all other federal agencies this week, after it wraps up debate on tax legislation that it was considering late yesterday afternoon.
Senate Appropriations Committee (SAC) Chairman Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) wants to fund the FY ’11 federal budget through a massive omnibus appropriations bill, though it was not clear yesterday if the Senate ultimately would pass that or a continuing resolution. Some sources said the LCS change is included in the SAC’s omnibus legislation. Inouye and SASC Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) both have told reporters they support buying littoral ships from both Lockheed Martin-Marinette Marine and Austal USA, because the Navy maintains that approach would save money in the closely watched shipbuilding program.
However, McCain has posed multiple questions about the change in the LCS acquisition plan, which the Navy first proposed on Nov. 3.
The service already has bought two littoral ships from both builders, though Austal USA was teamed with General Dynamics [GD] on the initial vessels. The program has been plagued with cost overruns and delays for years.
McCain said last week that the Navy requested the LCS-buying change–by requesting funding for 20 instead of 10 LCSs in the coming years–“without providing Congress basic information it needs to decide on its proposal on an informed basis.”
In a statement, he noted the General Accountability Office (GAO) and Congressional Research Service (CRS) both have raised “salient questions” about the proposed LCS change that “indicate that fast-tracking during a lame-duck session a decision on this important issue, would be improper.”
“Thus, without the basic information needed to make an informed decision on the Navy’s proposal–and without the benefit of thoughtful and transparent oversight–I cannot support the Navy’s proposal at this time,” McCain said. “Given this program’s troubled history on cost, schedule and performance and considering the analysis of, GAO, CRS, and others, on how the program has performed and the challenges the program has yet to overcome, I decline the Navy’s invitation to support its proposal ‘on faith.'”
McCain also aired similar concerns in a Dec. 10 letter to Inouye and SAC Ranking Member Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), asking them to leave the LCS change out of any funding measure they are considering for funding the federal government.
McCain wrote that “not only has the Senate been given an unusually short time to review such an important (LCS) proposal but it also has been unable to obtain basic information (on cost and capability, for example) it needs to consider the proposal carefully because they remain source-selection sensitive.”
The GAO, in a Dec. 8 report on the LCS program, said the Navy is taking on risk by investing in the littoral ship that has “not yet demonstrated its promised capability.” The CRS, in a recently updated LCS report, raised questions about the way the Navy requested the change in ship-buying strategy from Congress.
Also, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in a Dec. 10 letter to McCain, said its LCS analysis shows both potential savings in construction costs yet increases in operations and maintenance bills under the dual-buy approach over the next five years.
Yet all of these organizations did not have the proprietary data on the LCS bids from Austal USA and Lockheed Martin-Marinette Marine. The Navy has not disclosed the amounts, and spokespeople from both companies yesterday also would not share their bid proposals.
The Navy had planned to buy 19 littoral ships from FY ’10 to FY ’15, with 10 vessels coming from one chosen shipbuilder, five of the same ships built by a second company, and four from an unspecified builder. Now, under the new dual-buy proposal, the Navy hopes to purchase 20 LCSs from FY ’10 to FY ’15, made up of 10 of Austal USA’s aluminum trimaran ship and 10 of the Lockheed Martin-Marinette Marine’s semiplaning steel monohull vessels. The service said because the bids for the LCS were lower than expected, it could buy the 20 LCSs during this timeframe for less than it thought it would pay for 19 ships. The Navy plans to ultimately buy 55 littoral ships.
Congress could act on the LCS proposal this week. A temporary continuing resolution that has been funding the government is due to expire Dec. 18.