The Navy’s $2.2 billion fiscal year 2025 unfunded priorities list is topped with funding for the submarine industrial base, repair damage to Guam and various munitions.
The Pentagon is required to submit these lists to Congress annually with the budget request submissions. They are put together by the service chiefs and combatant commanders to include items that did not get into the administration’s final budget request.
In the introductory letter to the list, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said she only wants items on the list funded if funding above the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) with its caps become available.
The top priority on the list is $403 million to fund the submarine industrial base (SIB), particularly geared at strategic investments to aid workforce development, infrastructure and supplier capacity building to meet Navy plans and requirements.
Franchetti’s letter underscored this is the SIB portion of the FY ‘24 National Security Supplemental Request and is her top priority if the supplemental is not appropriated in FY ‘24.
The second priority is the highest costing one, at $600 million to repair facilities and structures damaged by Super Typhoon Mawar in Guam. This focuses on repairing the Glass Breakwater, a structure that protects vessels from strong waves while coming into Apra Harbor.
Like the top priority, the Navy said the administration submitted a Critical Domestic Needs Supplemental Request in October 2023 and, if it is not appropriated in FY ‘24, then this becomes an unfunded priority.
The third priority, at $105.5 million, is to accelerate funding to address communications equipment and obsolescence in the Navy’s nuclear command, control and communications (NC3) programs.
The next top two priorities are accelerating two classified programs only called Grandstand and Copperfield for $30 and $60 million, respectively.
The Navy would also seek $92 million to procure more Standard Missile-2 (SM-2) Block II and IIA/B recertification materials to help make up for missiles fired in the Red Sea. While the service has a backlog of SM-2s in the inventory, they are not usable to go into Vertical Launch System cells until they are recertified.
The document said this will “maximize capacity in FY25 and replenish combat usage quicker,”
The last munition on the list is $50 million to procure another four Mk 48 heavyweight torpedoes to increase the inventory.
The seventh and eight priorities focus on unmanned/remotely operated vehicles. The Navy seeks $75 million to accelerate funding for the submarine torpedo tube-launched and recovered TETRA subsea and seabed warfare remotely operated vehicle as well as effector payload development of the Mining Expendable Delivery Unmanned Submarine Asset (MEDUSA) submarine-launched payload. It also listed $184 million to accelerate the Hunter payload on the Orca Extra Large Unmanned Undersea Vehicle (XLUUV) program of record.
DARPA sponsors the Harper program, which seeks to develop a system to deliver undersea payloads from the XLUUV.
Other priorities listed include $208 million to fund “the sustainment of aviation critical planeside systems required by the Fleet,” like Navy-specific F-35C engines, $200 million for various surface warfare priority systems needed for 75 mission-capable ships and reduce cannibalization frequency, $110 million to accelerate funding for the Long Endurance Electronic Decoy countermeasures and $125 million to procure another KC-130J Super Hercules aircraft.
The Navy noted while recapitalizing the C-130T into the KC-130J Super Hercules is the Navy Reserve’s top equipment priority this was not in the budget request due to the Fiscal Responsibility Act spending caps as the Navy had to prioritize other accounts.
Separately, the list also names $1.45 billion in five unfunded Navy military construction priorities. These are divided into a water treatment plant in Honolulu, Hawaii; replacing a Guam hangar destroyed by Super Typhoon Mawar; preventing schedule delays replacing Dry Dock 3 at the Navy’s Pearl Harbor facility as part of the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Program; projects at the Fallon Range Training Complex (FRTC) modernization; and more funding for planning and design for the Pearl Harbor Waterfront Production Facility.