Cynthia Brown, President of the American Shipbuilding Association has characterized it as "the worst budget we have seen in 10 years."
Congressman Gene Taylor (D. Miss.), a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee and co-chairman of the newly formed Congressional Shipbuilding Caucus says "The Navy's [FY06 Defense Budget] request for reductions in several important shipbuilding programs will leave the United States short of the fleet size needed to meet existing security requirement."
So, how bad is the FY06 Navy budget news?
Confirming plans that had been widely leaked, the Bush Administration request slashes $1.7 billion from Navy shipbuilding, taking the total down to $9.4 billion.
EXIT ONE CARRIER
The budget request also provides for the Navy's aircraft carrier strength to go from 12 ships to 11.
The Administration says this retirement is being carried out in large part due to the new Fleet Response Plan which provides higher levels of readiness for the fleet which allows it to surge five or six carrier strike groups within 30 days of notice, and to send follow-on forces for a total of seven carrier groups within 90 days.
Be that as it may, the retirement has all sorts of implications, particularly for ship repairers, depending on which carrier is selected for elimination. When the Navy budget was first unvailed, and when the print version of thisfeature was prepared, the Navy was being coy about which carrier would go. Prime candidates would appear to be the Mayport, Fla.-based USS John F. Kennedy and Japan-based USS Kitty Hawk. These are the only remaining conventionally powered carriers.
Kitty Hawk is already slated for decommissioning in 2008, when the next nuclear-powered carrier—the George H.W. Bush—enters service. That leaves the Kennedy as the most likely option. Indeed, according to a Congressional Research Service report by Ronald O'Rourke, dated January 14, 2005, the Kennedy actually had been identified for retirement before the budget proposal hit the street.
"On December 23, 2004," says the CRS report, "Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz approved an internal Department of Defense (DOD) budget-planning document, called Program Budget Decision (PBD) 753 that sets forth a number of significant adjustments to the FY2006 budget and FY2006-FY2011 Future Years Defense Plan (FYDP) that DOD is to submit to the 109th Congress in early February 2005. Although the services can appeal these adjustments, observers expect that most if not all of the adjustments will be included in DOD's proposed FY2006 budget and FY2006—FY2011 FYDP.
"One of the adjustments in PBD 753 is to retire the conventionally powered aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CV-67) in FY2006 and thereby reduce the size of the carrier force from 12 ships to 11. The Kennedy is homeported in Mayport, Fla., near the Georgia border. The proposal would not retire any other ships, or any of the Navy's carrier air wings."
The contents of Wolfowitz's PBD 753 were widely leaked almost as soon as it was approved and, indeed, does seem to have strongly influenced the FY 2006 shipbuilding budget request.
Coyness about the Kennedy's being the carrier earmarked for mothballs did not last long.
On March 10, according to the Virginian-Pilot, John J. Young, Jr., Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Research, Development and Acquisition, Department of the Navy, told the House Armed Services Committee that "officials will spend the summer evaluating bids for mothballing the Kennedy and expect to start that work by September. The process involves cleaning and lubricating equipment and sealing openings that could expose moving parts to corrosive salt water."
The Virginian-Pilot quotes Rep. JoAnn Davis (R.), who represents Virginia's First District as saying "I don't know if we can pass legislation fast enough" to stop the Navy from moving to shut the ship down in June.
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