The six-month continuing resolution voted down Wednesday in the House would have delayed completition of nuclear-powered submarines, among other things, the Secretary of the Navy wrote this week in a letter to congressional appropriators.
In the letter, dated Sept. 12 and publicly released Monday, Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro reiterated some points made in a similar letter from his boss, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, including that the most consequential impact of a longer-term continuing resolution would be delays to the Virginia-class attack submarine.
The continuing resolution that failed on a 202-220 vote Wednesday evening would also have delayed investments in the U.S. submarine industrial base needed to fulfill the trilateral AUKUS agreement, under which the U.S. and the United Kingdom are helping Australia acquire and then produce nuclear-powered, conventionally armed boats, Del Toro wrote.
The six-month bill would also have caused more delays for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, the next carrier of the Navy’s nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles, and restricted funds used for a planned refueling of the USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74) aircraft carrier.
A version of this story first appeared in Weapons Complex Morning Briefing affiliate publication Defense Daily.
