As Pentagon officials and lawmakers mull the topline of the fiscal year 2020 defense budget, Huntington Ingalls Industries will be focused on ensuring the Navy’s next generation of nuclear submarines remains sufficiently funded without sacrificing other shipbuilding priorities, the company’s leader said.
The forthcoming Columbia-class of nuclear submarines has been identified as a top service priority, said HII President and CEO Mike Petters in a Dec. 1 interview with WC Monitor affiliate publication Defense Daily in Simi Valley, California.
But as officials consider whether to cut $33 billion from next year’s defense budget and lawmakers debate whether to reinstate spending cuts, the concern is whether funding for the submarines will cause “collateral damage” in other shipbuilding accounts, he said.
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee and likely chairman when the 116th Congress convenes in January, has called for cuts to the U.S. nuclear arsenal. He has focused primarily on paring down the nation’s supply of international continental ballistic missiles and rejecting a proposed low-yield submarine-launched ballistic missile warhead, and Petters said he is not worried that the Columbia-class ship would be targeted.
The Navy plans to design and build 12 ballistic missile submarines as part of the Columbia-class to replace its current fleet of 14 Ohio-class ships, and has indicated a desire to procure the first ship in fiscal year 2021, according to an October 2018 report by the Congressional Research Service.
“Our big focus right now is to get them all under contract,” Petters said.
The defense-wide funding increases in fiscal years 2018 and 2019 were the “beginning of a recovery” from years of cuts under the 2011 Budget Control Act, Petters said. Sustained – and even better, increased – budget growth is required to keep the momentum going, Petters said.
“If instead … we go back to where we were in ‘17, then I think that will send a message too and it would not be a good message,” said Petters.
This story first appeared in Exchange Monitor’s affiliate publication Defense Daily.
