Senate authorizers and appropriators have introduced legislation that would allow the Pentagon to use advance appropriations for shipbuilding. Defense industry officials have argued the current financing mechanism for shipbuilding -- which most often requires the Navy to fully fund a new ship in the year construction begins -- is inefficient and needs to be changed. Advance appropriations, an approach advocated by shipbuilder Northrop Grumman and now embraced by some senators, is a "legislatively locked-in form of incremental funding," defense analyst...
