Bipartisan bill submitted in House to extend Navy INSURV inspections

Two top House Armed Services Committee members have submitted a bill today to indefinitely extend the Annual Report on Material Readiness of Navy Ships, and therefore the Board of Inspection and Survey, or INSURV.

The Naval Readiness Act, submitted by Rep. Rob Wittman (R-VA), the ranking member on the seapower and projection forces subcommittee, and Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA), chairman of the readiness subcommittee, would also require the creation of both an unclassified INSURV report for the public and a classified version for congressional defense committees.

By indefinitely extending the annual report on ship readiness, the bill would reverse a congressional stipulation in the fiscal year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act that said the annual report would no longer be required after Oct. 1, 2021.

That means that should the Naval Readiness Act not pass, the INSURV report released last month could be the last. Congress cemented INSURV into law in 1882.

"As it stands, the law mandates that the Annual Report be unclassified. This waters down the report due to the sensitive nature of material readiness. H.R. 2609 would require results be broken into both an unclassified and classified report, the former releasable to the public and the latter briefed directly to Congress," Wittman said in a statement. "We cherish our men and women in uniform and want to ensure they’re provided the tools they need to succeed – this legislation would tell us exactly what those are."

INSURV reports have often painted a negative picture of the Navy's fleet readiness, and the latest report shows "overall fleet material condition" has declined over the last three years. The Navy classified the reports in 2008, but the service began producing unclassified versions as well in later years.

The INSURV report released in March came out around the same time as a Congressional Budget Office report. The CBO found that the size of the Navy's submarine fleet will exceed the ability for shipyards to maintain that fleet in 25 of the next 30 years.