Marking Up

Next week, the House Armed Services Committee will mark up the full fiscal year 2010 defense authorization bill, according to a committee statement. Additionally, members will vote on a bill submitted by eight Republican members late last month that would order the Navy to provide a new 30-year shipbuilding plan, which the service declined to submit with the fiscal year 2010 budget request due to the ongoing Quadrennial Defense Review. As Inside the Navy reported this week:

The measure, House Resolution 477, was referred to the House Armed Services Committee May 21. The Navy is required by law to provide Congress with a 30-year shipbuilding plan annually, but Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead told the House panel in testimony last month that this year’s plan would not be provided until after the QDR, which will examine Defense Department force structure writ large.

“After the QDR, we will be able to provide a plan that has merit,” Roughead said June 4 in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The four-star admiral added this was the “right way to go” instead of submitting a plan prior to the force structure determinations produced by the QDR.

Rep. Randy Forbes (R-VA), who sponsored the House resolution, does not concur with the Navy’s intention to delay submitting the plan, according to a statement released last week.

“At a time when China is rapidly closing the 23-ship gap between their navy and ours, and at a time when our Navy is operating with $4.6 billion in unmet requirements, Americans would be shocked to know that the ((Defense Department)) cannot or will not produce a key plan for the future of our naval fleet,” Forbes said in the statement.

The committee said it would also mark up a resolution that would call on the defense secretary "to transmit to the House of Representatives the fiscal year 2010 30-year aviation plan relating to the long-term aviation plans of the Department of Defense, as required by section 231a of title 10, United States Code."