Wittman: Surge sealift plan needs to be more aggressive, will include language in subcommittee mark

By Justin Katz / April 20, 2018 at 11:55 AM

An influential House lawmaker will insert language in the fiscal year 2019 defense policy bill calling for a more aggressive time line for the Navy's surge sealift recapitalization plan.

House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee Chairman Rob Wittman (R-VA) said the language will be unveiled during the subcommittee's mark-up next week.

"The plan doesn’t recapitalize quickly enough in the face of aging ships within both the Ready Reserve Force and the ships that we have available through the military sealift program," Wittman told Inside the Navy in an interview today.

Navy Secretary Richard Spencer sent Congress a $242 million recapitalization plan last month that highlighted a three-pronged approach to restoring the service's sealift fleet: purchasing two used vessels in FY-21 and FY-22; service life extensions for select vessels and starting construction of common-hulled vessels in FY-28.

Congress gave the Navy authorities to purchase those two vessels in the FY-18 National Defense Authorization Act, but Wittman said the Navy's time line for procurement is not quick enough.

"We think that [the Navy is] taking too long on the transactions, so we're going to be very prescriptive [about] the time frames we think they ought to be purchasing these ships," Wittman said. "We are going to give them time to get the construction programs ramped up, but we're going to be very aggressive in having them purchase ships in the meantime to get these older ships out of the inventory."

Wittman also said his subcommittee's plans would include pushing up production of the Common Hull Auxiliary Multi-mission Platform, also called CHAMP. That "concept combines up to five sealift and auxiliary recapitalization programs with varying designs and engineering requirements into a single, unified U.S. shipbuilding effort," ITN previously reported.

"The first CHAMP procurement will be requested in FY-28, as highlighted in the Navy's 30-year shipbuilding plan, with first delivery in FY-31," Spencer's report to Congress said. "Procurement would continue through FY-40. CHAMP procurement could accelerate to as early as FY-23 with funding and congressional support."

The surge sealift fleet is responsible for transporting Army and Marine Corps equipment and supplies for ground combat operations during surge deployments.

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