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i 

56–937 2010

[H.A.S.C. No. 111–117] 

ISSUES AFFECTING NAVAL FORCE 

STRUCTURE 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES 

SUBCOMMITTEE 

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

HEARING HELD 

JANUARY 20, 2010 
(II) 

SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

GENE TAYLOR, Mississippi, Chairman 

SOLOMON P. ORTIZ, Texas 

JAMES R. LANGEVIN, Rhode Island 

RICK LARSEN, Washington 

BRAD ELLSWORTH, Indiana 

JOE COURTNEY, Connecticut 

JOE SESTAK, Pennsylvania 

GLENN NYE, Virginia 

CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine 

ERIC J.J. MASSA, New York 

W. TODD AKIN, Missouri 

ROB WITTMAN, Virginia 

ROSCOE G. BARTLETT, Maryland 

J. RANDY FORBES, Virginia 

DUNCAN HUNTER, California 

MIKE COFFMAN, Colorado 

THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida 

WILL EBBS, Professional Staff Member 

JENNESS SIMLER, Professional Staff Member 

ELIZABETH DRUMMOND, Staff Assistant 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF HEARINGS 

2010 

Page 

HEARING: 

Wednesday, January 20, 2010, Issues Affecting Naval Force Structure ............ 1 

APPENDIX: 

Wednesday, January 20, 2010 ................................................................................ 39 

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2010 

ISSUES AFFECTING NAVAL FORCE STRUCTURE 

STATEMENTS PRESENTED BY MEMBERS OF CONGRESS 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd, a Representative from Missouri, Ranking Member, 

Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee .......................................... 4 

Taylor, Hon. Gene, a Representative from Mississippi, Chairman, Seapower 

and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee ........................................................... 1 

WITNESSES 

Labs, Dr. Eric J., Senior Analyst, Congressional Budget Office .......................... 5 

O’Rourke, Ronald, Specialist in Naval Affairs, Congressional Research Service .......................................................................................................................... 8

Thompson, Dr. Loren B., Chief Operating Officer, Lexington Institute ............. 10 

APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS: 

Akin, Hon. W. Todd .......................................................................................... 48 

Labs, Dr. Eric J. ............................................................................................... 49 

O’Rourke, Ronald .............................................................................................. 67 

Taylor, Hon. Gene ............................................................................................. 43 

Thompson, Dr. Loren B. ................................................................................... 89 

DOCUMENTS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD: 

[There were no Documents submitted.] 

WITNESS RESPONSES TO QUESTIONS ASKED DURING THE HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted during the hearing.] 

QUESTIONS SUBMITTED BY MEMBERS POST HEARING: 

[There were no Questions submitted post hearing.] 

(1) 

ISSUES AFFECTING NAVAL FORCE STRUCTURE 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON ARMED SERVICES, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE, Washington, DC, Wednesday, January 20, 2010. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 3:05 p.m., in room 

HVC–210, Capitol Visitor Center, Hon. Gene Taylor (chairman of 

the subcommittee) presiding. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. GENE TAYLOR, A REPRESENTATIVE FROM MISSISSIPPI, CHAIRMAN, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. TAYLOR. Good afternoon and welcome to the first of many 

hearings which this subcommittee will undertake on issues affecting the United States Navy and Marine Corps. Today’s hearing is 

in advance of a budget submission which is due to arrive to Congress on the first of February. This is the reason that we are meeting prior to that day. 

I do not intend for this subcommittee to be a rubber stamp to the 

Department’s request, no matter which political party occupies the 

White House. As long as I have the great privilege to serve as the 

chairman of this subcommittee, it is my intention to ensure that 

the American people have the right to witness the issues debated 

in open session and work with all members of this subcommittee 

to recommend an authorization that ensures our Navy and Marine 

Corps have the ships, aircraft and other equipment that they need 

to do the job that our Nation asks them to do. 

Today is just the first day of a process of arriving at those recommendations. I felt that it is important to start the legislative 

session with an examination of alternatives to restore our Navy’s 

fleet to the numbers necessary to meet our national security needs. 

To that end, I have requested our witnesses discuss a wide range 

of issues affecting the Navy force structure particularly in light of 

the President’s decision in October that the Navy play a much larger role in theater missile defense. 

I want to state for the record I support the decision to put our 

Nation’s theater missile defense on ships. Having had the good fortune to serve here for 20 years, I have witnessed, sometimes in 

horror, as our Nation has been asked by a number of allies to 

leave, the billions of dollars of infrastructure we left behind in Panama, the billions of dollars of infrastructure we left behind in the 

Philippines. When the Puerto Rican people asked us to quit using 

the island of Vieques as a practice range, the Navy made the decision to shut down Roosevelt Roads. And as we speak, we are in the 

process of leaving Okinawa. In every instance we are basically one 
2 

election cycle away from a key ally asking us to leave billions of 

dollars’ worth of things behind. And if we were to put the national 

missile defense in Eastern Europe, the same thing could happen 

there. 

If we put it on a ship, we are then off the coast of any potential 

foe. We don’t have to ask a host country for permission to use our 

national missile defense; but most of all, that we are able to move 

that position around as it is needed around the world, and I think 

it is the way to go. 

What I don’t see is the Administration telling us where those 

ships are going to come from. And I would remind this committee, 

particularly those of you who have been around for a while, the 

rule of three that we have all learned; that for every troop we have 

deployed, we have one in theater, one on the way to the theater, 

one returning from theater who is training to do his original job. 

In the case of ships, it is probably going to be a 4-to-1 ratio. So in 

order to have 24-hour coverage every day of the year off a potential 

foe, that means we are going to have to have four Navy ships prepared to do that job. 

I think it is important that we say this now before the budget 

submission because, again, I am in support of the President’s request to put these things on ships, but I want the President to 

make the request for those ships. Let us don’t pretend it is going 

to happen later. Let us don’t pretend it is going to happen overnight. From the day we order that ship, it is probably at least three 

years to delivery for the first, so we need to get started now. 

I don’t think our Navy is large enough to do the job they are 

asked to do, but numbers alone are not the answer. Which type of 

ship and what number is more important than just quantity. Certainly I don’t think we match up well in either the total number 

of ships or the types of ships. 

There are some would say we don’t need our amphibious forces. 

I would remind you that as we speak, one of those big-deck 

amphibs is off in Haiti helping those people, and in the case of 

south Mississippi, one of the big-deck amphibs came to our rescue 

after Hurricane Katrina. Moving from the sea is the only guaranteed access that we can count on, and I think we need more, not 

fewer, amphibious assault ships. 

There are those who say we don’t need 11 aircraft carriers. 

Again, I disagree. Those battle groups have done more to maintain 

the peace in the world for the past 60 years than any other force 

we maintain. 

I am convinced that we do not have enough fast-attack submarines. These boats kept the Soviet Navy in check during the entire Cold War, and they will keep any other adversary in check as 

we proceed into this century. 

I am also convinced we don’t have enough surface combatants. 

The evidence is everywhere. We have carriers operating without escort, amphibious assault ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz 

without any antisubmarine warfare-capable ship in company because the escort is off chasing pirates or guarding oil platforms. 

We have a looming need to replace the capability of the Ohio 

class of strategic missile submarines, but doing so may cripple the 

Navy budget in the later part of the decade. 
3 

In addition to the hard facts of types of ships and numbers of 

ships are also matters that need to be debated. The Congress was 

perfectly clear in the fiscal year 2008 National Defense Authorization Act that the next generation of cruiser has a nuclear power 

system for electrical power generation and propulsion. This action 

was based on a bipartisan support on a clear and present threat 

that the access to fuel could be restricted and leave the fleet without the ability to conduct major operations. 

I would remind the Members that a typical surface combatant 

uses about 10 million gallons of fuel per ship per year, a large-deck 

amphib about the same. And I think any clever foe is going to take 

advantage of our vulnerability to the fleet oilers, that the first ship 

that they attack is the oiler, and if the oiler doesn’t sail, the escorts 

don’t sail. If the escorts don’t sail, the carrier doesn’t sail. 

And I would hope that we have learned the hard way in places 

like Iraq and Afghanistan that every enemy, no matter how sophisticated or unsophisticated, is smart enough to exploit our weaknesses. This is a weakness that we can and have already directed 

the Navy to address. And I regret to say that that was two years 

ago. The Navy has done absolutely nothing in pursuit of the nuclear cruiser to date. 

My last major concern is the Ohio submarine replacement. I expect to have a stand-alone-only hearing on this issue due to the significant importance to national security. And I want to make sure 

that we have identified the right ship and the right missile before 

we make a 40-year commitment to the program. 

Again, does it make more sense to build a ship to fit our existing 

D–6 missiles, or does it make more sense to build a missile that 

will fit a Virginia-class submarine? Since this is something that is 

going to be a decision that will affect the United States Navy for 

decades to come, we have to get it right the first time. 

These are all hard problems to tackle, and I look forward to open 

debate with my colleagues in the coming weeks and months. I am 

always open to suggestions from the members of this subcommittee 

for hearing topics and look forward to your input. 

Today we have three very distinguished experts in Navy acquisition and policy. Dr. Eric Labs is a senior analyst for the Congressional Budget Office. His independent cost analysis of ship construction has proven very helpful to this committee over the years. 

Mr. Ronald O’Rourke is the senior research analyst at the Congressional Research Service and routinely provides the Congress 

with in-depth and well-researched papers on capability, cost and 

options for future procurement. 

Dr. Loren Thompson is the president and chief operating officer 

of the Lexington Institute. Dr. Thompson has appeared before this 

committee before, and his insight is always helpful. 

For disclosure, the United States Navy was invited to send representatives to testify. Secretary Mabus has agreed to do so with 

the stipulation that the witnesses would not discuss the upcoming 

budget submission. Subsequently, my understanding is that Secretary Gates denied the Navy permission to testify. While I think 

we would have had a better hearing with them, I am satisfied that 

our panel today will have a frank and open discussion on the best 

way to rebuild our fleet. 
4 

I would like to call on the gentleman from Missouri, my friend 

and partner on the subcommittee, the Honorable Todd Akin. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Taylor can be found in the Appendix on page 43.] 

STATEMENT OF HON. W. TODD AKIN, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM MISSOURI, RANKING MEMBER, SEAPOWER AND EXPEDITIONARY FORCES SUBCOMMITTEE 

Mr. AKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome to our witnesses. We appreciate your willingness to appear before us today. 

I hope this will be a useful springboard for this subcommittee as 

we prepare to consider the President’s fiscal year 2011 shipbuilding 

budget request and the results of the Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR). 

Today’s hearing gives us the opportunity to frame the various 

issues our subcommittees must consider depending on a number of 

alternative shipbuilding plans that could emerge shortly. I hope 

our Members will use this hearing as a foundation for the rigorous 

oversight and decision-making that will be required in the coming 

weeks. I imagine that our witnesses have been somewhat challenged in preparing your testimony today, for we will all continue 

to rely on press accounts and rumor as we wait for the first Monday in February. 

In spite of the lack of new information, your preliminary insights 

are valuable. I, for one, have been troubled by certain reports such 

as those indicating the Navy may attempt to eliminate as many as 

two carrier strike groups. Likewise, indications that the Navy may 

not ramp production of the Virginia-class submarine to a sustained 

rate of two per year starting in fiscal year 2011 raised concerns 

about our ability to meet combatant commander requirements for 

submarine presence, and may have second- or third-order effects on 

the total cost of shipbuilding. 

There have also been stories in the media about pressures on 

amphibious lift. In fact, the Commandant recently alluded to the 

stress placed on the amphibious fleet in all scenarios evaluated 

during the QDR. We need to ensure that the Navy and the Marine 

Corps have both the quality and capability in our battle force ships 

to maintain our maritime strategy, deter and win any future conflict in which the United States may be involved. 

On the other hand, some of these concerns may be premature. 

There have also been press accounts indicating that the next shipbuilding plan will establish a 324-ship requirement that would 

maintain the current minimum requirement for 11 carriers, 48 attack submarines, and 33 amphibious ships. Nevertheless, I was interested to note in your prepared testimony several items worth 

further consideration by this subcommittee. 

For example, Mr. O’Rourke, you indicated that should the Navy 

be forced to pay for the Ohio-class replacement program within its 

current top line, it could result in significant reductions in other 

shipbuilding programs. This is no great surprise. But you also note 

that such reductions could result in a substantial consolidation of 

the surface ship construction industrial base. 

Furthermore, Dr. Labs, in your testimony, you point out that sea 

ballistic missile defense could require substantial commitment of 
5 

resources. That could make it difficult for the Navy to fund other 

ship programs. 

Therefore, whether or not the QDR and the upcoming long-term 

shipbuilding plans substantially alter the requirements for certain 

key platforms, the Navy and this committee will have a number of 

difficult choices to make in the near term. 

I thank the Chairman for holding this hearing today so early in 

the year to allow us to properly understand these issues. Thanks 

again to our witnesses. I look forward to your testimony. 

And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Mr. Akin. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Akin can be found in the Appendix on page 48.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. And the Chair wants to correct himself. It is a D– 

5 missile, not a D–6. 

Other members of the subcommittee are invited to submit a 

statement for the record if they so choose. Without objection, Members will have five legislative days to submit any written statement. 

Gentlemen, it is the norm for this committee for our witnesses 

to speak for about five minutes. I think given the gravity of the 

subject matter, and most of all given your expertise, we are going 

to give you significant leeway on that. We have cast all of our votes 

for the day, so if you could keep it to about 10 minutes so that 

Members have an opportunity to ask their questions. 

Dr. Labs, if you would, please. 

STATEMENT OF DR. ERIC J. LABS, SENIOR ANALYST, 

CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE 

Dr. LABS. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Akin and 

members of the subcommittee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the challenges that the Navy is 

facing in its shipbuilding plan. 

The subcommittee asked the Congressional Budget Office to examine three matters: the Navy’s draft shipbuilding plan for fiscal 

year 2011, the effect that replacing the Ohio-class ballistic missile 

submarines with a new class of submarines will have on the Navy 

shipbuilding program, and the number of ships needed to support 

ballistic missile defense from the sea. 

I would therefore like to make the following five points. If the 

Navy receives the same amount of money for ship construction in 

the next 30 years that it has over the past three decades, about $15 

billion per year, it will not be able to afford its 313-ship fleet. 

Two, the Navy’s draft 2011 shipbuilding plan as reported in the 

press increases the Navy’s stated requirement for its fleet from 313 

ships to 324, but the production schedule in the plan by only 222 

ships, or 74 fewer than the Navy’s previous plan. Critically, most 

of the reductions would come from the Navy’s combat ships. 

Three, Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the plan 

would cost an average of $20 billion per year. I stress that this is 

a preliminary estimate only, which we will revise when the Navy 

formally submits its shipbuilding plan next month. 

Four, building a new class of ballistic missile submarines could 

cost about $85 billion. If the Navy received that amount in addition 
6 

to the resources needed to execute the draft 2011 plan, it could 

probably purchase the 56 additional ships identified in the alternative construction plan that accompanied the draft 2011 plan. 

Five, if the Navy needs to dedicate ships to maintain a continuous patrol for ballistic missile defense, then as many as five to six 

ships per station would be needed. If the Navy employs rotational 

crewing on Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) ships or bases them in 

the European theater, then it could make do with fewer ships. 

In a report to this subcommittee in 2008, CBO estimated that 

carrying out the Navy’s 2009 shipbuilding plan to purchase 296 

ships over 30 years would cost an average of almost $27 billion a 

year. Yet senior Navy officials have said in recent months that the 

service expects to make do with $13- to $15 billion per year. 

CBO compared the number of ships that could be purchased with 

annual budgets of either $13 billion or $15 billion onto three scenarios for average ship costs: $2.1 billion per ship, as in the 2010 

defense appropriation; $2.5 billion per ship, which was the Navy’s 

estimate for the costs of ships in its 2009 plan; and $2.7 billion per 

ship, which was CBO’s estimate for ships in the 2009 plan. 

At the bottom end of the range, a $13 billion annual budget 

would buy 144 ships over 30 years, assuming an average cost of 

$2.7 billion apiece. At the top end of the range, a $15 billion annual 

budget would yield 214 new ships over 30 years if their cost averaged $2.1 billion each. This range is one-half to three-quarters the 

number of ship purchases proposed in the 2009 plan. 

The subcommittee then asked CBO to analyze the procurement 

and inventory tables from a draft of the Navy’s 2011 shipbuilding 

plan which was reported in the press. That plan dramatically reduces ship purchases. Most of the cuts under the draft 2011 plan 

and the alternative construction plan that accompany it come from 

the Navy’s combat ships, which are defined here as surface combatants, submarines, aircraft carriers and amphibious ships. Under 

the 2009 plan, the Navy would have purchased 245 combat ships. 

That number falls to 166 combat ships purchased under the draft 

2011 plan, and 207 combat ships in the alternative plan. Thus by 

2040, the draft 2011 shipbuilding plan could produce fleets of 185 

combat ships, which compares with 239 today or 268 under the 

2009 shipbuilding plan. 

It is not clear from available information what the Navy believes 

the draft 2011 plan would cost. CBO’s preliminary assessment of 

the draft 2011 plan suggests it would cost an average of about $20 

billion a year in 2010 dollars. The alternative 2011 plan, which 

adds the 56 ships, would cost an average of about $23 billion per 

year, CBO estimates. 

Now, with respect to replacing the Navy’s ballistic missile submarines, many Navy and industry officials expect that the new 

ships would be substantially smaller than the Ohio class. However, 

that does not necessarily mean that they would be cheaper to build 

even after removing the effects of inflation. Press reports indicate 

that the Navy expects a class of 12 SSBN(X)s, the designation for 

the new Boomer, to cost a total of about $80 billion. That total implies an average cost of around $6.7 billion, or one press reported 

indicated a $6- to $7 billion range. 
7 

CBO assumed that the SSBN(X) would carry 16 missile tubes instead of 24 on the existing submarines and would displace around 

15,000 tons submerged, making it roughly twice as big as the Virginia-class attack submarine, but nearly 4,000 tons smaller than 

the Ohio-class sub. Based on those assumptions, CBO estimates that 12 SSBN(X)s would cost an average of $7 billion each. In all, 

CBO expects the entire new class of Boomers would cost about $85 

billion. 

In light of the crucial role strategic submarines play in the U.S. 

strategic triad, policymakers may regard them as the most critical 

part of the Navy shipbuilding plan. If those subs are going to be 

replaced no matter what happened, and if the Navy receives 

enough resources to pay for them above and beyond what it might 

otherwise expect to allocate to shipbuilding, it could buy more surface ships and attack submarines. Under the alternative plan I 

mentioned earlier, that extra money, about $90 billion over the 30- 

year period, would purchase 56 additional ships, 19 large surface 

combatants, 15 Littoral Combat Ships (LCSs), 4 attack submarines, 

3 amphibious ships, and 15 logistics and support ships. 

Importantly, by 2040, the Navy’s fleet would be about the same 

size as today’s battle force, not 50 ships smaller as would be the 

case under the draft 2011 plan. 

Finally, with respect to the BMD mission, in a CBO report last 

year, my colleague Mike Bennett determined that three ship stations would provide nearly full coverage of Europe from Iranian 

missile threats by around 2018, once the Standard Missile-3 Block 

IIA was deployed. However, the Missile Defense Agency has stated 

that a broader and more demanding mission of defending Europe 

as well as parts of the Middle East from Iranian missile threats 

could require up to eight ship stations. Beyond 2020, Missile Defense Agency (MDA) suggests that with improvements in BMD-related missiles, radars and sensors, the number of stations at sea 

could be reduced to five. 

Under the Navy’s traditional deployment cycle, 8 stations would 

require a rotation of 42 ships, whereas 5 stations could require 26 

ships to provide continuous BMD patrols. 

The Navy could reduce the number of ships needed to provide 

full-time BMD presence by employing alternative crewing schemes 

or basing ships in Europe. For example, if the Navy rotated crews 

to forward-deployed ships, three ships would be needed to keep one 

operating full time in a designated BMD patrol area. In that case, 

only 24 ships would be necessary to support 8 stations in the near 

term, or 15 ships for 5 stations beyond 2020. 

The Navy, however, does not currently envision dedicating ships 

to the single mission of missile defense. Instead it plans to send 

BMD-capable ships on regular deployments to perform the full 

range of missions required to surface combatants, although some of 

those would be operating in or near BMD station areas. Under that 

approach using rotating crews and BMD-capable ships could prove 

more challenging because the crews not in deployment would need 

to maintain a high level of proficiency in many mission areas. 

Alternatively, if the Navy was able to use BMD-capable ships 

permanently in Europe or the Persian Gulf as it does now in Japan 

to counter the threat of North Korean missiles, it might need as 
8 

few as five to eight ships, one for each station. But even in that 

scenario, if the Navy needed to guarantee that one ship per station 

was at sea at all times, it would need to double the requirement 

from 10 to 16 ships. 

Thank you Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee. That concludes my formal statement. I am happy to respond to any question you may have. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, Dr. Labs. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Labs can be found in the Appendix on page 49.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair now recognizes Mr. Ron O’Rourke. 

STATEMENT OF RONALD O’ROURKE, SPECIALIST IN NAVAL 

AFFAIRS, CONGRESSIONAL RESEARCH SERVICE 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Chairman Taylor, Congressman Akin, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the chance to 

speak today on Navy shipbuilding and force structure. With your 

permission I would like to submit my statement for the record—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. Without objection. 

Mr. O’ROURKE [continuing]. And summarize it briefly here. 

The Navy’s new 5-year plan reportedly will include about 50 

ships, or an average of about 10 per year. Although LCSs and Joint 

High Speed Vessels (JHSVs) account for less than one-quarter of 

the Navy’s planned fleet, they reportedly count for about half of the 

50 ships in the plan. In this sense, these relatively inexpensive 

ships are overrepresented in the 5-year plan relative to their portion of the planned fleet, making it easier to procure 10 ships per 

year within available funding. At some point in the future when 

the LCS and JHSV programs run their course and are no longer 

overrepresented in the shipbuilding plan, procuring 10 ships per 

year could become considerably more expensive. 

The new five-year plan reportedly contains only two amphibious 

ships and none after fiscal year 2012. This could result in a dip in 

workload starting in fiscal year 2013 at Northrop’s Gulf Coast 

yards that might be deep enough to prompt speculation about a 

possible consolidation of some kind at these yards. 

The Navy’s new 30-year plan reportedly contains two scenarios 

depending on whether or not the Navy pays for its new SSBNs out 

of hide. By drafting these two scenarios, the Navy is, in effect, reviving a debate about whether a service should pay out of hide for 

platforms that serve a national mission of strategic nuclear deterrence. Congressional Research Service (CRS) testimony two years 

ago stated that the Navy appeared to be laying the groundwork for 

reviving this debate. 

The 30-year scenario shows that if the Navy pays for the SSBNs 

out of hide, procurement rates for surface ships could be reduced 

to levels low enough to make a substantial consolidation of the surface ship industrial base a distinct possibility, if not a likelihood. 

The scenarios also show that if the Navy pays for the SSBNs out 

of hide, Navy force levels would eventually drop well below required figures. The resulting fleet would have substantial capability shortfalls. 

The projected decline in force levels could immediately begin to 

generate or reinforce perceptions of the U.S. as a declining power. 
9 

Such perceptions could make it more difficult for the U.S. to 

achieve policy goals in a variety of areas, such as trade, finance, 

climate change and nonproliferation. Perceptions of the U.S. as a 

declining power might be particularly likely in the Pacific Basin, 

where naval forces play a prominent role in military operations, 

and where China, which is modernizing its navy, is viewed as a rising power. Perceptions in the Pacific Basin of the U.S. as the declining power and China as a rising power could shape the political 

evolution of that region in ways that could make it more difficult 

for the U.S. to achieve various policy goals. 

Regarding demands for ships for European BMD operations, Department of Defense (DOD) testified last fall that it is considering 

maintaining two ships at each of three stations for a total of six 

ships on station in European waters. If the Navy filled that requirement using east coast home-ported destroyers operating on 

seven-month deployments, then maintaining those six ships on station could require more than two dozen ships. That figure might 

be reviewed as a high-end or worst-case analysis. It could be reduced in a number of ways. A strategy that combined European 

home-porting, multiple crewing, taking advantage of transit presence and using an operational tether could reduce it substantially. 

The Navy reportedly wants to cancel the CG(X) cruiser and instead procure an improved DDG–51. In assessing this plan, one 

issue to examine would be the performance that the improved 51 

in conjunction with off-board sensors would have against advanced 

cruise missiles and anti-ship ballistic missiles. 

A second issue to examine would be the vulnerability of the offboard sensors and data links and the reduction in performance that 

would occur if these sensors and data links are degraded by enemy 

attack. 

And a third issue to examine would be the improved 51’s growth 

margin, including the ship’s ability to be back-fitted with high-powered, directed-energy weapons such a laser. High-powered, directed-energy weapons could be critical to the Navy’s long-term 

ability to affordably counter cruise and ballistic missiles fielded by 

a wealthy and determined adversary. 

If policymakers decide that the Navy’s improved 51 would not be 

an adequate solution, and that a DDG–1000-based solution would 

be unaffordable, then other options would include a DDG–51 with 

modifications that are more significant than what the Navy is reportedly considering, or a new design destroyer that is more affordable than the CG(X) or the DDG–1000. My statement outlines 

these two options. 

Finally, the reported five-year plan would apparently stop LPD– 

17 procurement in fiscal year 2012. This would make it more expensive to use the LPD–17 as the basis for the LSD replacement 

because of the lengthy interval between the fiscal year 2012 and 

the start of the LSD replacement program years from now. Procuring an additional LPD–17 within the five-year plan, perhaps in 

fiscal year 2014, as the first LSD replacement could reduce the cost 

of using LPD–17 as the basis for this new program. 

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my opening remarks, and I will be 

happy to answer any questions the subcommittee may have. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 
10 

[The prepared statement of Mr. O’Rourke can be found in the Appendix on page 67.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair now recognizes Dr. Loren Thompson. 

STATEMENT OF DR. LOREN B. THOMPSON, CHIEF OPERATING 

OFFICER, LEXINGTON INSTITUTE 

Dr. THOMPSON. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be 

here and discuss my views on the Quadrennial Defense Review 

(QDR) and future shipbuilding requirements. 

The QDR is going to be organized around four themes: prevailing 

in today’s wars, preserving the force, preventing new conflicts and 

preparing for diverse contingencies. The goal is to balance joint capabilities for coping with conventional and unconventional aggression, an approach that I think poses little danger to the Navy’s future shipbuilding plans since all the vessels in the fleet are adaptable and versatile. 

However, the current fiscal environment imposes two pressures 

on the shipbuilding plan that the QDR will not be able to fix. First 

of all, America’s economy has fallen from 32 percent of global output at the beginning of this decade to only 24 percent today, and 

as a consequence we will not be able to continue sustaining about 

half of the world’s military outlays. 

Second, the rising price of military pay and benefits is squeezing 

technology spending out of the defense budget, creating tensions 

between the Navy and the Marine Corps as to which ships should 

be bought. Both of these trends portend bitter debate over shipbuilding plans in the years ahead. 

I would like to spend about half of my time talking about the undersea fleets, since that is where our most pressing budget problem 

is, and then spend the remainder of the time talking about the surface fleet. 

Turning to the undersea fleet, I think if you talk to most of the 

experts in the field, they will tell you the submarines are the one 

class of warship or the one type of warship that we can count on 

still being survivable in hostile environments at midcentury. 

Now, aside from a handful of special-use submarines, the U.S. 

Navy undersea fleet today essentially consists of two types of warships: ballistic missile submarines that provide secure retaliatory 

forces to our nuclear deterrent, and fast-attack submarines, which, 

in addition to collecting all sorts of intelligence, also conduct an 

array of other military missions. 

The Quadrennial Defense Review will reaffirm the priority of the 

nuclear deterrence mission, but it will also signal something else, 

that the bombers and the land-based missiles that are the other 

two legs of the triad are going to be contributing less capability in 

the future. So ballistic missile submarines will become even more 

important in deterring a nuclear attack in the future, and that has 

two implications. 

First of all, we must be ready to replace Trident ballistic missile 

subs when they begin retiring in 2027. Second, the replacements 

must be even quieter than the Tridents to ensure they cannot be 

targeted in a surprise attack. In other words, the Navy can’t just 

build more Tridents; it needs to design a better successor. And in 
11 

order for a new sub to be ready on time, the six-year design cycle 

must commence in 2012. 

Assuming a successful design phase, the Navy plans to build the 

lead ship in 2019, another ship in 2022, and then one ship per year 

between 2024 and 2033. But each of the Trident replacements after 

the lead ship is going to cost $5 billion, and the only way to find 

that kind of money in already overstretched shipbuilding accounts 

would be to defer other vessels. This funding dilemma is made 

worse by the fact that the Navy waited too long to ramp up the 

production of the Virginia-class attack subs, so it will now be unable to prevent the attack sub inventory from falling below the required number of 48 once the Los Angeles class begins retiring 

later this year. 

The Navy can manage the looming shortfall in attack subs by incrementally extending the lives of legacy subs and lengthening the 

tours of sailors at sea, but it will have to build two Virginias every 

year between 2011 and 2025 to avoid falling below 43 boats at the 

lowest point in 2028. That is now the Navy’s projected internal 

number. The lowest point is 43 boats in 2028. 

The good news is that the time and money required to build each 

new Virginia is falling steadily, and there is a lot of things we can 

do to improve the Virginias if we extend the production run beyond 

the planned 30 boats. 

Nonetheless, we can’t accommodate all this undersea design and 

construction work within likely shipbuilding budgets without displacing required surface levels. So therefore, I think that special 

steps are going to need to be taken to fund the Trident’s replacement. With ballistic missile subs destined to become the most important part of our nuclear deterrent in the future, there is a 

strong case for funding the Trident outside normal budget channels 

rather than cutting construction of other warships to cover the cost 

of our most important military mission. 

Turning to the surface fleet, many of you have no doubt heard 

the hottest shipbuilding rumor spawned by the QDR process. Mr. 

Akin, in fact, alluded to it in his own remarks, that the number 

of aircraft carriers will be cut from 11 to 10 or even to 9. I can assure you that if that happens, it won’t be because the Navy wants 

to do it. 

It is true that we are headed down to 10 in 2013 because there 

is a 33-month gap between when the Enterprise goes out of the 

fleet and the first Ford class comes in. The Enterprise would be 

prohibitively expensive to refuel because it has, if you can believe 

it, eight reactors. But that is only a temporary situation. 

Although the Navy could meet current warfighting requirements 

with one or two less carriers, a permanent cut wouldn’t be prudent 

for two reasons. First of all, warfighting requirements are going to 

change in the future. We don’t know how, but they will change. 

Secondly, there is a high likelihood that wartime attrition will 

occur in the future, so it makes little sense to cut the number of 

carriers to the absolute minimum currently required. And the Navy 

2011 shipbuilding plan will call actually for maintaining 11 flattops 

through the year 2040. 

Now, there is a lot to be said that is nice about the next class 

of carriers, the Ford class, that will be the successor to the Nimitz. 
12 

It delivers more sorties, it delivers more power, it delivers more 

protection. In addition, it reduces crewing requirements by several 

hundred personnel at least over the lifetime of the ship, which 

means that during the time it is operating, roughly 50 years, it will 

save nearly $5 billion in operating costs. 

However, I think the real key to the future viability of aircraft 

carriers may not be a new hull; it may be getting better airplanes 

on the flight deck. We have to push ahead with the F–35 because 

it is stealthy, and the Navy next has to step ahead, go ahead with 

the unmanned combat air vehicle because it is unmanned and 

stealthy; otherwise I am not very optimistic about the survivability 

or utility of carriers in the western Pacific as we get to midcentury. 

Well, I wish I could say that the story was that simple for the 

rest of the surface fleet. What we see there, though, is an unsettled 

picture created in equal parts by lack of money and lack of agreement between the Navy and the Marine Corps as to what needs 

to be bought. 

In the case of the surface combatants, the Navy is poised to 

abandon two of the three new classes that it announced at the beginning of the decade. It wants to walk away from what was then 

called the DD(X), now DDG–1000, land-attack destroyer after three 

ships, and it also wants to cancel the CG(X) next-generation missile-defense cruiser. Instead its plan is to build an upgraded 

version of the multi-role DDG–51 Arleigh Burke destroyer while 

upgrading other Arleigh Burkes and Ticonderoga-class cruisers, 

Aegis boats, that are in the fleet today. 

Now, I think those plans make sense. The DDG–1000 is too expensive to populate a 300-ship fleet, and its concept of operations 

will put a very valuable asset too close to enemy shores. CG(X) will 

probably not be needed at all once the Aegis combat system is upgraded on legacy destroyers and cruisers because the tracking of 

ballistic missiles doesn’t have to just be done from a ship; it can 

also be done from space by systems like the new Space Tracking 

and Surveillance Satellite. 

The third new combatant announced at the beginning of the decade, the Littoral Combat Ship, is essential to expanding fleet numbers to 300. I think Mr. O’Rourke referred to the fact that we have 

managed to get the shipbuilding numbers up by building a lot of 

smaller, cheaper ships, like the Littoral Combat Ship, and I guess 

also the Joint High Speed Vessel. But it really is essential for that 

reason for getting the fleet back up above 300 again. However, the 

Navy has decided for budget reasons to down-select to a single design. That step really was necessary because it is very expensive 

to try to maintain, upgrade and equip two different classes of ship 

for what is essentially the same mission. I predict that if the winning team does a good job of building this ship, then the service 

never will go to a second source, that it will try to save as much 

money as possible by sticking with one source. 

Finally, as for the amphibious warfare fleet, that part of the force 

posture looks likely to be a focus of controversy for many years to 

come. The Navy and the Marine Corps have parted ways on the 

need for 38 amphibious warships, and as a result the Marines are 

now lobbying the Congress to fund vessels that are not included in 

the 2011 shipbuilding plan. 
13 

To say they have parted ways is a bit of an understatement. It 

is not just that the Navy wants to buy fewer than 38 in the future; 

it wants to buy fewer than 30 in the future. 

Personally, I agree with the position Chairman Taylor expressed 

last year that we should fund serial production of new amphibious 

assault and transport ships to provide the core of the future sea 

base and replace aging vessels, but that does not seem to be where 

the Navy wants to go. Secretary Gates has foreshadowed the possibility that reductions in amphibious warfare capabilities may 

emerge from the Quadrennial Defense Review, but I would urge 

you to look very closely at the reasoning about future threats and 

requirements before you go along with that plan. 

Well, I have exhausted my time, so let me just close by observing 

that even if we kill the DDG–1000, and even if we cut back on our 

amphibious warfare capabilities, the Nation’s naval shipbuilding 

requirements are not likely to fit within projected budgets. Therefore, I think we need to have a discussion about how important nuclear deterrence is to national survival and fund the submarines 

supporting that mission in a way that does not hobble other seaservice missions. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Thompson can be found in the 

Appendix on page 89.] 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks all the gentlemen. And I want to 

begin with the very basic question, and I deeply regret—again, I 

want to make this perfectly clear, I consider Secretary Mabus my 

friend. I voted for him, State auditor, and I voted for him twice for 

Governor, and I wish he were here today. I also had a very good 

friend by the name of Mike Parker, retired as the Under Secretary 

of the Army after one day for speaking his mind rather than what 

Secretary Rumsfeld wanted him to say. So I understand the constraints on the Secretary. But I do wish he was here today. 

If the Secretary was here today, I would say to him, thus I am 

going to say it to you; the President has outlined a plan to put our 

Nation’s national missile defense on ships. How many do we need 

to do that adequately? What is it going to cost either to convert an 

existing DDG–51 or to build a new version of the 51 for that purpose? 

And I will start with you, Dr. Thompson. How many do we need? 

What is it going to cost? What is the most likely way that this is 

going to be done, through a conversion of a 51 or a new class of 

51s? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, I don’t think we are going to need a CG(X) 

cruiser to begin with. I think the Navy has come to the same conclusion. The original plan for taking the hull of the DDG–1000 and 

using it also for a foundation of a missile-defense cruiser was predicated on the belief that you needed a lot of power generation and 

a very big sensor, because all of the tracking and discrimination of 

enemy warheads was going to be done by one radar on one ship. 

We don’t really need to go that route. We are living in the era 

of networked warfare, and therefore there is the possibility not just 

for netting together all of the Navy’s sensors at sea, but also overhead sensors from the Joint Force and the Intelligence Community. 

If you do that, then you have the potential to track incoming ballistic missiles, including all sorts of confusing things like penetra-
14 

tion aids, decoys, debris and so on pretty precisely, and therefore 

you can do that from a DDG–51 with less power requirements and 

a smaller sensor because you have so many different eyes on the 

target. 

Having said that, though, the requirement for the ships is driven 

mainly by two things: What level of protection do you want? We 

have spent tens of billions of dollars to deploy a land-based ICB defense of the United States, and yet it could not stop a determined 

Chinese or Russian attack. 

The second thing is what sorts of technology breakthroughs do 

we reasonably expect we can achieve in terms of radar weight, in 

terms of power aperture, efficiency and that sort of thing? I am 

not—being a liberal arts major, I am not going to give you a precise 

answer on that; however, I would say that if this is going to provide most of the defense for the continental United States in phase 

4, the White House’s announced plan, in other words by being able 

to deal with Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) in addition 

to short- and medium-range missiles, we are probably talking 

about dozens of Aegis class vessels. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Is that in addition to the existing fleet, or is that 

taking the existing fleet and modifying it for that purpose? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, most of the money and most of the effort 

is going to be spent upgrading the preponderance of the Ticonderogas, not all of them, and virtually all of the Aegis destroyers. 

However, those ships appear to be committed to other missions at 

the present time, and so I would have to conclude that when I say 

dozens, it is dozens above and beyond the existing requirement. 

Mr. TAYLOR. And do you see any evidence—and I would open this 

up to the panel—do you see any evidence that the Administration 

is actually moving in that direction? I know they have said they 

are going to do it, but as far as budgeting purposes not only for 

next year, but for the foreseeable future, have you seen any evidence, any indications that they are following up that pledge with 

the actual purchase of the ships to do the job? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Not the hulls. They are certainly investing in the 

sensor and computer technology, they are developing the munitions, but they are not funding the number of hulls that would be 

required to ship most of this mission for continental missile defense 

to the Navy. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Dr. Labs, do you want to answer those questions? 

Dr. LABS. Sure, Mr. Chairman. 

I don’t disagree, I think, with anything that Dr. Thompson said. 

I would just add a few observations in addition to that. 

The Navy’s 313-ship requirement, which was developed, if memory serves correctly, back in about 2006, had a requirement for 88 

large surface combatants. That was a requirement that was developed at that time where the BMD mission was not part of the 

equation. So to the extent that the BMD mission is now going to 

be layered on top of that requirement, obviously additional ships in 

some number would be required. 

How many ships, you ask? That would depend again, as I sort 

of indicated in my testimony, how many stations are you going to 

have where ships need to be in constant patrol? Are those ships 

going to be in constant patrol? Do we need to have them there pro-
15 

viding coverage 24 hours a day, 7 days a week? If that is the case, 

I would agree with Dr. Thompson that the requirement for ships 

is in the order of dozens, as my statement indicated. On the other 

hand, if you think you can just surge ships to the area when a crisis is developing, if you want to provide the coverage that way, 

then the number would be considerably less and possibly even done 

as part of the existing requirement of routine deployment of surface combatants. 

Another factor would be do you change how the rotation factor 

occurs; is it the traditional rotation from the east coast, or do you 

try to do multiple crewing? That, too, will sort of affect the number 

of ships. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Before you get too far along, you said a destroyer 

in the course of its routine operations. In your opinion or in the 

panel’s opinion, can a destroyer that is performing escort duty for 

a carrier also be counted on to provide ballistic missile defense? 

Dr. LABS. I would not necessarily want to count on a destroyer 

that is providing escort to a carrier to do that. But we also do deploy surface combatants independently or part of surface action 

groups that are not necessarily doing duties in carrier escort. But 

it is certainly possible, depending on what the nature of the mission is or what is occurring, whether that is possible. If you have 

a crisis situation, and you are worried about protecting the carrier 

from the same sorts of threats that you want to protect European 

cities, for example, then you are going to need additional ships to 

provide, in my opinion, that additional coverage. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Just three quick additions to what has been said 

already. In terms of evidence that the Navy has funded what they 

are talking about in terms of conversions of existing ships, it is my 

understanding that it is the Navy’s plan, and it has been for the 

last year or two, that every DDG–51 eventually be converted to a 

BMD configuration, and taking a regular 51 and converting it to 

the current BMD configuration costs about $40- or $45 million. It 

is my understanding for a year or two now that that is the Navy’s 

intention. So the Navy is resourcing the idea of having many, virtually all, of its 51s and at least five of its Aegis cruisers be converted for BMD capability. 

In terms of funding new builds, if the press reports are accurate 

about the cruiser destroyer requirement increasing to 96, then 

those press reports also indicate that the Navy is not fully 

resourcing that, because even under the scenario where the Navy 

does not have to pay for the SSBNs out of hide, and the other shipbuilding programs are consequently not reduced, the Navy is still 

not achieving and maintaining a 96-ship cruiser-destroyer force, according to the tables that were published. 

And third, in terms of the additional burden on the cruiser-destroyer fleet, one way of looking at it is to note that over the past 

few years, the Navy has maintained an average presence in European waters of about 1.7 cruisers and destroyers, and now we are 

looking at increasing that to something like 6, perhaps, if we have 

3 stations with 2 ships each. And then Eric is taking you through 

the preliminary math on what that may mean. My math is not 
16 

really substantially different from that. That means if demands for 

cruisers and destroyers in other parts of the world do not decline, 

then the mathematics of this net increase in the cruiser-destroyer 

presence level in Europe are going to increase demands for cruisers 

and destroyers overall by about that much. 

Mr. TAYLOR. In your opinion, going back to the question by Dr. 

Labs, can a destroyer that is providing escort to a carrier also be 

counted on to provide national missile defense? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I think it is problematic in the sense that the carrier is not necessarily always going to be in the location that would 

be optimal for doing the BMD mission. Just because the carrier, for 

example, is in the Mediterranean doesn’t mean it is in the right 

part of the Mediterranean to do that mission. So there may be portions of time during which that cruiser or destroyer might be in a 

good location to take on that mission while it is also performing 

other missions, but at other times it is not going to be in the right 

part of the Mediterranean to do that. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, could I add one important qualifier? 

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure, Dr. Thompson. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Every Aegis destroyer that is upgraded from 

2012 on will be qualified to do ballistic missile defense, as will 15 

Ticonderogas. However, when they say ‘‘qualified,’’ what they mean 

is it will have the ability to shoot down a short- or medium-range 

missile carrying a unitary, meaning a relatively simple warhead. If 

we are looking at an intermediate- or an intercontinental-range 

missile or something carrying sophisticated penetration aids like 

decoys, it wouldn’t be able to do most of that. That requires additional steps that were in the White House plan announced in September, but the cost becomes quite imposing if you go up from that 

level of capability. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you, sir. 

Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, Mr. Chairman, I 

want to thank you for the integrity and tenacity you bring to this 

subject and to this subcommittee. 

And, gentlemen, thank you so much for being here. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Forbes, you are the acting Ranking Member, so 

you will not be subject to the five-minute rule. 

Mr. FORBES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will try to stay as close 

to that as I can. 

I would also like to take us out just for a moment from the trees 

and take a look at the forest. And when I am traveling around now 

and I am talking to people about national defense issues and budgetary issues, I constantly hear this word ‘‘frightened’’ from a lot of 

people. 

One of the things that frightens me are two things. If you turn 

around, you will see all of these empty chairs behind you, and it 

bothers me to no end, frightens me, that the Navy is not here asking or responding to our questions today. It frightens me that the 

law requires that the Navy give us a shipbuilding plan, and they 

just refuse to do it. And it frightens me that when this committee 

then under a congressional inquiry demands that they give us that 

shipbuilding plan, they just refuse to do it. 
17 

And I am looking at some of the projections that we have had, 

and we have had testimony in years past where we looked at the 

Chinese, for example, and what they were doing with aircraft carriers, and we were basically told, no, they are not going to build 

aircraft carriers, and then that flipped, and we were told about the 

subs that they weren’t building, and that flipped. 

Just recently we had the Military Power of the People’s Republic 

of China report, which I am sure all of you are familiar with, that 

projected that the Chinese had 260 ships in their fleet. Last week 

Admiral Willard came in and testified they have 290 ships in their 

fleet. That is a big difference in just a short period of time when 

you look at the fact that we are looking at about 287 ships. 

We also just had a report in the Washington Times that the 

White House National Security Council has recently directed the 

U.S. spy agencies to lower the priority placed on intelligence collection for China, and that was despite the opposition from senior intelligence leaders who fear it would hamper efforts to obtain secrets about Beijing’s military and cyber attacks. 

And here is my question for you: Why are our estimates always 

seemingly so far off? That seems like a big gap, 260, 290. 

Secondly, do you see any shift now; is it a concern to you that 

our budget is now possibly playing a greater role in a ship acquisition policy or policies than maybe our defense posture is playing in 

those same policies? 

And then the third question is, how is our force structure being 

shaped by the growing capability of the Chinese Navy? And does 

it concern you at all if we are lowering our intelligence-gathering 

capabilities from what they are doing? And I throw that out to any 

or all of the three of you. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I guess I could start on that. 

As you know, I maintain a CRS report on Chinese naval modernization. I initiated that report in November of 2005. It has been 

updated more than 40 times. And I did that to make sure that 

there was a readily available source of information for Members 

and staff on this topic. 

In terms of what role China’s naval modernization is playing in 

Navy force structure, I guess I would say this, that I think there 

are a number of relatively expensive investment programs in the 

Navy’s plan that to one degree or another are China related. And 

so if China does not become a sizable element of the public discussion over U.S. defense plans and programs, then I think that creates a possibility that some of those programs may not be fully 

funded. 

One of those programs was the CG(X) cruiser, and the press reports are now indicating that that program has been cancelled, and 

the Navy is reportedly proposing to do that because they are familiar—they are now comfortable with the idea of doing the mission 

a different way with the approved 51s and the netted sensors. But 

nevertheless, I think that if the Navy had its druthers, and if its 

resources increased, it might have preferred to still go ahead with 

that program. 

And in terms of intelligence collection, one of the ways of responding or of programming with a consciousness towards Chinese 

naval modernization is to take steps to increase intelligence and 
18 

monitoring what is going on in China’s Navy, and I have talked 

about that in my CRS report on China naval modernization. And 

so if you were to increase the emphasis that China plays in your 

defense plans and programs, that is one of the things that you 

would want to emphasize. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I certainly don’t think we are underfunding the 

intelligence function. The Director of National Intelligence stated 2 

months ago that we are spending $75 billion a year on intelligence, 

which is a lot of term papers. However, I am afraid that our performance is not improving in this new era. We have a pretty bad 

track record. We didn’t see Pearl Harbor coming. We didn’t see 

North Korea’s invasion of the South. We didn’t see the Tet Offensive. We didn’t see the collapse of communism, and we didn’t see 

9/11. Yes, there were some analysts off in some obscure places saw 

it coming, but the system didn’t see it coming. 

And the implication that I draw from that, I mean, even now, 

when I see the intelligence of this decade saying—the intelligence 

community saying, you know, Iraq, they are developing nuclear 

weapons and Iran isn’t, when we all know the opposite is the case, 

right? When you see something like that, what it tells you is: don’t 

count on the intelligence. Having a margin of error in your military 

posture, funding on the assumption your intelligence analyses are 

wrong, is the only prudent thing to do. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Labs. 

Dr. LABS. I guess the only thing I would add to that, to your 

point, is the role of budgets, sort of, playing too large of an issue 

relative to our other priorities in defense policy. 

Certainly in all the time that I have been doing defense policy 

in Washington, working for CBO, there has always been a balance 

between your defense priorities and how much money you have to 

spend on that. And the question always comes year to year is, you 

know, where is that balance filling out? Is what you buy and what 

you choose to do being driven primarily by cost, or is it being driven primarily by the strategy that you are seeking to do? 

And the balance that goes on there is something that every Administration juggles. And I am not sure that I am in a position to 

really judge whether the budget is getting too much emphasis 

today compared to what the strategy should be. I know that you 

can’t, sort of, go about developing a strategy in the absence of a 

budget, because if you could do that, you wouldn’t need a strategy; 

you could just do everything you possibly wanted. There is always 

a balance of, sort of, costs and risks, and how that balance is 

weighing out is certainly worthy of discussion and should be part 

of the defense debate. 

Mr. FORBES. Yeah, I guess the thing that concerns me most is 

we don’t get to have that debate because we don’t have the Navy 

here to ask those questions and we don’t have their shipbuilding 

plan to ask them questions about. 

But thank you so much, gentlemen. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman and wants to remind the gentleman that the Navy will be here in February, but 

we certainly wish they had been here today. 
19 

Mr. Hunter has expressed that he has a conflict and needs to 

leave fairly shortly. So, if there is no objection, I am going to recognize him out of order for five minutes. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And, again, thanks for 

your leadership on this and for the great support that you show for 

our manufacturing base as well as our national security when it 

comes to the Navy. 

First question, Dr. Thompson, when you talk about the fallout 

between the Navy and Marine Corps, is this because of a shift in 

the way that the DOD looks at surface fires now for land invasions? Is that kind of what we are talking about or what? 

Dr. THOMPSON. It is a lot bigger. It gets to a fundamental disagreement about what the future role of the Marine Corps should 

be. It gets to a level where the Navy—the political appointees in 

the Department of the Navy actually want to change the phrase 

‘‘forcible entry’’ to ‘‘theater access.’’ This is a substantial watering 

down of the whole concept that we have been building toward for 

a decade. It is less amphibs, it is less mine sweeping, it is less 

naval surface fires, it is pretty much less of everything, so the 

money can go to other priorities. 

Mr. HUNTER. You said that the Marine Corps’s mission, the Navy 

is trying to redefine it. But is the Navy’s mission being redefined 

to, meaning they are going to stay offshore more? And is that possibly due to fewer ships? Each ship is so much more valuable now 

that they don’t want to risk and they don’t want to get in close? 

Dr. THOMPSON. The Obama plan, as set forth in general terms by Under Secretary Work, is $15 billion a year for shipbuilding. 

That is somewhat more than we have been funding recently. So I 

don’t think we can blame it on lack of ships. 

There certainly, though, has been a breakdown in the consensus 

between the Marine Corps and the Navy since the Obama Administration began about what the proper purpose of expeditionary 

forces are and what resources are required to support them. 

Mr. HUNTER. When did that shift happen? And any of you, 

please, chime in here. Is this kind of a new shift in thinking in the 

Pentagon, or has this been around for a long time and it has suddenly prevailed recently? 

Dr. LABS. Well, I think that the debate between what is, sort of, 

the proper role of the Marine Corps and the sourcing for amphibious ships has actually been around for quite some time. I mean, 

many people have discussed in the past about how, you know, the 

amphibs, the Gators are all sort of the poor man’s Navy and that 

they don’t receive, necessarily, the highest priority in the shipbuilding accounts. 

And all of this stems, in my judgment, from the budgetary pressures that are on the Navy shipbuilding account but also in other 

procurement accounts as a whole. And if you have a program that 

is this big and you have this much to spend, you are going to look 

for things to cut. And changing whether you want to do a forcible 

entry capability as, sort of, a national capability to maintain is one 

way to, sort of, reduce your requirements for ships. 

Mr. HUNTER. So it is strategic—it isn’t based on national security 

and what we want to do; it is based on what the budget is. And 

we are then defining what we want the Navy’s mission to be or the 
20 

Marine Corps’s mission to be not by what is needed but by what 

the budget is. 

Dr. LABS. I am saying that that is certainly one factor in the 

equation. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. The press reports about the Navy’s new shipbuilding plan include a draft version of the Navy’s report on their 

new 30-year plan. And, in that draft report, there is an acknowledgment that the dropping of the MPFF requirement is something 

that was basically fiscally driven, that the requirement is viewed 

as valid but not currently within the Navy’s reach bugetarily. And 

that is something that would be near and dear to the Marine Corps 

in terms of their ability to launch and sustain operations ashore 

from a position at sea. 

And I tend to agree with Eric. I think that the tension between 

the Navy and the Marine Corps about what kinds of ships should 

be in the shipbuilding plan goes back a fair ways. And I think 

there is a sense among some observers, correct or not, that the 

Navy may accord a lower priority to amphibious ships because they 

are not essential to the Navy’s own combat mission, as they are to 

the Marine Corps’s. And, in the presence of constrained funding, 

that tension can come out between the two services. 

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, gentlemen. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and to my colleagues for your latitude 

on my questioning. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes, in the order of people who were here 

at the time of the gavel, Mr. Larsen for five minutes. 

Mr. LARSEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Going back to missile defense and ballistic missile defense and 

so on, we are also—a few of us are on the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, which oversees missile defense, so I want to just explore 

this a little bit. 

Obviously, we have talked about how the Navy is increasingly 

being called on to perform ballistic missile defense operations. The 

preferred platform for the mission appears to be the 51. 

Help me understand. Does the future shipbuilding plan envision 

the 51 being the sole platform? Is that the assumption that you all 

are operating under? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. The reported shipbuilding plan would have the 

51 be the dominant BMD platform, along with some number of 

cruisers. But, numerically, it would be a very large number of 51s, 

plus some number of cruisers in addition to that. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. Thompson, going back to what you were talking 

about with regards to the 51s and the radar capabilities of the 51s 

and modernizing them, is there a choice to be made between, say, 

modernizing the 51s with Aegis versus a different approach to 

radar tracking for missile defense? 

Dr. THOMPSON. There is a wide menu, a big menu of options for 

doing this. I think the reason the Navy favors the Aegis solution 

is that it is relatively cheap compared with the alternatives. And, 

secondly, if you buy an Aegis warship, you don’t just get a ballistic 

missile defense capability; you get air defense, you get antisubmarine, you get a limited land attack capability, and all sorts of 

other things. 
21 

So, from the Navy’s point of view, they are acquiring a multi-mission warship which can be continuously upgraded for a wider range 

of ballistic threats also. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. Would that be consistent, Dr. Labs, with your 

thoughts on that? 

Dr. LABS. Yes, Mr. Larsen. I think that what the Navy is pursuing, at least based on press reports that we have seen so far, is 

they are going to pursue the 51 for the foreseeable future. They are 

going to upgrade everything that they have—well, most the cruisers and then all of the 51s—to do that. 

And they will follow on with continuing to build 51s or some 

modified version of them, driven in part because they think it is 

probably the most cost-effective solution and also in part because 

it is, from their perspective, one of the least technically risky solutions. They are very familiar with the Aegis system. They are very 

familiar with the hull. And they think they can do what they need 

to do with the least amount of technical risk to be able to get the 

capability out to the fleet that they want. 

Mr. LARSEN. I think, you know, we may have a debate about this 

in the future. We could probably all agree on least technically risky 

approaches. 

But getting to that question, we passed a procurement reform 

bill this last year. Presumably we are taking a whack at the other 

80 percent of procurement we didn’t touch. 

Is there anything in those bills that can provide us some—I 

wouldn’t call it hope, but provide some direction that maybe the 

cost estimates that we are hearing about from you all can be at 

least incrementally or marginally less? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Oh, yeah. I mean, actually, the Navy—you would 

never guess it to read the press coverage, but actually the Navy is 

doing a better job than the other services of getting its costs down 

and getting ships out to the fleet faster. The Littoral Combat Ship 

made it to the fleet in half the time that a traditional warship did. 

In the case of the Virginia class, I think the Missouri is going 

to deliver in 62 months, whereas the initial ship was like what, 86, 

88 months? And, as a result, the number of man-hours required to 

build the first ship, 15 million, has fallen to below 11 million now, 

if I have that right. And the cost has come down by nearly 20 percent. 

I mean, not only is there clear evidence in the Department of the 

Navy that you can save money by doing this differently, but they 

have actually—there is actually a lot of other room for doing things 

like that. Like the chairman’s idea of doing serial production using 

the same amphibious hull for a range of future warships rather 

than always coming up with a new class and breaking the 

multiyear packages. There are lots of ways of saving money. 

Mr. LARSEN. Mr. O’Rourke, have you given thought about the 

procurement reform legislation we passed into law and how that 

applies to future acquisition and how it impacts your analysis? 

Does it at all? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I guess the one thing I would say is that the 

Navy has come through a period where it has recently introduced 

several new ship designs. And so the Navy is now looking forward 

to a period where it is introducing relatively fewer new ship de-
22 

signs and is spending more of its time, proportionately, on getting 

into regular, serialized production of existing designs. 

That, sort of, gets you away from defense acquisition reform, because it gets you away from the issues that are posed when you 

start a new acquisition program. But, in a sense, that is precisely 

the Navy’s point, that they are not going to be initiating that many 

new shipbuilding programs in the future and, consequently, can 

concentrate on the efficiencies that can come by putting existing 

designs into regular, serialized production. 

Mr. LARSEN. Yeah. Yeah. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

The Chair now recognizes Mr. Coffman for five minutes. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The first question is on nuclear propulsion. It is only the aircraft 

carriers that are nuclear at this point in time, and I think our 

chairman has raised, a number of times, the vulnerability of other 

ships and their refueling needs. 

How significant are the capital costs to have the lesser ships be 

having nuclear propulsion systems? Can you amortize those costs 

out to where the operating costs are much less over time, even 

though the costs are more significant up front? Give me an analysis 

along with the tactical advantages of having nuclear power. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, let me just say one thing up front, which 

is that the ship that we have been talking the most of adding to 

the nuclear fleet are the large surface combatants, and the Navy 

is in the process of killing all those. So we are reduced in terms 

of our options for doing that. 

But, having said that, your point about amortization is exactly 

right. Unfortunately, our political system does not respond well to 

the notion of amortization unless everything can be amortized before the next election cycle. 

It costs a lot more up front to equip a ship with nuclear power. 

It costs a lot less down the road to operate it with nuclear power. 

But the system is much more responsive to the upfront costs than 

to the later operating burden. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. 

Dr. LABS. Mr. Coffman, CBO actually has a study right now 

under way that looks at the question of nuclear versus conventional propulsion. And some of the information I will give here, you 

know, it is preliminary; we haven’t sent the study through our review process so far. But the increased capital costs to a nuclearpowered ship can be anywhere from 20 percent to 50 percent higher initial upfront cost, depending on the size of the ship and the 

type of the ship that it is. 

And then you clearly save money over the long run by not having 

to pay for fuel, but the cost of the break-even point of that savings 

will vary from ship type to ship type. Like, for example, large amphibious ships and large surface combatants, which we are no 

longer planning to buy apparently, we would have broken even 

around $200 a barrel for oil based on our assessment so far, with 

other ships, smaller surface combatants and smaller amphibs, at a 

much higher, you know, oil price break-even point. 
23 

So, depending on—and that is strictly on the cost side. Obviously, 

it gives you a number of tactical advantages, which Dr. Thompson 

referred to, that can be factored into that equation. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Just very briefly, I think Loren is correct in noting that the principal opportunity for introducing nuclear power 

into surface ships other than carriers was the CG(X). If the CG(X) 

is cancelled, then it becomes harder to find other programs that 

will present near-term opportunities for that. The only remaining 

area, I think, would be in terms of the large amphibious ships. And 

if we are sticking with the current designs of those ships, then you 

wouldn’t necessarily have an opportunity to introduce nuclear propulsion there either. 

While we are waiting for the new CBO report to come out, it can 

be noted that the Navy performed a study on this issue in 2006, 

at the request of Congress, very much at the request of this committee specifically. I have summarized the findings of those studies 

in a CRS report on the issue of nuclear propulsion for surface 

ships. 

And, basically, at the time, the Navy concluded that putting nuclear propulsion onto a larger surface combatant would increase its 

upfront procurement costs, other things held equal in that ship’s 

design, by several hundred million dollars. I think it was something in the range of $700 million. And the Navy calculated a 

break-even price for oil on a lifecycle basis, as Eric mentioned. And 

the break-even analysis is summarized in the CRS report. 

But the main point is that, if you don’t have a CG(X), then you 

don’t have a near-term program for thinking about putting nuclear 

power more widely into the surface fleet anymore. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Okay. The last question is, if the QDR does reflect 

the Navy’s point of view about theater access versus forcible entry, 

what does that do to the Marine Corps’s Expeditionary Fighting 

Vehicle program? 

Dr. THOMPSON. The short answer is that the Administration 

would like to kill it. 

There is a lot of maneuvers going on behind the scenes. In fact, 

I am not sure what the Marine Corps will do if it doesn’t get the 

FV. There is no obvious alternative. It probably is going to perform 

a lot better. 

But I think a political decision has been made that this is one 

of the programs they are going to target. So what they are really 

looking for now is some excuse, in other words, some failure in the 

reliability testing that will provide the venue or the vehicle for allowing them to kill it. They all know that there is no real alternative to the thing, but they have decided that they don’t want it 

to continue. 

Mr. COFFMAN. Anyone else? 

Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I yield back. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut, Mr. Courtney, five minutes. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Dr. Thompson, you, I think, did a nice job about laying out the 

challenge of funding the SSBN production and, you know, what 

pressures that puts on the rest of the program. And you talked 

about paying for development and procurement outside of the naval 
24 

shipbuilding account. I mean, is there any precedent for that? How 

do you envision, sort of, doing that? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, you know, we pay for most of our nuclear 

weapons in the Department of Energy in a completely separate 

budget item. What is it? I don’t know remember what the exact 

budget number is, but it is even a different Cabinet department. 

And we have been doing it that way since the beginning of the Cold 

War. 

The problem that we have here is that we are expecting tactical 

and one service or two mission services to be traded off against national survival-level missions, and it is an apples-to-oranges comparison. I see this happen in the Air Force all the time because 

they are responsible for the spy satellites, they are responsible for 

the intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and so on. And, yet, 

they have to trade that them off against, do I want more F–22s? 

And guess what decision they usually make? It is a bad way to do 

tradeoffs. 

And I think if we took this handful of national missions that are 

absolutely crucial, like nuclear deterrence, and put them in a separate category and funded them as if they were a first priority independent of intra-service tradeoffs, we would probably get a better 

outcome. 

I might mention parenthetically that in my two associates’ prepared remarks the point comes up that, if we were to do that while 

leaving the planned shipbuilding budget at the level currently expected, in other words, around $15 billion, but we took SSBN(X) 

out and treated it separately, we would probably solve most of our 

forward shipbuilding problems. 

Mr. COURTNEY. So, when the QDR comes out, which, I mean, as 

you point out, one of the predictions is that the triad is going to 

become less of a triad and more of a—I would guess that would be 

the opportunity—— 

Dr. THOMPSON. Correct. 

Mr. COURTNEY [continuing]. To really, sort of, pose the question 

about, well, okay, since we are creating a greater reliance on that 

platform, then maybe we have to recognize that by elevating it to 

a different place—— 

Dr. THOMPSON. Correct. 

Mr. COURTNEY [continuing]. In terms of where you pay for it. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I mean, the bombers are already falling out of 

the force, and there is a significant likelihood that we will trade 

away a wing of ICBMs to the Russians to bring the numbers down. 

So you are left with something that doesn’t really look like the 

triad. It is mostly Trident warheads. 

And, in a situation like that, you have to make certain you build 

the boat the right way and you have it ready at the right time. I 

think that is a strong argument for doing it differently than you 

would a new class of warships. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. As an addendum to what Loren said and to answer your question about whether there was a precedent for treating things budgetarily this way, you can argue that ballistic missile 

defense is just such a precedent. That is not a service, that is a 

mission, and yet it is its own category in the defense budget that 

contains funding for BMD capabilities in various services. 
25 

So if BMD has been separated out as a mission area for collocating a variety of spending that contributes to that mission, you 

can argue that that is a precedent for then taking strategic nuclear 

deterrence as a mission and then locating their variety of funding 

from various services that contributes to that mission, so that the 

spending of that can be optimized at the mission level rather than 

having it separated down into the services where it competes 

against the other missions of those individual services. 

Mr. COURTNEY. And so, Ron, is that, you know, sort of, an Appropriations Committee sort of task, or is it a policy committee—again, 

if you really wanted to, sort of, move forward with that kind of 

model? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I don’t know that it is more one side of the House 

or the other, but it is something that the authorizers and the appropriators could have a dialogue on to see whether they wanted 

to have the budget restructured in that way. 

Dr. LABS. Just, because it wouldn’t just apply to, obviously, the 

procurement accounts. You are talking about somewhere, you 

know, in the neighborhood of probably $8 billion to $10 billion in 

R&D before you even get to procuring the first ballistic missile submarine, which, in their own right, is going to be a $10 billion or 

$11 billion ship, the first one. 

Mr. COURTNEY. Well, I think as the chairman said, we are going 

to probably have this conversation at another hearing. And my 

time is running out, so thank you for your answers. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentleman. 

To that point, Dr. Labs, I would hope at some point that we 

could have a conversation, again, for the Ohio replacement submarine that probably would not be delivered for 15 years. It is my 

understanding that the purpose of this follow-on vessel is to carry 

the D–5 missile, because the D–5 missile will not fit in the Virginia-class submarine. So this is a fleet that doesn’t even start to 

get delivered until 2025. 

I think the question we need to ask right now is, is the D–5 missile still going to be the missile that this Nation wants as our nuclear deterrent in 2025 and for 20 to 30 years beyond that? And 

I would welcome your thoughts on that. 

I would hate to build a replacement for the Ohio-class submarine 

built around the D–5 only to find out in 2025 it is no longer the 

missile that our Nation wants to build our nuclear deterrence 

around. And I would hope the Navy is looking into that, and I 

would ask your organization, as well, to give us some thoughts on 

that. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Mr. Chairman, there are some things the Navy 

is already doing in that regard. They actually are planning to make 

the tubes on the next-generation satellites slightly bigger than 

what a D–5 would require because their estimate is that circa 2040 

they will need a different missile. They start with the D–5, but 

then they actually are considering moving to a bigger missile as a 

follow-on. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. Whatever information you have along those 

lines, I would welcome, Dr. Thompson. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Rhode Island, Mr. 

Langevin. 
26 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for 

holding this hearing. It is very interesting and important at this 

time. 

And, gentlemen, I want to thank you for your testimony here 

today. 

My question is for the panel. With the possible deployment of 

anti-ship ballistic missiles, there is, I would say, a need for increased effectiveness of existing Aegis BMD ships and a new level 

of fleet protection. And I am sure that you are aware of the capability of the Cobra Judy Replacement ship. And I have been briefed 

that the augmentation of a platform like this with BMD capability 

can actually be used as a near-term, cost-effective naval adjunct 

sensor. 

So can you speak to your assessment of this capability and how 

one or more of these ships could impact the number of BMD-capable cruisers and destroyers we might need for this mission. 

Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yes, actually, I have been following the proposal 

for doing something like that since I testified before this subcommittee in July of 2008. In that testimony, I referred to it as an 

‘‘adjunct radar ship.’’ And there is a proposal from industry to build 

several of those ships to act as adjunct radars so that the radars 

on the surface combatants don’t have to be as big. 

It may not necessarily reduce the numbers of cruisers and destroyers you need, but it would allow you to do the mission with 

cruisers and destroyers that had radars on them that are not as 

big as they would otherwise need to be because some of that radar 

burden is being picked up by these adjunct radar ships. 

So that proposal is out there. My understanding is that the Defense Department and the Navy have been made aware of it and 

that they have seen the outlines of it. I do not know what the status of that proposal is inside the Navy or DOD deliberations. 

Dr. LABS. My understanding is the same as Mr. O’Rourke’s. We 

have often had briefings on the subject—or on occasion we have 

had briefings on the subject, and I wouldn’t have anything more to 

augment to that. 

Dr. THOMPSON. There is a lot to be said for proliferating the sensors, because it means that any given radar no longer has to carry 

the full burden of doing the tracking. All I would say is that, if we 

are going to do this, I hope it is done outside the SCN budget, because one thing we don’t need is another limited class of ships that, 

you know, cost more per unit than the other ships do. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Would this relieve the burden of the Aegis cruisers having to—we talked about, if they were part of the force defending the carriers, that they wouldn’t necessarily be in the right 

place at the right time. So does that deal with that issue, that 

problem? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Depending on how they were deployed, it could 

make a significant difference in terms of how many Aegises you 

needed in a particular area of operations or what level of proficiency, what level capability each Aegis had to have. Because, as 

you put more sensors on the target, you collect more information. 

If you can net it and fuse it together, then the burden that any one 

ship has to carry is reduced. 
27 

Mr. O’ROURKE. It could also enhance the operational flexibility of 

the cruisers by allowing you to put them in a location that might 

be better in certain other ways for performing the ship’s mission 

because it didn’t have to necessarily be in some other location as 

it might have to be if it were really carrying the full burden of collecting the radar data. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Very good. 

There have recently been—this is on another topic—there have 

recently been comments from the Under Secretary of the Navy and 

other press reports indicate the Navy may be unable to achieve a 

sustained two-a-year production, two-a-year construction of the Virginia-class submarines starting in 2011 due to cost pressures. I 

guess I would ask you, do you agree with that? 

And, also, what are the implications for the Navy’s ability to 

meet combatant commanders’ requests should the Navy not fulfill 

its two-per-year schedule? And what are the cost implications to 

this program as well as other shipbuilding programs for failing to 

increase production of the Virginia-class submarine to two per year 

in 2011? 

Dr. LABS. Mr. Langevin, there are several implications of that. 

The press reports that we have seen so far indicate that the Navy 

did get a submarine put back in 2015. So that draft plan that they 

are looking at would have two per year, at least from 2011 to 2015. 

Now, beyond that, that would be a different story. 

The question of whether the—the cost implications if they don’t 

achieve two a year is going to have—there are going to be several 

effects. The first effect would be that if you go back to having to 

build one submarine a year, that individual submarine is going to 

be a lot more expensive. It will increase the cost by on the orders 

of hundreds of millions of dollars. 

It will have a second effect of it will increase the costs of the nuclear-powered aircraft carriers that are being built at Newport 

News. Already the re-centering of the carrier program that was announced by Secretary Gates last spring to 5-year centers adds a little cost to the submarines, on the order of $20 million to $50 million, according to the Navy. So, presumably, going back to one per 

year after 2015 is going to increase cost not only on the subs but 

also on the aircraft carriers as well. 

Dr. THOMPSON. If we were to build any fewer Virginia-class than 

two per year between now and 2025, then we would be looking at 

a force of less than 43 at the low point in 2028. Our warfighting 

requirement is for 48. 

Now, we can fill that gap in a variety of ways. I mean, they already have found some workarounds, like, for example, compressing the construction time so that they cannot go any lower. 

But every boat you take out of the sequence between now and 

2025, any less than two per year and you go down to 42 and to 41, 

and you just can’t cover the world. You have to decide someplace 

that is not going to be covered today. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Just very quickly, in terms of the cost impact, it 

is worth remembering that when the Navy was working toward the 

goal of getting the procurement costs of the Virginia class down to 

$2 billion each in 2005 dollars, that they had to take about $400 

million out of the cost of the ship to do that. About half of that im-
28 

provement, about $200 million, was achieved simply by going from 

one boat per year to two. 

So if you were to go from two boats per year back to one, you 

would expect that the cost of the ships would increase by roughly 

that same amount. So we are looking at something in the range of 

a $200 million increase in unit procurement cost in 2005 dollars, 

which would be higher in today’s dollars, should you go back down 

to one per year. 

In terms of the vulnerability of the procurement profile to being 

reduced to less than two per year, there are really three periods in 

question. One is between now and fiscal year 2013. And it seems 

to me that it is unlikely that you would fall off two per year between now and fiscal year 2013 because those boats are covered 

under a multiyear procurement plan, and dropping below two per 

year in that period would entail breaking that multiyear contract, 

which has a very significant termination liability attached to it. 

The second period is 2014 through 2018, when you are no longer 

under the current multiyear contract that calls for two per year. 

And I think during that period there is a fair amount of vulnerability for DOD or the Navy to look at taking a boat out every once 

in a while and dropping to something less than a solid two per 

year. 

And then an even higher period of vulnerability starts in fiscal 

year 2019, when we start building the new SSBN, because then at 

that point you run into this issue of the SSBN putting, potentially, 

very much pressure on the remainder of the shipbuilding budget, 

including the attack submarines. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Mr. Chairman, could I ask for clarification on one 

thing? I know my time—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. Sure. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. The Ohio Replacement Program, if I could, on 

cost, you—at least, Dr. Thompson, you said it is expected that they 

would run about $7 billion a copy and $85 billion for the fleet of 

Ohio replacements. 

Can you talk about how that figure was arrived at? Was that 

based on paying for it individually, one at a time, or was that assuming a bulk buy, if you would, of the Ohio replacements? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Dr. Labs and Mr. O’Rourke both cited similar 

numbers, $6 billion to $7 billion per ship, in their prepared statements. The Navy’s actual internal estimate is $15 billion for R&D, 

$10 billion for the lead ship, and then $5 billion for each ship 

thereafter. 

Dr. LABS. Mr. Langevin, the $7 billion figure and the $85 billion 

was in my prepared statement as a CBO estimate. We determined 

that by not using a bulk buy or a multiyear procurement process, 

but we did give them the benefits of, in effect, a rate effect of assuming that at least one attack submarine was being built in the 

yard or under a teaming arrangement, like we are building attack 

submarines today, each year that a new boomer was being built. 

And then the estimates were based on adjustments for inflation 

in terms of the time period that we are building it based on Virginia-class analogies adjusted for a larger-class submarine, a larger 

weight. 
29 

Mr. LANGEVIN. And if it were a multiyear procurement buy, 

would that number come down significantly? 

Dr. LABS. I would have to go back and sort of, take a look at that 

in comparison to what has happened with Virginia class. There 

would certainly be some degree of savings in that, but I couldn’t 

tell you off the top of my head how much that would be. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Could you do that and get back to the committee? 

Dr. LABS. Sure. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Just as a quick addendum to what Dr. Labs has 

testified, the SSBN(X) would not be, under current law, eligible for 

a multiyear procurement through the first few ships in the program, because you need to establish design stability as a statutory 

requirement for qualifying for multiyear procurement (MYP). 

But for the first few ships in the program, you could use a block 

buy, as was done for the first few ships in the Virginia class. And 

the savings on the Virginia-class block buy were in the range of 

about five percent. If it was an augmented block buy that also had 

Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) authority, which was not the case 

in the Virginia block buy, it could be something north of 5 percent. 

Later on in the program, when you get into a real multiyear procurement thing the savings might be more, closer to 10 percent. 

Mr. LANGEVIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. ORTIZ [presiding]. Ms. Pingree. 

Ms. PINGREE. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

And thank you for your testimony today. It has been very enlightening to me. As a freshman Member, I always have a lot to 

learn, and I appreciate all of your perspective on this. 

I just have one question, again, kind of a procurement question. 

We have been talking a lot about the dependence on the DDG–51s. 

And I will start with Mr. O’Rourke, but if anybody else has a comment, I am interested to learn. 

You have said in recent years that the Navy, particularly with 

this increased dependence, needs to procure at least three DDG– 

51s per year in order to match and meet the required force structure levels. In the past, you have based this assessment on historical data detailing the useful service life of major surface combatants and the minimum level of investment needed to maintain the 

Nation’s surface combatant industrial base. 

Several Navy reports on industrial base have also noted that, in 

order to maintain two major surface combatant shipyards, a minimum of three DDG–51s must be procured each year, along with 

additional work in the yards. 

So my question, and particularly given that I have one of those 

yards in my district and we are interested in industrial capacity, 

and I know that is something that is important to the Chair, as 

well: If the DDG–51 procurement rate going forward is below three 

ships a year, what impact will that have on the Navy’s ability to 

sustain a major surface combatant force and maintain a strong industrial base? 

I know we have talked around this a little bit, but I just, kind 

of, want to go over this again to talk about these specific numbers. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. All right. The rate that is reportedly in the plan 

is one and a half ships per year. 

Ms. PINGREE. That is what we understand. 
30 

Mr. O’ROURKE. And at least half of that, if not more than half 

of that, would need to go to Bath Iron Works if Bath were to operate at a level commensurate with what it has had in recent years. 

In terms of the impact on the industrial base generally, which includes both Bath and the Ingalls yard down on the Gulf Coast, the 

impact would depend also on how much amphibious shipbuilding 

there is, because that is work that would add to the workload, especially down at the Gulf Coast yards. And this plan does not have 

very many amphibious ships in it. 

And that is one reason why I tried to signal that in the five-year 

plan there is an issue with the amount of surface ship work. And, 

in particular, in the five-year plan, it relates to the amphibious 

ships in the Gulf Coast yards. But in the 30-year plan, it also relates to the scenario that happens if the Navy has to pay for the 

SSBNs out of hide. Because that drives down many of the other 

shipbuilding programs into one-per-year rates. In fact, as I have 

said at times in the past, it turns the Navy’s plan into a digital 

shipbuilding program; it has nothing but ones and zeros in it. 

And that rate is sustained in that scenario for a long enough period of time that I think that would make a consolidation of some 

kind of the surface ship industrial base a distinct possibility, if not 

a likelihood. 

Ms. PINGREE. Uh-huh. Which is certainly a reduction in our industrial capacity. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Yes. 

Dr. LABS. The alternative to that, if it does not—and I would 

agree with Mr. O’Rourke. I think a long run where you are building one DDG–51 equivalent per year would lead to some kind of 

consolidation. But if it didn’t, it would certainly lead to a much 

higher unit cost for those ships because you are paying for a lot 

more overhead on one ship as opposed to spreading it over a number of ships. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, if we knew 10 years ago what we know 

now, we wouldn’t have built any DDG–1000s and we would have 

built three or four DDG–51s in various upgraded variants instead. 

And we would be doing it now and well into the future. 

Bath is not going to suffer. If the Navy had its way, it would 

send all the surface combatants to Bath. But in the current—— 

Ms. PINGREE. We appreciate you saying that. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Oh, well, that is what the Navy tells me. 

Ms. PINGREE. I am sure the Chair would differ, but I appreciate 

it. 

Dr. THOMPSON. But, however—— 

Mr. TAYLOR [presiding]. Whoa, whoa, whoa. Mr. Thompson, I am 

sorry, you are just way out of line. 

Dr. THOMPSON. I am merely characterizing—— 

Ms. PINGREE. We know Secretary Mabus would never let that 

happen. 

Dr. THOMPSON. As a matter of fact, he has been quite vocal on 

maintaining the industrial base, so you are right about that. 

But I think, as a practical matter, Bath probably is not looking 

at any serious shortfall in workload going forward, given the fact 

that it has all of the Zumwalt class and will get some of the DDG– 

51s. 
31 

Ms. PINGREE. Thank you. 

You know, I am going to regret asking a stupid question, but 

what do you mean when you say ‘‘out of hide’’? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. It means you have to pay for the SSBNs within 

your budget without an offset—— 

Ms. PINGREE. Oh, so taking it out of your hide. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. Uh-huh. 

Ms. PINGREE. Got it. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. That you don’t get an offsetting increase to your 

budget to help pay for it, whether that increase is within the shipbuilding account or within a new specialized account elsewhere in 

the DOD budget, that you have to absorb it along with everything 

else that you were already planning on doing. 

Ms. PINGREE. Got it. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair thanks the gentlewoman. 

And since we are coming upon the season of Lent, the Chair is 

going to try to be forgiving to the gentleman from New England for 

making a very reasonable remark, however inaccurate. 

The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. 

Massa. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you, sir. 

I was interested to just hear the statement, ‘‘If we knew 10 years 

ago what we know now, we probably would have not purchased any 

DDG–1000s.’’ And, for the record, at least one member of this committee did, in fact, know 10 years ago what we know now and, in 

other capacities, was incredibly verbal in opposition to that ship 

class, an opposition I continue to be verbal on. 

We built the two command ships based on a previous generation 

of amphibious hulls. Is it outside the box, Mr. O’Rourke, to consider 

using LPD–17 platform to replace those two command ships? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. It is not outside the box at all. In fact, there have 

been multiple press articles over the last year or two about how the 

Navy is considering, or was at least at one point considering, using 

either the LPD–17 hull or the T–AKE (Auxiliary Cargo (K) and 

Ammunition (E) Ship) hull as the basis for a new command ship. 

I think if you have a command ship in the program, that would 

continue to be the Navy’s going-in way of looking at the issue. But 

it appears now that, under fiscal pressures, that the command ship 

has dropped out of the Navy’s program entirely, in which case the 

question doesn’t arise anymore. 

Mr. MASSA. And your estimate on the remaining hull life on the 

two command ships, Mount Whitney and Blue Ridge, that we currently have? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I would have to see when they were commissioned. I actually haven’t looked at that lately. But they are not 

young. 

Mr. MASSA. Commensurate with my birth. So you are correct. 

Dr. Labs, we have had a lot of conversation today about ballistic 

missile defense and a fundamental re-shift in national strategy 

that has a tremendous impact on the U.S. Navy fleet. We have also 

talked a lot about in-hide/out-of-hide for SSBNs. Is it not true that 

ballistic missile defense is a national defense priority and not a 

naval defense priority? 
32 

Dr. LABS. I think it is reasonable to characterize ballistic missile 

defense that way. And, certainly, many observers, you know, do so. 

Mr. MASSA. Since the construction of all land-based and aerial 

activities associated with ballistic missile defense did not come out 

of those services’ hides, is it not, therefore, at least argumentative 

that we should examine other funding streams for this series of 

constructions of enhanced Burke-class destroyers as we are discussing enhanced funding streams for strategic ballistic defense 

submarines? 

Dr. LABS. I would certainly agree that it is reasonable to look at 

alternative funding streams for that purpose. 

Mr. MASSA. So you wouldn’t consider that to be an irrational consideration? 

Dr. LABS. No, sir, I would not consider that to be an irrational 

consideration. 

Mr. MASSA. All right. Thank you. 

To my good friend with regional concerns from New England, you 

obviously are very, very focused on and very knowledgeable about 

submarine fleets, and I welcome that. 

What is your vision of what we are going to do to replace the 

three that I know of, and perhaps more, special mission submarines that are currently extant in the force? Have you heard or 

seen, has anyone discussed, are we are going to go do that with serial productions with enhanced hulls that we are going to take out 

of the current, or is Carter and her fellow hulls going to just live 

forever? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Well, in the case of the Seawolf class, this is sort 

of a nightmare to maintain, because it is a unique class of three 

ships, and doing spare parts and sustainment is very expensive. 

Over the long term, the logical solution would be to build a variant of the Virginia class. I fully expect Virginia class to go beyond 

40 ships anyway, so that would be the logical way to go. Given the 

other constraints, particularly in the undersea ship construction 

part of the SCN budget, I don’t think we could really afford any 

alternative to that. 

Mr. MASSA. Is it out of the box to consider that perhaps the three 

one-of-a-kind Carter-class submarines can act as escorts for the 

three one-of-a-kind Zumwalt-class DDG–1000 surface combatants? 

Dr. THOMPSON. Could you say that again? 

Mr. MASSA. Since we are into building three of a kind, the Carter 

class and the Zumwalts, for which nobody knows what we are 

going to do with those anyway, perhaps there is some synergy in 

combining those two shipbuilding programs that I would consider 

to be somewhat less than successful. 

But one last specific question as far as submarines go. We 

haven’t discussed at all today surface infrastructure—in other 

words, bases, where we are going to put everything. Obviously, the 

Navy is operating under some incredible fiscal constraints, and 

that is only going to get worse. 

In a perfect world, it would be nice to park a nuclear aircraft carrier anywhere. In a non-perfect world, does it make sense to spend 

almost as much money on creating a new nuclear-capable homeport 

as it does building a nuclear-capable ship? 
33 

Dr. THOMPSON. I might be able to make the strategic case for 

Guam but not for Florida. 

Mr. MASSA. So you would, from your expert opinion, question the 

allocation of significant dollar bills into nuclearizing, for lack of a 

better word, all of the infrastructure necessary in a northern Florida port, specifically in Mayport? 

Dr. THOMPSON. I wouldn’t question it. It is a waste of money. I 

already know the answer: It is a waste of money. 

Mr. MASSA. So that is relatively frank speaking in a building 

that is not used to relatively frank speaking. 

Dr. THOMPSON. You know, we are spending $4 billion a day in 

this government that we do not have. And, meanwhile, our share 

of global GDP has fallen from 32 percent to 24 percent in one decade. So, to spend that kind of money to get no additional gain in 

terms of military capability is bordering on the scandalous. 

Mr. MASSA. Mr. O’Rourke, you and I have had a relationship 

that spans now more than a decade, and we have engaged in tabletop intellectual conversations about the Navy for some time. And 

yet here we are with three DDG–1000s of which will have no general ship fleet purpose and some 52 LCSs that will need to be refueled every 48 hours if they operate at any operation tempo 

(OPTEMPO) necessary. 

Is there anything at all in the budget with respect to looking at 

things like tankers? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. You mean tanker ships as opposed to—— 

Mr. MASSA. Well, unless someone has figured out a way of aerial 

refueling the LCSs. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. You mean oilers. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. The Navy does have a downstream plan to replace the current oiler fleet. And reportedly in the press reports 

that came out last year, the Navy for a time was looking at bringing forward the start of the new oiler program and combining it 

with what had been the MLP program into some kind of combined 

TAO–MLP. 

In the most recent reporting about the Navy shipbuilding plan, 

that idea has once again been set aside. And the Navy is proposing 

to build a reduced-cost Mobile Landing Platform (MLP), and the 

TAO is now once again out beyond the end of the FYDP. 

Mr. MASSA. Thank you very much, gentlemen. I always appreciate your insights and inputs. 

And, Mr. Chairman, that calls it for the day. 

Mr. TAYLOR. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Virginia, 

Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, I don’t have any additional questions. 

I just want to thank each of you gentlemen for being here. We 

appreciate your expertise and your willingness to share that with 

us. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. 

Gentlemen, I guess my parting thoughts would be—and I want 

to thank all of you for being here. 
34 

Mr. Thompson, I am going to try to forget that incredibly inappropriate remark. 

But the biggest concern is—and I have also been very fortunate 

to know Mr. O’Rourke for a while. You know, for at least 10 years, 

Chiefs of Naval Operations (CNOs) have come before this committee saying the ideal fleet is 313 ships. And under both Democratic and Republican Administrations, what they say they need 

and what the Administration asks for have never matched up. Not 

one President that I have served with has asked for a minimum 

of 10 ships. And given the 30-year expected life, 10 times 30 gets 

you to that 300-plus-ship Navy. 

Having seen the disconnect between what the Navy says they 

want and what the Administrations, be it the Democrats or Republicans, ask for, I have some very serious concerns that the President’s plan to put our Nation’s missile defense on ships is not going 

to be followed up with the proper budget request. 

And I realize we don’t live in an ideal world. I realize that no 

one could have envisioned six, seven years ago that we would 

spend $24 billion on mine-resistant vehicles. On the flip side, I 

think every penny of that was worthwhile because kids are coming 

home alive that would have died needlessly, lost their limbs needlessly. So we recognized the vulnerability, I regret to say, too late, 

but we did recognize that vulnerability. We took the steps to keep 

people from dying needlessly. And those vehicles that worked well 

in Iraq are now being retrofitted and on their way to Afghanistan. So that is $24 billion that will not be available. I am also aware 

that, depending on who you ask, $12 billion to $14 billion a month 

is being spent on those two conflicts. Again, when I got here in 

1989, I don’t think too many people saw us in a land war in Iraq 

and Afghanistan. Those things happened. 

So, given the realities of the world, but also given, as Mr. 

Thompson pointed out, things we don’t expect to happen do happen, and we don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘‘Gee, we didn’t see 

it coming,’’ particularly if it is a nuclear missile attack coming from 

someone we didn’t expect any time we didn’t expect against our 

Nation, what should we be spending this year to start putting that 

nuclear defense from the sea into place? 

I realize I have just laid out the realities of the world, but what 

should we be spending, starting this year, to make the plan that 

the President announced work? 

And, by the way, since all of you have spoken very freely, if you 

don’t think we ought to be putting our Nation’s missile defense on 

ships, say so now. 

Dr. THOMPSON. Virtually any attack on the United States is 

going to come over an ocean. And that means having the 

deployability, the flexibility of putting the defenses at sea, at least 

one of the layers, makes a lot of sense strategically and operationally. 

We are not going to get much mileage out of the Zumwalt class. 

So I think we have to move on to thinking about, well, how many 

DDG–51s do we need? At the very least, we should be building 

three a year in the upgraded configuration, maybe four. But I am 

not sure, as you pointed out in your own remarks, that the Administration has thought this all the way through yet. 
35 

Mr. TAYLOR. Dr. Labs. 

Dr. LABS. Mr. Chairman, as you know, as a CBO analyst I am 

not in a position to make policy recommendations. But that being 

said, if you are—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. But, Dr. Labs, I think you are off the hook because 

we asked your opinion. 

Dr. LABS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My performance review is 

coming up in two weeks. I am not sure—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. I would remind the gentleman that no money may 

be drawn from the Treasury except by an appropriation by Congress. 

Dr. LABS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

If you decide that you want three ballistic missile stations in Europe at sea and you want to maintain and you want to populate 

those stations more or less on a continuous basis or something 

close to it, then you are going to need in the neighborhood of what 

we were talking about, the three to five ships per station. 

So, depending on how fast you want to get there, you would need 

to start adding ships into your shipbuilding plan pretty much as 

soon as the acquisition system can accommodate them. Meaning 

that, if you add money this year, you may not be able to buy the 

ship immediately, but maybe you can; it kind of depends on what 

the capacity is that the Navy currently has available to add ships 

to the program. 

Mr. TAYLOR. So, in specific numbers—and, again, I realize we are 

not living in an ideal word—in specific numbers, how many ships 

should we be asking for this year for that purpose? 

Dr. LABS. Well, given that the Navy is already planning—has already got the Zumwalts being built at Bath, are planning to request for one DDG–51 this year, certainly doubling that procurement rate would be the first logical step that I would take if you 

were trying to achieve that level of capacity, you know, say, by 

about 2018 or so. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. O’Rourke. 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I am under the same strictures that Eric is about 

making policy recommendations. But if the issue is trying to meet 

the near-term pressure for BMD capability in Europe, then the 

steps that you might want to look at, in terms of their ability to 

produce capability in the shorter run, there are two. And one of 

those would be to fund the modernization of existing 51s at whatever maximum capacity—— 

Mr. TAYLOR. You had given us the amount of, what, $54 million? 

Is that what you said, sir? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. I think it is $40 million to $45 million, the last 

time the Navy asked. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. And are you pretty confident of that number, 

since we don’t have a very good track record of coming in under 

budget? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. That answer is several months old, so it is a little 

bit higher. But the Navy has already had some experience in doing 

this, so I think there is less risk in that number than there would 

be in building a lead ship, for example. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Okay. 
36 

Mr. O’ROURKE. So it may be something higher than $40 million to $45 million. 

But if you are trying to find ways to generate BMD capability in 

the short run to meet a demand that has appeared for BMD capability as a result of the Administration’s new plan, then one option 

would be to look at funding the conversions of existing 51s into a 

BMD configuration at whatever annual rate both funding and industrial capacity could support. 

And the other would be to put additional money into the procurement of SM–3 missiles. Because the inventory of those is fairly low, 

and once you put money into that, those missiles will appear two 

to three years later. 

If you want to solve a longer-term problem about having BMD 

capability, then that is what construction of new ships can handle. 

But construction of new ships, putting that into the budget now 

will not produce a new ship until about five years from now. If 

what you are really concerned about handling first is this nearterm problem, then it is conversions and procurement of SM–3 missiles that are the options that could address such a concern within 

that time frame. 

Dr. THOMPSON. If I could just reiterate something I said earlier, 

if we just modernize at the current standard, it won’t do us much 

good in terms of defending the United States or other countries 

that are being attacked by intermediate- or long-range missiles. Because the standard that we are modernizing to right now is for 

short- or medium-range missiles with relatively simple warheads— 

in other words, the sort of thing that Iran might do in its first generation of offensive weapons. 

If we want to defend the United States or, say, Japan against a 

longer-range missile, then we are talking about step three or step 

four of the plan that the Administration announced in September, 

rather than step one, which is what we are doing now. 

Mr. TAYLOR. For the panel, what is your understanding on the 

modification of an existing DDG–51 to a theater missile defense 

configuration? What is the timeline on that, best-case scenario, 

worst-case scenario? 

Mr. O’ROURKE. My understanding is that is being done now as 

a part of the general modernizations of the existing 51s. And those 

modernizations are, the last time I checked, being accomplished 

through a two-part plan of roughly 12 months’ duration between 

the two parts, where the ship comes in and has some hull, mechanical and electrical (HM&E) upgrades for roughly 6 months and 

then comes in at a later point for combat system upgrades, again 

another 6 months or so. And, presumably, the BMD work would be 

done principally during the second of those two modernization periods. 

And so, after about 12 months of work, which would take more 

than 12 months to accomplish because of the time in between those 

two periods, at the end of that process you now have a DDG–51 

that is modernized in various ways, including the addition of a 

BMD capability. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Thank you. 

Are there additional questions for the panel? 

Mr. FORBES. Mr. Chairman, the only thing—— 
37 

Mr. TAYLOR. Mr. Forbes. 

Mr. FORBES [continuing]. I would like to comment on is that your 

remarks about Mr. Thompson’s statement about Bath may have 

been a little bit off, but he was right on the money on Mayport. 

And so we want to make sure that we get that down for the record. 

Mr. TAYLOR. So noted. 

Mr. Coffman. 

Mr. COFFMAN. No. 

Mr. TAYLOR. Ms. Pingree. 

Mr. Massa. 

Ms. Pingree, I would remind you that I really wasn’t a proponent 

of that third 1000, so we—but anyway. 

Ms. PINGREE. I appreciate that, sir. 

Mr. TAYLOR. But, again, we thank you very, very much. I think 

we all think this hearing could have been much, much better had 

the Navy been here today, but I think you gentlemen did a fine job. 

Thank you. 

We stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:59 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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