Ranking Member Courtney Responds to Fiscal Year 2025 Shipbuilding Request
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-02), Ranking Member of the House Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, issued the following statement after the Pentagon released its Fiscal Year 2025 budget request.
“At a time when the pace of all of Navy shipbuilding—manned and unmanned, including carriers, submarines, destroyers, and frigates—is recovering from the impact of the COVID pandemic and supply chain disruptions, the Navy’s plan to cut a submarine that is already been partially paid for and built, makes little or no sense. If such a cut is actually enacted, it will remove one more attack submarine from a fleet that is already 17 submarines below the Navy’s long stated requirement of 66. Given the new commitment the Department of Defense and Congress made last year to sell three submarines to our ally Australia, which I enthusiastically support, the ramifications of the Navy’s proposal will have a profound impact on both countries’ navies. This deviation from last year’s projected Future Years Defense Program (FYDP) contradicts the Department’s own National Defense Industries Strategy issued January 11, 2024, which identified ‘procurement stability’ as critical to achieve resilient supply chains. For all these reasons and more, this hard rudder turn by the Navy demands the highest scrutiny by the Congress which, at the end of the day, has the sole authority ‘to provide and maintain a Navy’ vested in Article One, Section Eight of the Constitution.
“My office has also been in close contact with leadership at Electric Boat and they have confirmed that the hiring goal for 2024 of 5,200 new hires will not be affected by this FY25 request. However, as the lead shipbuilding unions and I have indicated, the FY25 budget request will have a long-term impact on submarine industrial base workers.”
On January 17, 2024, Courtney, as well as House Armed Services Committee leaders Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Smith, and Ranking Member Kelly sent a letter to President Biden cautioning his administration to maintain a two-per-year procurement rate.
Read a letter from the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers here.
Read a letter from the Metal Trades Council here.