Draft House Continuing Resolution To Fund Columbia Sub; McConnell Says No

WASHINGTON: House Democrats have proposed a stopgap spending measure that would fund the federal government through Dec. 11, providing critical money for the Navy’s effort to build a new class of ballistic missile submarines.

The timeline for building the first Columbia-class submarines has long been a concern for the Pentagon, since the Ohio-class subs they will replace are slated to begin retiring at the end of the decade. The submarines will eventually carry some 70 percent of the nation’s nuclear weapons so any gap between the Ohio retirements and new Columbias would have a serious impact on the nuclear triad.

The proposed legislation grants an exemption so the Navy can begin buying parts and getting to work on the $128 billion Columbia subs. Under Continuing Resolutions the armed services aren’t allowed to begin any new programs, meaning with this waiver the work would be halted until a full 2021 budget were passed. 

Significantly, the bill would also extend the period of time available for government contractors to be reimbursed for extra COVID-19 expenses they may have incurred over the last several months.

The defense industry has pushed for those reimbursements to cover the costs, which the Pentagon’s top acquisition official has estimated those costs could eventually run as high as $20 billion.  

The document, released Monday by the House Appropriations Committee, could go up for a vote before the entire House later this week before being sent to the Senate.

In a sign of the fights to come with only nine days until the federal government shuts down, Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell immediately rejected the proposed House bill, writing on Twitter: “House Democrats’ rough draft of a government funding bill shamefully leaves out key relief and support that American farmers need. This is no time to add insult to injury and defund help for farmers and rural America.”

Appropriations Chairwoman Nita Lowey, whose committee produced the bill, railed against the failure of the Republican-controlled Senate to move forward with funding bills this summer. “While the House did its job and passed bills funding nearly every government agency, Senate Republicans did not even begin the appropriations process. Because of their irresponsibility, a continuing resolution is sadly necessary,” she said.

Efforts to forge a budget that both Democrats and Republicans could agree upon broke down again on Friday, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin failed to reach an agreement. 

In a statement, Pelosi said today that, “the Continuing Resolution introduced today will avert a catastrophic shutdown in the middle of the ongoing pandemic, wildfires and hurricanes, and keep government open until December 11, when we plan to have bipartisan legislation to fund the government for this fiscal year.”

Work on the first two Columbia subs is the starting point for an overall build of 12 new boats and will eventually carry 70 percent of the nation’s nuclear weapons, and the program is the Navy’s highest-priority acquisition effort.

Normally, the Pentagon isn’t allowed to begin any ‘new start’ programs under a continuing resolution without specific Congressional assent, but the tight timeline for the Columbia work has both Navy officials and lawmakers keeping an eagle eye on its progress. The failure of Congress to pass a 2021 spending package led the House panel to pass the measure in order to keep the federal government operating until Dec. 11, by which time both houses of Congress will be back in session.

Without congressional action, the Navy would lose authorization to begin work on the boats, slamming the brakes on the $10.4 billion contract with General Dynamics Electric Boat.

In the long run, the Navy has outlined plans to buy 12 Columbia subs between 2021 and 2035, with 10 of those coming 2026 and after. Deliveries will begin in 2030, just in time to begin replacing the Cold War-era Ohio-class subs as the Navy’s leg of the nation’s nuclear triad.

In June, Rep. Joe Courtney, who represents Electric Boat’s district in Connecticut, underscored what a mammoth project the Columbia program is for the Pentagon. “The replacement of our sea-based strategic deterrent comes only once every other generation,” he said.

Some early work on the Columbia has run into trouble, but it has not imperiled the build schedule for the class.

In 2018, Virginia-based BWX was forced to pay $27 million to fix welding problems on the Columbia tubes, after issues were found on a total of 44 tubes. So far, 21 of those have been fixed and 11 delivered to the Navy. BWX has since suggested they may get out of that aspect of the defense industry.  

The failure to replace the Ohio submarines on time would represent a major blow for the nation’s nuclear triad, as the aging ships will have next to no life left in them by the end of the decade, and leaving the sea leg of the nuclear enterprise in some jeopardy.