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An unmanned underwater vessel (UUV) operates near the USS Ponce in the Persian Gulf. (File)
WASHINGTON: The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office last week published its annual assessment of the Navyโs long-range shipbuilding plan, estimating the serviceโs current budget overshoots traditional congressional appropriations by as much as 43% in some cases โ and providing a third-party analysis on how much a โdistributed fleetโ may cost.
โCBO estimates that the force envisioned in the 2022 plan would cost an average of between $25.3 billion and $32.7 billion per year in 2021 dollars,โ says the new CBO report published Sept. 16. โThose amounts are 10 percent to 43 percent higher than the $22.9 billion the Congress has appropriated, on average, for all shipbuilding activities over the past five years.โ
Those price tags are what the office says it will take for the Navy to field a fleet with dozens of new unmanned vessels alongside the traditional warships the service has built for decades. The Navy says that vastly expanded fleet of smaller and unmanned vessels are essential for Distributed Maritime Operations.
โUnder the 2022 plan, the Navy envisions a force of between 77 and 140 unmanned vessels โ 18 to 51 unmanned undersea vessels and 59 to 89 unmanned surface vessels,โ CBO wrote.
CBO is mandated by law to provide independent estimates of the Navyโs long-term shipbuilding plans each year. The office issued an assessment of the serviceโs fiscal year 2021 plans in December, several months later than usual due to the Trump administrationโs delays in providing lawmakers with the shipbuilding plan.
That analysis, the first to factor in the Navyโs ambitious goals spun out of the 2020 integrated naval force structure assessment, tagged the administrationโs plans just slightly higher than the analysis published last week. Although the 2022 shipbuilding plan was published by the Biden administration, budget submissions following elections are usually influenced by both administrations as a matter of practicality and the time investment necessary for producing it.
The new report pegs new-ship construction between $23.4 billion and $30.6 billion per year, putting them between 15% and 50% higher than the funds Congress has provided over the past five years.
โBecause the Navyโs plan does not include a specific procurement schedule, those projections are a steady-state estimate of the cost of building the platforms anticipated in the 2022 plan,โ CBO wrote.
Congress unveils stopgap funding bill with $5.7 billion for Virginia-class subs
Congress has until Friday night to pass the continuing resolution before federal spending runs out, giving lawmakers a tight timeframe to move through procedural hurdles and avert a government shutdown.