The amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6), the same type ship as the LHA 9 of budget controversy, sails off the southern coast of California. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Timothy M. Black/Released)
WASHINGTON: An influential congressman overseeing the Navy’s shipbuilding accounts says the service can expect blunt questions about what appears to be the double counting of an amphibious warship in the president’s budget request.
“I think it is so blindingly obvious that that ship can’t be counted this year again,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., told Breaking Defense in an interview today. “To the extent that you have to wrestle with it just kind of undermines the credibility” of the rest of the budget.
Courtney chairs the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, a key congressional panel with jurisdiction over the Navy’s shipbuilding budget request. Courtney, the panel’s ranking member Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., as well as other lawmakers took notice when the service rolled out its new budget request, which counted LHA-9 as one of nine new vessels bought in fiscal 2023 even though it had already been authorized fiscal 2020.
That’s a problem because lawmakers in previous years have written legislation that explicitly directs the Navy to not portray a ship that has already been authorized in prior years as a new vessel in subsequent budgets. For reasons that are not clear yet, that is precisely what the Navy appears to have done in this case.
Breaking Defense has sought a comment from the Navy multiple times about this issue and as of press time has not received a response.
Courtney said he too had not received an explanation yet from the service, but that he intends to seek answers during the annual private meetings lawmakers have with key service officials ahead of congressional public hearings.
“That subject is going to be very bluntly brought up,” he said, calling the move “confounding.”
During a separate interview several days after the budget was released, Wittman told Breaking Defense he couldn’t speculate on the Navy’s intent. He chalked the service’s ship counting up to an insider baseball game among the Pentagon, the White House and Congress — a game driven by the Pentagon’s need to follow the top line budget numbers directed by the White House.
“I’m not too much into what the intentions are,” he said in an April 8 interview. Congress’ “job is to have the debate and do as much as we can to make sure our nation is in the right position to defend itself.”
Often, when it comes to the budget, Wittman added, “the president proposes and the Congress disposes. That’s where are with this.”
