Joe COurtney

U.S. Congressman Joe Courtney (CT-2) speaks at the Tolling of the Boats ceremony held at the United States Submarine Force Library and Museum. (U.S. Navy/ Tristan B. Lotz)

SYDNEY — A blanket exemption for Australia from the International Traffic in Arms Regulations and related legislation pertaining to nuclear submarines may be the best way for Congress and the Pentagon to clear the decks so the Royal Australian Navy can get nuclear attack boats in the water before the Collins-class subs are retired, according to a key US lawmaker.

“So, Congress has a huge role to play when you’re talking about ITAR because some of the export controls are statutory. And Congress needs to change the statutes,” Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., outgoing chairman of the House Armed Services seapower and projection forces subcommittee, said in a Sunday interview.

The last time America tried to help an ally, the United Kingdom, field nuclear boats, one big law stood in the way, said Courtney. The McMahon Act, formally known as the Atomic Energy Act, forbade the sharing of nuclear technology with pretty much any other country, even though the US and Britain had worked together to build the first nuclear bomb. Courtney noted it took 10 years — at the height of the Cold War — to reverse that act.

The Australian government hasn’t decided on what path it’ll take to a nuclear sub. But should it request US nuclear sub tech, Courtney, one of the top American advocates for the AUKUS subs, acknowledged in the interview the daunting obstacles posed by the web of arms export laws and regulations, including ITAR, the US Munitions List and the various laws that give them teeth.

“We don’t want to wait 10 years, obviously,” he said, so Congress may need to pass “a simple circuit breaker that just says none of these laws shall apply to Australia, notwithstanding any existing language. Maybe that’ll do it.” But he and his congressional colleagues can’t do it alone. “It has to be done in tandem with the Pentagon because I just feel like that the legislative arm and the executive branch have to be completely in sync,” he said.

Part of the broader equation, Courtney said, would be adding Australia to the venerable Defense Production Act, which can help expedite the production of anything in the United States. The act could also be used to speed other AUKUS efforts in hypersonics, artificial intelligence, quantum work and other fields. President Joe Biden invoked the act in December last year for the Virginia class subs, so there would be precedent.

Congress is always leery of “loosening” arms export restrictions, lest something unexpected happen for which they could be blamed. Having cover from the Pentagon may be crucial to passing such legislation.

As it is, arms export regulations and laws could delay the transfer of crucial technologies and systems for years, cumulatively, at a time when Australia is racing to build a nuclear sub enterprise from scratch so it doesn’t face a gap between the retirement of its conventionally powered Collins-class attack subs and the deployment of the first Aussie nuke boats.

Courtney did take a very different tack from his friend and Republican counterpart on the HASC seapower subcommittee, Rep. Rob Wittman, Va., when it came to allowing Australian sailors to man a US attack sub. Wittman told Breaking Defense he thought that could be a good bridge to ensure the island continent does not face a capability gap.

But Courtney thought the idea “clunky,” expressing concerns about who would actually have final command and control over the sub. Instead, he pointed to the service life extension program for the Los Angeles-class subs as a possible bridge, saying one or more of those might be provided to Australia.

“That could also be a stopgap because, at least, they probably have about 10 years more of life when they refuel the reactors and do lots of tests on the hull so that it’s going to be safe. So that’s another idea,” Courtney said. “That’s sort of been bandied about.”

The Navy plans to refit boats to help ensure the US does not dip below a fleet of 41 nuclear attack subs in the middle of this decade as the LA class begins retirement. Each sub is being scrutinized for its suitability and to see how many more years it could stay at sea.

But Wittman made his suggestion because he does not believe US shipyards can build enough attack subs quickly enough to provide Australia with any, while still keeping the US on track for its own needs. Courtney argued that shipyards could greatly expand their workforces and capacity.

“There’s no question that (shipyard) capacity is very full in terms of the existing backlog of work,” he said. But the yards’ labor is not “inelastic.” During the Cold War he noted the Electric Boat sub workforce was close to 30,000 people. While the numbers have improved in recent years — Courtney said during his tenure the yard has gone from “limping along” with 6,000 workers to today’s 14,000 — the workforce is still far from reaching those heights.