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Subcommittee adds 3 ships to Navy request

By unanimous vote and without debate, the House seapower subcommittee approved almost all of the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps’ 2008 budget request — and kicked in three unrequested ships as well.

The additions include:

* $1.7 billion to add an LPD-17 amphibious transport dock.

$456 million to add a T-AKE dry cargo ship.

* $588 million for advance procurement of a nuclear reactor for a Virginia-class attack submarine. The full procurement of that sub will likely come in 2009 or 2010.

* $480 million to hire a supplier to build a second, competing engine for the F-35 Lightning II strike fighter. This move was taken in coordination with the House panel on air and land power.

The panel approved the Navy’s ship-construction list, which includes one aircraft carrier, CVN-78; one Virginia-class nuclear attack sub; one LPD-17 amphib; one T-AKE dry cargo vessel; and a joint high-speed vessel for the Army.

They also approved $710.5 million for two Littoral Combat Ships. The president’s budget request asks for three, but the Navy is reprogramming that money as a result of cost turmoil that struck the program earlier this year.

Lawmakers added $4.1 billion to the Mine-Resistant Ambush-Protected vehicle program, which fully funds the joint service requirement for 7,700 new vehicles.

But they cut $200 million from the Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle program because of “significant delays and program uncertainty.”

Chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and ranking member Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., both restated their strong support for nuclear-powered major surface combatants, and included in the markup a provision requiring that new classes of such ships be designed and built to be powered by nuclear reactors.

The panel’s proposed legislative language will next be reviewed by the full House Armed Services Committee.

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