BALTIMORE, Md. — The newest Navy submarine will take its name from the city that gave the U.S. the Star-Spangled Banner, crab-flavored potato chips and the final resting place of Edgar Allan Poe.
Secretary of the Navy Carlos Del Toro named the new submarine while standing aboard USS Constellation in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. He was joined by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.). The future USS Baltimore (SSN-812) is the sixth warship and second submarine to bear the name of the Maryland city. Del Toro announced Hicks as the submarine’s sponsor.
The ship’s hull number is close to 1812, Cardin said during his comments. It is fitting given Baltimore’s role in the War of 1812 against the British.
Baltimore has a long history with the Navy and shipbuilding, Del Toro told USNI News after the naming ceremony. That history, as well as the recent destruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed after MV Dali, a commercial vessel, rammed it, led the secretary to choose the name.
“It plays a huge role, actually, in the CNO’s NAVPLAN as she talks about bringing more ships onto the line,” Del Toro said. “We need to continue to make these great investments that are the most technologically advanced, quiet submarines in the world, so that we can actually deter China. We can deter Russia and all our adversaries under the sea.”
The future Baltimore is one of two attack boats Congress appropriated $9.4 billion for in Fiscal Year 2024, but, just this month, the White House asked for $1.95 billion more to complete the funding for Baltimore and SSN-813 as part of a request to Congress
The Navy had initially included the two Block V FY 2024 attack boats as part of a larger bundle with the next 10-hull Block VI Virginia multi-year deal and the next five Build II Columbia-class ballistic nuclear missile submarines.
In the negotiation for the 17-boat deal with General Dynamics Electric Boat, the Navy proposed a contract scheme that would change the way the service contracted for submarine labor would free up funds from previous submarine contracts that were frozen to increase pay for submarine workers and for shipyard investment, USNI News previously reported.
The Office of Management and Budget did not move ahead with the Shipyard Accountability and Workforce Support (SAWS) proposal that would free up billions for the shipbuilder HII Newport News Shipbuilding and General Dynamic Electric Boat to invest in the workforce. Instead, the OMB added the $1.95 billion as part of the anomaly to the continuing resolution proposal to keep the government funded into Fiscal Year 2025 absent a signed budget.
On Thursday, Del Toro testified before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, during which he called for the committee to approve the $1.95 billion for Baltimore and SSN-813 but did not support the SAWS proposal before the panel, several people familiar with the deliberations told USNI News.
In comments to USNI News on Friday, Del Toro confirmed the Navy’s official position was to support the White House’s anomaly for the two FY 2024 boats rather than the SAWS proposal.
“We’re actually hoping that Congress will pass the $1.95 billion appropriation so that we can support the two submarines that we need. This is the gap that exists,” he said.
The Navy wants to be “able to fully fund those submarines so we can get them out to the fleet. That is our official position, that we are supporting the $1.95 billion appropriations for the submarines.”
On Friday, shipbuilders from EB and HII appeared before HAC-D to push for the SAWS proposal for submarine funding.
Newport News president Jennifer Boykin told Congressional Quarterly after the hearing on Friday that SAWS was “absolutely a solution” for submarine funding.
“It is going to take this additional, significant investment into those lanes of effort, if you will, around workforce, the infrastructure, the capacity and technology to accelerate back to where we can get on a one-plus-two rate [to build submarines],” she told CQ.
Following Thursday’s hearing committee chairman with SECNAV Del Toro, Rep Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) said in a statement that HAC-D had only been recently made aware of the SAWS proposal that has been circulating inside the Navy and the shipbuilders for the last year and half, he told Politico.
“I am not satisfied with Secretary Del Toro’s answers,” Calvert said in a statement to the newspaper.
“I don’t like surprises, and he neither justified nor offset the $1.95 billion anomaly. He also did not support policy solutions, including SAWS. We have more work to do.”
