A congressional push to fund a second Virginia-class submarine in the Fiscal Year 2025 defense budget will delay the Navy’s next-generation fighter program, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wrote in a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services committees last week.
The top item of a 15-page list of objections to the proposed House and Senate defense authorization bills is a warning to the committees that adding a second submarine to the FY 2025 budget would make the Navy’s pursuit of the F/A-XX follow-on to the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet “unexecutable.”
“[A]dding a second submarine would require the Department to reduce the Next Generation Fighter program by $400 million, making the fighter program unexecutable and degrading the Navy’s ability to field next-generation aircraft capabilities required in the 2033 to 2037 timeframe,” reads the letter.
“The Department strongly opposes section 129 of the Senate-proposed bill and section 1018 of the House-passed bill, which would authorize and provide funding in FY 2025 for a second Virginia-class submarine, which industry would be unable to produce on a reasonable schedule.”
The Navy’s Next-Generation Air Dominance program is seeking to develop a new naval fighter that would follow the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornets in the 2030s. The NGAD effort has proceeded in fits and starts over the last decade. The goal is to have a manned fighter known as F/A-XX operate with multiple unmanned systems that would be part of the overall NGAD program.
“We have three companies that have provided proposals for that and we’re actually in source selection right now,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti said of NGAD during a Defense Writers Group breakfast on Wednesday.
Instead, Austin in his letter to Congress asked lawmakers to support a slate of submarine industrial base investments and aviation investments, according to the letter. Politico first reported on Austin’s letter.
After years of requesting funding for two Virginia-class submarines a year, the Pentagon sought a single submarine and an $8.8 billion investment into the overall submarine industrial base over the five-year budget outlook.
“We believe that the best choice for where we are in the Virginia-class program is to make substantial investments in the submarine industrial base to make sure that we get these programs on the cadence that we need,” former Navy Under Secretary Erik Raven told reporters in March.
“And looking at where we are in procurement, we judged that funding 9 out of the 10 Virginia class that are funding in the ‘25 budget is the right move.”
In parallel to the request for the Fiscal Year 2025 boat, the Navy is negotiating a 17-boat deal with General Dynamics Electric Boat – two Block V Virginia-class boats, 10 Block VI Virginia-class submarines and five Build II Columbia-class nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Funding for the submarines has been a key topic of disagreement between the Navy and Congress over the last month.
In addition to aviation and shipbuilding, Austin objected to some personnel inclusions in the authorization bills.
He does not support the basic pay schedule included in the House-passed NDAA, according to his letter. The schedule lays out pay for each service member rank depending on the number of years served. While the bill includes schedules for commissioned officers, warrant officers and enlisted service members, Austin specifically discouraged against the enlisted schedule.
Instead, he asked Congress to wait to make decisions until the 14th Quadrennial Review of Military Compensation finishes, according to the letter.
“Further, the proposed changes would either eliminate or significantly decrease the pay differential between junior enlisted and more senior enlisted pay,” reads the letter. “Mid-grade and senior enlisted members have greater responsibilities and leadership positions, and a pay increase only for junior enlisted would eliminate the pay differential that midgrade and more senior enlisted receive for their substantial responsibilities.”
Austin argued that service members are receiving another 4.5 percent pay increase, bringing the total increase to 15 percent over the past three years, as part of the president’s FY 2025 budget.
He also expressed concern and opposition about a number of social issues addressed in the House-passed NDAA, particularly ones focused on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and gender affirming surgery.
“The enactment of these provisions would send a troubling message to Service members and potential recruits, suggesting that the Department does not value the very diversity of the Nation it serves,” reads the letter.
Austin did offer his support for a provision in the bill that would codify access to fertility treatments as part of TRICARE.
