Bipartisan headwinds buffet $1B ‘anomaly’ for Trump battleship – Roll Call
As Congress acts on a stopgap funding bill to keep the government operating beyond Oct. 1 at current levels, unless specified otherwise, it must decide whether to grant exceptions — potentially including $1 billion to start procuring parts for the first of a new line of proposed Trump-class battleships.
But three GOP-majority defense committees have already said the funding would be premature, given that the ship is not yet fully designed.
The House passed a stopgap spending bill last week that would continue federal funding at current levels into fiscal 2027 with very few of the exceptions known on Capitol Hill as anomalies.
The Senate, though, is considering a White House list of requested anomalies.
One of the more controversial ones is a request for $1 billion in so-called advance procurement funds to start acquiring parts for the first of as many as 25 Trump-class battleships, just the first of which could cost in excess of $20 billion, the Congressional Budget Office said earlier this year.
The defense panels that have written the three fiscal 2027 bills that have advanced so far this year have all criticized the administration’s full-speed-ahead approach to buying the battleship.
Some of the sharpest criticism of that strategy came from the only defense committee to agree to provide the $1 billion without conditions.
The Republican-led House Appropriations Committee’s Defense spending bill would provide the $1 billion. However, the report accompanying the bill said the Navy has not yet “finalized ship design, completed a formal analysis of alternatives, or established a stable set of requirements.”
The appropriators warned that “committing funding to construction before achieving design stability and solidifying requirements is a principal cause of the cost growth, schedule delay, and industrial base instability that afflict Navy shipbuilding.”
Meanwhile, the Senate’s NDAA, which the chamber has yet to take up, would not authorize any of the $1 billion. An aide told reporters last month the funds are “early to need.”
The House-passed NDAA would authorize the $1 billion but would forbid the Navy from signing a contract for the lead ship until the Navy secretary certifies that its weapons are “at a sufficiently mature technology readiness level.”
The top Democrats on the Armed Services committees have been vocal in their opposition to the Trump battleships.
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