§231 Budgeting for Construction, Maintenance, and Modernization of Naval Vessels: Annual Plans and Certifications

Summary

Requires the Secretary of the Navy to send, with the President’s defense budget each year, a shipbuilding plan and a matching certification. The plan must cover two groups of ships: combatant and support vessels, and auxiliary vessels. The Secretary must certify that the budget and the future-years defense program provide enough money to buy the ships on the schedule in the plan, and include the unedited views of the Chief of Naval Operations and the Commandant of the Marine Corps. The 30-year plan must show detailed construction programs for each ship type, the force size and capabilities needed to meet the national security strategy (or the most recent national defense strategy if a new national security strategy is not available), the yearly funding needed by ship class with supporting cost and procurement assumptions, total cost estimates per ship, expected operations and sustainment costs, expected service life for each class with reasons for any changes plus certification of those service-life estimates by the designated Senior Technical Authority, and for ships planned to be retired in the next five years a plan for disposition and any shortfalls in warfighting capability. If the final ship of a class is planned in the future-years program, the plan must explain effects on the shipbuilding industrial base and, if a replacement program is proposed, give a detailed schedule of decisions, solicitations, and contract awards. The Secretary must consider the most recent shipbuilder training and industrial base report when making the plan. If the plan does not meet required force structure or capabilities, the Secretary must include an assessment of the strategic and operational risks, whether those risks are acceptable, and plans to reduce them, coordinated with combatant commanders and the Nuclear Weapons Council. The Secretary of Defense must also include a maintenance and modernization plan with the budget that forecasts maintenance needs for current ships and ships to be delivered, and describes steps to fund workforce, industrial base, shipyard workloads, and facility improvements to meet those needs; the Secretary must certify funding is sufficient for that plan. The Congressional Budget Office must report to the congressional defense committees within 60 days after they receive the shipbuilding plan on whether the plan’s funding estimates are adequate. If the two plans and certifications are not included with the budget, no more than 25 percent of certain Defense-wide operation and maintenance funds for emergencies and extraordinary expenses may be used until they are provided. If the number of battle force ships drops compared with last year’s plan for that year and the next nine years, the Secretary of Defense must brief the congressional defense committees within 15 days identifying which ships lost funding (and any prior research, advance procurement, advanced construction, or economic order quantity funds for them), and the expected changes in shipyard workload and in value of major subcontracted parts or critical materials. Definitions in this summary: “budget” — the President’s budget for the fiscal year; “defense budget materials” — the documents the Secretary of Defense sends to support that budget; “national defense strategy” — the four‑year review of U.S. defense programs and policies; “combatant and support vessel” — a commissioned ship built or armed for combat or to support combat operations; “auxiliary vessel” — a ship designed to support forces at sea; “expected service life” — the number of years a ship is expected to be in service.