On the recordMay 25, 2011
As the chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee, we have taken a good look at LHA-7, and this is an absolutely essential ship. Nobody is arguing that point. It is a large deck amphib assault. What has happened, though, is that the Marine Corps decided that they wanted to put a well deck in the original design, which has caused some additional negotiations and slowed things down a little bit. But the point of this amendment is to strip $150 million away from this project. That is a very big problem. It is a big problem because next year we have got an aircraft carrier to build, a nuclear-powered submarine, and a destroyer, and this money needs to come from the budget this year in order to keep the LHA-7 on track. As we have talked about earlier this evening, we are in a bad position in terms of number of ships in the Navy. LHA-7 is critical, it is important, and stripping $150 million does tend to threaten the project, or at least push it off, and then you have to try and fund it in a year when we don't have the funds because we are building a bunch of other ships. So what this does is it guarantees that LHA-7 is going to proceed, but we have to allow enough time for the negotiations.
