Steve Cohen: “I rise to describe for my colleagues an important element of the bill that will help preserve our shipbuilding sector…”

“I rise to describe for my colleagues an important element of the bill that will help preserve our shipbuilding sector and the jobs of skilled mariners. At my urging, the committee authorized $50 million for the national defense features [NDF] program. I am gratified to report that the Appropriations Committee has since agreed to appropriate $50 million to jump-start this worthy program. Given its importance to our national security, I thought it would be helpful to expand on the committee's report. At my urging, the Secretary of Defense earlier this year provided to Congress a study of the costs and benefits of an active Ready Reserve Force [RRF] program employing privately owned commercial ships equipped with national defense features as an alternative to government-owned strategic sealift. Although submitted 14 months late, the report was welcomed by the committee because it confirmed that the program offered important benefits to the Nation. Unfortunately, the Pentagon's fiscal year 1996 budget request contained $70 million to purchase existing, foreign-built RO/RO ships for the RRF, but nothing to fund the NDF program. The committee believed the $70 million requested to purchase these foreign-built and -owned RO/RO ships is not in the national security interest, is not cost-effective, and would weaken our national defense shipbuilding industrial base.”