Senators criticise USN budget manoeuvring
DDG-51 destroyer USS Arleigh Burke. (Photo: USN)
The US Senate Appropriations Committee has criticised the USN, saying the service submits budgets to Congress that underfund critical programmes with the expectation that lawmakers would restore the funds.
In the explanatory notes of the Senate Appropriations Committee defence spending bill released on 18 October, lawmakers cited a request from the USN to break a multi-year procurement (MYP) contract for the Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer while also listing procurement of the destroyer as the service’s top unfunded priority.
Committee members wrote that they are ‘concerned that this continues a trend by the Navy to submit budgets to the Congress that deliberately underfund programmes deemed by the Navy to be critical, with the expectation that the congressional appropriations committees will restore funds for these programmes within the budget allocation for the Department of
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