Not Enough Attack Submarines? Congress Fights Over Submarine Production

By Jim Morris, Warrior Vice President, News

There’s a battle on Capitol Hill over Virginia-class attack submarines, and the players in this fight aren’t lining up the way you would necessarily think.

The clash is raising questions about whether the US should be cutting back on submarine production at a time when China is ramping up production.

Here’s the issue: last month, the House passed the fiscal 2025 defense spending bill that called for buying just one Virginia-class sub instead of the two the bill has provided for in the past. That went against the wishes of a number of Republicans and Democrats on the House Armed Services Committee, who had urging partially funding a second Virginia-class boat.

This dispute was triggered earlier this year when the Navy, in a move that shocked some observers, only asked for one of the submarines. Officials blamed a “struggling industrial base and stifled procurement funding stemming under Congressional spending caps.”

To put that in non-governmental English, the Navy is unhappy with the pace of production, and is hampered by a deal Congress struck that limits the coming year’s defense budget to rise only one percent over the current year, despite inflation.

The Pentagon’s chief financial officer, Mike McCord, pointed out that the Virginia-class submarines that were supposed to be delivered this year are, on average, about 30 months late. “So, the question was really, what can we do to get a better result other than keep doing the same thing and hoping for a different result,” he said.