S.Amdt. 4598

SA 4598. Mr. SCHUMER submitted an amendment intended to be proposed
by him to the bill S. 2943, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year
2017 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy,
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle C of title I, add the following:

SEC. 128. TESTING AND INTEGRATION OF MINEHUNTING SONARS FOR
LITTORAL COMBAT SHIP MINE HUNTING CAPABILITIES.

(a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The Department of the Navy has determined that the
Remote Minehunting System (RMS) has not performed
satisfactorily.
(2) On February 26, 2016, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus
stated that new testing must be done to find a reliable
solution to the mine countermeasures mission package and that
the Navy wants to ``get it out there as quickly as you can
and test it in a more realistic environment''.
(3) There are several mature unmanned surface vehicle-towed
and unmanned underwater vehicle-based synthetic aperture
sonar (SAS) sensors in use by the Department of Defense and
navies of allied nations.
(4) SAS sensors could provide a technology that would meet
the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) minehunting area clearance
rate sustained requirement.
(b) Assessment Required.--The Secretary of the Navy shall
perform at-sea testing of a range of sonar technologies to
determine which systems can meet the requirements of the Navy
LCS mine countermeasure mission package (MCM MP).
(c) Report to Congress.--
(1) In general.--Not later than September 30, 2019, the
Secretary of the Navy shall--
(A) conduct operational at-sea testing and experimentation
of currently available and deployable United States and
allied conventional side-scan sonars and synthetic aperture
sonars;
(B) complete an assessment of minehunting sonar
technologies that could meet the requirements for the LCS MCM
MP; and
(C) submit to the congressional defense committees a report
that contains the results of the at-sea testing and
assessment described in subparagraphs (A) and (B).
(2) Elements.--The assessment required under paragraph
(1)(B) shall include--
(A) specific details regarding the capabilities of current
United States Navy minehunting sonars and in-production SAS
sensors available for integration in the LCS MCM MP;
(B) an estimate of the capabilities that could be achieved
by integrating SAS sensors in the LCS MCM MP; and
(C) recommendations to enhance the minehunting capabilities
of the LCS MCM MP using conventional sonar systems and SAS
systems.
(d) Sonar System Defined.--In this section, the term
``sonar system'' includes, at a minimum, sonar systems
relying on conventional sonars, side-scan sonars, or
synthetic aperture sonars.
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