S.Amdt. 2023

SA 2023. Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. King) submitted an
amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 4049, to
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2021 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 appropriate place in title I, insert the following:

SEC. ___. LIMITATION ON ALTERATION OF NAVY FLEET MIX.

(a) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
(1) the United States shipbuilding and supporting vendor
base constitute a national security imperative that is unique
and must be protected;
(2) a healthy and efficient industrial base continues to be
a fundamental driver for achieving and sustaining a
successful shipbuilding procurement strategy;
(3) without consistent and continuous commitment to steady
and predictable acquisition profiles, the industrial base
will struggle and some elements may not survive; and
(4) proposed reductions in the future-years defense program
to the DDG-51 Destroyer procurement profile without a clear
transition to procurement of the next Large Surface Combatant
would adversely affect the shipbuilding industrial base and
long-term strategic objectives of the Navy.
(b) Limitation.--
(1) In general.--The Secretary of the Navy may not deviate
from the 2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment to implement
the results of a new force structure assessment or new annual
long-range plan for construction of naval vessels that would
reduce the requirement for Large Surface Combatants to fewer
than 104 such vessels until the date on which the Secretary
of the Navy submits to the congressional defense committees
the certification under paragraph (1) and the report under
subsection (c).
(2) Certification.--The certification referred to in
paragraph (1) is a certification, in writing, that each of
the following conditions have been satisfied:
(A) The large surface combatant shipbuilding industrial
base and supporting vendor base would not significantly
deteriorate due to a reduced procurement profile.
(B) The Navy can mitigate the reduction in anti-air and
ballistic missile defense capabilities due to having a
reduced number of DDG-51 Destroyers with the advanced AN/SPY-
6 radar in the next three decades.
(c) Report.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the
enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall submit
to the congressional defense committees a report that
includes--
(1) a description of likely detrimental impacts to the
large surface combatant industrial base and the Navy's plan
to mitigate any such impacts if the fiscal year 2021 future-
years defense program were implemented as proposed;
(2) a review of the benefits to the Navy fleet of the new
AN/SPY-6 radar to be deployed aboard Flight III variant DDG-
51 Destroyers, which are currently under construction, as
well as an analysis of impacts to the fleet's warfighting
capabilities, should the number of such destroyers be
reduced; and
(3) a plan to fully implement section 131 of the National
Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-
92), including subsystem prototyping efforts and funding by
fiscal year.
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