Funding bills tough on LCS program

The Navy appears ready to send the Littoral Combat ship program sailing toward the sunset. Three of four congressional defense committees also appear obliged, through restrictive policies and funding authorizations. Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC) members included prohibitive language for funding to only extend the program in a couple of specific and short-term instances as part of its version of DoD’s FY 2020 authorization bill. As for the existing fleet, the White House FY-20 budget asked for $388.1M for LCS mission modules. However, the House Appropriations Committee authorized $327M, cutting monies back on the LCS mine-countermeasures and common mission module warfare packages. After marathon markup sessions June 13-14, the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) approved its FY-20 defense bill that included deeper cuts to several funding requests. The Navy requested $51.6M for LCS common mission module. HASC authorized $33.2M. House appropriators authorized $38.7M. HASC also cut the Navy’s request of $197.1M for LCS mine countermeasures modules (MCM). The HASC authorized $77.1M – under 40 percent of the MCM module request. House appropriators authorized $163.6 M. The SASC included language approving the purchase of more LCS only “(I)f it is necessary to maintain a full and open competition for the future guided missile Frigate (FFG(X)) with a single source award in FY-20. The Navy wants to shift to buying the new FFG(X) frigate in FY-20. Four shipbuilding teams are competing for the contract, but if the frigate program hits a delay, keeping the LCS production line running may help keep the costs of the future frigates down, according to a Congressional Research Service report. In the meanwhile, the HASC approved a requirement for the Navy to study the prospect of buying a version of the Coast Guard’s Fast Response Cutter, and basing FRCs in Bahrain. The Navy has been reluctant to deploy LCS. There were no deployments in FY-18. There are three LCS deployments scheduled for this fall. The Navy has not stated the destinations of those LCS scheduled to depart from San Diego and Mayport, Fla. (Source: USNI News 06/13/19) Gulf Coast Note: Austal-USA shipyards in Mobile, Ala., build the Independence variant of LCS, are among those scheduled to bid on the future frigate design.