Suddenly There’s Another Littoral Ship in Trump’s Budget Plans - Bloomberg
▻https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-05-26/suddenly-there-s-another-littoral-ship-in-trump-s-budget-plans
The White House budget office and the Navy are rushing to find an extra $600 million to buy a second Littoral Combat Ship after including only one in the budget that President Donald Trump proposed this week.
Allison Stiller, the Navy’s acting weapons buyer, disclosed the unusual budget maneuver Wednesday at a House Armed Services seapower panel whose members are sympathetic to adding more of the vessels made in competing versions by Lockheed Martin Corp. and Austal Ltd. A second ship would guarantee that each company will get to build one, keeping both of their shipyards running.
“The administration recognizes the criticality of our industrial base and supports funding a second LCS” in the fiscal 2018 budget, Stiller said. Referring to the Office of Management and Budget, she told reporters that adding the ship is “OMB’s prerogative.”
[…]
The budget office “will be publishing a budget errata that adds another LCS to the FY 2018 budget request,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Badger, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement. “The total request is two LCS ships. The Navy will identify” where the funds will come from, he said.
Un #erratum à 600 millions de dollars qui fait tousser même les intéressés…
Pentagon officials were surprised when OMB decided to add a second Littoral Combat Ship too.
Maintaining Workforces
Hours before Stiller’s testimony, Acting Navy Secretary Sean Stackley told the Senate defense appropriations panel that the budget sought just one littoral ship because “in 2018, budget-wise, we don’t have the capacity to grow in terms of procurement and modernization.”