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The Wanderer
New Committee Chair Wants More Ships, Nuclear Power
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS, Pascagoula, Miss.
The prospective incoming chairman of an influential U.S. congressional military subcommittee has no difficulty summing up his priorities.
“Shipbuilding, shipbuilding. Getting the numbers of the fleet up,” said Gene Taylor, the Democratic representative who counts among his constituents Northrop Grumman’s sprawling Ingalls shipyard here on the Gulf of Mexico. “Numbers do matter.”
Taylor, ranking member of the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, eagerly said Nov. 11 he would seek to chair the committee as Democrats prepare to take over the House and Senate from Republican control.
The Democratic congressional leadership could decide as early as Nov. 16 on committee chairmanships.
The projection forces subcommittee, whose recommendations on major Pentagon acquisition programs form the basis of each year’s House defense authorization bill, has been led by Maryland Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who focused on major U.S. Navy projects such as the DD(X)/DDG 1000 destroyer, the Littoral Combat Ship and new submarine and aircraft carrier shipbuilding programs.
Taylor emphasized he too would focus on building up the Navy’s fleet. Asked if he supported the Navy’s planned seven-ship buy for DDG 1000, Taylor said “I think we can do better.”
“As the ships perform — they’re magnificently made, they perform magnificently — as the Navy sees these assets my hunch is they’re going to ask for more and I plan on being in position to help them get more,” he said.
Taylor also echoed another of Bartlett’s favorite themes: Taking another look at nuclear propulsion for Navy surface ships to lessen the country’s dependence on foreign sources of energy.
Although all new Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered, the service decommissioned its fleet of nine nuclear cruiser carrier escorts in the mid-1990s as too expensive to maintain or build, and most surface ships built since then have been powered by gas turbines. But Taylor said he would hold hearings to re-examine the idea.
“The Achilles heel of the American military — and it’s nothing that our enemies don’t already know — is fuel,” he said.
“Adm. [Hyman] Rickover [a Navy champion for nuclear-powered ships from the 1940s to 1980s] had us well on our way in the early 1960s to a fleet that didn’t count on foreign countries for its fuel,” Taylor said. “And even back then the country produced more than half its fuel. Now that we produce way less than half of our fuel it just makes abundant sense that one of the ways we can cut our dependence on foreign oil is to build as many surface ships as we can — even some of the smaller ones — that have nuclear power.”
Taylor noted that the DDG 1000 is too far along to effect changes in its power source — construction of the first two ships will be ordered in 2007 — but he is looking squarely at the follow-on design planned by the Navy, the CG(X) cruiser variant of the DDG design. The service plans to order its first CG(X) in 2011.
“That’s still in the mix,” Taylor said of the CG(X).
“So one of my challenges — and I feel pretty confident that I’ll have the assistance of Congressman Bartlett on the Republican side — is to see that that generation of ships and all subsequent generations of ships are nuclear-powered.”
And if the Navy doesn’t want to build more DDG 1000 destroyers?
“If the Navy says they’re ready to move on to CG(X), and it’s going to be nuclear-powered, then I’m going to be there with them,” declared Taylor.
Courtesy DefenseNews.com
Well if this Rep gets his way happy days for the USN, first time I have heard "7" for the DDX, and the first time I heard of the CGX selection for 2011 as well, happy days looks like, the CGX is still alive and well, Comments?
Additionally effects of a return to large scale nuclear propulsion? Nuclear power seems to be largely coming back into trend, it makes sense to see the propulsion debate come up again.
By CHRISTOPHER P. CAVAS, Pascagoula, Miss.
The prospective incoming chairman of an influential U.S. congressional military subcommittee has no difficulty summing up his priorities.
“Shipbuilding, shipbuilding. Getting the numbers of the fleet up,” said Gene Taylor, the Democratic representative who counts among his constituents Northrop Grumman’s sprawling Ingalls shipyard here on the Gulf of Mexico. “Numbers do matter.”
Taylor, ranking member of the House Armed Services projection forces subcommittee, eagerly said Nov. 11 he would seek to chair the committee as Democrats prepare to take over the House and Senate from Republican control.
The Democratic congressional leadership could decide as early as Nov. 16 on committee chairmanships.
The projection forces subcommittee, whose recommendations on major Pentagon acquisition programs form the basis of each year’s House defense authorization bill, has been led by Maryland Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, who focused on major U.S. Navy projects such as the DD(X)/DDG 1000 destroyer, the Littoral Combat Ship and new submarine and aircraft carrier shipbuilding programs.
Taylor emphasized he too would focus on building up the Navy’s fleet. Asked if he supported the Navy’s planned seven-ship buy for DDG 1000, Taylor said “I think we can do better.”
“As the ships perform — they’re magnificently made, they perform magnificently — as the Navy sees these assets my hunch is they’re going to ask for more and I plan on being in position to help them get more,” he said.
Taylor also echoed another of Bartlett’s favorite themes: Taking another look at nuclear propulsion for Navy surface ships to lessen the country’s dependence on foreign sources of energy.
Although all new Navy aircraft carriers and submarines are nuclear-powered, the service decommissioned its fleet of nine nuclear cruiser carrier escorts in the mid-1990s as too expensive to maintain or build, and most surface ships built since then have been powered by gas turbines. But Taylor said he would hold hearings to re-examine the idea.
“The Achilles heel of the American military — and it’s nothing that our enemies don’t already know — is fuel,” he said.
“Adm. [Hyman] Rickover [a Navy champion for nuclear-powered ships from the 1940s to 1980s] had us well on our way in the early 1960s to a fleet that didn’t count on foreign countries for its fuel,” Taylor said. “And even back then the country produced more than half its fuel. Now that we produce way less than half of our fuel it just makes abundant sense that one of the ways we can cut our dependence on foreign oil is to build as many surface ships as we can — even some of the smaller ones — that have nuclear power.”
Taylor noted that the DDG 1000 is too far along to effect changes in its power source — construction of the first two ships will be ordered in 2007 — but he is looking squarely at the follow-on design planned by the Navy, the CG(X) cruiser variant of the DDG design. The service plans to order its first CG(X) in 2011.
“That’s still in the mix,” Taylor said of the CG(X).
“So one of my challenges — and I feel pretty confident that I’ll have the assistance of Congressman Bartlett on the Republican side — is to see that that generation of ships and all subsequent generations of ships are nuclear-powered.”
And if the Navy doesn’t want to build more DDG 1000 destroyers?
“If the Navy says they’re ready to move on to CG(X), and it’s going to be nuclear-powered, then I’m going to be there with them,” declared Taylor.
Courtesy DefenseNews.com
Well if this Rep gets his way happy days for the USN, first time I have heard "7" for the DDX, and the first time I heard of the CGX selection for 2011 as well, happy days looks like, the CGX is still alive and well, Comments?
Additionally effects of a return to large scale nuclear propulsion? Nuclear power seems to be largely coming back into trend, it makes sense to see the propulsion debate come up again.
nfloorl: