U.S. Sens. Roger Wicker (R-MS) and Susan Collins (R-ME) are advocating the Biden Administration bolster the submarine industrial base amid efforts to fulfill Australia-United Kingdom-United States (AUKUS) partnership terms.
Wicker, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Collins, vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, joined 23 colleagues in forwarding correspondence to Biden regarding the matter.
The U.S. submarine industrial base will now require major new investments and a comprehensive plan of action to meet the needs of both the United States and Australia.
“The AUKUS agreement is vitally important, but we must simultaneously protect U.S. national security,” the legislators wrote. “Accordingly, we urge you to send Congress immediately an AUKUS-specific request for appropriations and authorities alongside a multi-year plan to increase U.S. submarine production to a minimum of 2.5 Virginia-class attack submarines per year.”
The lawmakers said that is time to make generational investments in domestic submarine production capacity that includes supplier and workforce development initiatives.
“As older nuclear submarines retire faster than they are replaced, the Navy projects the inventory will decline to 46 by 2030,” the legislators concluded. “Under the current AUKUS plan to transfer U.S. Virginia-class submarines to a partner nation before meeting the Navy’s own requirements, the number of available nuclear submarines in the U.S. submarine fleet would be lowered further. This is a risk we should not take.”
According to the lawmakers, the administration and Congress need to be willing to make the necessary domestic submarine industrial base investments advancing the security of the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom.