Courtney wants Virginia congressman to be Trump's secretary of Navy
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, is adding his voice to "the growing chorus of support" for Republican Congressman Randy Forbes to be President-elect Donald Trump's pick for secretary of the Navy.
Forbes, of Virginia, reportedly a top contender for the position, on Monday visited Trump Tower in New York, where interviews are taking place for senior positions in Trump's administration.
In a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, who is overseeing Trump's transition team, Courtney called Forbes "a thoughtful leader who has already made a lasting mark on our nation's seapower capabilities."
Forbes and Courtney have worked together as chairman and ranking member of the Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee in Congress, which has oversight over the military's air and sea programs and where vital discussions about funding for shipbuilding occur.
"Given the complexity of our industrial base and competing priorities the Navy and the larger Defense Department, it will be critical that the Navy be led by someone who knows how the Navy, Congress, and industry works," Courtney said in his letter.
Representing Virginia's 4th District since 2001, Forbes is wrapping up his final days in Congress, after being defeated in the primary election earlier this year by Scott Taylor, a state lawmaker in Virginia and former Navy SEAL. Under redistricting, the 4th District became heavily Democratic, so Forbes chose to run in the 2nd District instead.
The Navy under Forbes would likely get bigger and include more submarines. Trump wants a 350-ship Navy, compared to the 272 ships it has now. Forbes also is "very passionate" about the need for a larger Navy, "a broad-based priority not limited to the president-elect," Courtney said. Earlier this year, Forbes proposed a Navy shipbuilding budget that was $2.3 billion higher than the proposal from President Barack Obama's administration.
"The question of a larger Navy begs the question of how do you do it?" Courtney said in a recent phone interview. "That's really where I think you need to have someone like him."
"He's visited the shipyards. He's been through the budget battles and authorization battles over the years," Courtney added.
Forbes, like Courtney, is a strong advocate for a separate fund outside the Navy's budget to pay for the estimated $97 billion new fleet of 12 nuclear ballistic missile submarines, known as the Columbia-class program.
The congressmen have said the fund, established in the fiscal year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act, will prevent other programs in the Navy's shipbuilding plan from getting squeezed out. To make their case, they've pointed to a Congressional Budget Office report that estimated the fund has the potential to save several hundred million dollars per submarine "by purchasing components and materials for several submarines at the same time."
"A disadvantage of the acquisition strategy is that if the Congress decided not to build all of the submarines for which the Navy purchased some materials, those materials might go unused," the report says.
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