Navy's Next Generational Nuclear Submarine Fund Has No Money | Military.com: The Navy and Congress have yet to find money for a newly created account designed to pay for the services' fleet of next-generation nuclear-armed ballistic missile submarines slated to begin service in 2031 – the Ohio Replacement Program.
The special fund is a product of the concern from lawmakers and admirals that the cost of the Ohio Replacement program would bankrupt the rest of the Navy's shipbuilding budget.
As a result, the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act established the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund – a special account created specifically to fund the Ohio Replacement program. However, Congress has yet to assign any funding to the account.
"We need to have some processes in place in order to make sure you are ready to go and there is money in this fund," Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, said Wednesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee's Navy shipbuilding hearing.
Service leaders told lawmakers there are not enough funds in the services' shipbuilding accounts to move any over into the new fund for the Ohio Replacement.
"We need to work with you all (Congress) to put this fund to work. Right now it is a framework without funding in it. What was authorized was to use other funds from shipbuilding to go into the Sea Based Deterrence Fund," said Navy acquisition executive Sean Stackley. "Today, we don't have other funds from shipbuilding to move into that fund --particularly to the magnitude needed for the Ohio Replacement program."
