[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 117 (Thursday, June 25, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Page S3485]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  SA 2023. Ms. COLLINS (for herself and Mr. King) submitted an 
amendment intended to be proposed by her to the bill S. 4049, to 
authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2021 for military activities 
of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for 
defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military 
personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which 
was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

       At the appropriate place in title I, insert the following:

     SEC. ___. LIMITATION ON ALTERATION OF NAVY FLEET MIX.

       (a) Sense of Congress.--It is the sense of Congress that--
       (1) the United States shipbuilding and supporting vendor 
     base constitute a national security imperative that is unique 
     and must be protected;
       (2) a healthy and efficient industrial base continues to be 
     a fundamental driver for achieving and sustaining a 
     successful shipbuilding procurement strategy;
       (3) without consistent and continuous commitment to steady 
     and predictable acquisition profiles, the industrial base 
     will struggle and some elements may not survive; and
       (4) proposed reductions in the future-years defense program 
     to the DDG-51 Destroyer procurement profile without a clear 
     transition to procurement of the next Large Surface Combatant 
     would adversely affect the shipbuilding industrial base and 
     long-term strategic objectives of the Navy.
       (b) Limitation.--
       (1) In general.--The Secretary of the Navy may not deviate 
     from the 2016 Navy Force Structure Assessment to implement 
     the results of a new force structure assessment or new annual 
     long-range plan for construction of naval vessels that would 
     reduce the requirement for Large Surface Combatants to fewer 
     than 104 such vessels until the date on which the Secretary 
     of the Navy submits to the congressional defense committees 
     the certification under paragraph (1) and the report under 
     subsection (c).
       (2) Certification.--The certification referred to in 
     paragraph (1) is a certification, in writing, that each of 
     the following conditions have been satisfied:
       (A) The large surface combatant shipbuilding industrial 
     base and supporting vendor base would not significantly 
     deteriorate due to a reduced procurement profile.
       (B) The Navy can mitigate the reduction in anti-air and 
     ballistic missile defense capabilities due to having a 
     reduced number of DDG-51 Destroyers with the advanced AN/SPY-
     6 radar in the next three decades.
       (c) Report.--Not later than 90 days after the date of the 
     enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall submit 
     to the congressional defense committees a report that 
     includes--
       (1) a description of likely detrimental impacts to the 
     large surface combatant industrial base and the Navy's plan 
     to mitigate any such impacts if the fiscal year 2021 future-
     years defense program were implemented as proposed;
       (2) a review of the benefits to the Navy fleet of the new 
     AN/SPY-6 radar to be deployed aboard Flight III variant DDG-
     51 Destroyers, which are currently under construction, as 
     well as an analysis of impacts to the fleet's warfighting 
     capabilities, should the number of such destroyers be 
     reduced; and
       (3) a plan to fully implement section 131 of the National 
     Defense Authorization for Fiscal Year 2020 (Public Law 116-
     92), including subsystem prototyping efforts and funding by 
     fiscal year.
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