The ranking member of the House Armed Services Seapower and Projected Forces subcommittee in a Tuesday letter further pushed the Defense Department to award an overdue multi-year contract covering up to 11 Block VI Virginia-class attack submarines.
Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) has been pushing DoD to award the contract that was authorized in the fiscal 2024 defense authorization act.
In a letter to Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey, Courtney argued the delay in signing the contract is “creating uncertainty for the suppliers and shipbuilders who depend on long-lead planning to produce and acquire the components and modules for submarine construction.”
During a hearing last week, Duffey told Courtney they were “very close and I’m also aware of the urgency to get that done. So we’re working in partnership with the Navy to continue to drive that to conclusion.”
Courtney’s latest letter said signing the Block VI contract “will strengthen the critical long term demand signal to the entire submarine industrial base, enabling U.S. shipbuilders and supply chain companies to achieve the goal of higher production cadence, which the Navy’s shipbuilding plan, and the Defense Department’s AUKUS review identified as critical to our national security.”
Courtney’s district covers submarine prime contractor General Dynamics’ Electric Boat shipyard in Groton. Electric Boat splits production of each submarine with Huntington Ingalls Industries’ (HII) Newport News Shipbuilding yard in Virginia.
During the Submarine Industrial Base Council’s annual congressional breakfast on the same day as the hearing, Mark Rayha, president of Electric Boat, said government and industry were close and the contract would probably be finished within “a few months.”
Exchange Monitor affiliate Defense Daily first published a version of this story.