“10 U.S. Code § 8669b -
Senior Technical Authority for each naval vessel class”
New vessels includes both new
classes and new ‘flights’ or blocks of existing classes as defined in definitions
section of the Code 10/d/(1)/B:
(i) a substantially new class of craft (including
craft procured using “new start” procurement); and
(ii) a class of craft undergoing a significant
incremental change in its existing class (such as a next “flight” of destroyers
or next “block” of attack submarines).
The Code also notes that the
definition applies to both manned and unmanned vessels.
Thus, Congress is looking to
exercise oversight on all new or significantly altered ship construction. The latter is important as it closes one of
the Navy’s favorite loopholes for getting around already established oversight
controls by claiming that essentially brand new ships are just modifications
(flights or blocks) of existing ships.
The new Burkes (Flt III) and the new LX(R) amphibious ships (now LPD-17
Flt II) are examples of the Navy’s attempts at evading Congressional oversight.
This legal requirement is the
result of the Navy’s cumulative and systematic naval vessel acquisition
failures (Ford, LCS, LPD-17, Zumwalt, etc.) over the last few decades. Congress’ intent is to force the Navy to
exercise better program management. The
question is, what is a ‘Senior Technical Authority’ (STA) and what will they
do?
The full text of the relevant
U.S. Code can be found in reference 1.
The following are some
passages from the Code to help us try to understand what the STA is, and will
do.
Senior
Technical Authority – As described in the Code text below, the key
characteristic of the STA is that it is a person who is independent of the
acquisition program chain-of-command. The
hope is that this will free the person from Navy pressure and allow the STA to
make decisions free of command influence.
It is also worth noting that the person would be a Senior Executive
Service member which is the civil equivalent to military flag rank. Again, the hope is that this will allow the
person to act independently and free of influence.
(2) Individuals eligible for designation.—Each
individual designated as a Senior Technical Authority under paragraph (1) shall
be an employee of the Navy in the Senior Executive Service in an organization
of the Navy that—
(A) possesses the technical expertise required to
carry out the responsibilities specified in subsection (b); and
(B) operates independently of chains-of-command for
acquisition program management.
Responsibilities - STA shall
establish, monitor, and approve standards for the vessel class. Exactly what types of standards and what
level of detail this refers to is not spelled out.
Each Senior Technical Authority shall be responsible
for, and have the authority to, establish, monitor, and approve technical
standards, tools, and processes for the class of naval vessels for which
designated under this section in conformance with applicable laws and
Department of Defense and Department of the Navy policies, requirements,
architectures, and standards.
Standards aside, the main
responsibility of the STA is to certify new construction as being ready for
production. The certification process
and actions are described below.
- Description of engineering and technology risks
- Designation of critical technologies
- Test plan approval dates
- Technical objectives and demonstrated performance
- Determination that knowledge objectives are achievable prior to detail design and construction
- Certification that test plans are effective
- Other risk reduction efforts
- Certification that each critical system has been prototyped or proven via identical components
- Certification by SecNav that test plans are fully funded in future years
- STA will approve, in writing, ship specifications before Request For Proposals for detail design and construction. This is an attempt to prevent concurrent development and production.
- Certification process must be complete 30 days prior to first funding of the lead vessel.
While some of the details,
such as the exact type of standards that the STA will establish are not
explicitly spelled out, the intent of the law seems quite clear. Congress is attempting to prevent future
concurrent development and production fiascos and intends to withhold funding
until an independent overseer, the STA, certifies that the vessel is ready for
production.
Okay, that’s clear
enough. What remains to be seen is how
the Navy will respond. We’ve seen a
consistent pattern of the Navy ignoring or working around Congressional intent
for the last few decades (recall that Congressionally mandated shipbuilding
plan that is now long overdue and the Navy continues to ignore the law?) so it
is unlikely that the Navy is going to meekly accept Congressional
oversight. Instead, the Navy will find
workarounds, loopholes or, failing that, will simply ignore the law. In fact, we can already see the Navy trying
to find loopholes and ways around the law.
… last year lawmakers mandated more careful ship
design reviews in the Fiscal Year 2020 National Defense Authorization Act.
Lloyd [Rear Adm. Jason Lloyd, the Navy’s chief engineer and the Naval Sea
Systems Command (NAVSEA) deputy commander for ship design, integration and
engineering] said the Navy is still working its way through that language,
which requires that each class of naval vessel have a senior technical
authority who is outside the chain of command – and therefore independent from
influence for cost or schedule reasons, for example – who would be responsible
for signing off on ship designs before they can move into the construction
phase, among the senior technical authority’s responsibilities.
“We’re trying to work through that now, what that
really means. That was kind of put in because there’s concerns with the fact
that we may have built some ships before they were ready to be built. And we’re
starting to see some of those issues come up as cost,” Lloyd said. (2)
Consider the Admiral’s
statement, “We’re trying to work through that now, what that really
means.” The meaning is plain – it’s only
the Navy’s plan to work around it that’s unclear, as yet. The Admiral’s statement makes it clear that
the Navy has no intention of being bound by any authority that isn’t under its
direct control. I have no doubt that an
entire Navy legal task force is hard at work crafting workarounds and
identifying loopholes with the objective of ignoring the legal mandate.
Do you, perhaps, think that
I’m overstating the degree of the Navy’s willingness and intent to ignore the
law? Well, overwhelming precedent exists
for my belief that the Navy will do everything it can to subvert Congress’
intent and the law. Here's a few examples to jog your memory.
Ticonderoga Retirements – The
Navy tried to early retire the Ticonderoga class and Congress intervened and
instructed the Navy not to. Despite
Congress’ clear intent that the ships not be early retired, the Navy persisted
in their attempts and eventually concocted the fraudulent ‘modernization’
scheme that had the effect of idling and early retiring half the Ticonderoga
fleet (see, “Ticonderoga Class Modernization” and “Still Trying To RetireCruisers”).
Cost Caps – Congress imposed
construction cost caps on the Ford and LCS.
Of course, the Navy simply ignored the caps, blew right through them,
and then went to Congress after the fact and got the caps increased (see, “LCSCost Cap”). When Congress ran out of
patience and refused to further increase the caps after multiple increases, the
Navy came up with the practice of partial deliveries of incomplete ships to
meet the caps, followed by additional ‘second phase’ construction which did not
count against the caps.
Carrier Numbers – The carrier
fleet is legally mandated at 11 carriers.
The Navy simply ignored the law and reduced the carrier fleet below the
legal limit when the Enterprise was retired, knowing full well that the Ford
would not be ready for many years.
Further, the Navy has dropped the number of air wings to 9 which means
we only have, at most, 9 active carriers.
Give the Navy's blatant disregard for the law, we see, then, that we have
two considerations regarding this law:
1. What the legal statements
dictate.
2. What the Navy thinks the
legal statements allow them to get away with and to what degree the Navy will
simply ignore the law.
The Navy has been operating
above and beyond the law for many years and it is long past time for Congress
to exercise their Constitutional oversight responsibility. However, Congress needs to be prepared for a
long battle since the Navy will not willingly accept oversight. This law is an excellent start but I can’t
help but wish that Congress had included criminal penalties in the law for SecNav and CNO failure to comply.
If the Navy would put the
same energy, effort, and creativity into training and maintenance that they put
into evading the law, we wouldn’t have any problems.
(2)USNI News website, “Columbia
SSBN Program Doing Land-Based Testing to Avoid Past Shipbuilding Mistakes”,
Megan Eckstein, 5-Aug-2020,
https://news.usni.org/2020/08/05/columbia-ssbn-program-doing-land-based-testing-to-avoid-past-shipbuilding-mistakes