Navy Aircraft Carriers: Proposed Retirement of USS John F. Kennedy -- Issues and Options for Congress

Abstract

The Navy's FY2007 budget proposes retiring the conventionally powered aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CV-67) and reducing the size of the carrier force from 12 ships to 11. The Navy's proposed FY2006 budget included a similar proposal. Congress, in acting on the FY2006 defense budget, passed a provision requiring the Navy to maintain a 12-ship carrier force. The issue for Congress for FY2007, as it was for FY2006, is whether to approve, reject, or modify the proposal to retire the Kennedy and reduce the carrier force to 11 ships. Until mid-2005, the Kennedy was homeported in Mayport, FL. Prior to the proposal to retire the Kennedy, the Navy's plan was to maintain a 12-carrier force and keep the Kennedy in operation until 2018. The Navy is now proposing to maintain in coming years a 313-ship fleet that includes 11 carriers. DoD estimated in December 2004 that retiring the Kennedy in FY2006 would reduce DoD funding requirements for FY2006-FY2011 by a net total of about $1.2 billion. In February 2006, the Navy estimated that overhauling the Kennedy and keeping it in service during the 5-year period FY2007-FY2011 would cost more than $2 billion. If a carrier is to be retired in the near term so as to reduce the carrier force to 11 ships, a potential issue is whether that carrier should be the Kennedy or another ship. Potential alternatives to the Kennedy include the conventionally powered Kitty Hawk and the nuclear-powered carriers Enterprise and Vinson. A third potential issue for Congress concerns the relative military advantages of different homeporting arrangements for the carrier force. Options for retiring a carrier and reducing the force to 11 ships include retiring the Kennedy in FY2006, retiring the Kennedy when Mayport, FL is qualified as a nuclear-carrier home port, retiring the Kitty Hawk and transferring the Kennedy to Japan, retiring the Kitty Hawk and transferring a nuclear-powered carrier to Japan, retiring the Enterprise, and retiring the Vinson.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 21, 2006
Accession Number
ADA472533

Entities

People

  • Ronald O'Rourke

Organizations

  • Library of Congress

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Air Platforms
  • Ground and Sea Platforms
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Aircraft Carriers
  • Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion
  • Carrier Based Aircraft
  • Catapult-Assisted Takeoff Systems
  • Naval Aviation
  • Naval Operations
  • Navy
  • Navy Aircraft
  • Nimitz-Class
  • Nuclear Powered Ships
  • Uss George Washington
  • Uss Kitty Hawk
  • Warfare

Readers

  • Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.
  • Public Financial Management and Budgeting