The Value of 30-Year Defense Procurement Plans for Congressional Oversight and Decisionmaking
Abstract
DoD's 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plans enable the Congress to assess the long-term effects of the incremental decisions that are made each year in the annual authorization and appropriation process. Ships and aircraft take decades to develop and procure, and those ships and aircraft often remain in the inventory for decades more. In the absence of a 30-year plan, the cumulative effects of those annual decisions may not be well understood. For example, during the 1990s, well before the Congress instituted the requirement for a 30-year shipbuilding plan, attack submarines were bought at an average rate of about half a submarine a year. At the time, that historically low rate did not affect the ability of the Navy to meet its inventory goal because the Navy had more than enough submarines to meet that goal for years to come. However, once the Navy begins to retire three or four submarines per year in the latter part of the 2010s, it will not be able to meet its inventory goal in the 2020s and 2030s without purchasing large numbers of submarines within a short period of time in an environment of constrained budgets. Although the existence of a 30-year plan in the 1990s might not have changed the amounts that the Congress appropriated for submarines, it would have provided more information about the long-term consequences of those appropriation decisions. A 10-year plan would not have illuminated those longer-term challenges.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 2011
- Accession Number
- ADA545815
Entities
People
- Eric J. Labs
Organizations
- Congressional Budget Office