Sequester Could Kill Shipyards, Says CNO Greenert

Navy readiness won’t fully recover from the second-order effects of the 2013 sequester for another year, the Chief of Naval Operations said this morning — and if the Budget Control Act cuts (known as sequestration) return in full force for fiscal year 2016, the nation might lose two of its five remaining major shipyards.

“I worry about the shipbuilding industrial base,” Adm. Jonathan Greenert said at the Brookings Institution.

If sequestration forces steep cuts to the Navy’s shipbuilding account — which Congress has actually been pretty adamant about protecting; more on that below — the impact on the size of the fleet “would take years to manifest,” he said: Ships last for decades, so building fewer today generally comes back to bite you in a generation, not immediately.

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