Senate Appropriations Bill Adds 12 Super Hornets, $1.6B to Navy Shipbuilding

The Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee approved its Fiscal Year 2016 bill Tuesday morning, laying out $489.1 billion in base budget spending and $86.8 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations funding.

The text of the bill is not available yet, but committee chairman Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) said in statement that the bill includes $213.9 billion for operation and maintenance accounts and an additional $182 million to reduce readiness shortfalls, $18.2 billion for 10 Navy warships – an increase of $1.6 billion and one ship compared to the Navy’s request – and $8.2 billion for the Missile Defense Agency, an increase of $262 million above the request.

The statement does not specify what the additional shipbuilding funding would go to, but the Senate Armed Services Committee added $1.7 billion across several ship classes to speed up delivery and the option to buy an additional Arleigh Burke-class destroyer (DDG-51).

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