Forbes: "The Navy Has Set Stretch Goals for Alternative Energy and Shrinking Goals for its Fleet"

Press Release

Today, the Department of the Navy discussed two distinctly different goals in two House Armed Services Committee (HASC) hearings -- "While I support an efficient energy policy, I am alarmed to see the Department of the Navy setting expensive, stretch goals for renewable energy policy when at the same time it accepts shrinking goals for its fleet," said Congressman J. Randy Forbes (VA-04), Chairman of the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee.

A spokesman for the Department of the Navy acknowledged today it set a stretch goal when Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus decided 50% of its total energy consumption will come from alternative sources by 2020, in a hearing held by Forbes.

"Top Department of Defense and Navy energy officials could not offer any independently verifiable analysis that shows how much achieving this goal would cost or when the goals could be achieved," said Congressman Forbes.

Also today, the HASC Subcommittee on Seapower and Projection Forces met today for a hearing on Oversight of U.S. Naval Vessel Acquisition Programs and Force Structure of the Department of the Navy, in which the Navy submitted its annual 30 year shipbuilding plan, reducing its goal of a 300 ship Navy, the smallest fleet the Navy has had since World War I. This represents a decision to decrease the planned fleet further from the Navy's previous goal of 313 ships, even when the 2010 QDR Independent Panel said the Nation requires a 346-ship Navy. Just last week, Vice Admiral William Burke, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, testified the Navy would require 500 ships to meet the combatant commander requests.

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