NORFOLK, Va. — Ticonderoga class Aegis guided missile cruisers play a crucial role in Navy strike groups, and have since 1983.
But now, the Navy is proposing retiring seven of the 21 active cruisers in the fleet.
But Congress gets the final say.
House Armed Services Committee Ranking Member Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Alabama) has introduced an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act increasing the defense budget by $25 billion, which would preserve at least three of the cruisers.
Committee Vice-Chair Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Virginia, 2nd District) supports the move.
"That's a huge amount of capability and firepower that we need in order to confront our adversaries such as China," she said. "So I'm fighting very hard to make sure we don't continue down this path of decommissioning cruisers.
Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia, 1st District) has long pushed for increasing the size of the Navy fleet.
"You can't do addition by subtraction," he said. "You can't get to a 355-ship Navy by taking these seven cruisers out."
Besides the obvious national security considerations, there is also an economic component to preserving cruisers.
Four private ship repair shipyards and the 285 companies which support them in Hampton Roads rely on a steady stream of repair contracts to keep their more than 60,000 people working, and contributing $6.4 billion in impact to the region's economy.
Any reduction to the Navy fleet size could have a detrimental effect on everybody's bottom lines.
The Rogers Amendment would fund an additional destroyer, an oiler, and would add a third Virginia Class submarine.
The House Armed Services Committee is scheduled to debate the provision on Wednesday.