As the summer heat rises, so does the temperature on Capitol Hill as lawmakers delve into the Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Appropriations. Both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have approved their respective defense bills. The House Appropriations Committee approved a bill providing $826.45 billion in new discretionary spending, which is a slight increase over the President’s Budget Request and $28.71 billion—or 3.6 percent—more than the FY23 enacted level. The Senate Appropriations Committee approved a bill providing $831.8 billion in total funding.

The Navy is ready to set sail with a staggering $32.8 billion dedicated to shipbuilding in FY24, 12.82 percent of the Navy’s total budget request of $255.8 billion. Compared to previous years, this allocation marks a substantial increase, surpassing the average annual spending from 2018 to 2022, and even outpacing the FY23 shipbuilding budget request of $27.8 billion. It’s clear the Navy is pushing to expand its fleet.

A significant chunk of the shipbuilding budget, $5.8 billion to be precise, is earmarked for the Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine program—$2.4 billion in procurement funding for a second Columbia-class boat and $3.4 billion in advance procurement funding for Columbia-class boats to be procured in FY26 and subsequent years (and we’re not even talking about funds for more Virginia-class fast attack subs). This program aims to replace the fleet of Ohio-class submarines with a total of 12 Columbia-class submarines. The construction of the lead boat, the future USS District of Columbia, has already begun, and the Navy plans to commission the first submarine in April 2027.

The Columbia-class program is the Navy’s top priority program, but we have concerns about the program’s cost, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates at over $90 billion. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) has raised multiple concerns about the Columbia missile submarine program. These include workforce shortages in the shipbuilding industry, a lack of schedule insight from the prime contractor, difficulties in timely delivery of quality materials, ongoing construction challenges, and setbacks in design, materials, and quality.

Moreover, the Pentagon is also expected to spend money out of the National Sea-Based Deterrence Fund (NSBDF) on the Columbia missile submarine. In FY23, the NSBDF was granted the authority to spend $6 billion out of the account, which was established for the construction, purchase, or alteration of subs that carry operational intercontinental ballistic missiles. The fund was created by Congress in 2014, with the original aim of helping to financially insulate other Navy shipbuilding programs from the potential cost impact of the Columbia-class program.

Whenever we hear the words “financially insulate,” especially in the context of defense spending, alarms go off. And, like other “special funds” elsewhere in government, this one is more about budgeting sleight-of-hand than about cost savings.

In 2015, we said this about the fund: “Moving the money to a new account in the office of the secretary of defense for purposes of replacing the existing ballistic missile submarine force isn’t going to save any money. In fact, it will probably lead to an overall increase in Pentagon spending since removing those costs from the Navy’s shipbuilding budget will mean the Navy spends that money on a different class of ships.”

To be fair, the Congressional Budget Office has suggested that using the fund for long lead purchasing could potentially save money for the Navy. Advocates of the special fund highlight this advantage, but there is also a significant downside: if the Congress decides not to build all the submarines for which materials have been purchased, those materials could go unused. It’s not the fund itself that saves money, but the additional authority it grants for long lead procurement. If Congress wants to pursue long lead procurement, it can simply grant the Navy that authority without the need for a special fund.

Our concern is that the NSBDF is used to enter into contracts to purchase expensive components for more submarines than the Navy ultimately needs. This could tie the hands of future decision-makers, making it less likely for them to reduce the purchase of submarines, even if cost-saving measures are recommended. Shipbuilders and their allies in Congress like the NSBDF because it safeguards against potential reductions in the purchase of more ballistic missile submarines.

And more is not a strategy.