The U.S. Navy put forward a budget request of $292.2 billion, some of which it intends to use to increase its fleet of warships and modernize century-old shipyards.
As proposed, the fiscal 2026 defense budget would require two congressional bills to be passed — a base budget and an upcoming reconciliation bill. The Navy is seeking $248.9 billion in the base budget and $43.3 billion in reconciliation funds, according to budget materials released Thursday.
In total, the Pentagon is requesting $848.3 billion for fiscal 2026, a cut to core military spending when accounting for inflation.
The requirement of two separate bills is a matter which has recently drawn criticism from lawmakers, since critical Navy goals would seemingly rely on reconciliation funding.
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, recommended during a hearing Tuesday an increase in the base budget, saying, “Reconciliation was always meant to be just a one-time funding surge.”
The Navy’s portion of the budget requests a shipbuilding fund of $47.4 billion, with $26.5 from reconciliation funding. That amount would go toward procuring 19 battle-force ships in fiscal 2026, with funding for the vessels split between the base budget and reconciliation funding.
Three ships, including one Columbia-class submarine, one Virginia-class submarine, and one T-AGOS ocean surveillance ship, have funding allocated from the base budget, with the remaining 16 budgeted from mandatory, or reconciliation, funding.
The request comes as government officials and experts have expressed concern at the state of the American shipbuilding industry, which has fallen well behind production levels of its rivals from the People’s Republic of China.
The Navy remains years behind in projected ship deliveries and cannot provide firm timelines for improvement, military officials told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense this week.
Part of the Navy’s proposed budget would go toward modernizing its drydock facilities, which on average are over 107 years old. Those include the Navy’s four public shipyards at Norfolk, Virginia; Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; Portsmouth, Maine; and Puget Sound, Washington.
The budget notes that the shipyards themselves are “facing a critical age crisis.” As part of the Shipyard Infrastructure Optimization Plan (SIOP), $989 million is being sought toward modernizing outdated shipyard facilities. Additionally, $2.2. billion is requested for modernizing Marine Corps installations.
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The base budget allocates $16.2 billion toward ship maintenance, with funding for other maintenance and modernization projects split between the base budget and reconciliation funding. For ship operations, $7.3 billion is requested, with $5.4 from base funding and $1.9 billion in reconciliation.
The budget also seeks to procure 43 aircraft for fiscal 2026, including unmanned aircraft as well as fixed-wing and rotary aircraft.
In addition, the Navy is seeking $2.7 billion — with $39.4 million in mandatory funding — for science and technology programs, which cover research and development.
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That fund would include $312 million for design and development of the Columbia-class submarine, including development of nuclear propulsion systems. A further $623 million would be invested in the development of the Future Attack Submarine to counter emerging threats by adversaries.
Robotic autonomous systems feature largely in the budget, with $203 million requested for surface vessels, $715 million for air systems and $668 million for underwater systems.
Zita Ballinger Fletcher previously served as editor of Military History Quarterly and Vietnam magazines and as the historian of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. She holds an M.A. with distinction in military history.
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