Taylor urges larger, nuclear fleet - Navy News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Navy Times

Taylor urges larger, nuclear fleet

The future surface fleet should be bigger than it is today and it should be nuclear powered, according to Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., the new chair of the U.S. House Armed Services Committee seapower and expeditionary forces subcommittee.

While ground vehicles and aircraft will always rely on conventional power sources, surface vessels are big enough to support nuclear reactors, Taylor said in a speech to the national symposium of the Surface Navy Association in Washington Wednesday.

“We really do have a choice when it comes to ships,” he said. Taylor, who represents a major shipbuilding region in Mississippi, previously served as the ranking Democrat of the Projection Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee.

Taylor urged that the future surface fleet be nuclear-powered, in part, because of America’s dependence on foreign oil. He also noted the vulnerability of conventionally-powered surface fleet in a time of war, while American submarines and aircraft carriers have nearly unlimited endurance due to their nuclear propulsion.

Taylor also spoke of his intent to support a bigger fleet despite rising shipbuilding costs. He cited the potential threat from an increasing powerful China.

“Numbers do matter,” he said.

In a somewhat partisan moment, he said the Bush Administration has not been honest about the material costs of the Iraq war and bemoaned the fact that the Navy has shrunk by 50 ships under the current president despite increases in non-Iraq related defense budgets.

“I want to turn that around,” he said.