Sec. 511. Assessment of the use of commercial best practices for Navy shipbuilding
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The Secretary of the Navy, in coordination with the Secretary of Transportation and the Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating, shall— conduct an assessment of best practices used in the construction and repair of commercial, oceangoing maritime vessels; and identify— opportunities for the Navy and Coast Guard to leverage those best practices to make ship construction and repair efforts of combatant and non-combatant vessels more efficient; and advanced technologies that can be leveraged to improve the overall readiness and dominance of the United States maritime fleet (both commercial and military), to specifically include small modular reactors for ship power and propulsion.
The assessment required by paragraph
(1)shall include the following: An evaluation of the best practices described in subparagraph
(A)of such paragraph, including best practices used by commercial shipyards in foreign allied countries, consideration of commercial design standards, and the vessel construction manager model used to construct the National Security Multi Mission Vessel Program, that could improve the efficiency of shipbuilding and repair by the Navy and Coast Guard. An identification of commercial-grade components and capabilities being used in state-of-the-art commercial, oceangoing maritime vessels and an assessment of whether the Navy and Coast Guard could better use commercial off-the-shelf components or capabilities to reduce costs, improve efficiencies, or enhance capabilities in the construction of new naval vessels and cutters, and in repair of naval vessels and cutters. A determination as to whether shipbuilding and acquisition programs of the Navy and Coast Guard use modern best practices from the commercial maritime industry in terms of contracting, ship design, construction, overhaul, and maintenance. An identification of technologies and procedures that are used in commercial shipbuilding that, if used by the Navy and Coast Guard, would improve the efficiency of designing and constructing new naval vessels. An identification of technologies and procedures that are used in commercial shipbuilding and repair that, if used by the Navy and Coast Guard, would improve the efficiency of repairing naval vessels. An identification of opportunities to improve commonality in ship design, ship components, and shipbuilding procedures between commercial, oceangoing maritime vessels, naval vessels, and cutters that could lead to improved efficiencies and a more resilient industrial base to support shipbuilding and repair for military and civil maritime vessels. An identification of advanced nuclear technologies that are under development for use in commercial shipbuilding that, if used by the Navy and Coast Guard, would improve the operational capability of naval vessels and cutters. An identification of the barriers preventing or making prohibitive the use of small modular reactors in naval or commercial, oceangoing maritime vessels, including— ambiguity in regulations governing nuclear propulsion restricting the commercial maritime industry from utilizing nuclear propulsion or collaborating between United States and foreign entities under export controls requirements, including section 744.5 of title 15, Code of Federal Regulations (or a similar successor regulation); and a lack of clarity in the meaning of maritime (civil) nuclear propulsion plant projects contained in the Export Administration Regulations and Naval Nuclear Propulsion contained in the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (Cat VI). An evaluation of education and technology development best practices used by commercial shipyards in foreign allied countries, and an identification of education and technology development opportunities, that could improve the efficiency of shipbuilding and repair by the Navy and Coast Guard. An evaluation of whether adoption of the best practices evaluated under subparagraph
(A)for the construction and repair of naval vessels and cutters would support the domestic commercial maritime shipbuilding industry, the commercial maritime industrial base, and the merchant marine of the United States. Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall provide to the congressional defense committees a briefing on— the results of the assessment required by subsection (a); and a plan to execute any measures pursuant to such assessment. Not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, and biennially thereafter, the Secretary of the Navy and Secretary of the Department in which the Coast Guard is operating shall— provide to the appropriate committees of Congress strategies describing how measures identified as a result of the assessment required by subsection
(a)will be incorporated into shipbuilding programs for the Navy and Coast Guard; and publish a public version of the strategies. In this section, the term congressional defense committees has the meaning given that term in section 101(a) of title 10, United States Code.