REPORT ON INITIATIVES TO INCREASE OPERATIONAL DAYS OF NAVY SHIPS.

SEC. 1024. REPORT ON INITIATIVES TO INCREASE OPERATIONAL DAYS OF NAVY SHIPS. (a) Requirement for Report on Initiatives.—(1) The Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics shall submit to the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate and the Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives a report on Department of Defense initiatives to increase the number of operational days of Navy ships as described in subsection (b). (2) The report shall cover the ongoing Department of Defense initiatives as well as any potential initiatives that are under consideration within the Department of Defense. (b) Initiatives Within Limits of Existing Fleet and Deployment Policy.—In the report, the Under Secretary shall assess the feasibility and identify the projected effects of conducting initiatives that have the potential to increase the number of operational days of Navy ships available to the commanders-in-chief of the regional unified combatant commands without increasing the number of Navy ships and without increasing the routine lengths of deployments of Navy ships above six months. (c) Required Focus Areas.—The report shall address, at a minimum, the following focus areas: (1) Assignment of additional ships, including submarines, to home ports closer to the areas of operation for the ships (known as “forward homeporting”). (2) Assignment of ships to remain in a forward area of operations, together with rotation of crews for each ship so assigned. (3) Retention of ships for use until the end of the full service life, together with investment of the funds necessary to support retention to that extent. (4) Prepositioning of additional ships with, under normal circumstances, small crews in a forward area of operations. (d) Ship Maintenance.—The report shall include an assessment of how routine programmed ship maintenance would be accomplished for Navy ships that would remain in a forward area of operations. (e) Time for Submittal.—The report shall be submitted at the same time that the President submits the budget for fiscal year 2004 to Congress under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code.