SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE SIZE OF THE ATTACK SUBMARINE FORCE.

SEC. 129. SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING THE SIZE OF THE ATTACK SUBMARINE FORCE.(a) Findings.—Congress makes the following findings:(1) The United States Navy must be large enough, agile enough, and lethal enough to deter any threat and defeat any foe.(2) The proliferation of modern nuclear and nonnuclear submarines in the navies of nations around the globe will make undersea superiority a more significant challenge in the future.(3) The unique combination of firepower, stealth, sensors, and communications equipment contained in a modern attack submarine make the attack submarine a critical component of the Armed Forces of the United States.120 STAT. 2110(4) The report entitled “Report to Congress on Annual Long-Range Plan for Construction of Naval Vessels for fiscal year 2007”, submitted to Congress by the Secretary of the Navy pursuant to section 231 of title 10, United States Code—(A) identifies future naval force structure requirements indexed to Department of Defense fiscal year 2020 threat assessments and compliant with the Fiscal Year 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review and, with respect to the attack submarine force, identifies a need for the Navy to maintain a fleet of not less than 48 attack submarines; and(B) projects that the attack submarine force will fall below 48 vessels between 2020 and 2032.(b) Sense of Congress.—In light of the findings in subsection (a), it is the sense of Congress that the Secretary of the Navy should take all reasonable effort to accelerate the construction of Virginia Class submarines to maintain the attack submarine force structure at not less than 48 submarines and (if the number of attack submarines should fall below 48), to minimize the period the attack submarine force remains below 48 vessels.