SECNAV: 'We're preparing for the worst, hoping for the best'

YOKOSUKA, Japan (NNS) -- Secretary of the Navy (SECNAV) the Honorable Ray Mabus, spoke to a packed house inside Fleet Activities (FLEACT) Yokosuka's Fleet Theater during an afternoon all-hands call, Feb. 20.

Mabus began his speech by addressing the upcoming budget cuts facing the Navy should Congress fail to pass the budget by March 1.

"(Active-duty) pay and benefits for your family, are exempt, they won't be touched," he said. "But it will have a major impact on the Navy and the Marine Corps if sequestration happens."

Sequestration means a $4 billion deficit for the Department of the Navy for the next seven months and that the Navy is still operating on continuing resolution funding, based upon last fiscal year's budget, because Congress hasn't yet approved this year's budget.

"You spend what you spent on the same things you spent it on last year and no more. So for the Navy, it means you can't put a ship into the shipyard, because that would be a new start, something we didn't do last year," he said

Mabus also said the work Sailors and Marines are doing, in light of the president's new maritime strategy that focuses more on the Pacific Rim, is on the cutting edge of this new strategy. "Whatever happens to the budget, our commitment to Japan, our commitment to the Pacific won't lessen."

According to Mabus, two carriers in Norfolk are caught in this fiscal quagmire; the USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) and the USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72). The Roosevelt is nearing completion of a four-year overhaul and refueling, and Lincoln is scheduled to begin a four-year shipyard period.

Sequestration will result in a lot less money for training, fewer deployments, and a much less ready Navy and Marine Corps. "So what we're doing is planning for the worst and hoping for the best," he said.

Following his comments, Secretary Mabus thanked the Sailors and Marines for the job they are doing and called them the most "formidable maritime force in the history of the world."

For more news from Commander Fleet Activities Yokosuka, visit www.navy.mil/local/cfay/.