The U.S. Navy is bracing for budget constraints that could hit training, exercises, and certification events as early as this summer, driven by the current high tempo of operations, the service’s top uniformed leader has warned lawmakers.
July deadline: “I’ll have to change how we generate the force”
“I will have to start making decisions to change training, operations, certification events, the kinds of things we do to generate our force in the July timeframe,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle told the House Appropriations Committee.
His warning came in response to questions about when the Navy expects to exhaust its current funding if it maintains today’s operational pace. The service currently has two aircraft carriers deployed to the Middle East.
Caudle confirmed that the money required to sustain these operations is expected to come from a defense supplemental spending package.
Capitol Hill pressure: “We need the supplemental over here now”
In reply, Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee, pressed the administration to send the supplemental to Congress without delay.
“I don’t know who’s making this final decision to get the supplemental over here, but we need to get it over here,” Calvert said. “Both sides need to look at it. Obviously, the Senate needs to look at it. It’s going to take some time. And at the same time, we’re going to be doing the base bill for defense appropriations. But based on what you just told me, it seems we’re going to need to do the supplemental first and get this funded as quickly as possible.”
Operation “Epic Fury” costs surge to $29 billion
Appearing earlier in the day before the Senate Appropriations Committee, the Pentagon’s acting comptroller, Jules “Jay” Hurst, told senators that total costs for Operation Epic Fury in the Middle East have climbed to $29 billion.
Those mounting expenses, combined with extended carrier deployments, are squeezing the Navy’s current-year accounts and increasing its reliance on the supplemental.
“Gerald R. Ford” carrier: record deployment, soaring maintenance bill
In a separate appearance before the House Appropriations Committee, Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao warned that the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford will require substantially more maintenance than a standard deployment once it returns from nearly 11 months at sea.
“For every 30 days that the ship is extended on deployment, it adds 6 percent of maintenance, so five extra months adds 30 percent more maintenance,” Cao told lawmakers.
The Ford left Naval Station Norfolk in June 2025 and, as of Tuesday, had spent a total of 323 days at sea following multiple extensions. That deployment surpasses the previous record held by the carrier Abraham Lincoln, which logged 294 days at sea during 2019–2020 — the longest carrier deployment since the Vietnam era.
From the High North to the Mediterranean and beyond
During its record-setting cruise, the Gerald R. Ford operated in the High North alongside NATO allies and in the Eastern Mediterranean.
In the fall, the carrier shifted to U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility to support the Trump administration’s naval buildup in the region amid rising tensions around Venezuela, ahead of Nicolás Maduro’s ouster in January.
Iran tensions and a return to the Atlantic
In February, President Donald Trump announced that the Ford would again head east to back operations in the Middle East, deploying alongside the Abraham Lincoln as tensions between Washington and Tehran escalated.
The Ford has since departed the Middle East and is now operating in the Atlantic, according to publicly available U.S. fleet tracking data
