From 2001 to 2019, proposals to rename the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps were introduced with wide support in the United States Congress, but failed due to the opposition of Senator and former U.S. Navy officer John McCain.
The Department of the Navy consists of all elements of the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps. According to Navy Regulations Section 0204-2, the term "Navy Department" refers only to the executive offices at the seat of government.
The Department of the Navy is composed of the following:[6]
All field activities, headquarters, forces, bases, installations, activities, and functions under the control or supervision of the Secretary of the Navy; and
When it is operating as a service in the Navy Department, the Coast Guard. (Ordinarily part of the Department of Homeland Security, federal law provides that the Coast Guard may be transferred to the Department of the Navy by the President at any time, or by Congress during time of war)
Proposed redesignation as the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps
From 2001 until his death in 2019, Congressman Walter B. Jones Jr. introduced legislation to rename the Department of the Navy as the Department of the Navy and Marine Corps. The legislation would have also renamed the Secretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Navy and Marine Corps. Congressman Jones put forward the legislation to give the Marine Corps equal recognition with the Navy as part of the Department of the Navy, stating in 2018, "The Marine Corps is an equal member of this department, and therefore, deserves equal recognition in its title."[7] In 2013, the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of a name change to be only $500,000 over several years.[8][9]
Despite having consistent support in both the House of Representatives and Senate, the proposal consistently failed to pass due to the intervention of Senator and former Navy officer John McCain, who served as the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.[8]
^See William A. Owens, High Seas: The Naval Passage to an Uncharted World (1995), Naval Institute Press, p. 100; Brent G. Filbert and Alan G. Kaufman, Naval Law: Justice and Procedure in the Sea Services (1998), Naval Institute Press; Brian R. Wolff and John Alexander, The U.S. Navy and Marine Corps Into the 21st Century (1997), Osprey, p. 7; Joseph H. Alexander and Merrill L. Bartlett, Sea Soldiers in the Cold War: Amphibious Warfare, 1945–1991 (1995), Naval Institute Press; p. 71, p. 175.