Va. senators make pitch to keep carrier

Virginia senators are urging Defense Secretary Robert
Gates to delay a plan that could move a nuclear carrier to Florida and leave
that decision to the next administration.

Sens. Jim Webb (D) and John Warner (R) released a letter
Thursday objecting to an impending decision by the Navy that could result in
the USS George H.W. Bush moving from
the Virginia coast to Jacksonville.

{mosads}The Virginia senators later held a news conference to
press the Bush administration to consider keeping that ship and the entire East
Coast carrier fleet in Norfolk.

“We’re not going to lose this carrier,” Webb at the news
conference.

The fight over the carrier is expected to pit members of
the Virginia and Florida delegations against each other, with the winner poised
to gain a ship that generates an economy of jobs and billions of dollars.

Northrop Grumman built the carrier named after the
41st president in Newport News, Va. Even though the Navy has not specified
which ship it wants to send to the Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, the
Bush carrier is technically the only one without a home.

Sens. Webb and Warner, who’s retiring this year, want
Gates to give the next administration a chance to analyze the strategic and
fiscal considerations of moving a nuclear carrier to Mayport.

Navy Secretary Donald Winter will make a final decision
on whether to send a carrier to Florida in late December. But Winter will only
determine the environmental impact of permanently stationing a carrier there.
Funding that move — at least $500 million — will fall on then-President Barack
Obama’s Pentagon and Congress.

The Navy signaled Monday in an announcement that it wants
a nuclear carrier in Florida based on the results of the environmental impact
study. The Navy will officially release that review Friday.

The Navy’s proposal “enters the realm of fiscal
irresponsibility,” Warner and Webb told Gates in a letter.

Norfolk will need no additional upgrades to house the
newest carrier, the lawmakers said. Webb expressed confidence that Virginia
will keep all the carriers on the East Coast.

Meanwhile, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine (D), a friend and ally
of Obama, said that he has spoken to members of the president-elect’s
transition team about the proposed carrier movement, urging them to revisit the
issue early in the new administration’s term if the Navy tries to move ahead.

At the ship’s 2006
christening at Newport News, then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) made the
bold pitch to take the newest carrier named after his father to the Sunshine
State.

Virginians have feared that the weight of the former
first family could be the difference in a bidding war for the newest
nuclear-powered carrier.

The Bush carrier will be commissioned on Jan. 10, 2009, a
mere 10 days before President George W. Bush, the namesake’s other well-known
son, leaves the White House.

For the Hampton Roads area in Virginia , the carriers
represent an economic lifeline, but moving one to Florida could revive the
Jacksonville ship-repair industry and economy.

Mayport was home to the conventionally powered John F.
Kennedy carrier until it was decommissioned last March. To house a nuclear-powered
carrier, the base would need special maintenance facilities, road improvements
and dredging. All that work will cost at least $500 million and could take
until 2014 to complete.

Mayport will lose other ships, too. Ten frigates will be
decommissioned by 2014, and the number of sailors will drop from 13,300 to
fewer than 9,300.

Webb vowed that there will be a “long series of hearings”
in the authorization and appropriations committees questioning the validity of
adding up to “$1 billion to a budget that the Navy already [puts at] $4.6
billion in the hole.”

The Navy presented to Congress $4.6 billion in
requirements that were not covered by the 2009 budget request.

“The facts are so clearly on our side,” Webb said.