Maine senators try to save third DDG 1000

[unhappycamper]

Maine senators try to save third DDG 1000
By Philip Ewing - Staff writer
Posted : Monday May 12, 2008 16:11:23 EDT

Anxious that their home-state shipyard could lose billions of federal dollars if it doesn’t build an advanced new Navy destroyer, Maine’s two senators are going to bat in Congress for the third Zumwalt-class warship — known by its hull number, DDG 1002.

Maine’s Bath Iron Works, which has a contract to build the first Zumwalt, had hoped until last week that it would build the $3.6 billion third destroyer. But on Thursday, a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., voted to “pause” construction in the class and spend the money on three other ships.

That prompted Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans, to try to go over Taylor’s head by appealing to Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton’s committee on Wednesday is scheduled to make its recommendations to the full House on what programs Congress should fund.

Skelton could overturn the changes made by Taylor’s subcommittee, but according to a report in the Times Record newspaper of Bath, Skelton said during a March visit to Bath Iron Works that “he was inclined to leave shipbuilding decisions to the subcommittee.”

Snowe referred to Skelton’s visit in an announcement on Friday, in which she encouraged Skelton to “strongly consider the vision and advice of the Navy’s top admiral” — Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, who visited Bath Iron Works in January and, as Snowe put it, “underscored the absolute necessity” of the third ship.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/05/navy_congress_destroyers_051208w/



uhc comment: The Zumwalt-class DDG 1000 is also known as the Littoral Combat Ship (part of the Deepwater program). The two LCS boats built to date cost somewhere between $3,300,000,000 to $5,000,000,000 a pop.

Perhaps Collins and Snowe should work on homelessness or poverty or hunger in Maine. Or perhaps they should be replaced by folks who do care about homelessness, poverty, and hunger in Maine.

[fight4my3sons]

1. We are hoping to replace Collins with Tom Allen.

http://www.tomallen.org/index.asp

I live right down the road from BIW.

edited to add link

[unhappycamper]

2. I'm very aware of the Allen campaign.

I hope he wins.