More business for Bath in President's budget

By Rhiannon Varmette

WASHINGTON--President Bush's proposed budget allots $12.2 billion for shipbuilding, including money for Bath Iron Works to build three Aegis guided missile destroyers over the next two years.

The budget requests $3.6 billion, which would be split between Bath and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi, to construct six DDG-51 Aegis destroyers.

Bush's budget request "is heartening news that the Defense Department will work with Congress to address shipbuilding needs," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement.

"The Administration's reported funding increase for shipbuilding is very good news for the Navy, for our national security - and for Bath Iron Works," Snowe said.

Snowe's spokesman, Dave Lackey, said the senator had been frustrated in the past because of a lack of money for shipbuilding that she believes hurts not only Bath Iron Works, but national defense as well.

The total request for shipbuilding would represent a $2.7 billion increase from this year, and would be nearly three times the typical annual increase, Lackey said, adding that the usual increase of $1 billion annually keeps the Navy's fleet only at a standstill.

Lackey said that the budget request is important because it would provide stability to Bath Iron Works, which employs 6,500 people, for the next few years.

"Bath Iron Works has a significant impact in the midcoast area, as one of the state's largest employers," Lackey said. "What happens to Bath Iron Works has a ripple effect throughout the economy."

Kendall Pease, spokesman for Bath Iron Works' parent company, General Dynamics Corp., said that the increase in spending for shipbuilding is important to the company and to the country.

"The attempt of this budget to get to a better number of ships is saluted by not just the company but by anyone concerned with national defense," Pease said.

Pease said that the country's naval resources are being worn thin because the Navy is operating with fewer ships than are needed and the United States is sending naval vessels to the Persian Gulf and other areas.

Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association, said that the Bush request is a step in the right direction but that even more aggressive shipbuilding is needed to maintain a strong Navy.

Brown said that over the last few years the government has provided funds for construction of five ships a year and that this new budget would allow for construction of seven ships.

The ideal would be for the government to fund construction of 10 ships each year, she said, adding that while there are 301 ships in the Navy now, there will be only 291 next year because of ships being decommissioned. Brown said that up to 15 ships a year are decommissioned.

"That means that the fleet is going to drop," Brown said, adding that the budget request represents " absolutely an improvement over last year."

The war in Afghanistan, she said, involved more than 60 Navy vessels transporting soldiers and supplies and 4,000 missiles fired from naval vessels in three months. She said that a war in Iraq would also rely heavily on the Navy.

"You cannot build a Navy to go to war. It takes three years to put each warship in the water. You have to have a standing Navy at all times or that fleet is not there when the gun goes off."

Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.