OLF melodrama moves to Washington

The Navy isn't a politician, and it shouldn't make critical decisions based on parochial preferences.

Nevertheless, a pair of North Carolina lawmakers believe they've found a way to prevent the Navy from looking south of Virginia's border for an outlying landing field for Oceana Naval Air Station's jets.

In Virginia, U.S. Rep. Randy Forbes appears to be trying to deliver a poison pill to the OLF effort by giving localities veto power over the military's decision.

The Navy is considering five rural sites for a new OLF, including two in northern North Carolina and three in Virginia. The opposition in all those places has been both vocal and adamant.

North Carolina Sen. Marc Basnight and state Rep. Bill Owens last month wrote the state's congressional delegation, asking it instead to lobby to have Oceana's jets moved to Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, where training wouldn't be as disruptive. As part of that campaign, U.S. Rep. Walter Jones introduced legislation that would bar the Navy from locating an OLF in either of the North Carolina sites under consideration.

It's a proposal too cute by at least half. To its credit, the Navy doesn't appear interested in moving planes to Cherry Point. Small wonder.

Basnight and Owens's proposal begins by misunderstanding the problem at Oceana while simultaneously accusing their northern neighbors of nefarious motives. "All along, we have known that an OLF in northeastern North Carolina would benefit the people of Virginia and would be built to alleviate noise and congestion at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach," the letter said. "For years, the Navy has refused to admit this very basic rationale for their proposed OLF."

The Navy refused to admit "this very basic rationale" because it was neither "very basic" nor the primary "rationale." Noise isn't the problem a new OLF is designed to alleviate.

Training at the current OLF at Fentress is hampered by encroaching light pollution, which has made it less than ideal for simulating dark carrier landings. Lights across the landscape now provide pilots with fixed points for navigation, a luxury absent in a pitching sea.

For years now, Cherry Point's advocates have been trying to get the Navy to send the North Carolina base more than the two F/A-18 Super Hornet squadrons it is due to host in 2014. But for just as long, the Navy has said the Marine Corps base doesn't meet its requirements, a position applauded by pilots and sailors who much prefer to live and work in Hampton Roads.

Forbes, though, may have inadvertently joined in the cause to move Oceana's jets out of Virginia and into North Carolina.

His proposal is substantially different from the Carolinians' but would probably have the same result: The legislation would prevent the Navy from locating an OLF in any county that doesn't want one. The Virginia counties under consideration all oppose an OLF. In a nod to keep the bill constitutional, Forbes' legislation does allow Congress to put an OLF wherever it wants to, assuming members can agree and are willing to do so.

The legislation introduced by Forbes and Jones has a ways to go, and must be approved at several more steps. Still, either measure would make an already difficult process - finding a place for an OLF - that much harder.