Sen. Mark Warner to push Mayport costs

U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., told defense officials Thursday that he expects to demonstrate during this year's budget debate that the cost of moving a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier to Mayport, Fla., is much higher than the Navy estimates.

Defense officials said they will spend $671 million to move a nuclear-powered carrier in the coming years to establish a second East Coast carrier base, at Mayport Naval Station.

"We think you have grossly underestimated the cost of this so-called insurance policy," Warner told Deputy Defense Secretary William Lynn during a Senate Budget Committee hearing in Washington. "I think we will show in the coming weeks and months these costs will be well in excess of $1 billion."

Defense officials stood by their cost projection and argued that a second homeport is needed because of concerns that a terrorist attack or a man-made or natural disaster in Norfolk would threaten national security.

Warner said defense officials have indicated that the Navy has two options to protect carriers. One is to spend a smaller amount of money to develop Mayport as an emergency port if Norfolk were to have a problem. The other is to build an entire nuclear base.

Lynn agreed that the move is similar to an insurance policy but said the second option is being pursued because it is what Navy leaders have told the Defense Department they need.

"The investment in the carrier force is well over $100 billion. So this is a 1 percent or so insurance premium that you're going to pay," he said.

The move is in keeping with the Navy's long-standing policy of having two carrier ports on the East Coast and two on the West Coast, Lynn said.

Mayport had been a homeport for conventionally powered carriers until the John F. Kennedy was decommissioned in 2007.

Earlier Thursday during a House Budget Committee, U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-3rd District, which includes part of Norfolk and the Peninsula, also challenged Lynn's defense of the Mayport cost.

The carrier move is viewed by Virginia and Florida lawmakers as a major loss or gain to their local economies. The move would cost Hampton Roads about 6,000 jobs and $425 million in annual revenue, economists predict.

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., who serves on the Senate Budget Committee, was irritated last week when U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., challenged the move in another hearing. He wasn't happy with Warner's comments on Thursday.

"I don't like the fact that we have to keep bringing this up," said Nelson, who has pushed to move a carrier for Mayport. Now that the defense officials have made clear they want it, Nelson said, he wishes Congress would "let it be."

Warner said before Nelson spoke that the carrier issue was not fading away.

"We're probably going to stay pretty focused on this for some time to come," he said.

Bill Bartel, (757) 446-2398, bill.bartel@pilotonline.com