Congressmen chide Va. senators over carrier move

Hampton Roads' four congressmen don't think Virginia's two senators are doing enough to block the Navy's plans to move a Norfolk-based aircraft carrier to Mayport, Fla.

The four House members recently sent a letter expressing concern that while the House's approved 2012 defense budget specifically prohibits spending money to prepare the Florida naval station to base a nuclear carrier, a proposed Senate budget does not.

The Senate version, which was approved by the chamber's Armed Services Committee this month and is headed to the full body, includes $15 million for Mayport improvements in advance of the proposed 2019 carrier relocation. The total cost of a carrier move is expected to be hundreds of millions of dollars.

Navy officials, with the support of Florida's congressional delegation, have been working to establish a second East Coast homeport for nuclear-powered carriers at the base near Jacksonville, arguing that dispersing the carrier fleet would protect it from natural disasters and terrorist attacks.

The prospect of losing a carrier has sparked strong objections from state and local leaders. Economists have estimated it would cost Hampton Roads about 6,000 jobs and about $425 million in annual revenue.

Local lawmakers also are concerned that Hampton Roads might eventually lose two carriers to Florida if Mayport is converted to a nuclear base.

The congressmen wrote in a letter dated Friday to Sens. Jim Webb and Mark Warner that they "were surprised to see no attempt to eliminate funds for the Navy's unnecessary and low priority plans for Naval Station Mayport." The document was sent by three Republicans - U.S. Reps. Randy Forbes of Chesapeake, Scott Rigell of Virginia Beach and Rob Wittman of Westmoreland County - and one Democrat, Bobby Scott of Newport News. Warner and Webb are Democrats.

Forbes said Monday he was disappointed that Webb, a member of Senate Armed Services, didn't ask the committee to add the Mayport spending prohibition during its review of the bill.

"The purpose of our letter is to say when this bill comes to full floor, at least do something," Forbes said, adding that it will be more difficult to make the change during the Senate debate.

"The senators missed an opportunity," Rigell said Monday. "It should have been stopped at the earliest possible moment."

Spokespersons for Webb and Warner said the senators have worked hard to block plans to move a carrier.

"This has been an all-hands-on-deck effort over several years by the combined elected leadership of Virginia, and we'll continue working together to prevent the Navy from moving forward on this expensive and redundant construction," said Kevin Hall, Warner's spokesman.

Allison Jaslow, Webb's spokeswoman, said, "Sen. Webb has consistently opposed the Navy's homeporting proposal as both fiscally irresponsible and strategically unnecessary since it was first formalized by the Bush administration in 2008."

The House members' discontent is focused on each chamber's version of similar legislation - the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act. In the GOP-controlled House, where Forbes, Rigell and Wittman serve on the Armed Services Committee, the Virginians successfully pushed to include the anti-Mayport language. The House approved the bill on May 26.

The Senate version does include a provision proposed by Webb that requires the comptroller general to complete by February 2012 an analysis of the Navy's Mayport plans to assess, among other things, "the strategic, fiscal and operational risks."

Jaslow said the analysis would be the first independent assessment of the Navy's plans.

Rigell said Webb's addition doesn't go far enough.

"We are well beyond the point of studying this," Rigell said. "I believe that the risks are known. The costs are known. And the argument on both sides is well known.... This is the time to stop the project."

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