THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 9, 1995 TAG: 9506090519
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, whose rise to power was based on his prowess as a legislative brawler, is trying his hand at diplomacy in the Virginia vs. New England battle for the Navy's submarine business.
The Georgia Republican met privately for about an hour Thursday with top executives of Newport News Shipbuilding. The Virginia yard is engaged in a bold campaign to force the Pentagon to let it compete for sub work that the Navy wants to direct to Electric Boat of Groton, Conn.
``We had a very encouraging and an illuminating discussion with the speaker,'' said Dana Meade, chairman and chief executive of Tenneco Inc., Newport News' parent company.
The session with Meade and other Newport News executives, including shipyard board Chairman Pat Phillips and President Bill Fricks, ``didn't come to an ultimate bottom line,'' said U.S. Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, a Newport News Republican who helped arrange the meeting.
Both builders say they need at least part of that business to survive as sub builders. Electric Boat builds only submarines, and says it will close, unless Congress provides $1.5 billion this year for a third and final Seawolf-class submarine, plus about $700 million for early work on a successor class of subs.
But Newport News, which also builds aircraft carriers and commercial ships, insists it must have some of the post-Seawolf subs or face the loss of its ability to build undersea boats. It has demanded a chance to compete for contracts in the successor class of subs.
Gingrich is on record in support of the third Seawolf and preservation of both shipyards as sub-builders, a stand that puts him in a rare alliance with President Clinton.
But a House committee has recommended killing the third Seawolf and trying to keep Electric Boat going by expanding the Connecticut, a Seawolf-class ship under construction in Groton. Gingrich got directly involved just hours after that plan surfaced last month, meeting with Electric Boat executives and Navy leaders in a session similar to Thursday's confab with the Virginia delegation.
Also attending Thursday was California Rep. Duncan Hunter, the principal draftsman of the House National Security Committee's plan. He predicted that that proposal will win full House approval next week but acknowledged that considerable changes could be made in the Senate and by a conference committee that will tackle the issue later in the summer.
Strapped for cash, the Navy plans to begin buying ships in the new class of subs in 1998 at the rate of one every two years. A key point in the dispute is whether that's enough to keep two yards profitable. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
House Speaker Newt Gingrich
by CNB