THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, March 26, 1996 TAG: 9603260308
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
With the Pentagon scheduled to announce revised plans today for future submarine construction, a key senator has warned Defense Secretary William J. Perry not to back off from a deal to begin work on a new sub at Newport News Shipbuilding in 1999.
Sen. J. Strom Thurmond, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote Perry on Friday to express concern over reports the department may want to delay the sub for one year.
``While I consider it unlikely that you would undertake such an action, since I believe the committee has a very firm commitment from you, . . I thought it prudent to write to you to ensure that you are aware of how seriously we would view such a change,'' Thurmond wrote.
The 1999 schedule is a key part of a deal struck last year between Newport News, rival shipyard Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., the Pentagon, the Navy and congressmen from Virginia and New England.
The arrangement calls for Electric Boat to begin work in 1998 on the first sub in a new class. Newport News is to get the second boat in line, in 1999, with a third going to Electric Boat in 2000 and a fourth to Newport News in 2001. The yards are to compete for contracts after that.
The alternating contracts are supposed to allow Newport News to get up to speed on the program, which the Navy initially steered to Electric Boat, and to encourage both yards to incorporate innovative technologies into the first ships in the class. The schedule set last year is ``a central feature'' of the deal, Thurmond wrote, ``in order to establish the conditions necessary for future competition.''
To meet the 1999 schedule, the Pentagon's budget should include about $500 million in 1997 to buy a nuclear reactor and other components. That money was not in the budget Perry submitted early this month, however, and the plan due today is supposed to outline how the Defense Department intends to proceed.
Navy Secretary John H. Dalton has told several congressional committees this month that the 1999 sub money is the service's top priority if Congress decides to increase funding for weapons purchases. Republicans on Thurmond's committee and its counterpart in the House have indicated they intend to make substantial increases. by CNB