THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 3, 1996 TAG: 9605030488
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
A year ago, it was the stuff of delicate negotiations and high-profile lobbying, but the battle to keep Newport News Shipbuilding in the submarine business ended Thursday with a quiet, almost anticlimatic victory.
In separate votes, House and Senate panels reviewing the Clinton administration's 1997 defense budget have now endorsed the addition of more than $500 million to that plan for a sub that will be built at the Peninsula shipyard beginning in 1999.
The House National Security Committee's version of the program, approved Wednesday night, would provide $504 million; the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday suggested $701 million. A compromise to be worked out this summer will fix a final amount.
The money will buy a nuclear reactor and other components needed to keep the project on schedule. It is part of more than $13 billion that the committees want added to Clinton's proposed $253 billion defense budget plan.
Though other hurdles remain before the bill clears Congress, the strong and bipartisan committee support means floor approval of a substantial appropriation for the sub is virtually certain, senior members of both houses said Thursday.
``I think we brought home the bacon,'' said an obviously relieved Sen. John W. Warner, the state's senior lawmaker and a key player in efforts to secure the sub money. ``We got a pretty big piece of money,'' along with statutory language that should protect Newport News' right to compete for sub contracts into the next century.
``I never had any real doubts about what would happen,'' said Rep. Herbert H. Bateman, a Newport News Republican. Once the House's GOP majority agreed to make additions to Clinton's proposed budget, it was clear the 1999 sub would be near the top of the list of projects to be funded, he said.
Warner, in the midst of a battle for re-election, claimed credit for getting the sub plan through the Senate committee, where he is the second most senior Republican member.
The $701 million that the Senate panel recommended is almost $200 million more than the House bill suggests; the additional funds are what the Navy would otherwise request for the sub as part of its 1998 budget submission. By locking up the money now, the Senate plan would deepen Congress' commitment to the sub and lessen the chance that a future president or Congress might cancel the project.
Warner said he also took the lead in persuading the Senate committee to endorse statutory language that would keep the Navy from spending any money on submarine construction until the Pentagon certifies its intent to adhere to a construction schedule Congress approved last year.
The schedule calls for Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., to build the first in a new line of attack subs beginning in 1998 and the third ship in the new line in 2000. Newport News, the only other U.S. shipyard capable of building nuclear subs, would get contracts for boats in 1999 and 2001 and the two yards would begin competing for work sometime after 2002.
Though the Navy and the administration agreed to that schedule last year, Clinton did not include funds for the 1999 sub in the 1997 budget bill he submitted in March.
The Navy initially wanted to direct all initial contracts for the new sub class to Electric Boat.
But the Peninsula yard and its corporate parent, Tenneco Inc., mounted a massive lobbying campaign last year to stop that plan. They said Newport News would be forced out of the sub business altogether if it didn't get a share of the new sub class quickly.
While the project has obvious economic benefits for Hampton Roads, where Newport News Shipbuilding is the largest private employer, it has political pluses for local members of Congress.
``It's nice to bring home something,'' acknowledged Rep. Norman Sisisky, a Democrat whose district includes thousands of western Tidewater residents who work at the shipyard.
KEYWORDS: SHIPBUILDING DEFENSE BUDGET by CNB