DATE: Friday, September 19, 1997            TAG: 9709190838
SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A9   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: WASHINGTON                        LENGTH:   75 lines

SHIPYARDS SEEKING CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL TO SHARE WORK ON SUBS

With a congressional dispute over B-2 bombers threatening to block passage of the Clinton administration's entire 1998 defense program, supporters of two Navy shipbuilding initiatives vital to Hampton Roads are working on a maneuver that would keep the projects on track.

Sources said this week that Virginia lawmakers hope to secure funds for new aircraft carrier and submarine building at Newport News Shipbuilding even if Congress and Clinton deadlock over a companion bill that normally would provide directions on how the money should be spent.

``From one minute to the other, it's fluid,'' one source familiar with the discussions cautioned Thursday. But if the unusual move succeeds, thousands of jobs at Newport News would be protected for years.

The trickiest part of the legislative effort involves securing approval for a plan to have Newport News join forces with a rival builder, Electric Boat of Groton, Conn., to construct the first four ships in a new class of attack submarines.

The Navy and the yards devised the teaming arrangement, in which each builder would construct sections of each submarine, in an effort to keep both yards in the sub business. The service plans to buy only one or two subs per year for the foreseeable future, barely enough to keep even one yard going if the firms work independently.

Congress decided in 1995 that the yards should compete for future sub work. It split the first four ships in the new class between the yards and said competitive bidding would begin around 2003.

The arrangement was crafted to push each yard toward more innovative designs. Navy critics, particularly a group of Republicans led by Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., argue that the initial design for the new sub is little more than a scaled-down version of the Seawolf-class subs now in production.

The Navy says the Seawolfs will be the world's quietest, deadliest subs, but Hunter argues that the successor ships can be dramatically better. He has suggested that the first four boats be designed independently, with experimental propulsion, sensor systems and quieting technology, and that the best features of each be included in a final design for the fifth ship, when competitive bidding would begin.

Hunter, who heads the House subcommittee in charge of weapons procurement, also is perhaps the most outspoken congressional supporter of the B-2. He wants Congress to provide a down payment in 1998 toward the purchase of nine more of the bombers, each of which costs $2 billion.

The House has voted repeatedly for more B-2s, though Air Force leaders say the 20 already on order or in their inventory are sufficient. The Senate opposes more B-2 spending.

Some congressional sources fear Hunter will hold out for B-2 money in exchange for his support for both the submarine team-building plan and for another key Newport News program, a $350 million payment for preliminary work on the 10th and last Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Hunter's subcommittee chairmanship makes him a potentially pivotal member of the House-Senate panel assigned to write the final version of the defense authorization bill, an annual measure that determines how the Pentagon spends its share of the federal budget.

But the Californian is not part of the group of lawmakers who work on the separate defense appropriations bill, the measure that actually provides the money.

To get around Hunter, Virginia and New England lawmakers and lobbyists for Electric Boat and Newport News are said to be attempting to insert language permitting submarine teaming into the appropriations bill. That would make the authorization measure irrelevant and let the yards proceed.

The yards contend, and a Navy analysis this spring agreed, that competition will make the new submarines more expensive, as each yard will have to maintain special equipment and skilled tradesmen.

By letting each yard concentrate on different sections of each ship, the firms say, they can save about $700 million on the cost of the first four subs in the class. That would make the total cost of those boats about $9.3 billion.

A savings of up to $2 billion, spread over 30 ships, would result if Congress gave all the work to one yard, the Navy has said. But with thousands of jobs at stake in New England and Virginia, Congress agreed in 1995 to maintain both yards as sub builders and to bear the extra costs.

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