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Maine senators try to save third DDG 1000

Anxious that their home-state shipyard could lose billions of federal dollars if it doesn’t build an advanced new Navy destroyer, Maine’s two senators are going to bat in Congress for the third Zumwalt-class warship — known by its hull number, DDG 1002.

Maine’s Bath Iron Works, which has a contract to build the first Zumwalt, had hoped until last week that it would build the $3.6 billion third destroyer. But on Thursday, a House subcommittee chaired by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., voted to “pause” construction in the class and spend the money on three other ships.

That prompted Maine Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both Republicans, to try to go over Taylor’s head by appealing to Missouri Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Skelton’s committee on Wednesday is scheduled to make its recommendations to the full House on what programs Congress should fund.

Skelton could overturn the changes made by Taylor’s subcommittee, but according to a report in the Times Record newspaper of Bath, Skelton said during a March visit to Bath Iron Works that “he was inclined to leave shipbuilding decisions to the subcommittee.”

Snowe referred to Skelton’s visit in an announcement on Friday, in which she encouraged Skelton to “strongly consider the vision and advice of the Navy’s top admiral” — Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead, who visited Bath Iron Works in January and, as Snowe put it, “underscored the absolute necessity” of the third ship.

Roughead has urged Congress not to change the Navy’s shipbuilding plans, warning that he believes shipbuilders want predictability and stability in tomorrow’s multibillion-dollar, multiyear construction projects.

However, Taylor says the Navy could better spend its money on established varieties of ships, rather than the unproven, as-yet-unfinished design for the DDG 1000 class.

The Senate Armed Services Committee already has approved funding for DDG 1002. If the House committee upholds Taylor’s “pause” in the class, the lawmakers from two chambers will have to reconcile the difference when they meet in conference committee.