Virginia reacts to Navy carrier decision
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Today, the Navy, announced based on a year-long Environmental Impact Study (EIS) their preference to homeport one aircraft carrier within the next five years in Mayport, Fla. vice in Hampton Roads.
The announcement elicited reaction from several of Virginia’s elected officials…
Gov. Tim Kaine:
“I note with disappointment the news today regarding the Secretary of the Navy’s preferred alternative for carrier homeporting. While the selected alternative moves one carrier and no additional support ships to Mayport, any such action, if approved and funded by Congress, would incur substantial costs for what appears to be a limited operational advantage. Considering the impacts of the financial crisis on federal, state, and local budgets, we question the wisdom and timing of an option that will cost the Navy an incredible amount of money and not significantly improve the nation’s security.
“Clearly the Navy and the nation’s needs are best served by maintaining Hampton Roads as the east Coast carrier base, co-located with the east Coast Master Jet Base at Oceana. Virginia will continue to offer substantive information in support of this fact during the comment period on the environmental impact statement. I will continue to work closely with Virginia’s Congressional delegation to keep all of Hampton Roads’ fleet in Virginia.”
Rep. Thelma Drake:
“I strongly disagree with the Navy’s decision today. Norfolk has served the Navy well as homeport to the East Coast carrier fleet. Our national debt is exploding and many defense priorities are unfunded. This is not the time for the Navy to spend what they estimate to be $500 million on duplicative infrastructure which President-Elect Obama has already said he is not inclined to support. Our commitment must be to the 313 ship Navy.”
Rep. J. Randy Forbes:
“In the midst of a ballooning budget deficit and a declining economy, every defense dollar should be spent on the most important national security priorities, including the Navy’s stated priorities of providing benefits to our soldiers, reaching a 313-ship Navy, and restoring the readiness in our aging aircraft fleet. Moving a carrier to Mayport will require a great deal of time and upwards of half a billion dollars. I am concerned that the decision made by the Navy today not only lacks strong national security rationale requiring the move, but brings into question the political nature of the decision making process, creating significant challenges for the Navy to meet its stated priorities.”
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Honestly, if the Navy want to justify keeping Mayport open we needed to move a carrier south, and strategically it still makes sense to disperse the carrier force.
It appears to me that Kaine is more concerned with the loss tax revenue and jobs moving out of his state instead of the topic of national security. Just as it appears that with Warner leaving office and the loss of his seniority, the new Warner with no experience or status yet, Kaine will be relying on his pre-election status in hopes of keeping the carrier here…
Interesting that the worry is not the improvment of national security resulting from the seperation of the carriers but instead of loss revenue and jobs. By placing a carrier in Florida will that not move a carrier closer to Chavez and his ego? Will that not position our fleet closer to other areas that may be needed in the future? And by seperating our carriers is not that strategic and more safe then having your assets in one place. Imagine a nuke strike on a single base that destroys several carriers or destroys the operation of a single base? Never happen? Just like they will never fly fuel laden airliners into our skyscrapers…
The budget for our military is running at a low 4% of the national budget. If Obama wants to spend $$$ to create jobs and imprtove economies is this not a smart start? Now we have politicans above stating all of their reasons for keeping the carrier, and it’s money, here instead of moving it to another more strategic location. Would have loved to hear this concern earlier…
We need leaders who look for the strategic and national security benefits instead of looking out for “their” tax revenue…
As a member of the military, I could think of a number of other uses for the 500M plus that it would cost to retrofit Mayport.
A more economically sound plan would be to move several convential ships to Mayport, a large deck amphib and a couple other ships would equal the economic impact of one carrier.
As for the “all our eggs in one basket” argument. Have you been to the Norfolk pier lately? Do you know how often more than two carriers are in port? Not very.
If you take a look at the Navy’s deployment schedule, which is unclass, you ‘d see that there really isn’t that much danger taking out most of our carriers.
Whereas, we could take that money and build some additional ships that would really increase our national security.
maybe they were afraid of the Somali pirates in the Chesapeake Bay
This is the beginning of the losses i revenue in terms of Kaine’s perspective. Remember BRAC? I brought this up during the campaign and was amazed how the media never asked the President-elect to elaborate on defense cuts, eventhough there were youtube videos of him saying he would cut missile defense systems, reduce naval vessel procurement. I raised the question in the context of jobs in Newport News/Hampton Roads-well Obama supported efforts of BRAC which intially wanted to close Oceana. The air station will not be so lucky in the next round of base realignment and closings further hurting that regions economy. That coupled with reductions in defense spending will result in Northrop Grumman reducing the 30,000 or so employees it has working in the region as well in the next few years. Regretably, this carrier measure will just be the beginning. Look at the folks that Obama is surroubnding himself with so far, alot of old Clinton folks, and what did they do in terms of defense during Clintons’s first term to bring down the deficit; cut cut cut the military and defense appropriations. Gov. Kaine; welcome to the new world of change!!