CONCORD, N.H. (AP) — New Hampshire U.S. Sens. Jeanne Shaheen and Kelly Ayotte are questioning the Department of Defense’s request for another Base Realignment and Closure round.
During a Senate Armed Services Committee meeting Tuesday, Shaheen expressed misgivings about the lack of investment in the nation’s public shipyards. Ayotte expressed skepticism that spending tens of billions of dollars to initiate a new BRAC round can be justified.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta reaffirmed the department’s support for public shipyards, including Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. That shipyard is in Maine, though it does employ many New Hampshire residents, and does maintenance work on nuclear subs. It was pegged to be closed in the last BRAC round that also saw the shuttering of the Brunswick Naval Air Station. But a concerted effort by Maine and New Hampshire politicians and workers kept the shipyard open.
Maine’s senators have also spoken out against another BRAC round.
Shaheen said the shipyard was removed from the last BRAC round because of its effectiveness, and mentioned it just delivered the USS San Juan attack submarine eight days ahead of schedule.
Ayotte pointed to a November 2009 Government Accountability Office letter that revealed the 2005 BRAC process cost significantly more than anticipated.
I love this. The GOP makes all kinds of noise about the closing of military bases but only so long as those bases are in Democratic district’s. Someone please gag me with a snowplow ! The BARCO was designed to close those Bases and Facillities that are either obsolete or have had their functions consolidated into another base that can perform the functin at a lower cost. The fact that Portsmouth was even attempted for closure was not only poltically motivated but also as an attempt by the commercial shipbuilding business community’s to eliminate competition under the cover of BARCO. Whoever called for the last BARCO Review of Portsmouth needs a little ‘laundry’ done before they go off and start shooting their mouth off about ‘Defense Need’s’.
Reducing the number of facillities that perform the submarine maintenance function is not just not smart. It’s CRIMINALLY STUPID ! By spreading out the function to more than one facillity, the ability to schedule these sub’s efficiently is improved. It also, under the competition concept, increases the number of business’s that compete for the Navy’s varied business needs. And that’s what the concept of open competition is all about. And if the economy, and the BARCO, is to be used a defense ‘decider’, than one had better start going back and re-reading the history of the Country from 1938 thru 1945. If we hadn’t the industrial base to both build for our own military but the Allies then we would all be in a MUCH different world right now. Had BARCO been in existence during the early 30’s we would all be still fighting. That the DoD closed Pease (anyone in NH there right now ?) and Loring all but killed any hope of any R&D and maintenance facillities being built or re-developed. The closure of Brunswick NAS similarly another sad chapter in the politically motivated BARCO process.