GovernmentExecutive.com

Pressed by Senate appropriators, the top Navy officials Wednesday strongly defended their decision to retire the Mayport, Fla.-based aircraft carrier USS John F. Kennedy and warned that if forced to retain the ship they would have to take money from more important programs.

Navy Secretary Gordon England went on to predict that the active carrier force could drop below 11 ships without regard to what decision was made on the Kennedy.

"It's not clear to me that it always stay at 11," England told the Senate Defense Appropriations subcommittee. "As capabilities increase, we could go down."

The Navy's plans in the fiscla 2006 budget to retire the Kennedy this year triggered an outcry by both the Florida congressional delegation and pro-Navy lawmakers from other states.

England and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark were questioned by Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, who said he and ranking member Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, were concerned about the shrinking Navy fleet.

Stevens asked if they would be disturbed if Congress orders them to retain the Kennedy.

"Yes sir, we would be terribly disturbed to keep Kennedy where it is," England replied, saying that would be "expensive for us and it's a marginal capability."

England then added that the money to operate the Kennedy and put it through a long and expensive overhaul had been dropped from the 2006 budget. If forced to keep it on active duty, "we would need to take the money from elsewhere," he said.

Clark added although the Navy planned to keep its nuclear-powered carriers operational for 50 years, the 38-year-old Kennedy, which is not nuclear-powered, should be retired because it had never been modernized.

COMMENTS

• This link (http://www.nol.navy.mil/homepages/cv67/History.htm) to a navy website states "From January to October 2003 Kennedy underwent the largest maintenance period ever conducted pierside. The Navy invested more than $300 million in living spaces, steam plants, computer systems and more, extending the life of Big John to 2018." This is just one of many updates mentioned in the Web article. How can Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vern Clark say "the 38-year-old Kennedy, which is not nuclear-powered, should be retired because it had never been modernized?" What is $300 Million dollars, chicken feed? Michael Walker Posted March 18, 2005 10:40 AM
• If nuclear carriers have 50 year service lives, why does the JFK have to be decommissioned after only 38 years? Maybe someone should investigate why this carrier was allowed to deteroriate so badly, that it now costs a forture to fix it. Sounds like years of benign neglect, or was it just negligence? The Navy is decommissioning ships at a record pace, and the number of active duty personnel is decreasing, as least for enlisted men. Also, the F-14 Tomcat is being put out of service, as was the A-6 Intruder, while the F-18 Hornets are taking on the missions of both. Fewer types of aircraft should be less expensive, right? Also, many bases have been closed over the past decade or more. What were those savings? These measures should have provided enough money to keep 11 carriers in service. Maybe the Navy can explain what happened to those savings. Let's not let the fleet shrink to an unsafe level. Remember Pearl Harbor, and 9/11! GovExec.com reader Posted March 17, 2005 3:03 PM