Lott presses for new Navy destroyer program

Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Senators from Northeastern states are urging colleagues to stick with a plan that gives full funding to construction of the Navy's new generation of destroyers, the Associated Press reports.

Lott, Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and other senators were joined by the Defense Department earlier this week in a letter to appropriations conferees.

In June, the Navy announced that Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Miss., Lott's home state, and Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, would produce the 32 new destroyers, designated DD- 21. The Senate voted to appropriate the Navy's $84.9 million request, but the House set aside only $16 million.

Lott and the others urged the senators on the appropriations conference to stick with the Senate figures. The Pentagon said if full funding is not received, the destroyer program would be delayed for a year to 2005.

In August, the Navy awarded a $68.5 million contract to Ingalls and BIW for the first phase of design work on the destroyers. The contract will be split between the two.

Ingalls has teamed with Raytheon Systems Company for its share of the work, while BIW has established a partnership with Lockheed Martin. Construction of the destroyers, the Navy has said, would virtually assure continued work for both yards until 2015. BIW, with 7,300 employees, and Ingalls, with more than 10,000, are the largest private employers in their respective states.