Conferees keep Navy destroyer program at two shipyards

Leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees have agreed to require the Navy to build its next-generation DD(X) destroyer at two shipyards, a move that ensures the country's two largest military shipbuilders will both continue to work on the high-priced program, according to sources familiar with conference negotiations on the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill.

The language, contained in the Senate version of the bill, will be included in the conference report despite Navy concerns that the two-shipyard approach would be too costly. The Navy has advocated a "winner-take-all" strategy that would force Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi to compete against General Dynamics' Bath Iron Works in Maine for the lucrative contract.

Meanwhile, committee leaders and the White House remained deadlocked Wednesday over the issue that has held up the defense authorization bill -- an amendment banning detainee torture sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. McCain met early Wednesday morning with National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley to continue discussions on the issue.

Opposed by the White House, McCain's amendment would bar U.S. government employees from inflicting cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment on enemy combatants. The amendment, which has overwhelming support in the Senate, also would require U.S. military interrogators to follow Army Field Manual regulations on tactics for questioning prisoners.

As part of the deal over the Navy destroyer issue, the four leaders of the Armed Services committees agreed to authorize nearly $1.9 billion for the new destroyer program in fiscal 2006 -- a major victory for Senate authorizers who have argued that Congress needs to fully fund the program to keep it on track, sources said.

The House voted to cut $1.1 billion from President Bush's budget request for the program, setting up DD(X) as the biggest military procurement issue confronting House and Senate conferees.

Asked Tuesday night about the conference agreements affecting the DD(X), House Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee Chairman Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., cautioned that nothing was final until the conference report is completed, probably later this week.

"Until everything is settled, nothing is settled," Bartlett said. "They're all used as bargaining chips."

House Armed Services Projection Forces Subcommittee ranking member Gene Taylor, D-Miss., could not confirm the deal but said he supports the two-shipyard approach. "We just went through a horrific hurricane," said Taylor, whose Gulf Coast district is home to Ingalls Shipyard, which is building the first DD(X). "What if all our assets had been in Mississippi?" He said the same would be true if a disaster hit the rival Bath Iron Works shipyard.

Maintaining two shipyards in two states gives greater congressional backing to the program, Taylor added. "It helps to have a big team on the field," he said.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, sponsor of the two-shipyard provision, declined to comment on conference negotiations.