Navy picks Florida for carrier, leaving Virginia in wake

The Navy announced its final decision Wednesday to move a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Mayport Naval Base in Florida, but the political battle over where to station the carrier may be far from over.

The ship would be the first nuclear-powered carrier based at Mayport, which was home to conventionally powered carriers from 1952 until the retirement of the USS John F. Kennedy in 2007. Since the retirement of the Kennedy, all East Coast carriers have been stationed at Virginia's Norfolk Naval Base.

In a statement, Senate Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee Chairman Bill Nelson, D-Fla., stressed the importance of the Navy spreading out its Atlantic-based carrier fleet.

"Keeping all the carriers in just one port is too great a risk," he said.

Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., said the Florida delegation's next step is to secure funding in the fiscal 2010 budget to upgrade Mayport to accommodate the carrier.

"National security demands we move this project forward," Martinez added.

Virginia lawmakers could stand in the way of the Navy's decision. Each carrier brings about 3,000 military jobs to a base -- making it a strong economic engine to an area.

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., an Armed Services Committee member and former Navy secretary, said after the announcement that he wants a "fully-justified cost/benefit analysis" and other information before Congress considers providing the funding to implement the decision.

"I intend to bring full scrutiny to this decision in the coming months as it makes its way through the appropriate congressional process," Webb said. "I have yet to receive a proper, intelligence-based assessment from the Navy on this matter, despite the fact that as late as Jan. 12, the chief of naval operations confirmed that he could not identify a threat-based requirement for this proposal."

The Navy announced its preference to move a nuclear-powered carrier to Florida in November, prompting Virginia lawmakers and Gov. Tim Kaine to urge that a decision be postponed until after President-elect Obama's inauguration.

Now that the Navy has made its decision, Obama and his national security team will be under considerable pressure by lawmakers from both states -- each of which were important to his election -- to respond to their competing concerns. Kaine, whom the president-elect tapped last week to lead the Democratic National Committee, is likely to continue to press the issue.

Webb penned a 24-page paper this month opposing efforts to move a carrier to Mayport, arguing that it would cost as much as $1 billion at a time when the Navy has more pressing fiscal priorities.

"If I were serving as secretary of the Navy today, I would be very worried about where I would be finding $4.6 billion to pay for unfunded requirements in the Navy's existing budget," Webb said Wednesday.

"I would also be worried about where I would be finding the billions of dollars needed to fund procurement for the Navy's lamentably mismanaged aircraft programs, and the billions that the Navy would need to grow its fleet by more than 25 ships, to its announced goal of 313 combatants," he said.

Webb added that he would "not be proposing an additional $1 billion on top of these shortfalls for a nonessential, redundant facility in Mayport."