By The Associated Press

Maine and New Hampshire’s governors and their respective congressional leaders spent an hour Thursday in a strategy session devoted to the fight to keep the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard open.

The strategy focuses on showing that the Defense Department used a flawed analysis in putting the shipyard on the list of proposed base closings nationwide. The Pentagon deviated from base-closing guidelines established by the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, delegation members said in a prepared statement.

The delegation further said it is “growing increasingly impatient” with the Defense Department’s delay in releasing the set of data it used to justify its recommendations, saying the department owes the affected communities an explanation for its reasoning in reaching its proposals.

Thursday’s meeting in Washington was attended by the states’ senators and U.S. representatives, and Maine Gov. John Baldacci. New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch listened in by telephone from Concord, N.H.

“We do not have the data that the Department of Defense relied on in putting the shipyard on the list but we do have reason to believe … that the Department of Defense may have significantly understated the cost of closure,” Lynch said after the meeting.

Lynch said cost was a factor in determining which bases should close. If the projected cost is incorrect, it provides another argument for removing the shipyard from the list, he said.

Decommissioning a nuclear facility and dealing with potential contamination issues would be costly, Lynch noted. If the federal figures are wrong, this could provide added ammunition in the fight to keep the shipyard open.

Lynch, Baldacci and the two states’ congressional leaders also plan to divide responsibility for making the case for the importance of the base to national security.

Last week, the Pentagon proposed closing the shipyard. It also proposed closing the Defense Finance and Accounting Center in Limestone, and reducing the Brunswick Naval Air Station’s mission and employment.

The combined effect could be a loss of nearly 12,000 direct and indirect jobs in Maine alone.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission will review the list before it makes final recommendations to President Bush by Sept. 8. If Bush accepts the panel’s list, it will go to Congress for final consideration before the end of the year.

“We are going to divide up the list of commissioners and each of us will be responsible for contacting a commissioner,” Lynch said. “We don’t know at this point exactly when the commissioners or a commissioner will visit the shipyard, but it could happen sometime in the next couple weeks.”

In addition, congressional leaders will be trying to get hold of the Department of Defense analysis and supporting data.

Also on Thursday, Maine and New Hampshire’s senators joined others from South Dakota, Arkansas and Mississippi – states where major facilities are in jeopardy – in introducing a bill to delay the base closings until the return of most troops from Iraq and the release of reports on the impact of closing bases.

Congressional efforts to halt the base closings are considered long shots. The president and congressional leaders all support closing bases.

“The Department of Defense seems to have thrown the idea of cost out the window because Portsmouth is the naval shipyard that does the work for the lowest cost and it gets the ships back out into the water sooner,” Sununu said. “You just don’t close the best performing shipyard first.”

Meanwhile the New Hampshire State Senate today adopted a resolution expressing unanimous support for the yard and urged the state’s congressional delegation to partner with regional leaders in fighting to keep the base open.