PASCAGOULA, Miss. (AP) – The new chief of naval operations understands the importance of shipbuilding and especially the destroyer programs at shipyards in Mississippi and Maine, says Mississippi Sen. Trent Lott.
Trott’s comments echoed those of Maine Sen. Olympia Snowe, who praised the Navy leadership’s efforts to seek enough shipbuilding work to support the two shipyards that build destroyers: General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works in Maine and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems’ Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.
“We’re all in sync,” Snowe, R-Maine, said last month after Navy Secretary Donald Winter visited Bath Iron Works.
Adm. Mike Mullen, who took over the job last July, announced this month that the Navy plans to reverse the decline in the size of the fleet, expanding from 281 ships this year to 313 within several years, though the number of aircraft carriers would drop by one, to 11.
The next-generation destroyer, designated the DD(X), will be built at the Northrop Grumman shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., and at Bath Iron Works.
“Admiral Mullen is going to be an excellent chief of naval operations. He is already having an impact. He understands the importance of ships and shipbuilding and of having a viable Navy,” Lott, R-Miss., said Thursday in an interview with The Mississippi Press.
Lott said Mullen is also familiar with the next generation amphibious assault ships planned for the Navy and the Marine Corps.
“I was very pleased when he came in. I had been very disappointed in his predecessor (Admiral Vern Clark) and with the former Secretary of Navy (Gordon England),” Lott said.
It’s no secret that Lott and Snowe butted heads with England. Snowe and Lott delayed England’s appointment to serve as deputy defense secetary.
Under Mullen, the president’s 2007 shipbuilding budget included $8.2 billion for seven ships. “We have four of those ships,” Lott said of the Pascagoula shipyard.
The latest budget contains provisions for three more ships than what was budgeted in 2006.
The direction Mullen is heading will do a lot to stabilize the current employment level at Northrop, said Lott.
Information from: The Mississippi Press, http://www.gulflive.com
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