Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2012

Floor Speech

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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I call to the attention of my colleagues two amendments that Senator Webb and I have filed to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act for 2012.

Each of these amendments relates to the Navy's proposal to build a new nuclear pier facility to support east coast aircraft carriers. With annual recurring costs, this new project would likely cost just shy of a billion dollars.

At a time when our Nation is in a severe fiscal crisis and the Navy cannot pay to maintain the infrastructure it currently owns. As Admiral Mullen has said, the greatest challenge to our national security is our mounting debt.

Together, these amendments would save nearly $15 million for an unnecessary Navy military construction project at Naval Station Mayport, FL. We are awaiting completion of an independent GAO assessment of the strategic risks to our carrier fleet which include manmade and natural disasters. It would also consider the cost and benefits of what other measures we can take to mitigate risk.

This is not a small project, the Navy estimates its homeporting plan will cost nearly $600 million, but that cost could escalate to up to $1 billion during the eight years ahead. Tack on to that more than $20 million in annual maintenance costs currently estimated for an additional homeport and we are signing the taxpayer up for a big bill, much of which is not funded. It is in the ``outyears'' as they say.

The justification for a new homeport is the mitigation of the risk of a terrorist attack, accident, or natural disaster occurring at the nuclear handling facility at the existing carrier homeport at Norfolk, VA.

However, the current Navy plan fails to take into account the two additional east coast carrier capable facilities at Newport News, VA, and the Naval Shipyard. Each of these facilities maintains separate nuclear handling sites located many miles apart. If there were damage to the existing Naval base, the Navy could simply disperse the carriers to other piers. That is a lot cheaper and more efficient than building a new, duplicative facility.

Additionally, recent Navy briefings indicate there is a 50-percent greater chance of a major hurricane hitting Mayport than Norfolk. Why would we want to build a new facility at a higher risk location?

The Navy has also identified unfunded priorities totaling $11.8 billion between fiscal year 2008 and fiscal year 2012. These priorities are in critical areas including shipbuilding, military construction, maintenance, and acquisition programs--programs which are critical to both our current and future readiness.

We must maintain our existing infrastructure properly before pursuing a duplicative homeporting project. It is more fiscally responsible for the Navy to reduce its current unfunded requirements, which total tens of billions of dollars.

With our serious fiscal reality, it is much more responsible to focus on taking care of the infrastructure we have then embarking on buying new infrastructure which we cannot afford and piles more money onto our national debt.

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