Webb: Carrier move to Mayport irresponsible

[unhappycamper]

Sen. Jim Webb urged senior military leaders to reconsider the Navy’s decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to Naval Station Mayport. The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy is shown at Mayport in 2005 before the carrier's decommissioning.


Webb: Carrier move to Mayport irresponsible
By Andrew Tilghman - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Jan 1, 2010 9:16:07 EST

It’s been almost a year since the Navy announced a decision to homeport a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in Florida.

But it remains unclear whether that will happen, as lawmakers — and lobbyists — continue to battle over the issue and the Navy concedes that its decision may be overturned in 2010.

While senior Pentagon officials have agreed to review — and potentially overrule — the Navy’s January 2009 decision, Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., has stepped up pressure to keep all five East Coast carriers in his home state.

Webb sent a Dec. 23 letter to the Pentagon calling the move “fiscally irresponsible and strategically unjustified.” He also for the first time criticized the lobbying efforts of a key advocate for moving a carrier to Florida, retired Navy Adm. Robert Natter, who has received more than $1 million in lobbying fees from the state of Florida and city of Jacksonville, which stand to benefit economically from the move.

Natter, a former commander of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command who now runs a lobbying firm based outside of Washington, did not return a call for comment.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2009/12/navy_mayport_123009w/

[jpak]

1. Florida got Maine's sole remaining significant military base - Brunswick Naval Air Station

Made no sense to me - but FL gots lot mo' electoral votes than Maine!!

[unhappycamper]

2. Do you really think electoral votes have anything to do with placing military objects?

I agree with you.

[Captain Hilts]

4. Soon they won't be flying P-3s. Is the old base suited to the new plane?

[Captain Hilts]

3. NOB is barely a 3rd the size it used to be. There are economies of scale that NOB has that Mayport

does not have. When we need to be saving money - this move is insane.