Boost in sub production sought: House lawmakers are writing a bill that would offer a down payment on nuclear components.

(Daily Press (Newport News, VA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 4--WASHINGTON -- The House Armed Services Committee is drafting a bill that would provide a $588 million down payment to speed up plans to double submarine production. Despite a dwindling sub fleet, Navy leaders have delayed plans to double production until 2012, saying they need time to bring down the cost of subs.

But key lawmakers have signaled their interest in boosting production -- buying two subs a year, instead of one -- by 2010 or possibly as early as 2009. Such a move could help stabilize employment at Northrop Grumman Newport News and at General Dynamics Electric Boat, the only U.S.

shipyards that build nuclear subs. Each Virginia-class sub costs about $2.5 billion.

The draft bill endorsed Thursday by the panel's seapower subcommittee would offer $588 million to begin buying nuclear components for a future vessel next year. That down payment, lawmakers said, would give Congress the option of speeding up production years ahead of schedule. Navy Secretary Donald Winter, appearing before a Senate panel Thursday, called the advance money for sub components a good way of reducing risk in the program.

But he stopped short of endorsing an accelerated production schedule. Officials have said they need time to shave hundreds of millions of dollars off the price tag of subs to make the plan affordable. In another potential boost for the Newport News shipyard, the draft bill would require that new classes of surface combatants be designed as nuclear-powered ships.

In today's fleet, cruisers and destroyers are conventionally powered. Only aircraft carriers and subs are nuclear-powered. A decision to go nuclear on cruisers and destroyers could funnel billions of additional dollars to the Newport News shipyard and possibly to Electric Boat -- the only two nuclear shipyards -- at the expense of conventional yards.

The Navy is studying making the next generation of cruisers nuclear-powered, but it has warned that such a move could add more than $600 million to the price of each ship. It makes no sense at all to have a nuclear-powered carrier, while the escort vessels that have to protect it are conventionally powered and could run out of fuel, Taylor said. We want to see that we always have the fuel to get into a fight.

Unlike conventionally powered ships, which need frequent refuelings, a nuclear cruiser would come with all the fuel needed for its projected 35-year life. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, the subcommittee's ranking Republican, called going nuclear simply the right thing to do.

Bartlett said a recent Defense Department study found that the risks of relying on oil for fuel would make the Navy's ability to deploy rapidly to conflicts unsustainable in the long term. But Adm. Michael Mullen, chief of naval operations, expressed concern about any proposed requirement to make future cruisers nuclear.

The idea deserves careful study, he said, but now is too soon to commit to such a decision.