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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Friday, July 8, 2005

Inouye, local officials rally to retain shipyard

By Peter Boylan and Dennis Camire
Advertiser Staff Writers

Sen. Dan Inouye met with thousands of Pearl Harbor Shipyard workers yesterday as local military, business and government officials began building their case to prove that the shipyard is vital to national security.

Officials hope to present the final product to members of the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission at a hearing Thursday in Los Angeles, said Jim Tollefson, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Hawai'i.

The shipyard was included last week on a list of more than a dozen military facilities that the BRAC Commission wants to review as a possible step toward closing. That could jeopardize roughly 4,500 jobs at the shipyard.

"We're talking about close to 5,000 jobs and about a half-billion dollars in direct impact and when you factor in the multiplier effect, we're talking close to a billion dollars in economic impact," Tollefson said. "It's very important."

Word on whether an invitation will be extended to appear before the base closing commission when it meets next week in Los Angeles is pending. But local officials hope to make their case in advance of a hearing in Washington, D.C., on July 19, when the commission could make a preliminary decision on whether to add Pearl Harbor to the list of possible closings.

If the local shipyard is added to the list, Hawai'i would have a chance to defend itself before the BRAC Commission makes a final decision in August.

Maj. Gen. Robert G.F. Lee, the state adjutant general, and recently retired Adm. Thomas Fargo, who was chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, are among the military leaders working on the presentation.

A lobbyist, William J. Cassidy, the former deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for Conversion and Redevelopment from 1994-2001, has been retained and is helping to coordinate the effort, Tollefson said. Cassidy, attended Wednesday's meeting of the Chamber of Commerce's Military Affairs Council. How much he will be paid has not been determined, Tollefson said.

As the national debate over base closings escalates, Hawai'i has become a target for supporters of military installations marked for closing.

Proponents of the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, who argued that closing Pearl Harbor could save $760 million more than shuttering Portsmouth over 20 years, made their pitch to BRAC members Wednesday in Boston.

Lee said it is important to reinforce the shipyard's strategic military importance in light of the Pentagon's plan to make the Asia Pacific region the nation's top military priority.

"The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, they do good work, but all they have to do is subs," said Lee. "Pearl Harbor is a multi-faceted shipyard that handles everything. It is the same vital strategic military installation today that it was in 1941."

Yesterday, Inouye made a quick visit to Navy commanders at Pearl Harbor then took time to address more than 2,000 shipyard workers, managers and union representatives.

He told the workers that he would do everything in his power to protect the shipyard and their jobs, adding it is important to continue the quality maintenance and repair work that takes place at Pearl Harbor, his spokesman, Mike Yuen said from Washington, D.C.

Inouye characterized the debate over the shipyard's future as the most critical juncture in the shipyard's history, Yuen said.

Ben Toyama, vice president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, which represents the bulk of shipyard workers, said Inouye's visit reinforced the senator's stance that he'll do anything to keep Pearl Harbor open and viable, but fell short of detailing exactly how that would happen.

Toyama, who watched the Portsmouth proceedings on C-SPAN Wednesday, said he hopes local leaders come up with something equally polished and passionate.

"There is a lot of unanswered questions, like how and when we do all this and how much community support do we have? We don't know that yet," said Toyama. "We are an industrial-based shipyard for Navy vessels. We may end up being a parking lot for Navy vessels and we may lose a lot of jobs."

Meantime, the Navy apparently is delaying until next year a decision on whether to place an additional aircraft carrier in the Pacific, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report.

Inouye, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, said while the Navy's delay is understandable given the ongoing base closing and realignment process under way, it threatens to put Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard at risk of closure.

"Without the Pearl Harbor shipyard, our nation would not be able to respond rapidly to crises in the Asia-Pacific region," Inouye said.

The Navy's 12 aircraft carriers now are equally distributed between the Atlantic and the Pacific with six on the East Coast, five on the West Coast and the non-nuclear USS Kitty Hawk in Yokosuka, Japan.

The report by the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, analyzed the Pentagon's process for recommending military bases to close or realign this year.

As part of the process, the Navy considered moving another carrier and escort ships to Hawai'i and Guam to increase the U.S. military presence in the Asia-Pacific region.

But the Navy dropped the idea of including it in the base closing and realignment process after it found there would be no clear cost benefits. The Navy projected the cost of moving a carrier group to Hawai'i at $2.6 billion to $3.1 billion and $4 billion to $6.6 billion for Guam, according to the GAO report.

Instead, Navy officials postponed any decision until early next year when the Quadrennial Defense Review — a comprehensive evaluation of military programs every four years — is expected to be completed and turned over to Congress.

Inouye said that experts have noted that the Asia-Pacific region requires increased U.S. attention, underscoring the significance of having both a carrier group in Hawai'i and the Pearl Harbor shipyard.

"In North Korea, we face a nation with a belligerent dictator who is developing nuclear weapons," he said. "In China, we face a potential superpower that is enlarging its military. Moreover, in a number of regions in Asia, terrorism is flourishing."