House Speaker Dennis Hastert tried to give the Naval Submarine Base at Groton a last-minute boost today, urging the base closing commission to "strongly consider the case made by Team Connecticut" against closing the facility.
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"As a fiscal conservative," the Illinois Republican said, "I cannot support a base closing that does not provide taxpayer savings."
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In addition, Hastert wrote, "Closing SUBASE New London would eliminate a center of excellence for undersea warfare in which Congress has invested hundreds of millions of dollars over the last decade."
Since becoming speaker in 1999, he said, "I have personally seen Congress invest more than $120 million into the New London Navy base. Our nation's taxpayers would be ill-served if these investments in our national security are wasted." (AP)
I often wonder how much pull Hastert really has, since it seems like DeLay is really in charge of the House. But his support is great news anyway, and his argument is sound.
Of course, he could just be trying to save Rob Simmons's bacon. Still, we'll take it.
Source
"Hastert Against Sub Base Closure." Associated Press 18 August, 2005.
1 comment:
I do think that DOD may have grossly underestimated the cost to clean up the Subbase. I don't think they ever cleaned up a heavy duty nuke base before. It may be cheaper to mothball the base - i.e. don't close it; just reduce OPTEMPO. That is almost the worst scenario for SE CT. Subs would move and jobs would leave, but USN retains title and the site would never be remediated to the point where it could be used for something else. It may become like the two large piers in Newport, RI that the USN still owns, but aren't using.
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