Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

WASHINGTON -- A prolonged battle may be shaping up in Congress over the Navy's plan to stop building a new class of stealthy destroyers, designed and built in Maine and filled with high-technology tools created in part at Raytheon's plant in Portsmouth.

"It's not done yet,'' Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy declared of the Navy's proposal to stop production of the Zumwalt-class destroyer, also known as DDG-1000, after only two of the warships are built.

The Rhode Island Democrat spoke after a House Seapower Subcommittee hearing during which he and fellow R.I. Democrat, Rep. James R. Langevin sharply criticized the plan. Other legislators, including Maine's Rep. Tom Allen, Democrat, and the panel's influential chairman, Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., endorsed it.

Vice Admiral Barry McCullough, the deputy chief of naval operations in charge of the shipbuilding budget, gave the first detailed defense of the Navy's decision to cut short the Zumwalt class, of which Bath Iron Works in Maine, a General Dynamics division, is lead designer and builder of the first two ships in the class.

The other builder is Northrup-Grumman's Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss.

Massachusetts-based Raytheon is the lead contractor on most aspects of the new ship's electronics systems, employing 2,000 company-wide and nearly 500 in Rhode Island on this job.

McCullough said the Navy made the abrupt course change after determining that it could better respond to future threats from ballistic missiles and from submarines by halting the Zumwalt program and returning to construction of the Arleigh Burke-class, the workhorse of the current destroyer fleet, construction of which was also shared by the Bath shipyard. The lead contractor on the electronics for the Arleigh Burke destroyers is a Raytheon competitor.

>> Continue reading: With R.I. jobs at stake, fight over destroyer ramps up