Congressmen call Navy’s
civilian crew plan flawed
MIDDLETOWN — U.S. Representatives Rush Holt (D-12) and Frank Pallone Jr. (D-6) met with Navy officials Dec. 7 to discuss further a Navy proposal to civilianize the operation of AOE class supply ships that would affect four vessels homeported at Naval Weapons Station Earle. The congressmen previously met with officials on Nov. 21 to discuss the Navy’s plans for the ships.
During that meeting, Navy officials presented Holt and Pallone with a list of four analyses it completed that the Navy says demonstrates that the shifting of the ships to civilian control will save taxpayers money and will not jeopardize the safety of the sailors or vessels.
The Navy, however, only brought one analysis, a General Accounting Office (GAO) report to the Dec. 7 meeting, which Holt and Pallone said they immediately raised concerns about. The two lawmakers requested they be provided with the other three analyses.
Pallone commented, "The GAO report that the Navy used to justify its civilianization proposal is flawed. This report looks at only a few of the factors involved in such a policy change.
"It does not examine things like the cost of increased reliance on private contractors, the loss of these ships as valuable training experiences for Navy personnel, security concerns or the specialized mission of ammunition ships. If the other three analyses are as defective as the GAO report, the civilianization proposal should be shelved."
"The lack of evidence we have seen so far for justifying this decision is not the only reason to be alarmed," Holt added. "As far as we can tell, there has been no congressional review of the proposal to shift control of AOE class supply ships from the Navy to the Military Sealift Command (MSC). There unquestionably should be."
The MSC is a branch of the Defense Department that uses civilian crews.
"To that end, we intend to push for some kind of congressional analyses of the proposal, most likely in the form of hearings before the appropriate committees," Holt said.
Pallone and Holt also discussed with Navy officials concerns about smaller maintenance situations where work is done by naval personnel on the base, through shore intermediate maintenance activity (SIMA). At the November meeting, Navy officials said the Norfolk SIMA is better than its counterpart at Earle. The two congressmen investigated these claims and discovered there is virtually no difference between maintenance programs at Norfolk and Earle.
"When we told the Navy what we discovered since our last meeting," Pallone said, "they actually admitted to us that SIMA operations are drastically understaffed at Norfolk and Earle, and both facilities have therefore been forced to hire outside contractors to perform maintenance on ships.
"I fail to see how the Navy can argue that the supposed superiority of the SIMA operation at Norfolk justifies a change in the homeport assignment of the Detroit and Seattle when, like their Earle counterpart, they too are suffering from staff shortages that have forced them to use outside contractors to service ships," Pallone continued.
"We have still not received the documentation we have asked for that supports the Navy’s maintenance claims," Holt noted. "The Navy’s failure to provide us with any documentation supporting its assertions about the ships only bolsters our determination to stop the Navy from moving the ships from Earle, and reinforces our view that Congress needs to undertake a thorough examination of the Navy’s decision-making process on this matter."