Gov. John Baldacci and the state’s congressional delegation expect to make a pitch today to three base-closing commissioners who did not visit Portsmouth Naval Shipyard or attend a public hearing on other targeted New England bases.

It is the last meeting before the base closure panel decides Tuesday whether to add any more U.S. military facilities to a list of bases already targeted for closure or realignment.

The Pentagon has proposed closing the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard on the Maine-New Hampshire line and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center in Limestone.

It also has proposed stripping aircraft and half of the military personnel from Brunswick Naval Air Station and expanding use of the Maine Air National Guard base in Bangor.

Baldacci and New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, along with members of their congressional delegations, plan to meet with retired Navy Adm. Harold Gehman, former U.S. Rep. James Hansen of Utah and retired Army Gen. James Hill in Washington.

“We can’t afford to leave any stone unturned,” said Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine. “We have to counter every argument and put forward every argument we have.”

Part of the debate revolves around whether Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard should be added to the list of those under consideration to be closed or realigned.

A delegation from Hawaii, including Gov. Linda Lingle, is traveling to Washington and is also expected to meet today with commissioners .

Snowe has said she thinks the submarine repairs performed at the two bases could be shared so that Portsmouth does long-term work, while Pearl Harbor handles emergency repairs.

“We are not arguing against Pear Harbor,” Baldacci said. “We are arguing they need the capacity that Portsmouth provides.”

On Friday, acting Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England acknowledged that the Pearl Harbor yard scored lower than Portsmouth in the Pentagon’s assessment.

In a letter, he wrote that the “total cost attribute” favored Portsmouth while “homeport proximity” favored Pearl Harbor, which is the headquarters for the Navy’s Pacific Fleet.

But he said the Hawaii base’s location and its ability to dock a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier provided “a higher overall military value to the department.”

It would take a vote of seven of the nine commissioners to add a base to the list of facilities under consideration for closure. If that happens, then the commission would plan a site visit and hold a public hearing.

The panel has a Sept. 8 deadline to come up with its final list of recommendations and present it to President Bush. By Sept. 23, Bush must forward the recommendations to Congress or return them to the commission for further deliberations.

Congress has 45 days after it receives the recommendations to reject them all, or they take effect automatically.

The immediate concern, Baldacci said, is to keep the Brunswick facility and the Bangor base from being added to the list of facilities considered for closure.

The Base Realignment and Closure commission had sent a letter to the Defense Department asking why Brunswick was not on the closure list. In a letter Friday, the Defense Department reiterated its argument that the base needs to be maintained on a standby basis.

“We are reinforcing the arguments about the strategic value of Brunswick and why they should consider other options for the base,” Baldacci said.

The concern about the Bangor Guard base is the result of questions raised at public hearings about why Bangor was chosen to gain tanker aircraft from other bases being closed. The state filed an eight-page argument that it says points to flaws in an index used by the Defense Department. Maine argues that the corrected index bolsters the case for the Bangor facility.

“In summary, Bangor is closer to primary refueling tracks, has a longer runway, processes more jet fuel, executes more operational missions, processes more transient aircraft and only averages one day per year of weather severe enough to impact operations,” the eight-page argument says.

Col. Don McCormick, chief of the joint staff of the Maine National Guard, was the principal author of the document. It provides graphics showing air routes left out of the Defense Department analysis.

Baldacci said he is concerned about a memo from a BRAC attorney indicating the commission may not be able to act on any of the Defense Department recommendations concerning Guard bases. There is a constitutional issue because Guard units are joint organizations with state and federal control and the states were not consulted.

“We will have to see how that all pans out, “Baldacci said.

How the memo is viewed by the BRAC commission in uncertain. The chief spokesman for the commission, James Schafer, called the memo Friday “a work in progress.” He said it does not represent the “official” position of the commission.

The state filed a 13-page memo on expanding the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center in northern Maine at the request of a commissioner, retired Air Force Gen. Lloyd Newton, who visited the facility in June.

“Realigning DFAS Limestone as a receiver site growing to 480 positions would produce an immediate, substantial return on investment, strengthening the overall case for DFAS consolidation in the process. The government would achieve a net savings of over $3 million in military construction costs,” the memo argues. “By pursuing this scenario, instead of the one proposed by the DOD, the government would save over $10 million in implementation costs.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.