NAVAL MANEUVERS

Through her blockage of the nomination of the secretary of the Navy to become the deputy secretary of defense, Sen. Olympia Snowe has raised important questions about the leadership and direction of the Navy. Although her tactic isn’t likely to be effective, those questions should be answered before the nomination goes forward.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Sen. Snowe had placed a hold on the president’s nomination of Gordon England to take over the No. 2 job at the Pentagon. Senate tradition allows senators to place anonymous holds on executive post nominations. Sen. Snowe confirmed Thursday that she had put a hold on Mr. England’s nomination.

“It’s a range of issues I’m concerned about with respect to the leadership” of the Navy, the senator said at a press briefing after touring a Coast Guard Base in South Portland.

The Base Realignment and Closure commission is one area of concern. In recent weeks, the Navy has backed away from its initial assertion that the Brunswick Naval Air Station should be kept open but all its planes moved to Florida. It arguments for closing the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard also seem flawed and are countered by a former admiral who was barred from testifying at a BRAC hearing in Boston, but allowed to talk later. Such maneuvers suggest that the rationale for closing Portsmouth and downsizing or shutting Brunswick are shaky at best.

Sen. Snowe also disagreed with Secretary England about the future of the Navy’s destroyer program. Last spring, Secretary England said he favored changing the Navy’s acquisition strategy for the DD(X) destroyer by awarding an all-or-nothing contract to one shipyard. This could have meant all the work would have gone to the Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi rather than to Bath Iron Works.

In April, the Pentagon overruled the Navy’s request to award the construction of the next generation of destroyers to a single shipyard, saying such a strategy was “premature.” Later, senators from Maine and Mississippi succeeded in putting language in a defense authorization bill that prohibited the move to a single shipyard.

Sen. Snowe and some of her colleagues, including Sen. John McCain, a former Navy officer, have also expressed concerns that the Navy is ill prepared to combat the growth of the Chinese navy and other threats. Because of the war in Iraq, a large percentage of military spending has been devoted to the Army at the expense of the Navy, the senators worry. As a result, the U.S. Coast Guard is now trying to fulfill some of the Navy’s mission. The Coast Guard currently has boats patrolling the Persian Gulf.

President Bush is thought be considering a recess appointment for Mr. England. While this is certainly his prerogative, such a move would leave many of the senators’ questions unanswered. That would be too bad.