Base panel votes to keep Portsmouth and Groton

WASHINGTON -- A federal review panel yesterday rejected Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's recommendations and voted to keep open the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, and the submarine base in Groton, Conn. The decision came as a major relief for New England, which had stood to lose the most jobs of any US region under the Pentagon plan.

After reviewing the Pentagon's proposals and hearing intense arguments from lawmakers, seven of nine members of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission concluded that Portsmouth's submarine repair and overhaul capacity and Groton's role as the nation's oldest operating submarine base are simply too important to national security, particularly at a time when naval threats remain uncertain.

''It is the gold standard by which we should measure shipyards," the commission's chairman, Anthony Principi, said before the panel voted to retain the Portsmouth yard, which first opened in 1800 and now employs an estimated 4,500 workers.

Principi also argued for saving Submarine Base New London in Groton and its 8,600 employees, describing the facility as ''more than piers and parking places for nuclear-powered submarines. It is truly a center of excellence for submarine warfare." Principi said closing it would be ''a tragic loss to this nation."

In another Pentagon rebuff, the panel voted to shut the Brunswick Naval Air Station in Brunswick, Maine, and to sell the land.

This would mean the base's land, rather than stay in the military's possession, would be developed privately, after the aircraft and the personnel are reassigned.

This way, the commissioners argued, the surrounding community might more easily rebound from more than 4,000 expected job losses, by having the opportunity to redevelop the oceanfront site.

Elected leaders from across New England were elated, hailing the Portsmouth and Groton reversals as a testament to the region's military value, and to the strength of a bipartisan campaign.

''How sweet it is," Senator Judd Gregg, a New Hampshire Republican, said in an interview. ''We had a high hurdle to get over, but we did it."

''Awesome!" said Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican, reacting to news that Groton would be spared.

Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement that the commission had recognized that ''Massachusetts and the Northeast have defended America since the very beginning -- it's part of our history."

The votes yesterday signaled the start of final deliberations for the 2005 BRAC commission, which was established by Congress to oversee the largest consolidation of domestic military bases since the end of the Cold War. Rumsfeld has said the plan could save the military as much as $50 billion over two decades, though outside analysts dispute that figure.

Over the summer, the commission and its staff members held hearings across the country and pored over millions of documents before giving its final say on the Pentagon's plan. Their deliberations will continue today, tomorrow, and Saturday if needed.

President Bush is scheduled to receive the panel's final report on Sept. 8. He will have two weeks either to approve or to reject the entire list. Congress will then have 45 days to act before the result becomes law. The commission, which weighed in on Navy and Army bases yesterday, approved most of the Pentagon's proposals.

But from the start, the military's decisions to close both Portsmouth and Groton and to shift their missions elsewhere were among the more controversial of Rumsfeld's proposals.

When they heard the news in May, Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, and Massachusetts -- which has an economic stake in Portsmouth, just across the New Hampshire state line -- joined forces with related industries and labor unions to launch a counterattack.

They inundated the commission with letters, testimonials, and analyses showing the military and economic value of the bases. Their arguments centered on fears that New England would lose two of its few remaining military facilities, leaving the area vulnerable.

They contended that the Pentagon has more than enough work to justify keeping all four of its shipyards open, and that it had underestimated the future needs of the Navy's submarine fleet.

The campaign to save the Groton base, home to the Navy Submarine School and to 16 attack subs, included more than a dozen retired admirals and President Carter. Carter, a retired submarine officer, had made a plea this week to save the base, even though the Pentagon had wanted to move some of the submarines in Groton to his home state of Georgia.

Ultimately, commissioners said Groton's record and its ''synergy" with the neighboring Electric Boat Corp., one of the premier US shipbuilders, had made the submarine base essential.

That opinion, however, was not unanimous. Commissioner James Hansen, a former Republican representative from Utah, voted against keeping Groton open.

Hansen warned that as the number of US attack submarines shrink from a Cold War high of 90 to fewer than 50, ''we're going to have some vacant piers."

Others said the Navy will fall far short of projected savings.

Chris Hellman, a base closure specialist at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, said closing Portsmouth and Groton together had accounted for almost $2 billion of the Navy's $7 billion in projected savings. ''That's pretty dramatic. You just lost about 30 percent of your projected income," he said.

But for the local communities involved the news could not have been much brighter.

''Today is a great day for the shipyard and its highly skilled workforce," Senator John Sununu, a New Hampshire Republican, said of Portsmouth.

The one exception amid the euphoria was the fate of Brunswick, which the commission opted to close for good rather than mothball for possible future use.

The commission concluded that the maritime air patrols the base conducts with antiquated P-3 aircraft could be performed by other bases in the region, especially because the P-3 will soon be replaced with modified Boeing jetliners that can operate out of civilian airports. At the same time, it said the Pentagon could double its savings by jettisoning all control of the base and giving the local community a chance to redevelop the land.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who led the effort to save Brunswick, vowed to fight for federal aid for the region, including legislation that would require the Pentagon to turn over the land to Brunswick for free. ''The key for us now is to see what we can do to help mitigate the economic loss of the base," she said.

The commission will take up more deliberations today, including a decision on a recommendation to move the fighter wing from Otis Air Guard Base on Cape Cod and expand Hanscom Air Force Base in Bedford.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, said yesterday's decisions bode well for Otis: ''It shows that they are serious in their concerns that the Pentagon's recommendations leave the Northeast undefended."

Matt Viser of the Globe staff contributed to this report.