Page 20: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 1991)

Judge Termporarily Halts $2 Billion Contract

For Second Seawolf Sub

The Pentagon contract with

General Dynamics Electric Boat division to build the second $2 bil- lion Seawolf-class attack submarine has temporarily been blocked by a federal judge in Norfolk, Va.

The order was issued by Judge

Robert Doumar after Tenneco

Inc.'s shipbuilding unit, the unsuc- cessful bidder for the nuclear-pow- ered submarine, filed a lawsuit chal- lenging the contract. Newport News

Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. claims in the suit that senior Pentagon officials violated the law by improp- erly influencing the Navy to award the construction contract to its ri- val, General Dynamics's Electric

Boat division.

The suite contends that although the General Dynamics unit was the low bidder to build the fast, super- quiet submarine, Congress previ- ously approved language explicitly requiring the Pentagon to give at least as much weight to an acquisi- tion strategy designed to keep both shipyards actively building subma- rines.

Initially, the Navy had hoped to keep both yards busy by ordering as many as 23 Seawolfs over the next seven or eight years, but those plans were scaled back sharply to one attack submarine a year. Some offi- cials predict only a handful more are likely to be built. Navy planners are working on a less-expensive genera- tion of attack subs—code-named

Centurions—intended to replace or supplement the Seawolf after the late 1990s.

Lawmakers from Virginia have said that at first, the Navy's brass favored giving the work to the

Newport News, Va.-based Tenneco unit. The suit alleges that Electric

Boat and its supporters lobbied senior Pentagon acquisition officials to get that original decision reversed.

Before the contract award on May 3, Electric Boat officials are said to have quietly complained to the Navy about their rival's lobbying efforts, and the General Dynamics unit threatened to file suit against New- port News Shipbuilding, charging political manipulation if it lost.

The first nuclear-powered Sea- wolf-class submarine is currently being built in Groton, Conn., by

Electric Boat.

Norway Backs Plan

To Increase Safety

Levels For Ships

One of the world's most powerful shipping nations, Norway, has pro- posed a radical overhaul of world ship safety requirements to the In- ternational Maritime Organization (IMO). The proposal would compel owners to spend hundreds of mil- lions of dollars on bringing elderly ships up to modern safety standards, and would end the immunity en- 22 joyed by owners from introducing improved safety standards after a ship is delivered.

To be discussed later this month by IMO's maritime safety commit- tee, the Norwegian proposal would require shipowners to upgrade their ships periodically to meet impor- tant terms of safety legislation.

The five-point plan being backed by Norway, which it says would increase safety levels for existing ships, calls for:

Removal of "grandfather clauses" in IMO instruments and replace- ment with new rules calling for the gradual improvement of existing ships.

Shipowners would be required to implement higher safety standards if they carried out modifications to ships which were intended to in- crease service life or revenue.

Ships of an inferior safety level which could not be upgraded on technical or economic grounds would be phased out.

Improved operational methods to prevent accidents would not be con- sidered as an alternative to techni- cal upgrading.

The safety of older ships, the

Norwegians say, has become a mat- ter of public concern following a number of serious accidents in re- cent years.

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