Thousands of workers at General Dynamics’ Bath Iron Works could be secure for years to come, building one Navy destroyer after the other.

But in Kittery, the jobs of thousands of workers at the federal government’s Portsmouth Naval Shipyard could be at risk if there is a fresh round of military base closures.

Meanwhile, low-income Mainers might again face the prospect of less federal money to help heat their homes during a New England winter.

Those are some of the ways President Obama’s proposed 2013 budget, to be released Feb. 13, could touch the lives of many Mainers.

Obama’s budget proposal is just the first chapter in a battle over federal spending and policy priorities that will rage all year on Capitol Hill and likely will go until the final hour, during a post-election lame-duck session of Congress.

A presidential budget lays out a story line for the year’s debate, a base from which lawmakers operate.

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta last week outlined how he wants to arrive at $487 billion in defense cuts, including by building fewer Navy ships.

But it appears that the final budget blueprint will still seek two new destroyers a year for decades to come — up from the current plan for an average of one and a half a year. Those are the destroyers built by the 5,400 workers at Bath Iron Works, says military analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank.

Jeffrey Geiger, BIW’s CEO, has said unless the Navy commits to two destroyers a year going forward, the pace of work at BIW could begin to slow in 2015.

The destroyers are needed to patrol the Asian Pacific, a region where the United States plans a big presence for years to come. Congress could always approve more money for destroyers even if the Navy doesn’t ask for it — but having it already in the long-term blueprint certainly makes the process easier, Thompson said.

But the budget news isn’t so good for the 4,600 civilian workers at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, which overhauls nuclear submarines.

Panetta and Obama want a fresh military base closure round, or possibly two, the first since 2005. Portsmouth was initially targeted for closure in 2005. Defense analyst Thompson says it would be even more vulnerable now, because less work will be needed on the nuclear submarines the shipyard overhauls.

Ironically, another reason Portsmouth could be in the cross hairs is because much of the Navy’s submarine fleet could be shifted to the Pacific — the same emphasis that is boosting BIW’s future.

Will Congress go along with the proposal for a new base closure round?

The idea already is under fire by lawmakers from Maine and other states, and probably won’t happen during an election year. But the proposal could set the stage for a big fight next year.

Then there’s funding for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

In his 2012 budget, Obama proposed spending $2.57 billion on a program that helps low-income Mainers pay to heat their homes. That was a big cut from the $4.7 billion granted the program in 2011.

Perhaps Obama made the cut to help his budget’s bottom line, thinking that Congress would simply put more money into the popular program.

But in a tough budget year, Congress upped the ante only to $3.5 billion.

That means Maine will get less than $40 million in LIHEAP funding this winter, compared to $56.5 million last winter.

It has been estimated that the average Mainer on the program will get $483 over this heating season. Last winter, 63,802 Mainers got LIHEAP benefits averaging $802 over the season.

In a letter this month to Obama, GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and 38 other senators told the president that his proposed 2012 LIHEAP cut was “too deep to fully overcome” this year.

That’s why, the senators told Obama, it’s crucial that he seek $4.7 billion in the first place for LIHEAP in his 2013 budget.

Otherwise, low-income Mainers could face another winter of lower heating benefits.

MaineToday Media Washington Bureau Chief Jonathan Riskind can be contacted at 791-6280 or at:

jriskind@mainetoday.com

Twitter: Twitter.com/MaineTodayDC

 

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