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WASHINGTON: The incoming Democratic chairman of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee said on Thursday he wants to examine the law governing the nation's defense production to help keep jobs in the United States.
Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, where defense is an economic mainstay, said he plans to review the Defense Production Act after he becomes committee head next month.
“For several years now, I and others on the committee have been very concerned about whether we are doing everything possible to ensure that our nation's defense production capabilities are as strong as they should be,” he told reporters in a briefing on his committee goals.
Dodd has long favored a buy-American policy to preserve domestic jobs and ensure that U.S. defense is not compromised.
In 2005, the senator criticized the Pentagon for awarding a contract to build a fleet of Marine One presidential helicopters to a consortium that included British and Italian firms. One of the losing bidders was Connecticut-based Sikorsky Aircraft, a unit of United Technologies Corp. <UTX.N>, which had built the Marine One fleet for many years.
“The manufacturing sector of our economy is hemorrhaging, plain and simple, including jobs in defense manufacturing,” Dodd said at the briefing.
“In my home state of Connecticut, we've lost over 100,000 manufacturing jobs, many of them coming out of small and midsize businesses that are directly related to the work done by United Technologies, the Electric Boat Division of General Dynamics and others.”
The Marine One helicopter contract won by Finmeccanica SpA is valued at around $13 billion by analysts.
Finmeccanica's Chief Executive Pier Francesco Guarguaglini told the Reuters Aerospace and Defense Summit on Wednesday that the helicopter deal helped “open the door” for future U.S. work. Guarguaglini said his company had a good chance of winning another high-stakes competition to build 145 light cargo planes for the U.S. Army and Air Force, a deal valued at $7 billion.
Two other European defense contractors — BAE Systems Plc and EADS — are also competing for large Pentagon contracts.
