ASA lobbies House to fund building of two Navy cargo ships

ASA lobbies House to fund building of two Navy cargo ships       The American Shipbuilding Association has asked the House Appropriations Committee to support the president’s $722 million request to build two new cargo ships.
   The Senate already zeroed the funding for the two T-AKE ships in its proposed fiscal 2004 budget for the Navy.
   “The Navy’s fleet of combat logistics ships is old, costly to maintain and in urgent need of replacement,” warned association president Cynthia L. Brown in a Aug. 25 letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis, R-Calif.
   The association, which represents the country’s six largest shipbuilders, said it “remains extremely concerned with the low rates of naval ship procurement, which continue at 1932 levels.”
   “This historically low and unstable naval ship production program contributes to rising costs in the shipyards and throughout the supplier base,” Brown said