Bill Would Reopen Uss Missouri Bids

Unable to persuade the Navy to reconsider, Sen. Slade Gorton is pushing legislation to force a reopening of the evaluation process that is landing the USS Missouri in Hawaii instead of Bremerton, Wash.

“I never interfered in the Navy’s process on behalf of Bremerton, feeling that the decision should be made objectively and nonpolitically,” Gorton, R-Wash., said Friday.

“Now, however, I’m outraged at the Navy’s lack of objectivity and indifference to fairness.”

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., earlier asked the Navy to reopen the host-site competition for the Missouri because a new federal report suggests that Bremerton unfairly lost its bid for the historic, decommissioned battleship.

But Navy Secretary John Dalton said in a letter to Dicks last week that he is standing by the Navy’s selection of Pearl Harbor as the appropriate final berthing place for the battleship on which the Japanese surrender was signed in 1945.

The ship was mothballed and homeported in Bremerton from 1954 until it was recommissioned in 1986.

Bremerton was among five applicants that competed to house the ship permanently as a maritime museum honoring World War II servicemen.

Gorton said he would introduce an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act that likely would be debated on the Senate floor next week. It would require a reopening of the selection process because the Navy added two new requirements at the last minute, failing to notify applicants that the new criteria would count for 75 percent of the ultimate decision.