A House panel proposed a new grant program that could make it easier to dispose of environmentally hazardous ships in the James River in Virginia.
Instead of having to pay the high costs of ship scrapping, the panel proposed giving grants to states that want to sink obsolete ships for use as artificial reefs.
The oversight panel on the merchant marine, an arm of the House Armed Services Committee, also called for nearly doubling the amount of money President Bush provided for ship disposal next year, raising the total to $20 million.
The proposal, which the full committee is likely to adopt next week, is aimed at speeding up the removal of obsolete ships from the James River Reserve Fleet, many of which have become floating environmental hazards.
The ships, which date to World War II, are chock-full of toxic PCBs, asbestos, lead-based paint and other hazardous materials. Some of the rusted ships have hulls so thin that crews must regularly patch up holes to prevent oil spills or a quick sinking.
One bad hurricane, officials fear, could turn the James River into an environmental disaster zone.
"I know some of those ships are ready to go at any moment," said Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., the chairman of the merchant marine panel, who unveiled the so-called reefing program Wednesday.
Congress has struggled for years to find a cost-effective way of disposing of more than 100 aging ships in the National Defense Reserve Fleet, most of which sit idle in the middle of the James River off Fort Eustis.
For much of the 1990s, obsolete ships were piling up with nowhere to go since the government banned the controversial practice of selling ships overseas for scrap. That policy had been widely criticized because of deaths and environmental damage suffered by developing nations.
Domestic ship scrapping has not been a profitable business because of stringent environmental regulations and the low price of scrap steel.
The logjam was finally broken two years ago, when Congress agreed to subsidize the domestic scrapping of ships with a $10 million pilot program.
Bush's defense budget for 2003 includes $11 million for the program enough money to dispose of another four ships.
But at that rate, lawmakers reasoned, there was no way Congress would meet its mandate of disposing of most obsolete vessels by the fall of 2006. Nor is there likely to be enough money in coming years for a robust ship-scrapping program whose costs could exceed $350 million.
The proposed reefing program offers a low-cost alternative to scrapping that may clear the way for speedy disposal.
The grant program, while a new federal expense, promises to save money, lawmakers said. Scrapping a ship costs about $2.5 million, while cleaning and sinking it is expected to cost between $500,000 and $1 million.
Funding for the program would still need to be included in the Senate's defense bill and in the spending bills to be drafted by the appropriations committees. Knight Ridder