WASHINGTON — Fincantieri Marinette Marine is a large ship builder in Marinette, near Green Bay. The company expects to receive about a billion dollars to build warships called frigates, authorized under the new National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which President Joe Biden recently signed.
“We’re very excited to be building these ships for the Navy. We believe that they are going to be an important tool in our national defense,” said Mark Vandroff, the CEO of Fincantieri Marinette Marine.
The NDAA puts about $2.1 billion dollars toward building the warships. Vandroff said Fincantieri Marinette Marine would get half of that, and the other chunk would go to the ships’ weapon systems.
“The Navy, under separate contracts, would buy the missile launcher from Lockheed Martin, will buy the radar from Raytheon, to give a couple of examples,” he said.
Vandroff said a frigate takes about four years to build. The money going to Fincantieri Marinette Marine would be used for labor and materials. Vandroff said it would have a significant economic impact in northeast Wisconsin.
“We will have a demand for at least, you know, probably 1500-1600 blue-collar workers in Marinette, probably something like 550-600 white collar engineers — accountants, program managers, purchasing agents — to go along with that. We do a fair amount of the production of the frigate at our sister yard over in Sturgeon Bay, so there would also be… each of these ships would translate into a few hundred jobs also over at Sturgeon Bay, building their part of the ship,” he said. “Sturgeon Bay right now is planning to build the bow section of each of these ships, and then we barge that over across Green Bay and attach it on in Marinette. So across the greater Green Bay area, it’s several hundred to maybe a couple of thousand jobs, and those jobs, if the Navy continues to build those, would continue on into the future for many, many years.”
Vandroff adds that there are also lots of suppliers in Wisconsin.
“So, when we go and buy pipe from a pipe manufacturer, when we go and buy cable, or at least an electrical company to install electrical cable on the ship, a lot of that comes from the Green Bay economy,” he said. “Some of what we buy is bought elsewhere in the United States, and then sourced. So for example, when we buy steel from steel mills, we have a steel mill in Indiana and another one in Alabama, that we tend to source most of our steel from, so that’s coming from out of state. But a good deal of our supply chain is also within the state of Wisconsin.”
The legislation authorizes a 5.2% pay raise for all military service members, and new housing assistance that could help enlisted service members at installations like Fort McCoy. And it authorizes more than $18 million for an Army National Guard Readiness Center in Viroqua and more than $5 million for an Air Force National Guard F-35 maintenance facility at Truax Airfield in Madison, according to a release from Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office.
Most of Wisconsin’s congressional delegation voted in favor of the final bill. But Representative Mark Pocan, D-Madison, voted no, citing the results of Pentagon audits.
“I think the last audit, they could only account for under 40% of their equipment they have. So we give them nearly a trillion dollars a year, and they can’t find 60% of what they actually have that they spent and bought with it. You know, they should be treated like every other department,” he said.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Minocqua, said he voted no because the legislation temporarily extends a program allowing the government in certain instances to wiretap foreigners outside the U.S. The program has resulted in the collection of data on Americans who were interacting with the foreign targets of surveillance.
In a statement, Tiffany wrote, “I cannot and will not vote to allow the federal government to continue engaging in the unconstitutional and widespread warrantless surveillance of American citizens.”
The bill signed by the president only authorizes the spending. The money still must be appropriated, but that is expected to happen over the next few weeks as Congress and the White House work toward a new budget.