Members of Maine's congressional delegation are announcing the restoration of $1.6 billion dollars to the Pentagon's budget for 2022, to ensure funding for a Bath Iron Works contract to build one of the U.S. Navy's next two DDG-51 destroyers.
President Joe Biden's initial omnibus budget proposal would have funded only one of the destroyers, creating uncertainty about whether BIW or competitor Huntington-Ingalls would be first in line.
Delegation members say they worked to restore the funds for a second destroyer in various iterations of the budget, and they were included in the final version that Biden signed today.