Funding for a new pier to dock Coast Guard vessels that protect the Navy’s Trident ballistic missile submarines has been diverted to help pay for a wall along the Mexican border, a decision decried by the state’s two Democratic senators and Congressman Derek Kilmer, D-Gig Harbor.
The $88.9 million pier and maintenance facility for Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor’s Maritime Force Protection Unit was among 127 military construction projects announced by the Pentagon this week to lose funding. Instead, a sum of $3.6 billion will go to construct about 175 miles of President Donald Trump’s border wall.
“It is deeply disturbing to see the administration unilaterally raid funds from these vital projects in Washington and across the country to fund an ineffective, completely unnecessary border wall,” Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell said in a joint statement with Kilmer. “Our men and women in uniform deserve better.”