BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Fourth District Congressman Gene Taylor is just back from a trip to Afghanistan. It is not the first time he has been there, but the congressman is becoming increasingly concerned about the direction of the war.

The U.S. military now has nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan. We are spending $12 billion a month. But perhaps what is most disturbing is the American casualty numbers keep growing.

"As we get better, unfortunately, the enemy gets better," Taylor said during a recent interview with WLOX News.

He did point out that with the sheer force of our military power and the number of troops over there, we immensely outnumber the Taliban. But this is not your father's war.

"The Taliban is a small percentage of the Afghan population, but these are trained fighters. These are trained killers. They are very good at making bombs," Taylor said.

Congressman Taylor was among the many in Congress who gave then President Bush the go ahead to take our military into Afghanistan. The initial intent was to find and kill Osama bin Laden, but now Taylor said the mission has changed. It's now about nation building and the congressman does not feel that is working very well.

"Building anything that looks like the American nation over there is not going to happen and we can't afford the money to do that."

Taylor

“A roller, think of it as a trailer that’s pushed in front of a vehicle … to detonate a pressure (improvised explosive device) or mine before the vehicle rolls over it,” Taylor said. “They have some, but they don’t have enough. The good news is the rollers almost always cause the mine to go off. The bad news is that then the roller is destroyed. We need to order a bunch more of these, and we don’t need to wait six months. I don’t mind the rollers being blown up. When they do, there’s no funeral, no kid laying up in Walter Reed (hospital).”

Taylor and four other members of the House Armed Services Committee visited the remote Forward Operating Base Lightning on Monday.

By Dana Hedgpeth - Washington Post, August 3, 2010

Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics fight over $28B Navy contract The Navy has already ordered a total of four littoral combat ships - two from General Dynamics/Austal and two from Lockheed Martin. The first two ships have been delivered to the Navy and are in service. The third and fourth ships are under construction and the Navy is currently running another competition for a winner-take all between the two designs.

The Navy plans to pick a winner this summer in the contest to build a new high-speed warship that can prowl close to shorelines as a vital part of future military strategy. But whether the service can live up to its promises to build an inexpensive ship that can do a variety of missions remains a big question, defense industry analysts and congressional leaders say.

Some government auditors and analysts worry about whether the latest round of ships will stay within the latest congressionally mandated cost cap of $480 million per ship. The original price was expected to be $220 million.

House Armed Services seapower panel chairman Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., will work to insert language into the 2011 defense authorization bill requiring the Navy to replace every two warships it retires in the coming years with three brand-new ships. It’s a move designed to get to a 313-ship fleet.

“There have now been at least three [Chiefs of Naval Operations] who tell us that they need a minimum of 313 ships and yet they submit budget requests that don’t get them anywhere near that — in fact, this request would actually take us backward by about four ships if enacted,” Taylor told reporters Thursday after his subcommittee’s mark of the bill.

Taylor went on to say that he will also work to keep two 30-year-old Tarawa Class amphibious assault ships, Nassau and Peleliu, in commission since “they still have about 10 years of life left.”

Two U.S. House Armed Services subcommittees on May 13 pumped $485 million into the alternative engine program for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) despite Pentagon objections to the program.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., chairman of the seapower subcommittee, said funding the second engine "reaffirms the subcommittee's commitment to the alternate engine program as the best insurance against spiraling development costs and contractor responsiveness for the primary engine" during his subcommittee's May 13 mark-up. Taylor said the continued development of the F136 will not reduce the Pentagon's requested budget for the F-35 aircraft.

In February, Congressman Taylor sent a letter to the Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus requesting that his department work with Northrop Grumman Shipbuilding to get under contract as quickly as possible ships that the Congress had funded in Fiscal Years 2009 and 2010. Congressman Taylor and his colleagues are trying to prevent any more layoffs in the Gulf Coast Shipyards.

April Havens/Press-Register Vice Adm. Mohab Mameesh, commander in chief of the Egyptian navy, right, authenticates the keel for the first of four fast missile craft vessels being built by VT Halter Marine in Pascagoula. Lucedale resident Ray Stuart, who has been a pipe welder at VT Halter Marine for 20 years, left, assists the official in welding his initials into the keel plate as U.S. Navy officials look on.

PASCAGOULA, Miss. -- VT Halter Marine's $807 million deal to build four fast missile craft for the Egyptian navy exemplifies friendship and trust between the two nations, leaders said during a keel laying ceremony for the first ship.

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, said these deals have a great impact on defense contractors on the Gulf Coast and nationwide.

"It comes down to high paying skill jobs here in South Mississippi," said Taylor, who is chairman of the subcommittee on Seapower and Expeditionary Forces within the House Armed Services Committee.

Congressmen Gene Taylor, chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee tours guided missile frigate USS Doyle (FFG 39). The Congressman also toured guided missile frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG 58). MC1 Leah Stiles

Representative Gene Taylor, chairman of the House Armed Services Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee and Vice Admiral Terry Blake, Deputy CNO for Integration of Capabilities and Resources, toured Naval Station Mayport Friday, April 9.

As part of the on-going discussion in Washington, DC on the possible need to extend the life of the Navy's Frigates (FFG), the official party toured Mayport based FFGs to view their material condition and usefulness in the Navy.

By Stephen Abbott - Budget Insight Magazine, March 18, 2010

The campaign for a 313 ship battle fleet is one of Washington’s classic, bipartisan perennials – as is the failure to actually follow through.  Whether we will ever reach this goal remains uncertain, in part, because ship cost overruns continually accelerate beyond each year’s funding.

Increasing the size of the current 285 ship battle force is a stated goal of the Navy and leading members of Congress.  On multiple occasions the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) has included a call for 313 hulls in congressional testimony, a position also used as “a reference point” in the 2010 version of the Navy’s 30 year plan. The 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) likewise sets the Navy’s size requirements near the 300+ ship level.

Congress has been supportive of this goal. Soon after the President’s election, a bipartisan group of 18 senators wrote Obama to ask him to retain the 313 ship goal.  House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-MO), along with his Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS), likewise entered the FY2011 budget cycle pushing the Navy to slow down ship retirements in order to increase fleet numbers.

(Press-Register/Mike Kittrell) The littoral combat ship Independence heads south down the Mobile River with the skyline in the background Thursday, July 2, 2009, in Mobile, Ala., for four days of sea trials in the Gulf of Mexico.

"The real question is, what's the chances that the third ship (will be) substantially cheaper than the second, that the fourth will be cheaper than the third?" Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, said during a break in a hearing on the Navy's shipbuilding plans for the 2011 fiscal year, which begins in October.

The hearing was held by the House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee, which Taylor chairs.

WASHINGTON — Battle-injured soldiers who can't return to combat could find another calling in life — as teachers in military academies — if a plan by a Mississippi congressman catches on with the Army.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., implored Army Secretary John M. McHugh last week to advocate for putting more wounded warriors in teaching or mentoring positions, and Mr. McHugh said he was interested.

Mr. Taylor, a senior member of the House Armed Services Committee who has taken an active role in programs for wounded soldiers, has been pushing for several years to put wounded soldiers in classrooms. While he has had some success — the Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, N.Y., announced such an effort recently for recovering soldiers and Marines — other services have yet to sign on.

"It's going to take your intervention," Mr. Taylor told Mr. McHugh, his former colleague on the Armed Services Committee, at a hearing on the Army's proposed 2011 budget.

By Royce Armstrong - Hattiesburg American, March 9, 2010

LUCEDALE — Following a weekend of goodbyes and displays of appreciation from the local community, the 287th Engineer Company left Mississippi Monday en route to a year's duty in Afghanistan.

Members of the 287th Engineer Company based in Lucedale, bow their heads during a Community Appreciation Day prayer on Saturday. (ROYCE ARMSTRONG | American Correspondent)

The unit will first go to Fort McCoy, Wisc., for two months of final training an preparation, according to Capt. Marty Davis, the company's commanding officer.

The unit's primary mission in Afghanistan will route clearance, which includes detecting and destroying roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices, according to Davis.

"If there is anything that you need, or anything that you think that you need, or anything that you see that another unit has that you could use, you let me know," U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor told the 130 desert camouflage-clad soldiers during an appreciation ceremony sponsored by the City of Lucedale on Saturday afternoon. "I have a special responsibility because I have helped send you there and it is my responsibility to get you safely back home."

Taylor told the soldiers that he has visited Afghanistan four times, saying that it was a barren land too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer and that there wasn't one square inch of it that the U.S. wanted.

"You spouses, you moms, you dads, in many instances, the kids, you're making an incredible sacrifice too," Taylor said. "The sleepless nights, wondering if they're going to be coming home OK, but I can tell you that our nation is behind them."

Harlan Kirgan/Press-Register The 287th engineer company marches toward Lucedale City Park for a Soldier Appreciation Departure Day ceremony. The Lucedale-based Mississippi National Guard unit is leaving Monday for 60 days of training at Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, before deployment to Afghanistan.

LUCEDALE, Miss. -- A spirit of patriotism and pride filled the Lucedale City Park on Saturday as the 130 members of the 287th engineer company were honored with a Soldier Appreciation Day.

Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, said the citizen soldiers bring life skills to their military duty and noted their varied civilian jobs.

Taylor said he has been to Afghanistan several times. "There is not a square inch of it that our nation wants," he said. "They are going to places that are too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer, dry and nasty all the time."

Taylor asked the soldiers to contact him if they need anything while deployed.

"I want to put you on notice," Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., told the Navy's top officials Feb. 24. "Decommissioning 10 ships this year is unacceptable.

"It is my intention that for every three ships that are commissioned, we give permission to decommission two. We need to stop the bleeding this year."

By Emelie Rutherford - Defense Daily, February 5, 2010

Frustrated with the size of the Navy's fleet, House lawmakers told Pentagon officials yesterday they plan to take shipbuilding matters into their own hands, including trying to mandate two new surface combatants be budgeted for every one that is retired. Pentagon Director of Cost Assessment and Program Christine Fox told House Armed Services Committee (HASC) members that plans are in place to grow the Navy's fleet to its desired 313-ship level around the year 2020.

Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.), chairman of the HASC's Seapower subcommittee, lamented that the Navy won't grow to a 313-ship force "for possibly two presidencies."

He noted that while the Pentagon's FY '11 budget request seeks nine new Navy ships, it also seeks to decommission nine other vessels. "The net result of that is zero for this year; it's not getting any better," Taylor said. "So there's several ways to address that."

He told the defense officials to "expect the language from this committee that says for every surface combatant you want to retire, you had best have two new ones in the budget. Because if you won't do what is a logical thing to do on your own, then it's going to take a congressional mandate to do it," Taylor said, adding he discussed such statutory language with [HASC

The phased missile-defense setup announced last September abandons former President George W. Bush's plans for ground-based interceptors and radar in Eastern Europe. In the early stages it relies on ships stationed in European and Middle Eastern waters, outfitted with the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system and Raytheon's [RTN] Standard Missile-3 (SM-3) interceptors, to protect U.S. allies and deployed troops from Iranian missiles.

House Armed Services Seapower subcommittee Chairman Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) has said the Navy may need to buy more BMD-outfitted DDG-51 destroyers.

Watch RepTaylor's WLOX interview.

BILOXI, MS (WLOX) - Monday, President Barack Obama unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget with an emphasis on job creation. The Obama plan includes more than $1.2 trillion in deficit spending. It also calls for some cuts, including NASA's $100 billion plan to return astronauts to the Moon through the Constellation program. That could be bad news for South Mississippi. Stennis Space Center is scheduled to test the new J-X2 engines that will send the Ares rocket to the Moon.

Congressman Gene Taylor plans to fight for the program and Stennis' role in the testing. "I support NASA and I support the testing being done at Stennis," Rep. Taylor said. The congressman does have an open mind on the Constellation project.

"Let's look at the cost benefit ratio. If it makes sense to have unmanned missions, I can live with that." Taylor has strong feelings on the administration's $3.8 trillion budget. "I plan to vote against it. We need to tighten our belts."

By April M. Havens - The Mississippi Press, January 14, 2010

File A Fire Scout being assembled at Northrop Grumman's Unmanned Systems Center in Moss Point.

The Fire Scout is a vertical takeoff and landing UAV that resembles a helicopter and is used for reconnaissance by the Navy and Army. MOSS POINT, Miss. -- The U.S. Army intends to cancel its program to build Fire Scout unmanned aerial vehicles which are assembled by Northrop Grumman Aerospace Systems in Moss Point, officials told Congress this week.

U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, said his office received word of the Army cancellation Tuesday evening and noted that Congress will have the final say on the program when writing defense spending bills in the months to come.

"We're going to look at the merits of it," Taylor said. Northrop "is going to have to build the case -- and I think they can -- that there are good solid returns for the nation's war fighters."

Jon Hauge/Correspondent U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Bay St. Louis, takes questions during his town hall meeting in Ocean Springs at the Ocean Springs Community Center on Monday.

OCEAN SPRINGS, Miss. -- Mississippi legislators are working to ensure an Ocean Springs soldier is being treated fairly after he was arrested in Japan last week, U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor said Monday night.

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Clyde "Drew" Gunn, 27, is being held in Naha, Okinawa, where he is charged with vehicular manslaughter.

"We've been in touch doing everything we can legally do," Taylor said outside the Ocean Springs Community Center after his first town meeting of the year.

"We hoped we'd have it resolved without charges," he said. "Now that they've filed charges, it'll be very difficult. Now we're dealing with the courts, but in a nation that is our ally."

The House Armed Services Committee held a hearing on U.S. Military Redeployment from Iraq: Issues and Challenges. At this hearing I expressed my concerns regarding the vast amounts of equipment used to support military operations that will be left behind as the U.S. military draws down its presence in Iraq. I requested information at the hearing about how the Department of Defense is providing local cities, counties and states a way to gain access to getting equipment back from Iraq that had been sent over with National Guard units.

This equipment — generators, fire trucks, portable hospitals — was paid for by tax dollars. I fully understand that the military needs this equipment first and they should have access to what they need. However, once the military is done with this equipment, the DOD should have a method for making this equipment available to state governments.

During a recent visit to a unit in Balad, Iraq, I raised this subject with the battalion commander at a nearby forward operating base.

At this hearing, I expressed my concerns regarding the vast amounts of equipment used to support military operations that will be left behind as the U.S. military draws down its presence in Iraq.

I requested information about how the Department of Defense is providing U.S. cities, counties and states a way to gain access to getting equipment back from Iraq that had been sent over with National Guard units.

This equipment - including generators, fire trucks and portable hospitals - was paid for by tax dollars.

House Armed Services Committee member Gene Taylor (D-MS) last week asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates that the states' National Guard units be given a chance to acquire excess equipment no longer needed by active-duty forces in Iraq.

Taylor's Dec. 18 letter to Gates comes as the drawdown of American forces and their vast amounts of equipment ramps up. By next summer, Pentagon officials want to reduce the U.S. footprint in Iraq from more than 100,000 personnel today to around 50,000.

Defense officials have said they plan to leave much of the used, non-lethal gear -- like generators and support equipment -- behind.

November 28, 2009

The future USS Independence, the Navy’s second Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), this week completed “acceptance trials,” a sort of test drive for the Navy’s Board of Inspection and Survey. During the two-day trials, the ship completed demonstrations of the combat systems suite, steering, anchoring, and propulsion.

In a hearing earlier this year, Rep. Gene Taylor of Mississippi slammed the Navy’s management of the program, in which design and construction of the first four hulls was split between two shipyards. “I will not go into detail here and the list of mistakes made in this program because we would be here for most of the day if I did,” he said. “But this year is a ’take it or leave it ‘year for the LCS.”

It only took an extra half billion dollars, but the Navy is now inching closer to having a fleet of stealthy, shore-hugging surface ships.

	Construction workers carry Sheetrock as crews work both inside and on the exterior during the " Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" at the Heathcock home on South 18th Avenue. (George Clark | Hattiesburg American)

Hundreds of volunteers tracked through mud and erratic rainfall Monday as Day 3 of construction stumbled along for the construction of the city's first green home in the 600 block of South 18th Avenue.

"If there's a guy we ought to be helping, it is this guy and this family," Taylor said during a break from construction. "I did a lot of work on my own place after (Hurricane) Katrina, but that was pretty amateur, so it's great working out here with some pros."

Taylor said he was working at the build site until sunset Monday before catching a flight to Washington today for the start of legislative session this week. "Unfortunately I'll be in session on Thursday so I'll miss the unveiling," he said. "But it is just cool ...that all these people who do this for a living are donating their time."

The Department of Defense Undersecretary for policy Michele Flournoy met with Congressmen for the second time in the past few months Wednesday, addressing some of the changes Iraq will face if U.S. troops are able to successfully follow President Obama’s recently reiterated commitment to withdraw combat troops from Iraq by 2012.

Blue Dog Coalition member U.S. Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) expressed concerns about the plan, saying after Hurricane Katrina, his state had a “desperate need for generators” and warned that “something like Katrina is going to happen again, whether it’s man-made, or the hand of God.”

Taylor challenged the panel of witnesses, asking “to what extent are you taking those things that the military says they don’t need anymore and putting them on line… and to what extent are you making those things available to cities, states, and counties?”

The National Guard and reserve components will take their equipment with them when they redeploy from Iraq, Pentagon officials told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.

But while reserve units back home, who earlier were forced to leave gear in Iraq, will be able to fill their shortages with other excess equipment coming back for refurbishment at a U.S. depot, much of that materiel will go to initially to units with shortfalls that are slated to deploy.

Lawmakers such as Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., expressed concern during the hearing about how war demands had created equipment shortfalls back home for Guard and reserve troops as well as state emergency responders tackling homeland catastrophes such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

“The 890th Engineers had already done their hitch in Iraq in ’03,” Taylor said. “By the time they returned to Mississippi, they had left every piece of equipment behind. They did a magnificent job after Katrina with only 60 percent of the equipment they should have had. But the fact of the matter is, they only had 60 percent of the equipment they should have had.”

DEMOCRATIC Congressman Gene Taylor, from the shipbuilding state of Mississippi, has introduced a proposed amendment that would effectively block conversion of Jones Act ships at foreign shipyards, while still allowing the rebuilt ships to retain their eligibility under the US cabotage law.

The issue has been contentious within US shipowning circles for several years. It was in the spotlight two months ago, when Seacor won a landmark judgement from an US appellate court that established that conversion of two Seacor tankers to double-hulled configuration at a Chinese shipyard did not jeopardise their eligibility to continue in the Jones Act trades.

The Jones Act requires that ships conducting cabotage business be built, owned, crewed and controlled by US entities.

"If we cannot get these shipbuilding costs under control, we will never again have the number of ships the CNO (chief of naval operations) needs to perform all the tasks that we as a nation ask," he said in a prepared statement. The program to build a "littoral" combat ship for coastal waters, of which the Navy hopes to buy 55, is a "disaster," with surging costs, Taylor added.

"I am not sure the Congress is willing to go forward with that program unless significant progress is made on cost control," he said. "And I do mean significant."

"I urge President Obama to strongly condemn the parties responsible for this act and consider the attack on a US-flag vessel as an attack upon the US.  Persons or organizations who attack US-flag vessels in international waters should be considered enemy combatants and the full might of the US including the use of the world's greatest Navy fleet should be used to safely bring the parties responsible to justice and prevent future harm to any US-flag vessels and crews. Furthermore, any attackers captured in this incident or subsequent attacks should be prosecuted by the US Justice Department, tried in US courts, and sentenced to serve out their sentences in US prisons.

In 1981, Congress voted to stop the sale of leases off the coast of Northern California. The moratorium was included in the Interior Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 1982. The provision was supported by almost every member of the California delegation from both political parties. It was approved by the House and by the Republican-majority Senate, and signed it into law by President Reagan.

In 1982, Congress extended the moratorium for Northern California and expanded the area to include the Central California coast. The House also approved an amendment by Republican Congressman Jim Courter to prohibit leases off the coast of New Jersey. Again, the majority-Republican Senate approved the bill and Reagan signed it into law.