Whereas, in 1954, the Department of the Army began to acquire land at Kings Bay, Georgia, to build a military ocean terminal to ship ammunition in case of a national emergency; Whereas the facility at Kings Bay, Georgia, was completed in 1958, but since there was no immediate operational need for the installation, the base was placed in an inactive ready status; Whereas, in 1975, during treaty negotiations between the United States and Spain, the countries agreed to move Submarine Squadron 16, the fleet ballistic missile submarine squadron, from its operational base at Rota, Spain; Whereas, after evaluating more than 60 sites along the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts, the Department of the Navy selected Kings Bay, Georgia, as the new home of Submarine Squadron 16; Whereas, from January to July 1978, the first group of sailors arrived at Kings Bay, Georgia, to transfer the base from the Department of the Army to the Department of the Navy; Whereas the Naval Submarine Support Base Kings Bay was established in a developmental status on July 1, 1978; Whereas construction of Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay was the largest peacetime construction program ever undertaken by the Department of the Navy; Whereas, in May 1979, the Department of the Navy selected Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay as the preferred East Coast site for Ohio-class submarines; Whereas, on October 23, 1980, the Secretary of the Navy announced Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay as the future home of the new Ohio-class submarine; Whereas, on January 15, 1989, the first Trident ballistic missile submarine, the USS Tennessee (SSBN 734), arrived at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay; Whereas the Coast Guard commissioned the successful Maritime Force Protection Unit, the first of its kind, on July 24, 2007, at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay to provide enhanced security for the SSBN fleet of the United States within the homeport transit area