JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The USS John F. Kennedy could be mothballed next year under a conference agreement in Congress the House approved on Friday.

The Senate is expected to take up the issue after the November election.

House and Senate conferees have agreed to language in the 2007 defense authorization bill allowing for the reduction of the Navy's aircraft carrier force from 12 to 11. The plan is for the 38-year-old Kennedy to remain in a "state of preservation" until the USS George H.W. Bush, a new nuclear powered carrier, is commissioned in the late 2008 or early 2009.

Under the bill, the Kennedy will be offered to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization as a platform for training, or the Department of Homeland Security as part of disaster relief efforts. If both decline, the JFK will be mothballed.

The bill tells the Navy to keep the Kennedy in a state where it could be reactivated in a national emergency.

Despite the report, U.S. Rep. Ander Crenshaw, R-Fla., said Friday the Navy has made a case that repairing the aircraft carrier is too expensive.

"I still believe we need 12 aircraft carriers. I always knew sooner or later that the Kennedy was going away," Crenshaw said.

Last December, both chambers of Congress agreed to keep 12 carriers when it passed the 2006 defense bill, which also included $288 million for repairs this year on the JFK, which the Navy never performed.

In February, the Navy announced it was suspending air operations on the carrier because of problems with arresting gear motors, which could make it hazardous for pilots to take off and land. The motors are tied to the cables which Navy planes snag with a tail hook to land.

Since that time, the Kennedy has been moored at Mayport except for the times it went to sea for basic seamanship drills.

Both Crenshaw and Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., are pushing to renovate Mayport Naval Station so that it can become a port for nuclear aircraft carriers.

The Senate had planned to take up the conference committee report Friday, but unrelated issues pushed it until the lame duck session, said Dan McLaughlin, a Nelson spokesman.