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STATEMENT OF: 

MAJOR GENERAL WALTER E. BUCHANAN III
DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS AND TRAINING
  DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF, OPERATIONS
DEPARTMENT OF THE AIR FORCE 
SUBJECT: ENCROACHMENT

22 MAY 2001

Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you about Air Force ranges and of the management and readiness challenges we face today and in the future due to encroachment.

There was a time when the US had both a technological as well as a training advantage over potential adversaries. As that technological edge has been eroded, the AF has come to rely on its training to keep the advantage. We consider ranges and Special Use Airspace (SUA) to be national assets that are essential for the Air Force to test new equipment, develop new tactics and train our aircrews. AF ranges also accommodate important civilian aerospace industry testing, and provide for public use and natural and cultural resource protection.

Background 

Current ranges are the successors of test and training ranges designed to support the Army Air Corps in World War II. Tactical fighters used "backyard" ranges (now called "primary training ranges") to train how to release live and practice bombs. Such ranges were located within a practical distance from their home bases. Strategic bombers often trained on ranges and simulated deliveries using radar bomb-scoring sites thousands of miles away from their home bases. These ranges were customized to fulfill the training requirements of individual aircraft types and a variety of missions. Large-scale exercises were conducted on large ranges, usually in the west, because they could accommodate increased numbers of aircraft and more complex tactics. Today, many of these ranges are home to extensive electronic warfare arrays, instrumentation systems for tracking and recording aircraft activities, and multiple target concentrations, all designed to develop and maintain readiness. The Nevada Test and Training Range, NV; Barry M. Goldwater Range, AZ; the Utah Test and Training Range, UT; and Eglin Range, FL are our largest ranges.

Present Ranges

Today, managing Air Force (AF) ranges is the responsibility of several AF commands. Air Combat Command (ACC), for the most part, has responsibility for the combat training that occurs on our ranges. Other commands that manage training on ranges include the Air National Guard (ANG), Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), Air Education and Training Command (AETC), and United States Air Forces Europe (USAFE). Air Force Material Command (AFMC) is responsible for ranges primarily tailored toward test activity and Air Force Space Command is responsible for the management of the East and West Launch Ranges. Currently, all commands and service components share ranges. For example, the AF operates 17 ranges on US Army lands in the continental US (CONUS) and Alaska. 

Present Airspace

The FAA manages the complex National Airspace System (NAS) to provide safe and efficient service for civil and military users. Viewing a map of the NAS, Special Use Airspace (SUA) appears to cover a large portion of the CONUS. However, adding the third dimension (altitude) shows that civilian air traffic often uses the area above SUA even when it is active. Finally, when viewing the NAS over time, one can observe SUA use by military aircraft with relation to the ebb and flow of civilian air traffic throughout the day.

Ranges and Airspace in the Future

Changes in force structure, base closures, the advent of ever more capable aircraft like the F-22 and weapons such as JDAM, JSOW, and AMRAAM, as well as improving our tactics, will continue to obligate the AF to modify its ranges and SUA. This flexibility will allow effective testing and enable our aircrews to be the most proficient possible. Because of the latest evolution of tactics and the fielding of these more advanced weapons and systems, training at ever increasing altitudes provides coordination challenges for the NAS as well as pressure on the lateral confines of current range and SUA configurations.

Our training ranges exist in three basic formats: smaller, primary training ranges that provide a chance for units to hone their skills locally, on a day-to-day basis; intermediate-sized ranges, such as the Air National Guard's Combat Readiness Training Centers and the AF's new range in Idaho, which allow for more complex skill-training in an increasingly instrumented environment; and large ranges that provide a robust environment of threats, targets, and instrumentation needed for multi-formation exercises. Additionally, ranges and SUA are also used for test and evaluation of future weapons and weapon systems and our space ranges continue to accommodate a substantial number of civilian aerospace activities.   

Range Management in the Air Force

In the coming years, our ability to rapidly modify ranges and airspace will be critical to maintaining AF readiness; however, the legal and procedural requirements are becoming more complicated and time consuming. For example, in 1994 the Air Force worked on an important range project that eventually failed and an equally important airspace project that was ultimately successful. From these lessons learned, Gen. Ralston, the AF Deputy Chief of Staff for Plans and Operations at the time, reorganized our range and airspace staff to consolidate management policy and provide operational leadership in this important area. While ranges and airspace are still managed by many individual units and by the major commands, Gen. Ralston set the vision for range and airspace management that we still follow today. Our goal is to meet the military need first while proactively addressing and trying to resolve federal, tribal, state, and other agency issues, as well as public concerns. We have adopted a spirit and practice of flexibility, and a willingness to adapt when we can without compromising our operations or readiness.

We also realize the importance of establishing and maintaining permanent relationships with stakeholders who can be very supportive of the AF and our mission when they recognize that sustainable access to ranges benefits many people. For example, our ranges contain significant cultural and natural areas, are used for grazing and agriculture, and permit hunting or other forms of outdoor recreation. 

Challenges to Sustainable Ranges and Airspace

I now want to describe six areas that challenge our ability to maintain adequate access to ranges and airspace. They are unexploded ordnance, air quality, noise, endangered species, the NAS Redesign, and the frequency spectrum. These areas are generally referred to as encroachment issues. Encroachment on ranges and airspace is a serious and growing challenge to the Air Force, as well as the other services. They are complex and involve multiple federal, state, tribal and local agencies, as well as Congress, industry, and the public.

Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) 

UXO and the disposal of residue material on air-to-ground ranges is an area where we have taken a hard look at our practices and policies. UXO and residue material, which includes used targets, inert ordnance, scrap metal, etc., physically occupies a very small part of a range, but its presence is an increasingly expensive problem. The costs associated with clearing ranges have led us to conclude that we need to plan and manage for the entire life cycle of a range.

The AF first started clearing ordnance from active ranges in the late 1940's. Range clearance not only provides for safe target area operations, but also provides field training for our Explosive Ordnance Disposal technicians. AF policy requires that we clear active air-to-ground ranges on a quarterly, annual, and 5-year basis at respectively increasing distances from each target. We have reviewed our practices and found improvements that would allow us to meet our test and training needs at active ranges while decreasing future impact and costs. This effort, combined with our current scheduled UXO and residual material removal program, will ensure long-term sustainability and the safety of personnel on active ranges. Our ultimate goal is to efficiently manage our ranges, exercise safe and effective UXO and residue treatment, and provide long-term environmental stewardship.

These policies are not without cost. Air Combat Command is currently undertaking a project to remove the legacy of residue that has accumulated on some of our ranges. In FY00, the AF dedicated $4.8M to this effort, removing residue at the rate of one million pounds per month. At current funding levels, it is estimated it will take approximately four years to remove known accumulated residue material from ACC's primary training ranges alone. In addition to active range clearance, environmental remediation of closed ranges will take a long-term commitment and an incrementally increasing budget. The same active range operations and maintenance budgets that fund targets and electronic warfare operations for our aircrews also fund UXO and range residual material removal.

Air Quality

In the area of air quality, many of our largest and most important installations are located where there is rapid population growth with accompanying concerns for maintaining air quality standards. A number of our bases are currently located in "nonattainment" areas, and other bases are in regions that are likely to become nonattainment areas. Generally, pressures to meet air quality standards more often affect operations at our installations than at our ranges. These pressures potentially limit our force realignment and weapon system basing options. If action at an installation would not conform to a state's implementation plan for Clean Air Compliance, the Air Force must either obtain air quality credits, or reduce other emissions at the base to offset the impact; otherwise, the proposed action cannot take place. We are working to ensure that environmental, safety, and health considerations, including air quality, are integral to requirements definitions and the acquisition process.

Noise

One of the most obvious byproducts of military readiness is aircraft noise and has long been a dilemma at our bases and in the vicinity of our low-level flying routes, military operating areas (MOAs) and ranges. Local resistance to increased noise levels is the AF's number one concern when we try to modify or establish new airspace or flying practices. The AF is spending $3.5M per year on a requirement to monitor the potential noise impacts on New Mexico low-level flying routes. In some cases, we can accommodate public noise concerns without diminishing our training. When a noise sensitive area is identified, we routinely chart it and avoid it if possible. In a few instances, we have even made avoidance arrangements for National Park recreation areas while the park experiences its maximum number of visitors. When we cannot deconflict, we communicate. We inform both users and land managers what we are doing, when we are flying, and why. We have found that by listening and sharing information about how we do business, we reduce negative reaction to noise.

 The services have formulated a plan that will eventually lead to a unified DoD noise program to address the full range of issues; not just that of aircraft noise, but also noise from other military operations.

National Airspace Redesign

The affect on ranges and airspace from a reduced military force structure and decreased flying hours is being offset by testing and operating faster, more capable and longer range weapons and weapon systems; thus, the DoD has a continuing requirement for airspace in which to test and train. At the same time, fueled by deregulation and relatively affordable fares, the civil airline industry has grown steadily. The projected annual growth rate of the civilian airline industry is expected to continue at 6% for the foreseeable future. In 1998, the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) initiated the National Airspace System Redesign program. The goals of the redesign are to maintain safety, decrease delay, increase flexibility, increase predictability, and increase user access.

A part of "user access" is DoD Special Use Airspace (SUA), which is necessary to conduct critical equipment test and evaluation and aircrew training. A key to DoD user access is the flexibility to establish, modify and use SUA for constantly changing requirements in relation to these parameters:

     Airspace Volume - is having enough room to accomplish training objectives 

     Proximity - being a practical distance from operating airfields

     Time - the availability to conduct operations, test, or training

     Attributes - the differentiating qualities that enable specific types of events. For instance, there may need to be a range or mountainous terrain under the airspace in order to accomplish a particular test or a suite of ground instrumentation needed to support training or testing.

The key to maintaining our access to SUA is to work closely with the FAA. The senior members of the DoD Policy Board on Federal Aviation along with the Department of Transportation/FAA are currently determining a plan for effective joint FAA-DoD interaction. We will have to be able to predict and articulate our requirements and, in order to support a more flexible NAS use, we will have to work with the FAA to focus on the technology necessary to make this real-time airspace concept work. An enabling technology that may help AF ops after the NAS redesign is the rangeless Air Combat Training System (ACTS). Training instrumentation systems on aircraft, linked to ground stations, can record and display tactics and maneuvers which provide valuable feedback to aircrew, technicians, instructors, and students. Today, if a SUA associated with ground-based instrumentation is needed for another purpose, perhaps to divert an airliner around a thunderstorm, there are only two options - sacrifice training or not divert the airliner. With rangeless ACTS, measuring and recording aircraft position and parameters does not rely on ground-based systems nor are the aircraft restricted to specific SUA. AF flights using rangeless ACTS could use any SUA and still accomplish high-quality training. Although this sounds promising, many other encroachment factors must be addressed in concert with this potential solution. Two significant examples are concerns for altitude and lateral dimensions of airspace to perform realistic training and design limits on the rangeless ACTS due to possible frequency encroachment.

Endangered Species

Currently, 79 federally listed threatened and endangered species are found on approximately nine million acres of AF lands and waters. They include various species and sub-species of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, invertebrates, and plants. In some cases, our installations and ranges are the only large, undeveloped and relatively undisturbed habitats remaining in expanding population areas. This often leaves AF lands as the last refuge in the region that can support endangered species. Biological Opinions resulting from required Endangered Species Act assessments have resulted in range and airspace restrictions. These restrictions are mainly associated with aircraft noise and munitions use. Currently, we operate with altitude restrictions in Arizona, Alaska and New Mexico due to possible effects on endangered species. The Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range in Arizona is home to the last 100 or so Sonoran Pronghorn Antelope in the United States. The DoD flies about 70,000 sorties in and around the range each year. In 1995, the AF started monitoring antelope activity around our target areas. As part of Luke AFB's $3.3M annual environmental and range conservation budget, seven different target areas are surveyed daily for antelope before we fly any sorties. If there are antelope present, we do not drop or strafe on that target that day. 

The potential for designating range areas as critical habitat could seriously limit our ability to perform our missions on these lands. Currently, on the Nellis Range, fences must be erected around targets to keep the desert tortoise away from impact areas. And we continue to work with the appropriate agencies to ensure that habitat constraints do not impact our operations. For instance, in the Sonoran Desert, we are participating in DoD/Department of Interior sponsored ecoregional studies. One study has characterized the resources on over 55 million acres in the US and Mexico and the broad view provided by over 100 academic, agency, tribal and public Sonoran Desert experts will help federal agencies and local governments to establish their resource planning within a larger ecoregional context. The US Marine Corps and the AF are using this study as a starting point for the Goldwater Range Integrated Natural Resource Management plan which is part of the Goldwater Range Land Renewal Act.

We have found that the key to addressing endangered species is adequate science and good communication; when we have good relationships with regulators and with the public, we have been able to develop cooperative strategies that allow the AF to accomplish its mission. 

Government-Owned Radio Frequency Spectrum

The first five encroachment issues mentioned involve environmental and procedural concerns and their potential impact on readiness. The final area that I'd like to briefly present involves technological encroachment and, even though other hearings will address the frequency encroachment issue in more detail, it merits mention in this forum.

Last May, an international spectrum conference identified several frequency bands to study for potential use by the next generation of public cell phones, referred to as International Mobile Telecommunications - 2000 (IMT-2000). Soon after the conference, the President issued a memorandum that directed executive branch agencies to work with the FCC and the commercial sector to select, by this summer, a frequency band the FCC can auction to satisfy increased demand for IMT-2000 radio frequency spectrum access. One frequency band under consideration is allocated on an exclusive basis to the federal government (1755 - 1850 MHz) and supports many critical AF and DoD functions. Test and training relies heavily on the spectrum, and we estimate the cost of moving to other bands to be prohibitive, in excess of $1.0B for ACC alone.

Over the next few months, the AF will be working closely with the OSD, the other military departments and defense agencies, NTIA, FCC and others on the final selection of IMT-2000 spectrum in the U.S. Depending on which option, the outcome of the IMT-2000 selection may have significant impact on Air Force readiness.

Summary

To summarize, the Air Force manages approximately 9 million acres of bases and ranges. When many of these installations were established they were in rural, sparsely populated areas like the deserts of the southwest. These areas are now experiencing rapid population growth. We will need to work closely with local governments and other interested parties in order to ensure that the pace of growth in these areas does not endanger our existing capital investment in base infrastructure and that our ability to access test and training ranges and airspace is safeguarded.

Maintaining continued access to our ranges and airspace is absolutely critical; in fact, if our ability to train our aircrews continues to diminish, America will soon lose its only edge in air combat proficiency. We can no longer rely on current Air Force technology to provide an advantage against our next adversary-that next adversary already has access to more advanced equipment than ours. It is only our superior training that enables our pilots to have the upper hand in air combat. That training depends on the right amount and the right type of ranges and airspace.

To date, the effects of encroachment have resulted in some notable impacts to our training operations, and by implementing work-arounds, significant degradation on readiness was mitigated. However, we fully expect to encounter increasing challenges not only to our current level of training, but also to the beddown of new weapon systems and the realignment of existing systems. 

Maintaining continued access to AF ranges and airspace is vital to sustaining mission readiness. The AF recognizes the need to balance its test, training, and readiness requirements with responsible stewardship. There will be challenges in the future, particularly from the cumulative effects of encroachment. Effective communication is one of the keys. The partnerships we have with our sister services, civilian government agencies, and other stakeholders are essential. Together, we can meet these challenges head-on and sustain our readiness. We continue to look to our ranges and airspace to provide the AF the flexibility, efficiency, and training realism necessary to meet our Title 10 responsibilities while making every reasonable effort to minimize mission impacts on the community, the environment, and the National Airspace System.

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