The Kansas City Star April 10, 2005
States scramble to defend military bases from closing
By Matt Stearns
WASHINGTON - It might be Washington's most reviled acronym: BRAC.
It stands for Base Realignment and Closure, the Defense Department's occasional effort to pare its far-flung, expensive-to-operate infrastructure.
Since 1988, four BRAC rounds have shut down 97 bases nationwide. Savings: about $28.9 billion.
In 2005, BRAC is back. This time it could be bigger than ever: The Pentagon wants to both save money and transform the way it prepares to fight wars. It says the United States' 425 military bases are about a quarter more than what is needed.
The Pentagon previously said closing that much excess capacity could save an estimated $7 billion a year, but it has since backed off those numbers.
The Pentagon's savings, however, can mean a bombshell for neighboring communities.
"If you look at the size of the installation in most of the areas, it is an important economic force," said John Armbrust, executive director of Kansas' Strategic Military Planning Commission, a group of politicians and community leaders appointed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to help protect Kansas bases, which represent $2 billion a year in payroll and contracts to the economy.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld asserted recently that early estimates of unneeded bases seemed to be overstated, but Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said that "there definitely will be some closings."
The process works like this: In May, the Pentagon will present its recommendations for closure and realignment to Congress and a presidential commission. That commission, appointed last month, will examine the recommendations, potentially tweak them, and present its list to President Bush by Sept. 8.
If Bush approves the list, it is final unless Congress votes down the entire list within 45 days. The process is supposed to be nonpolitical, with decisions based on the military value of sites.
There is little that states can do to affect the process. But congressmen work hard to try to protect bases by enhancing their military value -- and that is where Missouri and Kansas benefit from having high-ranking members of Congress on key committees.
In Missouri, Ike Skelton is the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee. In the Senate, Jim Talent serves on the Armed Services Committee and Kit Bond is on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.
In Kansas, Pat Roberts is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and Sam Brownback serves on the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee. On the House side, Todd Tiahrt is on the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee and Jim Ryun is on the Armed Services Committee.
A key way has been by emphasizing "jointness," or the idea that missions at the bases are useful to all branches of the military. And the more money and missions are at a base, the less likely it is it will be closed - or so the congressional delegation hopes.
For example, in Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood last year received $10 million to build a Countermine Training Complex and $15 million to build a training complex on dealing with weapons of mass destruction.
Whiteman Air Force Base is home to the nation's highly specialized B-2 bomber fleet and a Reserve A-10 ground-support fighter unit.
Another Missouri installation closer to Kansas City is Rosecrans Memorial Airport in St. Joseph, home to the 139th Airlift Wing of the Air National Guard, which provides training and support for C-130 cargo planes. Rosecrans received $8 million in 2003 for a new air traffic control training center.
Kansas has four significant military bases: Fort Riley, Fort Leavenworth, McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita and Forbes Field near Topeka.
"I think, working with the state, the different communities, we've tried to address any deficiencies" at the bases that could hinder their prospects, said Roberts, who recently toured Fort Riley with Army Lt. Gen. James J. Lovelace Jr., the director of the Army staff. That sprawling central Kansas facility has been mentioned as a possible home for Army units being shifted from Germany.
While Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth are expanding, some in the delegation express concern over Forbes Field, another Air National Guard base. Roberts said he had suggested to the Pentagon that it add more missions, particularly in the area of homeland security.
"Forbes is a strategic asset to the nation," said Tod Bunting, the adjutant general of Kansas, citing the field's 13,000-foot runway. "There's not that many of them, especially in a central location that have the airspace to go with it. . You can have a robust operation out here without displacing anybody or worrying about encroachment issues."
States haven't just left it to their congressional delegations to ensure that their bases are kept open or expanded. Many have hired lobbyists and consultants in the last couple of years. Some states offer incentives, such as tax breaks and local infrastructure improvements.
The Kansas commission, with a $1 million budget, has developed a DVD extolling the virtues of the state and its bases to send to BRAC staff. Kansas also pays a monthly retainer to two Washington consulting and lobbying firms to help make its case for its bases, Armbrust said.
John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a Washington defense policy think tank, said he was unsure whether all such BRAC-avoidance efforts would be helpful, because in a time of war, the BRAC process might not be necessary.
In the post-Cold War period, "you could understand how there was excess capacity, because the Army went from 18 divisions to 10," Pike said.
But now "I don't see any military bases where anybody is hanging out reading old magazines because they don't have anything to do," he said. "They're all busy doing military stuff."
Defense Department spokesman Glenn Flood, however, notes that "in a time of war, it's all the more important to save money."
Pentagon plans could also be hindered by a brewing fight with Congress over whether National Guard bases can be considered for closure.
Guard bases are under control of the states, but many - if not most - get federal funding.
The Defense Department's opinion is that as long as they get federal funding, "they could be looked at as part of the overall capacity," Flood said.
Recently, however, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, and Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, wrote a letter to Rumsfeld pointing out that BRAC law specifically states that National Guard units cannot be moved or changed without permission of the state's governor.
Asked how that would be handled, Flood said he could not speak for the BRAC commission, which just began work.
© Copyright 2005, Kansas City Star
