Gannett News Service August 20, 2005
Voting on bases starts next week
By John Yaukey
WASHINGTON - A panel that has spent the summer reviewing Pentagon proposals to
close or restructure dozens of U.S. military bases starts voting on its
recommendations next week, determining which military communities will lose or
gain thousands of jobs.
The nine retired military officials, politicians and Cabinet officials on the Base Realignment and Closure Commission have scheduled four days to sift through hundreds of proposals, including ones to close or significantly restructure 67 major bases.
The commission must send its recommendations by Sept. 8 to President Bush, who can reject or accept the entire list or send it back to the panel for one more round of changes.
The deliberations and voting are public and will be broadcast on C-SPAN2.
The panel Bush appointed in April enters this critical phase of its work with some commissioners still undecided on many of the major proposals.
"I would not want to be betting on some of these recommendations right now," said commissioner Samuel Skinner, former chief of staff for President George H.W. Bush. "This commission is still listening and weighing information, and we'll do that right up to the end."
The Pentagon is doing this round of base closures - the fifth since 1988 - to save an estimated $50 billion and restructure the military to better fight terrorism and modern wars.
Among the biggest proposed closures are Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota, which would lose 3,852 military, civilian and contractor jobs; the New London Submarine Base in Connecticut (8,460); Fort Monmouth, N.J. (5,272); the Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, Maine (4,510); and Fort McPherson in Georgia (4,141).
Installations that could take a big hit under realignment include Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, which could lose 5,630 military and civilian jobs; Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina (4,145); Lackland Air Force Base in Texas (3,140); Fort Knox in Kentucky (2,944); and Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois (2,022).
One of the most controversial proposals is an Air Force plan to consolidate Air National Guard planes into regional squadrons. Twenty-nine Air Guard units would be stripped of all planes, leaving five states with none.
During three months of hearings and base visits, commissioners heard hours of impassioned and well-crafted arguments to save local installations. Some base advocates argued that closing their base would compromise national security. Others said the Pentagon incorrectly calculated how much it would cost to close a base and how much would be saved.
Some of the inaccurate cost-saving estimates might be considerable, and they might figure in the final voting, commissioners have said. A recent analysis by the Government Accountability Office of the costs of closing the New London Submarine Base, for example, found the Navy's estimated savings of $1.6 billion was $400 million too high.
In the past, roughly 85 percent of the Pentagon's recommendations have been approved. Military analyst John Pike, president of GlobalSecurity.org, says the commission probably will approve most of the Pentagon's recommendations this time as well.
"You can follow (the Pentagon's) reasoning on most of the them," he said.
© Copyright 2005, Gannett News Service
