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Lawmakers say base closures DOA
Lawmakers from both parties are signaling they will do everything in their power to stop the Obama administration from launching another round of military base closures in the United States.
The plan, included in the Pentagon blueprint for cutting $487 billion that was released last week, calls for another round of the Base Realignment and Closures Commission (BRAC), an independent, all-or-nothing approach to closing military bases that was last used in 2005.
Sens. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.) put out a joint statement calling the new BRAC round “dead on arrival.”
Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-Mass.) staff convened a meeting last Thursday on BRAC with aides from seven Northeastern congressional offices, according to congressional sources.
And the Alaska delegation joined with their governor to pre-emptively denounce any move to close the state’s bases.
“I’ll be using my position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to demonstrate the enormous strategic value of Alaska’s military bases, and oppose any misguided attempt to close them,” said Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska).
Lawmakers opposing BRAC have pointed to the 2005 round as an example that base closings don’t demonstrate a clear savings and can cost a lot up front.
But there’s a regional component at play as well.
The BRAC proposal highlights the underlying tension between Congress and the Pentagon over the $487 in budget cuts, as a reduction of manpower, bases or weapons contracts means job losses in someone’s congressional district or state.
“Any member of Congress that has military bases in his district, he or she needs to be extremely conscious and aware of the discussion and the debates that are forthcoming,” Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) told The Hill. “You want to make sure that you can be part of the debate if you see a cut coming that you think is not in the national security interest in this country.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) suggested there were plenty of overseas bases to close before getting to domestic ones, a sentiment multiple senators echoed after Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the cuts.
It’s not just the base closings that have the attention of Congress. The plan also calls for a reduction of 100,000 troops and cuts to weapons programs.
Some critics of the cuts have said their concerns are tied to national security and maintaining the strength of the U.S. military. The most strident critics have warned of a hollowed-out force.
Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.) said that Virginia, along with California, Texas and Florida, would likely be hit the hardest by the cuts to the Pentagon, as they are the biggest military states.
In Virginia, the new strategy could lead to a carrier and ships leaving Virginia’s shores, Forbes said.
He emphasized that he’s concerned about the national-security implications of the military cuts first, and the regional concern is tied to that.
“The reason I’m concerned about regional impact is sometimes I don’t think we do a very good analysis,” Forbes said. “We say we’re doing something for economic reasons, but we don’t realize the huge economic impact it’s having and the problem the impact is creating.”
Anticipating the reaction in Congress, Panetta said the effect of the new Pentagon budget, which would cut $259 billion in the next five years, would be felt from coast to coast.
“Make no mistake: The savings that we are proposing will impact on all 50 states and many districts, congressional districts, across America,” Panetta said.
A former congressman, Panetta said he had been through BRAC before. “I know its weaknesses and its failings,” he said. “But I have to tell you — there is no more effective process to make it happen than using the BRAC process.”
Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center for American Progress and former assistant secretary of Defense, said including a BRAC round in the budget request had a political tinge to it.
“The interesting thing is, here we’re talking about $480 billion in cuts, and what’s gotten the most interest is BRAC,” Korb said. “It diverts attention politically from the other things.”
Korb said there is a history of cases where Congress went against the requests of the administration and the Pentagon in the budget, from saving the V-22 tiltrotor Osprey that then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney wanted to kill to the recent fight over the F-35 second engine, which survived until last year against the Pentagon’s wishes.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that by not attaching a dollar figure to the BRAC round, it appeared unlikely that the Pentagon was that serious about pushing for it.
As Panetta announced the cuts Thursday, he said the Pentagon “did not want to tie any savings to it because, very frankly, we need the Congress to authorize it.”
“If we had put numbers in there and then Congress didn’t do it, it would have undermined our whole budget,” Panetta said.
As Congress debates both the Pentagon cuts and the potential BRAC round, some lawmakers and analysts said they didn’t expect regional arguments to have much weight, because they would be coming from every part of the country.
“There may be some folks who go at it purely on a regional basis, but I think those arguments are going to fall pretty flat,” Rep. Mike Conaway (R-Texas) told The Hill. “If you can couch them in terms of what’s best for defending the country, then the regional stuff will take care of itself.”
