[CPEO-MEF] "Erasing Bases"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Erasing Bases
The hit list taking shape today may be the biggest ever.

By George Cahlink
Government Executive
October 2003 

Former Sen. Alan Dixon, D-Ill., wishes he had said no in 1994 when
then-Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., called
and asked him to oversee the 1995 round of military base closings.
Instead, Dixon agreed to take the job as a favor to his former colleague
and led what turned out to be the military's most recent and largest
round of shutdowns. "It's not a fun job. It's a bad job. I wouldn't do
it again for anything," says Dixon, adding that one senator who he had
considered a friend still won't talk to him because the commission
closed a base in that lawmaker's state.

Somebody, though, will have to take the job again.

The Pentagon is gearing up for what is likely to be its final shot at
realigning the military base structure set up to win the Cold War.
Already, the Defense Department has been examining how work can be
consolidated at bases that would be used by more than one of the
military services. Over the next year the Army, Navy and Air Force will
each draw up lists of bases that can be closed or realigned. By the
spring of 2005, the Pentagon will hand off those lists to an independent
commission that will hold hearings, crunch numbers and compose a final
list that must be approved or rejected in its entirety by Congress and
the president in the fall of 2005.

The verdict for military communities may be two years away, but the fate
of many bases will be determined over the next 12 months. In the past,
about 85 percent of the recommendations to shutter bases made by the
Pentagon have become law. Indeed, the 2005 base realignment and closure
process (known as BRAC) has already begun.

...

See http://www.govexec.com/features/1003/1003s2.htm

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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