2004 CPEO Military List Archive

From: CPEO Moderator <cpeo@cpeo.org>
Date: 5 Jan 2004 20:02:16 -0000
Reply: cpeo-military
Subject: Advocates begin fight for naval facilities
 
Maine
MAINE TODAY
Advocates begin fight for naval facilities
By Bart Jansen
Sunday, January 4, 2004

WASHINGTON -- Maine's congressional delegation is scrutinizing the new
rules for closing military bases to ensure that the standards will
protect Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery and Brunswick Naval Air
Station. With a quarter of all bases nationwide facing closure in two
years, local advocates are mobilizing to promote the importance of
Maine's two bases. The Portsmouth shipyard maintains nuclear submarines.
The Brunswick air station conducts anti-submarine patrols over the
Atlantic Ocean.

Bases are vital to their communities because they employ thousands of
people earning hundreds of millions of dollars. In the latest defense
spending bill, for example, Portsmouth is slated to refuel the U.S.S.
Jacksonville submarine for $248 million.

"A lot of places have been gearing up to fight," said Capt. William
McDonough, a former commander at Portsmouth and member of the Seacoast
Shipyard Association. "We're very concerned because the magnitude of
this closure action is huge."

The next round of base closures is scheduled for 2005. But the rules to
determine which will survive and which will close are being drafted now.
While the standards appear similar to three previous rounds of closures
during the 1990s, Maine lawmakers are urging that the most important
factors to be considered are the base's value to national defense, the
impact on its community, its strategic location and its ability to meet
the military's changing needs.

"Establishing an acceptable national criteria by which base closures and
realignment decisions will be made is vital to ensuring that the bases
on which our national defense rely most, which I believe includes
Brunswick Naval Air Station and Kittery Portsmouth Naval Shipyard, will
remain open and operational," said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a member
of the Armed Services Committee.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said he wants to close 20 percent
to 25 percent of the country's 425 military bases.

Maine lawmakers have criticized previous rounds of base closures in
1991, 1993 and 1995. They say the 1991 closing of bases such as Loring
Air Force Base in Limestone were for political reasons rather than
military requirements, and didn't save as much money as anticipated.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.pressherald.com/news/state/040104baseclosure.shtml

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