Senate OKs Plan to Pick Bases for Closure
The Senate, trying to decide what to do with one of its most sacred cows, voted approval of a plan Tuesday that eventually could mean some of the nation’s 3,600 military installations may be shut down.
“This is the stickiest wicket in this bill,” Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.) said as he acknowledged the political sensitivity of the base-closing provision, which is part of the Pentagon budget bill now on the Senate floor.
The plan, approved on an 83-13 vote, provides for the establishment of a 15-member commission that will review the nation’s military facilities to determine which of them can be closed.
The panel’s report will be sent to Defense Secretary Frank C. Carlucci by Dec. 31, and he will then have 15 days to either accept or reject the recommendations.
Military bases mean jobs, and for more than a decade Congress has effectively blocked the closure of any bases. Pentagon officials have estimated that closing unneeded military bases could save between $2 billion and $5 billion a year.
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