Pentagon Faces a Sharp New Cutback in Bases : Military: Planners fear costs of posts will drain funds for modernization. California is certain to be hit hard.

The Pentagon is preparing to launch another major effort to close down unneeded military bases, with signs that this one will be the biggest--and by far the most painful--in recent history.

Defense Department strategists believe that this coming round of base closings may be the most crucial of all. In drawing down the Cold War military, the Pentagon has slashed the total number of troops, but it has not reduced infrastructure--bases and depots--as sharply.

Pentagon budget-makers fear that unless the services get rid of large numbers of those unneeded bases this time, they will be stuck with hefty overhead costs that will leave them unable to channel money into critical weapons systems and modernization programs.

California, which saw 11 of its major military bases ordered closed in last year’s round, is certain to be hit hard again, if only because the state still has a disproportionate share of bases. About 67 of the nation’s 470 remaining military installations are in California.

Moreover, as military leaders are painfully aware, this next round of base closings may well be their last chance. Congress already authorized base-closing efforts in 1988, 1991 and 1993--and may not be willing to launch another after this one in 1995. The bases left intact may be around for years.

Robert W. Gaskin, a former Pentagon strategist, points out that the pain in the coming round is likely to be exacerbated by the fact that “all the easy choices have been made.” The really marginal bases were closed long ago, Gaskin said. “Now, we’re getting into bone.”

To top it all off, the actual closing of targeted bases has been slower than expected--partly because of delays in environmental cleanup--and the shutdowns so far have yielded far smaller savings than Pentagon policy-makers had been counting on.

As a result, planners in all four services are predicting that the 1995 list of targeted bases is apt to be the biggest of them all. Former Defense Secretary Les Aspin has forecast that it will be “the mother of all base closings.”

As has been the case in previous base-closing rounds, the bulk of the decision-making will be left to an independent panel known as the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, a seven-member body set up to review the services’ recommendations and make final decisions.

The panel, which acts as a sort of insulator and political lightning rod, was essentially set up in 1988 as a way to save Congress from itself. Lawmakers, unable to face the firestorms that inevitably followed votes on base closings, set up the commission and left it with the job.

Once the panel comes up with its final recommendations, lawmakers need vote only if they want to override the panel’s decision. By law, Congress must consider the entire package at once--sparing lawmakers the need to cast votes on each base individually.

Most observers agree that, a few glitches aside, the process has generally worked well. Over the years, the commission has ordered the closure of most of the bases recommended by the Pentagon. And, by and large, it has kept politics out of the base-closing process.

Alan J. Dixon, a former U.S. senator from Illinois who will head the panel for the 1995 round, said in an interview that he plans to continue the same “openness” practices that have stood the commission in good stead with the public in previous years.

Commissioners, for example, will hold public hearings all over the country, and they will personally visit every base on the Pentagon’s hit list to make sure that they have heard all the evidence from local communities that would be affected by shutdowns.

The panel will deliberate in public in order to avoid any appearance that it may have yielded to untoward political influence. (Because the base-closing process is largely independent of Congress, the shift of the House and Senate to the GOP next year is not expected to affect the outcome.)

Even so, Dixon said he has no illusions about the challenge facing the panel next year. After three previous rounds of base closings, he said, “only the hard choices are left. You don’t want to be giving away a lot of good bases,” but the infrastructure must be reduced, he said.

Dixon says he also wants to get the commission to consider some recommendations for dealing with the increasingly difficult problem of ensuring that bases are closed rapidly once the panel has ordered them shut.

One recent report by Business Executives for National Security, a defense-monitoring group, alleged that of the 67 bases the commission has ordered shut in the past few years, a third have either never actually closed or have reopened for a new government function.

The Pentagon disputes that report.

A General Accounting Office study published last month calculated that partly because of the slow pace of base closures, the revenue generated by the sale of property once used for military bases--projected at $4.9 billion--totals only $69.4 million so far.

Dixon also wants to leave another legacy when the commission’s current mandate expires--a set of recommendations on how to handle base closures in the future.

As one of the principal authors of the base-closing legislation, he said he is painfully aware that few bases will be shut in the future if the job is left entirely to Congress, as it was before the present process was established.

It is almost impossible for a lawmaker to vote to shut a military installation in his own district, Dixon said, or to vote against another Congress member’s bases, knowing that he will be able to vote on yours. “I did my own share of squawking,” he recalled.

Neither Dixon nor the Pentagon is willing to speculate on which bases may be targeted in the coming round. Defense Department strategists say the individual services have not yet completed their own preliminary proposals.

But almost all analysts are confident that California will once again be in the national spotlight. The state has more than twice as many bases as any other state, including some big supply and maintenance depots.

Within a few days, the Defense Department will propose any last-minute changes in the criteria for deciding which bases to shut. In March, the Pentagon will submit specific recommendations, and the commission will begin its own work. Final decisions will come next fall.

The Base-Closing Process: What Happens When

1994

December 15: Pentagon publishes last-minute changes in criteria for selecting bases to be closed.

1995

January: Defense Department publishes plan for size of U.S. armed forces in coming years.

January 3: President nominates remaining members of base-closure commission.

February 15: Congress passes joint resolution if it disapproves of Pentagon’s selection criteria.

March 1: Secretary of Defense sends Pentagon’s recommendations for base closures to the commission.

April 15: General Accounting Office issues report to Congress analyzing the Pentagon’s recommendations.

May 17: Last chance for commission to add base-closings to the list submitted by the Pentagon.

July 1: Commission sends its recommendations to the President.

July 15: President must either approve the commission’s recommendations intact and send them to Congress, or reject them and return them to the commission. If he sends them to Congress, the lawmakers have 45 legislative days to block them with a resolution of disapproval passed by both houses. If Congress does not pass such a measure, the commission’s recommendations become law.

August 15: If the President rejects the commission’s recommendations, it must send him new ones by this date.

September 1: Final chance for the President to approve the commission’s recommendations and send them to Congress.

Source: Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission