County Bases Officially Spared With House’s Approval of Closure List : Military: A last-ditch drive by some congressmen from California and Texas to overturn commission’s work is rebuffed.

The 1995 round of military base closures, which spared Ventura County’s two naval installations after months of nail biting, became official Friday when the House rejected a last-ditch effort by some California and Texas congressmen to scrap the entire list.

Not surprisingly, neither Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) nor Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) joined their California colleagues in complaining that the base closure process was flawed, the cost estimates skewed and the cuts far too deep.

Instead, they praised the commission’s 11th-hour decision to spare the Point Mugu Naval Warfare Center, Weapons Division, which commissioners had considered for closure despite support from the Pentagon and the Navy. The Port Hueneme base emerged from the process unscathed.

In casting his vote in favor of the list approved by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission, Gallegly said Friday that he believed in the process all along and was only anxious that the commission might not learn all the facts about the threatened Point Mugu base.

“To keep a base alive when it has no strategic necessity is not the right thing to do,” Gallegly said. “The bases that could not stand on their own are on that list.”

Others, however, disagreed that the final list was valid, and nearly half of California’s delegation, both Republicans and Democrats, joined the dissenters.

The effort to overturn the commission’s work was organized by Rep. Frank Tejeda (D-Texas), who joined many of his Texas colleagues in arguing that the closure of Kelly Air Force in San Antonio would devastate the local economy, especially the largely Latino work force, and hurt the country’s military readiness.

“I believe the [commission] has cut through the muscle and right into the bone and muscle of the Air Force,” Tejeda said.

The bulk of those endorsing the base closure panel during Friday’s hourlong floor debate represented areas that had been spared in this round, while those who sought to overturn the list were fighting cuts that hit close to home. With defeat almost certain from the start, the effort to overturn the list became a final venting of frustrations--one that Ventura County’s lawmakers did not have to go through.

“I know that what I am engaging in here today is probably under the rubric of a primal scream,” said Rep. Vic Fazio (D-West Sacramento), who argued that California was hit far too hard by the cuts and that the decision to eliminate 14,000 jobs at Sacramento’s McClellan Air Force Base defied logic.

“Those who dodged the BRAC bullet are here to praise the commission and those who got hit are here to deride it,” he acknowledged.

With the 343-75 House vote supporting the commission’s recommendations, the military now has two years from July 13, when President Clinton endorsed the list, to start closing bases. Within six years, it must complete the closures. Over that period, Ventura County stands to gain some jobs as other bases are closed or consolidated. For California, however, the news is far more bleak.

The base closure commission estimates that California stands to lose 19,372 jobs in this round, with another 22,898 jobs in danger in auxiliary businesses that depend on bases for survival.

“Without question, these recommendations are bad for California, but they are bad for the military as well,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of 24 Californians who voted to reject the list.

Both the House and Senate would have had to vote to overturn the recommendations by Sept. 15 for them to have become voided, something that has never happened in the previous base closure rounds. There are no plans to mount a challenge in the Senate, and with Friday’s House vote, the recommendations take effect, said the panel’s spokesman, Wade Nelson.