Senate Votes to Make It Harder to Shut Down Bases

Venting frustration over military base closings that have cost states thousands of jobs, the Senate voted, 48 to 45, on Thursday to make it harder for the Clinton administration to shut down more bases.

The measure, an amendment to the Pentagon’s $270-billion budget for fiscal year 1999, puts the entire bill at risk of a veto. Republicans maintain President Clinton intervened in the nonpartisan base-closing process to save up to 8,700 jobs from the closing of McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento to make good on a 1996 campaign promise.

Lawmakers from both parties are still reeling from three previous rounds of base closings that shut down 70 installations.

The new restrictions would make it harder for the administration to close bases that have at least 225 civilian employees, down from the current threshold of 300. And it would impose a four-year moratorium on closing a base once its mission had been changed, or “realigned.”

The measure also expresses congressional opposition to giving the Pentagon authority now for moving ahead with base-closing rounds planned for 2001 and 2005.