Base-Closing Enthusiasts See Good Year Shaping Up

Growing congressional interest in improving military readiness is suddenly giving momentum to plans for another round of military base closings.

Although base-closing proposals have foundered for two years, the potential savings are looking more attractive as lawmakers from both parties search for ways to fund the first surge in defense spending since the early 1980s.

The Clinton administration, which has failed for two years to sell a new round to Congress, included about $2 billion in savings from new base closings in the six-year defense budget it recently outlined. And one administration official predicted this week: “This is going to be our year.”

In addition, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.), who killed the Pentagon proposal last summer with a last-minute change of heart, is signaling a new receptivity.

The enthusiasm of base-closing advocates is not likely to be shared in parts of California, however.

While it is not possible to predict what facilities might be cut, during the last round in 1995, the endangered list included Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station near Oxnard; China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station in the desert northeast of Los Angeles; and Beale Air Force Base northwest of Sacramento.

Overall, the state retains a heavy concentration of military facilities--and probably would be hit again heavily in any new round.

The administration has proposed new rounds in 2001 and 2003, with a goal of cutting the base infrastructure by about 10%. It hasn’t specified how many individual bases it would like to shutter but wants Congress to pass legislation this year to authorize commissions to oversee the process.

These commissions would probably follow procedures used in the first four rounds to insulate the process--to some extent, at least--from political pressure. The previous commissions proposed lists of possible bases for closure, then presented them to Congress. Lawmakers were required to accept or reject the lists in their entirety but were prohibited from disputing individual selections.

Warner, whose state is home to huge Navy and Air Force bases, cast a vote last summer that killed the proposal for 1998. And last month, when asked in an interview about the prospects for further closings, he said he could make no statements until he had seen whether President Clinton would add sufficient money for defense in the fiscal 2000 budget.

But this week, advocates and opponents of further base closings noticed a change in Warner’s tone.

He now supports the idea of further closings and is weighing the idea of creating a commission to begin its work after the 2000 election, an aide said.

Robert Bell, a senior National Security Council official, predicted this week that the need for new savings, and the restrictions of the 2-year-old law mandating a balanced budget, would force Congress to approve a new round.

“It’s not easy for them to, just out of spite or whatever is motivating them, decide not to take an obvious source of $2 billion or $3 billion in savings,” Bell said.

The military, which has strongly backed past rounds, also has been pushing this plan as a way to find savings for better readiness and weapon modernization.

“Getting rid of the excesses that we have now . . . would be very beneficial,” Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Tuesday.

Other factors also may improve prospects for another round.

Voting for base closings is one of the riskiest moves a lawmaker can take because it can mobilize large numbers of wrathful constituents. But 1999 is not an election year. And the proposed commissions would not act until 2001.

Despite these signs, even advocates of base closings caution that foes in Congress--and especially the fraternity of lawmakers who have military depots in their states--are determined, and should never be underestimated.