Pentagon Plan Seeks New Base Shutdowns

The Pentagon is drafting legislation to jump start what would be the first new round of military base closings since 1995, defense officials and others close to the effort said this week.

The plan, which Defense Department officials hope to release by next Friday, is expected to meet intense protest on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers fear that closing bases could lose them votes. The Pentagon plan reportedly seeks to alter the base-closing process, which has been stalled for six years amid charges that it has become too politicized to be effective.

The legislation does not specify which bases would be proposed for closure, according to people familiar with the Pentagon’s proposal. It calls for creating an independent commission that would be charged with compiling such a list. But the legislation would limit both the power of the commission to carry out closures and that of the president to veto them.

In contrast to previous base closure rounds, the Pentagon is proposing to make some bases considered “essential” exempt from consideration by the commission. And the legislation would not permit privatization at installations scheduled for closure unless the commission expressly recommends it.

The Pentagon hopes this will mollify opponents of base closings who say that then-President Clinton subverted the process in 1995, when the administration moved to rescue targeted bases in California and Texas by privatizing their operations.

“We are indeed working on legislation that would describe how much infrastructure we need in the future,” Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said in an interview. “It’s pretty clear that this is needed. We are really trying to think this through and get it right.”

But even before the details of the plan emerge, opposition is forming among the many lawmakers who fear that closing bases in their communities would lose them votes.

While there is widespread agreement that closing military installations makes fiscal sense, actually closing bases, which are dotted throughout 72% of the nation’s congressional districts, has proved wildly unpopular politically in recent years.

So volatile is the issue that Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld was forced Thursday to disavow a top Pentagon official’s remarks about which bases are being targeted for closure. In an interview published in USA Today on Wednesday, Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment, said that some operations could be transferred out of the Southeast, where an increase in civilian aircraft and suburban sprawl is becoming a hindrance, and that some of the 150 military operations in the Norfolk, Va., area probably would be eliminated.

Sen. John W. Warner of Virginia, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in an interview that DuBois’ remark worried him. “I’m concerned because, when down there in the bowels [of the Pentagon] they are beginning to think about geographic areas, this is a new sort of formulation that I haven’t seen before in the process. So I’m going to sleep with one eye open as it relates to Ray DuBois and this process.”

According to Quigley, in a meeting organized by Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Rumsfeld assured Warner and other concerned senators that “the process that we will put in place will be fair and equitable, and there are no pre-decision lists that have been drawn up for any installations anywhere.”

Still, Rumsfeld and other top officials have made clear that they view base closings as inevitable. Pentagon officials have warned for years that continued congressional refusal to close more bases would compel the military branches to drop weapon programs or further reduce troop strength to compensate for the unrealized savings.

And now, with the Bush administration intent on pouring money into developing a high-tech national missile defense system while it is obligated to paying soaring military health care and infrastructure costs, the idea of saving money by closing obsolete military installations is gaining steam.

Rumsfeld and Army Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have told Congress repeatedly that base closings have not kept pace with the armed forces’ contraction since the end of the Cold War.

The Pentagon says it has 25% more bases than it needs.

Last week, Rumsfeld met with Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a strong advocate of base closings, on details of the legislation. McCain and Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have introduced legislation this year and in the last four years with similar proposals for altering the base-closing process.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. told reporters Wednesday that “the administration is very, very likely to ask for another round of authority to close military facilities.”

Rumsfeld has testified that if unneeded bases are shut down, the Pentagon could save up to $3.5 billion a year in operating costs, which could be spent on new arms and other improvements for the military.

“As little stomach as I have for [a base-closing round], we’re going to come at you,” Rumsfeld testified this month before the House Armed Services Committee.

Pentagon officials refused to give details of the plan, but they did confirm several ways in which the proposal might differ from previous base-closing rounds. In the first four rounds, from 1988 to 1995, the independent Base Realignment and Closure Commission reviewed every domestic military base and submitted a list of shutdown candidates to Congress for a straight up-or-down vote.

All told, 97 bases were shuttered, 29 of them in California. The Pentagon estimates the closings saved $14.5 billion.

But lawmakers complained bitterly that the process, by putting every base on the table as a candidate for cuts, led to unnecessary pain. Communities around the country defended their interests by hiring lobbyists and putting intense pressure on their elected officials to protect bases and the economic engine they provided.

The legislation under consideration in the Pentagon would specify categories of bases to be targeted and which bases would be exempt.

The legislation would also change the name of the commission, make it smaller and give lawmakers less say in who sits on it. The president would name members of the base-closing commission but would have no chance to veto their recommendations, as he previously could do.

The Pentagon is also considering limiting its request to one round of base closings. Such a move would be a compromise with legislators opposed to base closings, since it would limit the number of bases on the chopping block.

It is difficult to forecast which of California’s remaining 60 bases could be closed in a new base-closing round. Any list of bases to be considered awaits the outcome of the Quadrennial Defense Review, a wide-ranging study of military needs the Pentagon is required to complete in October.

In previous rounds, Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station near Oxnard, China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station northeast of Los Angeles and Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento have been mentioned as possible closure targets.