Panel Moves to Blunt Threat of Base Closures

California needs to emphasize the favorable locations and other advantages of the state’s military bases as it seeks to stave off another round of Pentagon cuts next year, local officials and community leaders told state lawmakers Wednesday.

The defense officials who will make the cuts are “not interested in what happened in the past when they’re making these” decisions, said Phil Arnold, speaking for the China Lake Defense Alliance and Edwards Air Force Base at a hearing before the Senate Select Committee on Defense and Aerospace Industry. “We ought to be focusing on why California bases are needed rather than why California needs bases.”

The committee, led by Sen. Roy Ashburn (R-Bakersfield), was following Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s lead by soliciting input from local officials and community leaders as the nationwide debate over military base closings begins anew. Lawmakers praised Schwarzenegger for using his State of the State speech earlier this month to make a pitch for defending California’s remaining military bases from the next round of scheduled base closings and consolidations in 2005.

More than 275,000 military and civilian personnel are employed at bases and installations in California, according to testimony before the Senate committee.

Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale) expressed concern about whether California’s congressional delegation -- a fractious lot in past base debates -- would set aside partisanship to defend the state’s facilities.

“When anything happens in Florida concerning a base, the whole Legislature is behind it plus all the retired generals that are there, and it’s difficult to do anything with that base,” said Knight. “We have almost three times as many representatives [in Congress], and I don’t know why we can’t get them together to support California as a bloc.”

California’s congressional delegation and two U.S. senators -- Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer -- have pledged to work together to defend California’s interests before the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. In a statement read to the committee, Boxer, who is facing reelection in November, said California had endured more than its fair share of base closures.