Base Realignment and Closure, 2005

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2005 U.S. Base Realignment and Closure Program (BRAC 2005).
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The preliminary 2005 Base Realignment and Closure list was released by the United States Department of Defense on May 13, 2005. It is the fifth Base Realignment and Closure ("BRAC") proposal generated since the process was created in 1988. It recommends closing 33 major United States military bases and the "realignment" (either enlarging or shrinking) of 29 others. On September 15, 2005, President George W. Bush approved the BRAC Commission's recommendations, leaving the fate of the bases in question to the United States Congress. Congress had a maximum of 45 days to reject the proposal by passing a joint resolution of disapproval, or the recommendations automatically enter into effect. Such a resolution (H.J.Res. 65) was introduced to the House of Representatives on September 23 2005, by Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) (no such resolution was introduced in the Senate). The House took up debate of the resolution on October 26 2005. The resolution failed to pass, thereby enacting the list of recommendations. The Secretary of Defense must begin implementing the recommendations by September 15, 2007 and complete implementation not later than September 15, 2011.

Justifications

Pentagon officials calculated that, if adopted in full by the nine-member BRAC Commission, the recommendations would have saved almost $50 billion over 20 years. The BRAC Commission (officially known as the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission) disputed this claim, pointing out what it considered to be significant flaws in the Department's methodology. The Commission recalculated the 20-year savings of the DOD recommendation list at just above $37 billion. Between late May and late August, the Commission reviewed the list and amended many of the Pentagon's recommendations, removing several major installations from the closure list. The Commission has calculated the overall 20-year savings to the government in carrying out its amended list of recommendations as close to $15 billion.

Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on May 12, 2005 that the two-year effort to produce the list had several objectives:

*better integrate active and reserve units

*rearrange forces to be able to act around the globe

*make the military more flexible and agile

*improve cooperation between military service branches while training and fighting

*convert unneeded capacity into warfighting capability

The 2005 BRAC round is the fifth since the process was initiated in 1988, and it is the first since 1995. It differs significantly from its predecessors in several respects:

*it is the first with a nine-member commission (the 1991, 1993, and 1995 commissions had eight members)

*it is the only stand-alone round authorized by Congress (the 1988 BRAC round was initiated by the Secretary of Defense, and the 1991-1995 rounds were authorized together in the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Act of 1990)

*it is the first BRAC round focused on military force transformation, not infrastructure reduction

*it is the only round to form part of a worldwide defense infrastructure review that includes similar examination of U.S. installations overseas

*it is the first BRAC to significantly impact the National Guard, causing several states to file legal proceedings attempting to stay or cause recommendations to be thrown out

Recommendations

Major bases slated for closure (ordered by branch of the military):

*14 major Army bases

*9 major Navy bases

*10 major Air Force bases

Major facilities slated for closure include:

*Fort McPherson in Georgia

*Naval Submarine Base New London in Connecticut (removed from list August 24, 2005)

*Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine (removed from list August 26, 2005)

*Brunswick Naval Air Station in Maine

*Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota (removed from list August 26, 2005)

*Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico (temporarily removed from closure August 26, 2005, pending review of new mission assignment)

*Fort Monmouth in New Jersey

*Defense Finance and Accounting Service in New York

* Fort Monroe, Virginia

*Willow Grove Naval Air Station/Joint Reserve Base in Pennsylvania

Major facilities slated for realignment include:

*Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

*Army Human Resource Command (HRC) in Missouri

*Naval Station Great Lakes in Illinois

*Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia (extent contingent on reopening the former Naval Air Station Cecil Field in Florida)

*Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota

*Eielson Air Force Base and Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska

*Rome Laboratory in New York

The process of closing bases and moving people and activities must begin within two years and end within six years and would incur considerable initial cost. Somewhat less than half of the eventual savings would come directly from eliminating the cost of running closed bases. More than half would come from consolidating administrative, technical, and industrial services; and by increasing the amount of joint military services and facilities available for education, training, intelligence, medical, supply and storage.

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