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The Mother of All Base Closings
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21917 |
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CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
Date : |
6 / 1993 |
1,962 Words |
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James Burbank
James Burbank is a freelance writer based in Albuquerque. |
News of the base closures proposed by Secretary of Defense Les Aspin hit like rolling thunder in mid-March. Dubbed by Aspin the "mother of all base closings," the proposal is now under consideration by the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission. As House Armed Services Committee chairman, Aspin helped create the eight-member bipartisan review commission to consider Pentagon base closure recommendations, independent of pressure from anxious legislators.
The battle of the bases has been going on since 1988, when a Pentagon panel met in secret session, closing 16 installations and realigning 11. Early in 1990 Congress rejected 35 base closures recommended by then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. In June 1991 the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission decided to close 31 major facilities, saving 4 that the Pentagon had targeted.
Aspin's current hit list slates 31 major bases in 15 states for closure and scales back operations at 134 additional installations, in order to save $3.1 billion annually after the year 2000, estimates. The Defense Department controls a real estate empire that includes some 3,800 properties of all descriptions, including 481 major installations. Maintaining and operating properties costs the military over $20 billion annually.
Two days before the current hit list surfaced, Aspin told Congress to expect another round of closings in 1995. Including cuts implemented since 1988, total savings will be about $5.6 billion a year. Including the current list, the base closings will be the equivalent of 15 percent of the plant replacement value of the entire base network. Plant replacement value is the measure sued by the Pentagon to determine the current dollar cost of facility replacement.
If Clinton approves the final closure recommendations, congress must consider the entire package as a whole and can reject the proposal only by majority vote in both houses. On July 1 the package will go to the president.
CLOSED DOOR OPEN DOOR
New defense cutbacks could strafe the weakest economic recovery since the end of World War II, already beset by lackluster new job formation and sluggish growth. "One thing we're kind of keen on doing is not speculating about local economic impact," says one analyst close to the base closure process. Such guarded statements by experts immediately give rise to their own speculation:
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