Base-closing threats have lobbyists afoot

[thedrifter]

Base-closing threats have lobbyists afoot

State bases get cash to stave off closures

By Otto Kreisher
COPLEY NEWS SERVICE

October 20, 2003

WASHINGTON ? All across the country, state and local governments are committing large sums of money from tight budgets to efforts they hope will shield their military facilities from the threat of another round of closing bases.

In California, the cash-strapped state government gave $50,000 each to seven local governments to help them develop programs to protect potentially vulnerable bases.

Among those that received grants were the city and county of San Diego, which have a number of possible targets for closure.

San Diego city and county governments each provided $30,000 to help pay for a consultant to lead the defensive campaign.

Several experts questioned whether spending the money will do any good given that previous lobbying efforts proved to be in vain.

Four previous rounds closed 29 major bases and dozens of smaller ones in the state, taking away 98,369 uniformed and civilian defense jobs and an estimated $9.6 billion in annual spending.

California still has 61 military installations with about 165,000 personnel, making it a ripe target for additional closures in the 2005 round, which Pentagon officials said would be intended to reduce base capacity by as much as 25 percent.

Applying that percentage to the 425 large facilities in the United States could mean closing 100 or more bases. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld insisted last week that no one has set a number of bases to close.

The Pentagon is expected to set its criteria next year and present its list of recommended closures and adjustments in early 2005.

Officials have said the emphasis will be on protecting bases used by more than one service. They have said the major surplus is in research, development, test and evaluation sites.

California has a number of facilities in that category, including the China Lake Naval Air Weapons Test Center, just 50 miles from the larger Edwards Air Force Base, as well as the Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Test Station, 80 miles down the coast from Vandenberg Air Force Base, which is larger and more isolated.

Reps. Duncan Hunter, R-El Cajon, and Randy "Duke" Cunningham, R-Escondido, said Navy Secretary Gordon England told them it was unlikely any of the large Navy and Marine Corps bases in San Diego County would close.

But smaller units or facilities could be shuttered, they said.

The Marine Corps Recruit Depot next to the airport and the submarine base at Point Loma's Ballast Point are considered possible targets.

Despite these vulnerabilities, analysts who have studied or were involved in the previous base closure rounds argue that most of the protective efforts rely on public relations or lobbying and are a waste of money.

"If the system works the way it's supposed to, it's so isolated from politics that lobbying shouldn't be effective," said Christopher Hellman, who analyzed the closure process for the Center for Defense Information.

Ken Beeks, an analyst with Business Executives for National Security, said, "I don't think it influences the decision. . . . But it probably makes the city fathers feel better."

None of the analysts interviewed could offer an example of where lobbying or political pressure saved a base from being closed or trimmed in the four previous rounds of base closings.

"If the community's efforts made a difference, Philadelphia (Navy) shipyard would still be open," said Paul Taibl of the business executives group. "They went all the way to the (U.S.) Supreme Court."

He noted that Philadelphia also had a powerful congressional delegation lobbying aggressively, yet the historic shipyard was closed anyway.

Retired Navy Capt. Michael Doubleday, who was in the Pentagon for two of the closure rounds, said, "The process they go through at the Pentagon is a numbers-based process. It's auditable. . . . They have to be able, after the fact, to make the case that the decision was based on the data."

The calculations of multiple factors go into an overall evaluation called "military value," which is supposed to be the standard for comparing similar facilities.

Whatever the chances, the anti-base closure lobbying efforts have reached new heights.

Illinois has hired former Democratic Sen. Alan Dixon, who chaired the 1995 base closure commission, to lead its lobbying effort to save Scott Air Force Base, the one major military facility in the state considered to be vulnerable.

Florida, which has a large military presence, has committed $500,000 to hire a law firm that includes former House Armed Services Committee member Tillie Flower to help protect its bases. Pensacola, home to four naval air training bases, hired its own lobbying firm.

Georgia has Sam Nunn, a former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman, as an unpaid co-chairman of its efforts to keep its military bases.

And Massachusetts hired retired Air Force chief of staff Ron Fogleman to help protect one of its few major bases.

It appears that virtually every state with large military bases has launched some kind of anti-base closure campaign.

But Keith Ashdown of the Taxpayers for Common Sense said the people responsible for the next round of base closures are aware of charges of political bias raised by then-President Clinton to subvert the decision of the last base closure commission. "They are very committed to keeping politics out of the new process," Ashdown said.

That message apparently has gotten through to a number of states, including California.

"We read the tea leaves on that," said William Jefferds, the military adviser to Gov. Gray Davis and head of California's Defense Retention and Conversion Council.

As a result, Jefferds said, the state is trying to be more hospitable, working with local communities and the military to find ways to reduce encroachment ? which can mean development too close to a base, environmental restrictions or conflicting air traffic patterns from civil airports ? or to reduce bases' operating cost.

Encroachment and the relative cost of operations will be key factors in comparing similar facilities in the next round of base closures.

Jefferds said state officials are also trying to get the California congressional delegation to require that one of the criteria for military value is "intellectual capital," which can include academic, industrial or technical expertise available on or near a base.

He cited Los Angeles Air Force Base and China Lake as facilities with "huge intellectual capital" value.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...1n20bases.html


Sempers,

Roger