House committee ponders approach to base closings

As the time for the fiscal 2005 defense authorization markup approaches, the House Armed Services Committee is mulling its approach to the Pentagon's upcoming base realignment and closure round.

Observers say that if Republican members do not take a proactive stance on the BRAC process, they risk generating bipartisan support for minority amendments that seek to delay or kill the controversial process.

Armed Services Committee Democrats have already proposed a bill that would delay the 2005 base closure process for two years. The bill, introduced in late March by Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas, echoes an effort last year by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., to eliminate the 2005 base-closing round altogether.

Taylor's bill never made it beyond the committee, but it garnered 21 co-sponsors and passed in subcommittee, taking some Republican members by surprise.

This year, bipartisan support for delaying the BRAC process already is starting to build, with Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., likely to support Ortiz's bill if it comes to a vote, according to a Ryun spokesman.

While few expect Ortiz's bill to go far, observers note that several Republicans are voicing concern about the BRAC process.

Besides Ryun, GOP Reps. Heather Wilson of New Mexico, Robin Hayes and Walter Jones of North Carolina and Tom Cole of Oklahoma are increasingly nervous about the upcoming round, one congressional aide observed.

An Armed Services Committee spokesman said several members have approached Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., with concerns about the BRAC process. He said the committee is now sifting through a number of proposals.

But Hunter may find it difficult to maintain unity among the Republican ranks on the BRAC issue, according to Christopher Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight at the Center for Arms Control and Non-proliferation.

Hellman said Democratic lawmakers are likely to consider a number of so-called "poison pill" amendments that could bog down the process or delay it.

Last year, the House voted to scale back the next BRAC round through two amendments to its version of the fiscal 2004 defense authorization bill.

The first amendment, offered by Hunter, would have required the Defense secretary's base closure recommendations to leave sufficient capacity for a force of at least 200,000 more active duty troops, as called for in a 1991 force structure baseline, than the military's current strength. The BRAC process also would have to retain enough facilities in the United States to house all forces currently based overseas.

The second provision would have required the Pentagon to prepare a list of at least 50 percent of active domestic installations that would be excluded from the BRAC process. The list was to include core military bases considered essential to national defense. Taken together, the two proposals would have triggered a presidential veto, and so they did not survive the conference.

This year, Republicans could try to delay BRAC until lawmakers can thoroughly review a military global posture review currently under way. The department has no plans to share the study with Congress, although Pentagon officials say the study will inform the BRAC process.

Members also could legislate changes in the Pentagon's base closure selection criteria, published in February, which some lawmakers say do not reflect concerns expressed during a public comment period held earlier this year.