Two-year base-closing delay could derail process

Washington lobbyists are finding themselves in a Catch-22 as the House Armed Services Committee marks up a bill Wednesday to delay the next round of the base realignment and closure process. While many consultants are pushing postponement of the BRAC process, observers say the rising demand for BRAC consulting services is likely to wane in the potential two-year interim.

Last week the House Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee voted to delay the BRAC process by two years. Subcommittee Chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo., said that, given the current climate of conflict in Iraq and the ongoing war on terrorism, now is the wrong time to be closing military installations.

But Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., said BRAC is a necessary exercise and that a delay would further burden local communities already spending copious amounts of money on Washington consulting services in an effort to shield their bases from closure.

"Literally tens upon tens of billions of dollars are spent by taxpayers in communities in defense of bases and it's money, really, at the end of the day, that isn't going to make one damn bit of difference," McHugh said during the subcommittee's markup of the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill. Postponing the upcoming BRAC round means that "for the next two years they're going to spend and spend and spend more," he said. "I think the effect will be just the opposite of what my colleagues want to have."

But some military consultants disagree. With no wolf at the door, the more likely result of a 2007 BRAC is that lobbyists will see a downturn in demand for their services, said Paul Hirsch, president of Madison Government Affairs, a Washington-based consulting firm. Hirsch added that states will likely continue working internally, through legislative and other efforts, to bolster their bases against the seemingly inevitable base closure round.

"I see states working diligently during this two-year delay to make their environments the most advantageous to having military installations," Hirsch said. "That may be a real positive for the Defense Department, as this administration and future administrations look for ways to find savings and efficiencies among military bases."

Christopher Hellman, director of the Project on Military Spending Oversight at the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, said the greatest impact of a two-year delay of BRAC is that it would give opponents more time to abolish the process entirely.

"Delaying the BRAC process buys BRAC opponents two more years to derail the process," Hellman said.

Jerry Say, chairman of the South Bay Association of Chambers of Commerce, said communities need to be prepared regardless of any pending delay in the BRAC schedule. "It's going to happen sooner or later, so I think everybody needs to be prepared," said Say, who co-chairs the Los Angeles Air Force Base Regional Alliance, a group working to save the base, which is home of the Air Force Space and Missile Systems Center. Say said many communities likely would work hard to continue bracing their bases against closure.

Say said bases "on the margin" might be able to tweak certain aspects to improve their position. But he added that the additional time might not make much difference for those bases already at risk.

Many lawmakers argue that given the conflict in Iraq and the ongoing fight against terrorism, the Pentagon is in no position to predict what its basing needs might be in the future. Others argue that while a 2007 BRAC round might yield vastly different results than a round of closures in 2005, the military still is likely to be burdened with crises in far flung locales.

"The argument about now is not the right time is somewhat compelling," Hellman said. "But do we really expect there to be an end to the war on terrorism?"

Daniel Else, an analyst with the Congressional Research Service, asserted that one of the Bush Pentagon's goals -- transforming the U.S. military into a lighter, leaner and more agile fighting force -- can be better supported by a military infrastructure that reflects those fundamental changes.

"BRAC is intimately tied to the concept of military transformation," said Else, an expert on military base closure issues. "If we transform the military into a lighter, more flexible expeditionary-style force, then it only makes sense to transform all of the support functions, which include infrastructure, to closely reflect that transformed military."

Else said he does not see the issue of BRAC as logically linked to current conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but said Pentagon leaders likely are too preoccupied with immediate operations to devote as much attention to domestic and overseas basing plans as they otherwise might.

These distractions are "not going to help them present the case to the Congress that we should continue marching along with BRAC," he said. "It's not BRAC so much, but the Pentagon's global positioning strategy and military transformation that may be getting less attention right now than they otherwise would."

Hirsch said any delay in the forthcoming base closure round would not only give the Pentagon more time to make critical decisions affecting future infrastructure -- it also would give lawmakers time to gain more insight into the military's base closure selection process and how it is informed by the Pentagon's forthcoming global basing strategy.