washingtonscene
LEGISLATIVE NEWS THAT AFFECTS YOU BRAC Back?
The president’s FY 2013 budget proposes two additional rounds of base realignment and closure (BRAC) initiatives. Most legislators don’t want any more closures, but that might not be the last word.
D
efense officials say they’ll ask Congress to approve another round of BRACs for 2013 and 2015.
The combination of significant DoD bud- get cuts and an impending force draw- down, defense leaders say, will leave the military with excess facilities at home and abroad, so they want to eliminate ex- cess facilities to help contain costs. But congressional leaders have been cool to that plan, to say the least. To begin with, closing facilities and
relocating jobs hurts local economies. At a time when the nation’s economic recovery already is shaky and there is continued high unemployment, legisla- tors are even more resistant than usual to closing or downsizing military facilities in their home states and districts. That inherent reluctance is why Con-
gress developed special rules to consider BRAC proposals. It starts with appointing a nonpartisan BRAC committee to make rec- ommendations on closures and ends with a congressional “yes or no” vote on the whole proposal, without any changes. But the most recent round of base clo-
sures (begun in 2005) left a particularly sour taste in legislators’ mouths, as sev- eral haven’t gone smoothly and projected savings have been slow to materialize. For all those reasons, most congressio- nal leaders say they’ll fight to keep from having another BRAC round. But that’s not the end of the story be- cause Pentagon officials are making plans
to start closing some facilities with or without the consent of Congress. Because of the publicity surrounding the four BRAC commissions over the past 20 years, many overlook that the Penta- gon doesn’t need congressional approval to close installations with fewer than 300 civilian personnel. The law also lets DoD close larger
bases, as long as it gives Congress ad- vance notice and Congress doesn’t act to block the closures. So the seeds are being sown for a poten- tially significant confrontation, depending on how large a list of closures might be sought and whether Congress has the col- lective will to bar some or all of them.
Are You an Unfunded
A
Members Reinforce Hill-Stormers A special MOAA legisla- tive alert April 16 urged members to email their legislators in support of MOAA’s April 18 Hill-storming effort (see page 34). Members generated more than 40,000 messages to their legislators within 48 hours.
Liability? Economists’ view of the cost of war distorts reality.
(now somewhat dated) article about the long-term cost of war cited an “unfunded liability” of
$1.3 trillion to provide future disability and burial benefits for veterans — and that fig- ure didn’t include health care. Health care costs, it said, could add an-
other $1 trillion over the next 40 years for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans alone.
JUNE 2012 MILITARY OFFICER 29
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