Pentagon proposes new round of base closures

The Pentagon’s fiscal 2016 budget request released Monday calls for another round of military base closures to begin in 2017.

The proposal is expected to meet tough opposition in Congress, as lawmakers have rejected such calls for years over concerns facilities in their districts could be targeted.

{mosads}But the Pentagon’s comptroller said Monday he believed lawmakers would finally agree to a new Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process.

“Do I think the Congress will ultimately agree to BRAC? I do,” Pentagon comptroller Michael McCord said during a press briefing Monday.

McCord cited his prior work with the staff of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, on a previous BRAC round.

McCain, as chairman of the Armed Services panel, would oversee the crafting of the 2016 defense budget in the Senate. 

“In my previous life, I worked on Capitol Hill for many years, and I spent five years working with Sen. McCain’s staff, at the time to get authority for what turned into the 2005 BRAC round,” McCord said. 

“We started back in 1997. So it doesn’t necessarily happen overnight. and in this case, it certainly has not,” he added. 

Pentagon officials say at least 20 percent of its bases and facilities are underutilized and shuttering them could save needed funds.

“The Department is wasting scarce defense resources on maintaining facilities that far exceed DOD’s needs,” a Pentagon budget overview released on Monday said. 

“I think the case is still compelling,” McCord said.

“I would believe that anybody running a business, large or small, would say that every 10 to 12 years if you had an organization as large as this one, it’s time to look at your physical footprint and see if it still was relevant to your needs,” he continued. 

Air Force Lt. Gen. Mark Ramsey, Joint Chiefs of Staff director for force structure, resources and assessment, noted the Pentagon first moved to close excess facilities overseas.

Congress should now look at excess infrastructure stateside, he said. 

“One of the things Congress has been telling us in the last couple of years is to reduce your overseas infrastructure, and we just announced the European infrastructure reductions in the last several months,” Ramsey said.  

“So we’ve done our piece of that,” he added.