Defense authorizers expected to battle over controversial BRAC-related provision

The fate of Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia will likely become a heated point of contention today as the House Armed Services Committee marks up its 2008 defense authorization bill.

Rep. Solomon Ortiz’s (D-Texas) decision to include language in his Armed Services readiness subcommittee markup directing the Secretary of the Navy to assess the possibility of relocating its master jet base from Virginia Beach is already drawing fire from some members of the committee, who are planning to offer legislation to overturn the readiness subcommittee chairman’s language.

{mosads}“The primary concern that I have is that it is somewhat unprecedented that the subcommittee would begin to go in and open up that festering wound [in the base closure and realignment commission (BRAC)] and begin the process of opening up the BRAC decisions,” said Rep. Randy Forbes (R-Va.), a member of the Armed Services panel.

“There are some members who feel it is to their advantage to open the BRAC process,” Forbes said in an interview. “It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that there are some members who would benefit by having the master jet base located [elsewhere.]”

In an unusual move, Ortiz recommended a number of alternative locations for the naval center. Other than in his own district, every other possible locale detailed in the markup falls in a Republican-held district.

The alternatives suggested in the readiness subcommittee markup are: Naval Air Station Kingsville, Texas, in Ortiz’s district; Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., which is in Rep. Walter Jones’s district; Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, S.C., which is in Rep. Joe Wilson’s district; Naval Air Station Key West, Fla., which is in Rep. Vern Buchanan’s district; Naval Air Station Pensacola, Fla., which is in Rep. Jeff Miller’s district, and Naval Air Station Meridian, Miss., which is in Rep. Charles Pickering’s (R) district.

“This language is taking us down the path of opening Pandora’s Box,” Forbes said, adding that other members may want to open other BRAC decisions if this language sticks.

“The BRAC commission did study this and spoke to it and the BRAC commission concluded that pilots were not being trained adequately,” said Cathy Travis, Ortiz’s spokeswoman. “Mr. Ortiz and other members of the committee have expressed concern about the fact that the pilots do not train as they fight. It is not unprecedented to have a study about that.”

Oceana Naval Air Station, which is in Rep. Thelma Drake’s (R-Va.) district, has been hotly debated since the 2005 BRAC commission concluded that development around the base was hazardous to pilots and residents, and was hampering the Navy’s ability to train pilots properly. Drake is also a member of the defense panel.

The commission urged that hundreds of F/A-18 Hornets and Super Hornets be relocated from Oceana to Cecil Field, a former Naval base just outside Jacksonville, Fla.

While local opposition in Jacksonville derailed that plan, Virginia Beach and state officials embraced most of a long list of commission recommendations aimed at controlling growth around Oceana.

The sprawling base represents an economic boon for Virginia Beach, employing 12,000 people with an annual payroll of more than $700 million.

Virginia Beach officials spent much of the past two years in a battle with the federal government to keep the jets in the city and succeeded in January when the Defense Department’s inspector general decided that Oceana would remain the master jet base.

According to various reports, Navy leaders signaled their satisfaction with local officials’ plans to restrict development around the base and told lawmakers they expected to retain the base as long as commercial and residential growth is curbed.

Virginia Beach has plans to spend $15 million a year to address the issue of encroachment raised by the BRAC commission. Meanwhile, the Navy is trying to find a training site for pilots to practice carrier landings somewhere between Oceana and the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point.

According to the markup language released yesterday, the Navy is to submit its assessment by Feb. 1, 2008, and if the service leaders decide that Oceana is the best-suited location, they have to provide an assessment on fleet readiness.

Forbes said he had not yet discussed the issue with Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), but said he was planning to. If amendments to strike the language are not successful today, Forbes is putting his hopes in the Senate Armed Services panel, where former Chairman John Warner (R-Va.) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.) are stalwart supporters of Oceana.

“I hope that people in the Senate are a little wiser than we are. It could become a feeding frenzy at some point,” Forbes said.

Oceana would not be the only BRAC decision that lawmakers are looking to change. Following the revelation of substandard care at the Army’s Walter Reed Medical Center and subsequent remedies that were implemented, some lawmakers moved to keep the hospital open despite the BRAC commission’s recommendation to close it.

In an effort to improve conditions at Walter Reed, Ortiz’s committee has provided an additional $50 million for the defense health program.

Jones, who filled in for ailing readiness subcommittee ranking member Rep. Jo Ann Davis (R-Va.) yesterday, commended yesterday’s mark.

Jones — who has been trying repeatedly to change the name of the Department of the Navy to the Department of the Navy and the Marine Corps — has secured such language in the markup.
While the House has passed previous defense authorization bills containing the change, the new name never made it through conference with the Senate. But Jones now has renewed hope with Democrats in control of Congress and the gavel of the Senate Armed Services panel in Sen. Carl Levin’s (D-Mich.) hands. Levin’s office did not comment by press time.

Meanwhile, in the wake of a National Guard readiness scandal prompted by last weekend’s deadly tornado in Kansas, members are expected to offer amendments to allocate more money towards National Guard equipment and readiness.

Ortiz has already included a provision requiring the Pentagon to report on the readiness of the Guard to support governors in matters of homeland security and following natural disasters.

The Army’s vice chief of staff, Gen. Richard Cody, is personally calling members of the House Armed Services Committee, including Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), to advocate for the Joint Cargo Aircraft (JCA) program, according to several sources.

Securing funding for the JCA will be among several hot-button issues during the full committee markup of the 2008 defense authorization bill. Funding for the JCA, a joint program between the Army and Air Force, is dependent on the Secretary of Defense submitting several reports to the committee.

{mosads}Among them are the Air Force’s air mobility study, the Department of Defense’s intra-theater airlift capabilities study and joint intra-theater distribution assessment, the JCA functional area series analysis and the so-called JCA analysis of alternatives.

The Secretary must certify there is a gap within the Army and Air Force and both services’ National Guard with respect to intra-theater lift and that the JCA would fill that gap. The Army has expressed a more pressing need for the aircraft than the Air Force.

The National Guard also has been vying for the JCA to fill in at bases that are losing the C-130 cargo aircraft through the 2005 base closure and realignment process.

Some committee members are considering amendments to strike the report language from the defense authorization bill and clear the path for the Army to start buying the aircraft. A contract award for the JCA is expected later this month or by early June. At press time members were still deliberating as to who would offer the amendment.

The Army’s much-coveted Future Combat Systems (FCS) also could stir up controversy during the full committee’s deliberations on the authorization bill. The Air and Land Forces subcommittee recommended more than $800 million in cuts to the FCS, drawing concerns from Reps. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and Jim Saxton (R-N.J.) 

Fallout from a fight over a specialty metals clause, known as the Berry amendment, may spill into defense authorization deliberations this year. Skelton is closely watching compliance to the compromise legislation the Senate and the House reached last year. Skelton, together with Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), the committee’s ranking member and a strong supporter of the U.S. special-metals industry, last week sent a letter to the Pentagon’s acquisition czar, Ken Krieg, expressing concern that the Pentagon is issuing too many waivers exempting fastener manufacturers from the law.

“We have great concern about the submission of class, corporate-wide or multi-service level non-availability determinations,” the two lawmakers wrote. The aim of last year’s legislation “was to create an executable framework for balancing the interests of acquiring defense articles as efficiently as possible, while also ensuring the domestic supply of strategic materials critical to national security.”

Language in the defense authorization markup reflects the committee’s focus on limiting waivers to the duration of the non-availability of a domestic specialty metals. The committee also requires the Pentagon to keep close accounting of all non-compliant specialty metals purchased under certain contracts.

In an attempt to rein in other acquisition problems stemming from contracting abuses, defense authorizers are looking to limit to one year defense contracts of more than $1 million awarded without competitive bids. Defense officials can waive that limitation if they determine the government would be hurt if the contract period were shortened.

Defense authorizers also are planning to require the heads of executive agencies that have awarded contracts of $1 billion or more to come up with plans to use fixed-price contracts for the procurement of goods and services, including “a single plan for the Department of Defense.”

A provision in the defense authorization markup requires the secretaries of State and Defense and the administrator of USAID to sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) regarding matters relating specifically to contracting for Iraq and Afghanistan. The MOU would clarify the roles and responsibilities of the two departments and USAID in managing and overseeing contracts, including overseeing contracting personnel and establishing a common database on the contracts.

Meanwhile, defense authorizers are planning to give the secretaries of the military services more flexibility to determine the numbers of deputy chiefs of staff, but that number should not exceed eight.