Base Closure Pontification Continues
I haven't talked about base closure efforts in a while. Time for an update.
ABC provides the latest:
The base closing commission voted Friday to keep open Air Force bases in South Dakota and New Mexico rejecting the Pentagon's plans to close them as the panel labored toward conclusion of a politically delicate task that has brought alternating sighs of relief and exasperation in communities across America.
Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota would remain fully operational and Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico would stay open at least until Dec. 31, 2009 but lose all of its aircraft....
Ellsworth, famous for its Cold War-era arsenal of missiles and nuclear bombers aimed toward the Soviet Union, is home to half the nation's fleet of B1-B bombers and means some 4,000 jobs for the South Dakota plains. The Pentagon had wanted to move all the bombers to their other location, Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.
But the commission found that closing Ellsworth wouldn't save any money over 20 years, and that it actually would cost nearly $20 million to move the planes to the Texas base. The Pentagon had projected saving $1.8 billion over two decades with the closure.
The base closing panel worried that putting all the B1-B bombers at one base would hurt force readiness. Commissioners noted that Ellsworth, located on the South Dakota prairie, had plenty of "unfettered airspace."...
The panel found that closing Cannon, home to four F-16 fighter squadrons, would put at least a 20 percent dent in the local economy, costing almost 5,000 jobs on the base and in the community near the New Mexico-Texas line....
The panel has until Sept. 8 to send its final report to President Bush. The president can accept it, reject it or send it back for revisions. Congress also will have a chance to veto the plan in its entirety but it has not taken that step in four previous rounds of base closings. If ultimately approved, the changes would occur over the next six years.
While casting doubt on the estimated savings, the commission has largely endorsed Rumsfeld's effort to streamline support services across the Army, Navy and Air Force by merging similar programs scattered around small military facilities....
For the latest information, visit http://www.defenselink.mil/brac/ and http://www.brac.gov/.
Oops, I forgot to talk about the pontification. Again from ABC:
The Ellsworth vote was...a victory for Sen. John Thune and the state's other politicians who lobbied vigorously to save the base. Thune, a freshman Republican, unseated then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle partly on the strength of his claim that he would be better positioned to help save the base.
"This fight was not about me," Thune said just after the vote. "This whole decision was about the merits. It had nothing to do with the politics."...
"They made some tough decisions. Today, they listened to the whole story," Republican Gov. Michael Rounds said.
Added Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D.: "This is a great decision for America's national security."
And that's all they're concerned about - the national security. Yeah, right.
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