Pentagon May Call for More Base Closures

WASHINGTON — Wanting money to pay for new weapons, the Pentagon is ready to push for another round of military base closings, a proposal likely to spark fierce resistance from California and other states still trying to cope with shutdowns initiated two years ago.

Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, venturing where Pentagon officials recently have feared to tread, has declared that the Defense Department still has too much overhead for the size of its forces. As a result, he may call for further cuts in a major review of Pentagon functions to be completed in two weeks.

Closing additional domestic bases “is essential to reducing unnecessary defense expenses,” Cohen said in a report submitted this week to the White House and Congress.

Analysts predicted, however, that a new round of closings would find far more resistance from Capitol Hill because the last effort--announced in 1995--was so much more politically painful than had been expected. Indeed, in August 1995, amid an outpouring of local protests, President Clinton was said to have come close to vetoing the commission’s recommendations.

While at this point it remains a guessing game to name bases that might be imperiled in another round of cuts, experts single out three in California that have been mentioned before and could be in danger again:

* Point Mugu Naval Air Weapons Station near Oxnard, which has 2,400 military personnel and 5,000 civilian personnel.

* China Lake Naval Air Weapons Station, in the desert northeast of Los Angeles, with 1,000 active duty military personnel and 5,000 civilian personnel.

* Beale Air Force Base, 40 miles northwest of Sacramento, which has 400 civilian employees and 3,400 military personnel.

To begin a new round of closings, Congress probably would pass a law setting up a commission to select bases for elimination, as it has done in the past. Such a commission would consider the views of the public, and probably not complete its work until at least 1999. Under the rules of previous base-closing procedures, Congress and the White House would be bound to accept all of the commission’s recommendations or send the entire plan back for reworking.

Although communities and their congressional representatives usually react with intense opposition to closings that target bases in their areas, a lobbying effort by Cohen and other Pentagon officials would carry considerable weight. Thus, Congress and some states are taking the possibility of a new round of closings seriously.

State government officials in California, for example, are putting out feelers about organizing a coalition to try to fight off such efforts, according to a knowledgeable source.

“The word has gotten out quickly,” this source said.

An aide to a California lawmaker said that, although California was “slaughtered” in the last round of base closings, the state could get hit hard again. “We just have so many bases, even now,” this aide said.

Nationwide, four previous rounds of closings have touched 230 bases across the United States. Among them were 97 major base closings and 69 major-base “realignments.”

California has been by far the hardest-hit state, losing 22 major bases since 1988 and an estimated 123,000 jobs. Pennsylvania, the second hardest-hit, by comparison has lost just six bases and 35,000 jobs.

Many military officials believe that the Pentagon’s overhead costs are still far above what they should be for the shrunken post-Cold War military. Cohen has pointed out, for example, that--while troop strength has been cut by 33% in recent years--infrastructure has been cut by only 18%.

Part of the pressure for more closings is generated by concerns among military leaders that they no longer can delay new weapons spending, as they have for much of this decade. With military budgets likely to remain at about $250 billion, plus inflation, for the next five years, money for new weapons has to come from somewhere.

The military chiefs would rather cut spending on bases than on personnel, defense analysts said.

Kenneth Bacon, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that Cohen would not decide whether to propose another round of closures until the quadrennial defense review is completed in two weeks. He said that proposing more closings is “tricky” because “there’s not a lot of political desire to do this, to say the least.”

This year, opponents of closings are prominently positioned on congressional committees. And while the advocates include some important lawmakers, such as Rep. Dick Armey (R-Texas), they appear to be outnumbered.

Reaction from many opponents was summed up earlier this week in a comment from Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), chairman of the House National Security Committee’s installations subcommittee.

“Does ‘over my dead body’ make it clear enough?” he said.

William J. Perry, Cohen’s predecessor, had argued for another round of base closings after those announced in 1995. But he knew after the bitter struggle that marked the ’95 decision that it was unlikely another round would be initiated in the election year of 1996. And he did not push for it in his final year in office.

The Defense Science Board, an expert advisory group, has in two separate reports declared that more cuts in bases are needed to eliminate unneeded and expensive properties. Earlier rounds “just didn’t go far enough,” said Erik Pages, vice president of Business Executives for National Security, a Washington advocacy group.

Additionally, the last four rounds have not generated the savings that some had predicted. The military real estate has proved far less valuable to buyers than expected. And the costs of shutting down the bases, including those related to environmental cleanup, have been far higher than expected.