The top officials for the Navy and Marine Corps told lawmakers Tuesday that they do not expect to cut much spare capacity if a new base closure round goes ahead in 2015. “We in the Navy have taken previous BRAC rounds very seriously,” Navy Secretary Ray Mabus told the House Armed Services Committee. “We’ve shed most of our duplicative and overlapping bases and services …
At a House hearing Friday primarily focused on the Pentagon’s request to hold a round of base closures in 2015, lawmakers were not particularly vociferous in their opposition to BRAC, but the DOD witnesses still found themselves needing to convince a skeptical appropriations subcommittee about the rationale for a new round. In characterizing the extent to which the military has spare capacity at its installations, Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and environment, painted the most vivid portrait when she described her service’s reliance on attrition to trim its end strength by 80,000 soldiers by 2017 …
Holding a BRAC round isn’t the only strategy the Defense Department is pursuing to find savings from underused facilities. By the end of the year, officials expect to complete a plan that will recommend ways “to reduce underutilization” at military hospitals and clinics, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told lawmakers Thursday during a hearing on the Pentagon’s fiscal 2014 budget request …
The Pentagon is requesting a new base closure round in 2015, but in a change from last year’s request for additional BRAC rounds, officials allocated funding in the new budget proposal to cover the upfront costs of carrying out the process of trimming DOD’s infrastructure. If nothing else, the decision to include $2.4 billion over the next five years to pay for a new base closure round should inoculate the Obama administration against accusations that it’s not serious about paring its infrastructure …
Despite recently auctioning off a high-profile property in Northwest Washington, D.C., the federal government still has a way to go in its effort to streamline the process for agencies to dispose of excess properties. Last month a development team submitted the winning bid of $19.5 million to purchase the Georgetown West Heating Plant, a vacant property over the past decade that has cost $3.5 million in annual upkeep. Still, only a minority of the savings made in response to President Obama’s initiative to cut real estate spending has come from getting rid of some of the federal government’s 14,000 excess properties …
Reports of BRAC’s death have not been greatly exaggerated, at least according to the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. On Tuesday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said he didn’t expect the Obama administration to request new base closure rounds in its fiscal 2014 budget request since Congress already made it clear last year that it was opposed to authorizing additional BRAC rounds …
The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Wednesday approved a measure that would establish a five-year pilot program to expedite the disposal of the federal government’s most profitable surplus properties. H.R. 328, the Excess Federal Building and Property Disposal Act, would remove red tape and increase transparency by creating an online database for all property owned by the federal government …
The Pentagon’s plan to shrink the Army’s active duty end strength from 570,00 soldiers in fiscal 2010 to 490,000 soldiers by FY 2017, along with possibility of greater reductions forced by sequestration, are the primary drivers behind the service’s argument that it needs a base closure round to trim excess capacity. But in her testimony delivered last week to the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee, Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for installations, energy and the environment, also cited improvements in the efficiency of the service’s industrial base as another factor driving the Army’s need for a smaller footprint …
The Office of Management and Budget is imposing a “Freeze the Footprint” policy on federal agencies designed to restrict the growth in their office and warehouse space. To avoid a net increase in their real property assets, compared to a fiscal 2012 baseline, agencies will be encouraged to pursue more co-locations and consolidations while selling off unneeded properties …
Defense officials are conducting a comprehensive assessment of DOD’s European infrastructure with the goal of consolidating the military footprint to trim expenses. Options developed through the “BRAC-like” process, which then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta initiated in January, are scheduled to be completed for consideration by Panetta’s successor, Chuck Hagel, before the end of the calendar year …