Posts Tagged ‘mission support/community partnerships’

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 …

Florida lawmakers last week approved bills that would extend the ability of the state to protect military installations from incompatible development. On Thursday, a Senate committee passed a measure allowing Florida’s Military Base Protection Program to fund the purchase of land bordering military bases needed to prevent conflicts with residential and commercial development …

A Montana lawmaker is proposing the state establish a task force to protect and expand military missions in the state. The sponsor of House Bill 579 is State Rep. Roger Hagan, who represents Great Falls, the home of Malmstrom Air Force Base. Other states already have created task forces, and Montana’s lack of one could hurt the state in the event of a BRAC round, according to the bill. The House State Administration Committee has not yet voted on the legislation, reported the Billings Gazette.

Because the White House has not yet delivered its fiscal 2014 budget request, the Pentagon witnesses at Thursday’s hearing of the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee were able to argue the merits of holding additional base closure rounds, but they were unable to say whether the administration would be requesting one more rounds as part of the new budget proposal. “We will be treating the administration’s position on future BRAC rounds as pre-decisional,” John Conger, acting deputy undersecretary of defense for installations and environment, said at the outset of his prepared remarks …

It came as no surprise during Thursday’s hearing of the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee that Republicans and Democrats both were adamantly opposed to a looming request from the Pentagon to hold one or more new BRAC rounds. Possibly the only reason to think the mood in Congress had changed since lawmakers last year rejected the administration’s request for two rounds is the arrival of sequestration. The administration’s primary argument to revisit the issue is that a scaling back of force structure …

If Congress is going to authorize one or more base closure rounds in this year’s defense authorization bill, a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday made clear that it won’t come as a result of support from the House subcommittee responsible for launching a new BRAC. Reiterating many of the same arguments used last year to rebuff the administration’s request for two new rounds, both Republican and Democratic members of the House Armed Services’ Readiness Subcommittee openly criticized the Pentagon’s arguments to hold a BRAC round …

Looming base closures rounds in the coming years offer Dayton and the surrounding region the possibility of tremendous gains at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, along with potential risks for the local economy, officials from the Dayton Development Coalition said at a forum on Wednesday. Based on past BRAC rounds, the Springfield Air National Guard base, the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center Business and Enterprise Directorate, and Air Force Material Command logistics and operations staff could be at risk for reductions or closure …

The Air Force will not close Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station, home of the 911th Airlift Wing and about 1,300 reservists and 300 civilians, before fiscal 2015, the service announced Wednesday. The Air Force’s decision to restore the 911th to eight assigned aircraft through Sept. 30, 2014, followed the recommendations of an intratheater airlift working group the service established at the beginning of the year after Congress scaled back its request to trim aircraft and personnel from the Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve …

The Senate Wednesday approved an amendment to its version of a fiscal 2013 continuing resolution stripping $120 million in funding for a wastewater treatment facility and other civilian infrastructure projects on Guam, after Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) cited the funding as an example of pork barrel spending. The vote came after McCain and Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) lifted a hold they had placed on the measure needed to keep the government running in the second half of FY 2013 …

The small businesses in communities that support military and civilian workers at installations are bracing for declining revenue as defense officials trim spending on contracts and base support services, and civilian personnel begin one-day-a-week furloughs, reports Air Force Times. “Our business is about 90 percent military,” said a used car dealer located about a half-mile from the main gates at Fort Bragg, N.C. “This is a military town. It is going to affect us all. When there’s a cut, people are scared to spend …