New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) last week awarded $2.9 million to local municipalities and community organizations to help preserve the state’s military installations as tens of billions of dollars in federal defense spending is threatened. The state’s military installations provide more than 10,000 direct jobs, $688 million in direct wages and a $1.9 billion economic impact …
ADC’s Installation Innovation Forum will offer installation leaders a unique opportunity to learn ways to improve the financial performance of their facilities and property while reaching other goals, such as conserving energy and promoting sustainability. The forum’s workshop on installation asset management will introduce participants to tools and techniques that will help them better monitor the performance of their assets and address the challenges they face in managing their real estate …
The Army’s plan to reduce its end strength by 80,000 soldiers would be expanded by an additional 80,000 to 100,000 personnel over the next decade if automatic spending cuts are triggered starting in January, Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno said during a recent roundtable. A reduction of that magnitude would slash the Army’s end strength to less than 400,000 soldiers for the first time since before War World II …
A provision that would cut DOD’s civilian and contractor workforce by an estimated 5 percent over the next five years is one of many sections of the Senate’s fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill the White House objected to as part of a veto threat issued Thursday. The provision, added to the annual policy measure by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), could eliminate up to 36,000 civilian jobs and tens of thousands of contractor positions through FY 2017 …
Officials from DOD, the Navy and E.ON Climate & Renewables North America reached agreement this week to allow the developer to construct up to 100 wind turbines at a site located about halfway between Naval Air Stations Kingsville and Corpus Christi in South Texas. The agreement, which calls for Chicago-based ECRNA to provide DOD $750,000 in funding for research and testing into solutions to mitigate potential impacts of the wind farm on military radar, is intended to preserve the two installations’ pilot training missions …
A new Air Force study shows that the Anchorage housing market has very little room to accommodate military personnel and family members the service had proposed moving from Eielson AFB in Fairbanks to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The Anchorage market has a vacancy rate of about 2.6 percent which would limit the number of housing units available for additional military households, the study concluded …
As the military services adapt to increased pressure on their budgets, local and state governments likely will find they have a greater role to play in supporting the mission of a neighboring military installation, especially when it comes to ensuring compatible land uses. That increased support could include contributing a greater share of funding to military-community partnerships designed to protect buffer lands from development or, similarly, by encouraging greater participation by conservation groups …
The FAA has indefinitely shelved a competition to select six test sites to assess whether unmanned aerial vehicles can be integrated into manned airspace, a prize a number of defense communities plan to pursue. The agency was to have named the six sites by next month, but previously missed a July deadline for requesting applications. Now the FAA is saying it needs to delay the competition because it needs to first address privacy concerns raised by the use of drone aircraft …
The military began to form its first operational squadron of F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets on Tuesday at Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, Ariz., when officials redesignated a Hornet F/A-18 squadron as Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 121. The squadron has received two F-35Bs — the Marine Corps variant designed to take off on short runways and land like a helicopter — and 14 more are scheduled to arrive over the next year …
The commonwealth of Massachusetts is providing $2.5 million in infrastructure grants to upgrade the main road leading to the Army Natick Soldier Systems Center outside of Boston, Lt. Gov. Timothy Murray announced this week. The award stems from the work of the state Military Asset and Security Strategy Task Force that the governor created in February to support Massachusetts’ six military installations …