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 …
The chairman and ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said they oppose the Pentagon’s request to conduct a round of base closures in 2015, a stance which presents a formidable barrier to the Pentagon’s pursuit of a new BRAC round. Committee Chairman Sen. Carl Levin last week said he would not support DOD’s request, continuing his opposition from last year. On Tuesday, though, Levin added that he didn’t believe DOD was serious about its request because it failed to include any funds in next year’s budget to carry out a BRAC round …
A senior DOD official has objected to the proposed route for a 500-mile-long, high-voltage transmission line linking central New Mexico to southeastern Arizona, saying it jeopardizes the mission of White Sands Missile Range. “It should be clearly understood that no other location exists in the United States where it is possible to conduct flight tests of missile systems with these footprint requirements,” wrote Frank Kendall, undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics …
Defense officials are considering cutting the number of unpaid furlough days civilian employees will be forced to take to as few as seven, after cutting the number of unpaid days to 14 last month. No decision has been made yet, and it is possible the Pentagon could drop the furloughs entirely …
Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, said at a hearing Friday that he is a “strong supporter” of another round of BRAC, making him the rare lawmaker who has publicly backed the Pentagon’s request to hold a new round in 2015. DOD needs to pare down its infrastructure following a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and to adjust to a drop in defense spending, Smith said during a committee hearing on the Air Force’s fiscal 2014 budget request …
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 …
The Army plans to determine by the end of the summer the locations that would lose brigade combat teams and additional personnel as the service carries out its plan to trim its active-duty end strength by 72,000 soldiers by fiscal 2020. The Army is considering two primary options to rebalance its force structure as it draws down from 562,000 to 490,000 troops to accommodate declining budgets over the coming decade. Under the first, the Army would inactivate a minimum of eight brigade combat teams …
Scheduled ship repairs that had been suspended due to sequestration now will go ahead, the Navy’s top budget official said Wednesday. The Navy had said that contracts for 11 ships with private shipyards would be cancelled as the Navy looked for ways to mitigate the need to slash $4.6 billion in spending by Sept. 30, reported the Virginian Pilot. Nine ships scheduled for overhaul in Hampton Roads, Va., will be repaired in coming months, and most maintenance at other shipyards in the United States and overseas will occur as well, Rear Adm. Joseph Mulloy, deputy secretary for the budget, told reporters …
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 …
While describing the balancing act officials strived for while crafting the service’s fiscal 2014 budget request, the Air Force’s top budget official made no secret that the service sees a new base closure round as an essential means to pare its excess capacity. “We also want to foot stomp that we’re very much in favor of BRAC,” Maj. Gen. Edward Bolton Jr., deputy assistant secretary for budget, told reporters …