BRAC leaves wake of uncertainty
The Virginian-Pilot
© September 13, 2005
Last updated: 7:24 PM

The idea behind the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission is a noble one. It was designed to introduce certainty to the process of closing U.S. military bases. It was designed to remove the politics. It was also designed to save a bunch of money.

In this latest round, the BRAC Commission hasn’t done any of that. Depending on your point of view and your port, that’s either a good thing or a bad thing. For Hampton Roads, it’s most certainly the latter.

On the subject of Oceana Naval Air Station, the BRAC commissioners have ordered Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and the state to meet a set of conditions so punitive and politically radioactive for local politicians that true compliance may be almost impossible.

Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Richmond must “enact state and local legislation and ordnances [sic] to establish a program to condemn and purchase all the incompatible

use property located within the Accident Potential Zone 1.” BRAC has said that the governments must spend at least $15 million annually to do so.

Those demands are unprecedented, and arguably beyond the scope of BRAC’s mission. Nevertheless, it seems clear that local and state officials will try to comply, though it will be months before they know whether their offerings meet with approval in Washington.

That uncertainty will gnaw at neighborhoods and businesses, and unless the governments come up with hundreds of millions of dollars, that will continue for years.

Hampton Roads isn’t alone. Cecil Field, where BRAC wants to move Oceana’s jets, is facing uncertainty of its own. It’ll be months before Florida officials know whether the state will win the East Coast Navy master jet base and all that it entails.

Given the politics at play, it’s hard to mourn for Florida. Officials there played the game far better than their counterparts in Virginia, and now they have the prospect of an enormous windfall.

The BRAC Commission was created because Congress and the White House knew they couldn’t remove politics from the base-closing process. Now, it’s clear, the commission can’t remove politics, either.

Given Cecil Field’s shortcomings, it’s hard to see the decision to move Oceana’s jets there, over the Navy’s objections, as anything other than a political gift to the president’s brother, who happens to be Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

If you’re looking for further political moves, try the decision to keep Ellsworth Air Force Base open. The Pentagon wanted to close the South Dakota facility, but the BRAC panel decided otherwise. That just so happened to save the political career of Republican Sen. John Thune, who won his seat by promising to save Ellsworth .

BRAC also kept open a couple facilities in New England, bases with jobs the Pentagon wanted to move to Hampton Roads, among other places. The commission reasoned that there was danger in too much concentration of naval operations, but it also reasoned that those New England bases were also really, really nice places, a criteria we couldn’t find anywhere in the BRAC Commission’s marching orders.

This BRAC round was about moving the military toward greater cooperation among the branches. But it was also supposed to save money at a time when the military is spending it like mad in Iraq and Afghanistan. Given that, it can only be disappointing that all of BRAC’s recommendations manage to save a whopping $15 billion, over 20 years.

Plenty of folks in Congress are mad about the BRAC Commission’s recommendations, which were sent to the president Thursday. That pique is unlikely to derail this round of closures and realignments.

But given that BRAC has created tremendous uncertainty all across the nation, that it has allowed politics to sway a supposedly nonpolitical process, and that its recommendations will save relatively little money, Congress and America should seriously consider whether BRAC has already outlived its usefulness.