Grassley says he'll vote against BRAC

Dan Gearino

By Dan Gearino

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday he will vote to reject the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure, or BRAC, Commission recommendations because they are based on a flawed process that will hurt the Quad-City region.

He said the BRAC commission used inaccurate information to justify moving some jobs at the Rock Island Arsenal to a base in Michigan. He said the process needs to be examined.

“My observation of the commission’s final deliberations raised some concerns about the information and reasoning used in making its decisions. I followed up with a letter to the commission to clarify those concerns and have recently received a response that did nothing to allay my concerns,” Grassley said in a statement he plans to deliver today on the Senate floor.

He said the commission’s plan for the Arsenal would cost taxpayers more than $100 million and be bad for the military.

The recommendations would lead to a net loss of more than 1,000 jobs in the Quad-Cities, according to the Quad-City Development Group.

Grassley said he is unsure how much support there is for rejecting the BRAC plan, but he added that U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Trent Lott, R-Miss., share his concerns.

More details of this story will be published in Thursday editions of the Quad-City Times.