Panel wraps up base closings; $37 B in savings

updated 5:37 a.m. ET Aug. 27, 2005

WASHINGTON - A commission is wrapping up its review of the Defense Department’s plan to close and consolidate domestic military bases, having made a slew of changes it said reduced by billions the Pentagon’s $48.8 billion, 20-year savings estimate.

The nine-member panel was to return for the last time Saturday to the hotel ballroom in nearby Arlington, Va., where it spent three days voting piece by piece before signing off on the first restructuring of U.S. bases in a decade.

But the hard work was done.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission tackled two of the most contentious proposals Friday — and dealt the Pentagon setbacks in both cases.

Rejecting Air Force proposals, the commission crafted its own shake-up of the Air National Guard and voted to keep open Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota.

By Sept. 8, the panel must send its final report to President Bush, who can accept it, reject it or send it back for revisions. Congress also will have a chance to veto the plan in its entirety, but it has gone along with four previous rounds of base closings. If ultimately approved, the changes would occur over the next six years.

The Pentagon proposed closing or consolidating a record 62 major military bases and 775 smaller installations to save $48.8 billion through 2025, make the services more efficient and reposition the armed forces.

But the commission — which cast doubt on the Pentagon’s savings projections — said its changes would lower the estimated savings to $37 billion over two decades.

Commissioners said the estimate could be as low as $14 billion when dollars the Pentagon says would be saved by the transfers of military personnel from one base to another were excluded. The commission has long questioned that accounting method.

The panel’s chairman, Anthony Principi, called the numbers “very preliminary.”

He and his panel worked into the evening Friday as members concluded the high-stakes decisions that brought sighs of relief or exasperation from communities across America.

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