Maine senators want Pentagon to donate shuttered bases

Maine's senators plan to introduce an amendment to the fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill that would require the Defense Department to give military property scheduled for closure to local redevelopment authorities.

Under this year's base-closure process, the Pentagon may, among other options, auction off defense property -- a move that would help the military recoup some of the environmental cleanup and other costs associated with closure. The amendment would require the Pentagon to first offer the property to the community before seeking private developers.

"This amendment focuses on one goal: to allow the communities that are losing the personal and economic relationships with their military neighbors, through closure or realignment, every opportunity to control their own destiny," according to a Friday "Dear Colleague" signed by Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, both R-Maine.

The Maine delegation has opposed this year's base-closure round that threatened thousands of jobs in the state. In August, the independent Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission spared Portsmouth Naval Shipyard from being closed as the Pentagon recommended, but went ahead with its plan to shut down Brunswick Naval Air Station.

"After you rip the heart and soul out of a community, you're going to ask them to pay for it?" asked Paul Hirsch, president of Madison Government Affairs, which does base-closure consulting work, and a senior staffer on the 1991 commission.

The Snowe/Collins amendment could draw support from senators representing the 22 major bases scheduled for closure over the next several years, but not everyone is convinced it is the right way to proceed. One Senate aide noted that requiring the military to first offer property to redevelopment authorities "shortchanges" other potential groups that would benefit from using the property. It would no longer require the Pentagon to determine whether installations could be used to help the homeless or be transferred via "public benefits conveyances" to veterans groups or other organizations, the aide said.

While the amendment would give most communities a first crack at redeveloping closed properties, it also includes an exception that would allow the Defense secretary to transfer the property to agencies within the Defense and Homeland Security departments "if such action is necessary in the national security interest of the United States," according to the Friday letter.