House committee backs two-year base-closing delay
Lawmaker says the current climate of conflict in Iraq and the ongoing war on terrorism make it the wrong time to close military installations.
The House Armed Services Committee voted Wednesday to delay the scheduled 2005 round of military base realignments and closings by two years until 2007.
During the committee's markup of the fiscal 2005 defense authorization bill, Armed Services Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Joel Hefley, R-Colo., proposed the two-year delay as a substitute amendment to one offered by Rep. Gene Taylor, D-Miss., that would have simply cancelled the 2005 BRAC round.
Hefley's amendment, which was adopted by voice vote, differed slightly from a provision his subcommittee approved last week. That proposal would have required the Defense Department to provide Congress with a handful of studies by the end of calendar year 2005, effectively delaying any BRAC decisions until 18 months after the last study is delivered to lawmakers.
As approved by the full committee on Wednesday, the Hefley amendment simply sets the next BRAC round for 2007 and orders the studies to be done by then.
If the provision survives in the House version, which is likely in an election year, it will become a hotly contested issue in conference with the Senate, which has backed another round of military base closings, the last of which occurred in 1995.