More bases considered for shutdown.

The Base Realignment and Closure Commission has put a dozen more military bases and smaller installations on the hit list of facilities that may be shut down.

At a July 19 meeting, the Commission voted to consider closing Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, VA; Naval Air Station Brunswick, ME; Galena Airport Forward Operation Location in Alaska; and Pope Air Force Base, NC.

Commission members will hold public hearings at the locations added to the list before taking final votes next month. Seven of the nine members must agree to add a base to the shutdown list submitted by the Defense Department.

The Oceana station is the Navy's master jet base, but it is hemmed in by residential and commercial development. About 15,000 military and civilian personnel work there.

The Commission also voted to re-examine the Pentagon proposal to consolidate 26 offices of the Defense Finance and Accounting Service offices into three locations: Indianapolis; Denver; and Columbus, OH. Commission staff said the Defense Department had not adequately analyzed other options.

The Commission wound up a series of public hearings around the country this month on the Pentagon's list of bases to be closed or realigned, and heard political leaders plead the case for keeping their local installations.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner said the Defense Department violated the Base Realignment and Closing law with its proposal to move thousands of employees and contractors from civilian office buildings in the Washington suburbs to military bases.

Warner (R-VA), one of the authors of the 1990 law governing the base closing process, said the department's justification for the transfers--to move personnel out of leased space--is not one of the criteria authorized by law. He said another announced Pentagon goal, reducing the concentration of its personnel in the National Capital Region, also violates the law

Warner and other Virginia elected leaders testified July 7 before the Commission's hearing in Arlington, VA.

The Pentagon proposed moving 23,000 military and civilian personnel, plus thousands of contractors, from commercial office space in close-in Washington suburbs to Fort Belvoir, VA, and other military bases farther from Washington. The Defense Department said it wants to vacate commercial office buildings because they cannot meet new security requirements specifying that federal buildings must be set back at least 82 feet from the nearest street.

Arlington County, VA, officials said they have identified available land near the Pentagon where new buildings could satisfy the security requirements.

Virginia members of Congress warned that the transfers will cause a "brain drain" in some of the military's most important research units, including the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, because top scientists will quit rather than uproot their families.

"There are a lot of jobs out there for highly skilled people," Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA) told the commission. "They can walk across the street and make sometimes more money than they're earning at the federal level."

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Ed Rendell and Attorney General Tom Corbett announced the filing of a lawsuit to block the deactivation of an Air National Guard unit at the Willow Grove Joint Reserve Base, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. They said the U.S. Constitution gives state governors control over the Guard. Rendell said he had not been consulted about the Pentagon's plans.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich wrote to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the BRAC Commission, declaring he would not consent to the transfer of some Guard aircraft out of his state, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

A lawyer for the BRAC commission warned in a memo that the deactivation of Guard units without the governor's consent could be unconstitutional, according to a document obtained by the trade publication Congress Daily.

At a BRAC commission hearing in Boston July 6, representatives from Maine and New Hampshire argued that the Defense Department had ignored legal requirements in its decision to close the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. Nearly 7,000 jobs would be lost.

The Pentagon has recommended closing about 180 installations and offices, including 33 major bases, and transferring thousands of civilian and military personnel. The BRAC commission can take bases off the hit list or add others. It will submit its recommendations in September. President Bush and Congress can either accept or reject the entire package, but they are not permitted by law to alter the fate of individual bases.