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Panel shoots down call to close 2 air bases

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Posted: Saturday, August 27, 2005



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Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota would stay as is, but Cannon Air Force Base in New Mexico would lose all of its aircraft and still face the possibility of closure in 2010.

The decisions, cheered in the bases' home states, were setbacks for Pentagon leaders.

The Ellsworth vote was a blessing for South Dakotans, who feared losing some 4,000 jobs, and a victory for Sen. John Thune and the state's other politicians, who lobbied vigorously to save the base. Thune, a freshman Republican, unseated then-Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle partly on the strength of his claim that he would be better positioned to help save the base.

"This fight was not about me," Thune said just after the vote. "This whole decision was about the merits. It had nothing to do with the politics."

The panel's decision on Cannon was a compromise among commissioners who struggled to balance national security interests with fear that closing the base entirely would devastate the economy around tiny Clovis, N.M.

New Mexico's Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, portrayed the outcome as a "partial victory."

Turning to a huge shake-up of the Air National Guard, the commission began voting piece by piece to shuffle personnel and aircraft around dozens of units from coast to coast. The commission endorsed the concept of restructuring the Air Guard, but it did not accept the Pentagon's entire proposal.

Rather, the commission made many changes affecting dozens of Air Guard facilities - both large and small - in various states.

In a flurry of decisions, the panel sided with the Pentagon in shutting down the Kulis Air Guard Station in Alaska - with the stipulation that there's enough federal money to cover expenses to relocate operations to another base in the state.

The panel also decided to gut - but still keep open - both the W.K. Kellogg Airport Air Guard Station in Michigan and the Naval Air Station Willow Grove in Pennsylvania, which the Pentagon wanted to close. Commissioners took away all the aircraft at both sites and gave both states the authority to decide the future uses of those bases.

Work began on the Air Guard plan just as a federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled that the Pentagon lacks the authority to close a Guard unit in the state without the governor's approval. The judge declared the Pentagon's plan "null and void," but it was not immediately clear how that would affect the commission's work.

As they voted this week on the first round of base closings in a decade, commissioners endorsed much of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's plan to streamline the nation's military bases. But besides Ellsworth and Cannon, the commissioners also bucked the Pentagon by voting to keep open two major Navy bases in New England and two Army depots in Texas and Nevada.


 B-1 bombers belonging to the 28th bomb wing are lined up at Ellsworth with the Black Hills in the background. The Ellsworth vote was a blessing for South Dakotans, who feared losing some 4,000 jobs.

Ellsworth, famous for its Cold War-era arsenal of nuclear bombers and missiles aimed at the Soviet Union, is home to half the nation's fleet of B1-B bombers and means some 4,000 jobs for the South Dakota plains. The Pentagon had wanted to move all the bombers to their other location, Dyess Air Force Base in Texas.

The commission decided closing Ellsworth wouldn't save any money over 20 years and that it would cost nearly $20 million to move the planes to Texas. The Pentagon had projected saving $1.8 billion over two decades with the closure.

The base closing panel worried that putting all the B1-B bombers at one base would hurt force readiness. Commissioners noted that Ellsworth, located on the South Dakota prairie, had plenty of "unfettered airspace."

"We have no savings, we're essentially moving the airplanes from one very, very good base to another very, very good base, which are essentially equal," commissioner Harold Gehman said about the proposal.

South Dakota politicians praised the panel for acting as an independent check on the Pentagon.

"They made some tough decisions. Today, they listened to the whole story," said Republican Gov. Michael Rounds. Added Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., "This is a great decision for America's national security."

The Ellsworth proposal had caused the most political consternation since Pentagon in May proposed closing or consolidating a record 62 major military bases and 775 smaller installations to save $48.8 billion over 20 years, make the services more efficient and reposition the armed forces.

Some commissioners said Cannon's fate was the most difficult decision to make thus far.

The panel found that closing the base, home to four F-16 fighter squadrons, would put at least a 20 percent dent in the local economy, costing almost 5,000 jobs on the base and in the community near the New Mexico-Texas line.

Several commissioners said those stark numbers persuaded them to keep the base open. Commissioner James Hill worried that the area "does not have economic resiliency."

Others, including Principi, advocated closure, saying the Air Force must be able to reshape itself to face future threats.

The compromise keeps Cannon open but takes away its aircraft and orders the Pentagon to re-examine the decision to shut it down. By Dec. 31, 2009, the Pentagon must find other missions for the facility or Cannon will close, the panel said.

By Sept. 8, the panel must send its final report to President Bush. The president 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 not taken that step in four previous rounds of base closings. If ultimately approved, the changes would occur over the next six years.

The Air National Guard plan would shift people, equipment and aircraft at 54 or more sites where Guard units are stationed. Major Air Guard and Reserve facilities in Alaska, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin would close.

In some states, aircraft would be taken away from 25 Air Guard units. Those units would get other assignments such as expeditionary combat support roles. They also would retain their missions of aiding governors during statewide emergencies.


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