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The
Race to Steal Bases Heats Up
State and local leaders across the country try to guard military
jobs as they lobby for more. California is in a position of weakness.
By Ralph Vartabedian, Times Staff Writer
November 27,
2004
COLORADO SPRINGS
- The Pentagon is planning a new round of base closures that will
create economic trauma nationwide in 2005, but this city teeming
with more than 30,000 service personnel sees potential opportunity
in the coming turmoil.
Local leaders
are lobbying for more military jobs, expected to come from bases
closed in other states, notably California. The city, for example,
just spent $200,000 for a study by a Washington defense consulting
firm that promotes the region as the best place to receive jobs
from the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo.
"We'd love
to have them," said Jeff Markovich, vice president for military
affairs at the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce.
"This community
loves the military 100%."
Across the nation,
state and local governments are gearing up, both to protect local
bases and to grab jobs that will be lost in other states. Though
California is widely seen as the most vulnerable state, it has been
slow to react and made only a modest effort to influence the outcome.
Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld aims to eliminate nearly a quarter of the military's
infrastructure, which is considered surplus to the Defense Department's
long-term mission of fighting terrorists and limited wars. The closures
could equal all the reductions in the four previous rounds of consolidation
combined.
With so many
jobs at stake, regions have created civic alliances and hired political
lobbyists to help influence the decisions next year.
Texas voters
approved a $250-million bond to help the state retain its massive
military presence. Massachusetts has unveiled a $410-million plan
to defend its bases. Florida, Georgia, and Virginia are also pushing
aggressive efforts to defend their bases and gain new jobs.
"It is
a war of all against all," said defense expert John Pike, director
of GlobalSecurity.org. "Every one of these places with military
bases is hungry and every one would like to gobble up activity at
less politically powerful locations."
If history is
any guide, California has plenty to worry about. In four prior rounds
of base closures that began in 1988, California lost 22 major military
bases, representing 23% of the big bases the Pentagon closed. It
took the biggest hit of any state.
In some respects,
the state's vulnerabilities are just as significant now. Even after
all the previous closures, California still has 238,000 of the Pentagon's
military and civilian employees, representing 14% of the nationwide
total.
"Because
California has lots of military facilities, the likelihood of it
getting hit is 100%," said Loren Thompson, chief operating
officer of the Lexington Institute, a Washington think tank. "Secretary
Rumsfeld wants $7 billion in annual savings, equal to all that was
achieved in the prior rounds of base closure."
One of Rumsfeld's
big targets will be the Pentagon's scientific laboratories, research
centers and testing ranges, all of which are considered to have
excess capacity. California has long been a major research center
for the military.
Colorado, New
Mexico, Florida and Maryland are making pitches for California research
facilities. Though these states are not openly lobbying for closures
elsewhere, the rivalries are clear.
Maryland argues
that the Navy's Patuxent River complex would be a better place to
conduct testing that is now done at the weapons centers at China
Lake and Point Mugu. The two California centers together employ
more than 5,000 people.
"The Southern
Maryland Naval Alliance is very well financed and organized,"
said Bill Porter, a retired Navy physicist leading an effort to
protect the remote Mojave Desert outpost. "It makes our little
China Lake alliance look puny."
Likewise, Florida
officials suggest the Air Force could reduce costs and improve capability
by testing more aircraft at Eglin Air Force Base, a competitor to
the smaller Edwards Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert. Some testing
activities have left Edwards for Eglin, located in Florida's Panhandle.
Meanwhile, Colorado
and New Mexico covet the 4,500 civilian, military, and contractor
jobs at the Los Angeles Air Force Base, which manages the acquisition
of Air Force spacecraft. Four years ago, Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.)
wrote a letter to Rumsfeld that criticized a modernization effort
at the base as a waste of money and proposed moving the entire operation
to Kirtland Air Force Base in his state.
Rumsfeld rejected
the offer and allowed the modernization effort, orchestrated by
Rep. Jane Harman (D-Venice), to go forward. But the move put everybody
on notice that the L.A. base was in political play.
"The letter
is indelibly imprinted on my brain," Harman said. "It
was a land grab."
In the jostling
for defense jobs, many politically conservative areas contend they
provide a more friendly environment for the military. For example,
Colorado Springs hosts picnics, parades, luncheons and awards for
its military families, never failing to remind soldiers that they
are on welcome turf. President Bush won 66% of the county vote here
on Nov. 2.
"This is
a very Republican place," said Robert K. Scott, president of
the Greater Colorado Springs Economic Development Corp. "It
is bound to help."
But key states
such as Colorado, New Mexico, Florida and Texas that voted for Bush
are not supposed to get any favors. And liberal states such as California
are not supposed to be punished.
Indeed, politics
and lobbying will play no role in the evaluations, said Raymond
DuBois, the Pentagon's chief architect for the coming base closures.
The agency has sealed off lobbyists and consultants from the secret
analytical work being done by the military services and seven specialized
cross-service teams inside the Defense Department. Their recommendations
are expected in a few months.
"Anyone
who wants to trust us can appreciate the fact that we have wrapped
this process in a pretty tight seal," DuBois said in an interview.
In February,
the Defense Department published a list of eight official criteria
it would use to evaluate base closures, nearly all of them involving
military or economic issues. DuBois added that cities that hired
lobbyists or promised lavish spending programs to keep bases were
just wasting their money.
"We cannot
take into account promises of future investments," he said.
"I don't want wealthier states outbidding other areas."
But nobody is
depending on such noble concepts to protect their state and regional
economies from multibillion-dollar losses. And many experts say
that the process will come under increasing political pressure when
a formal Base Closure and Realignment Commission is appointed by
Bush and Congress.
"Let's
not kid anybody," said Leon E. Panetta, the former Clinton
White House chief of staff who was just appointed by Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger co-chairman of a state council to protect California
bases. "In the end, politics does play a role."
Panetta acknowledged
that California has been slow to mount as aggressive an effort as
other states. However, the new state council includes many retired
high-ranking military officers, who should have plenty of Pentagon
contacts and know how to use them. And Schwarzenegger has far more
clout with the Bush administration than Gray Davis, his Democratic
predecessor.
In addition,
Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-El Cajon) is chairman of the House Armed Services
Committee and Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Redlands) is chairman of the House
defense appropriations subcommittee. The two House leaders have
the largest and most knowledgeable congressional staffs on military
issues under their direct control, meaning the Pentagon is unlikely
to get away with any thinly justified decisions, experts say.
California promoters
consider the state an intellectual resource that the nation would
be foolish to abandon. The Los Angeles Air Force Base, really an
office complex, manages the acquisition of the nation's key satellite
systems that provide early warning of nuclear attack, communications,
weather forecasting and navigation, among other missions.
The base also
supports Aerospace Corp., the nonprofit research center with 3,000
employees in El Segundo, many of them scientists and engineers.
It would probably go along with the base, if it were moved.
And along the
San Diego Freeway, the spacecraft industry - including Boeing Co.,
Northrop Grumman Corp. and Raytheon Co. - has tens of thousands
of workers building the bulk of the government's satellites. Lockheed
Martin Corp. has major operations in the Bay Area.
The bases and
the contractors generate $16 billion of economic activity in the
state, according to a recent study by the Los Angeles Economic Development
Corp.
If the Pentagon
decides to move L.A. Air Force Base's operations to Colorado Springs,
they probably would end up at Peterson Air Force Base, headquarters
for the Air Force Space Command. The rationale for such a move is
that the acquisition managers should be closer to the military users
of the spacecraft.
In the Southern
California aerospace industry, it is widely believed that Gen. Lance
W. Lord, head of the Space Command, wants the transfer to occur
and has ordered his subordinates to keep quiet. Lord was not available
for an interview and a spokeswoman said he was not allowed to make
public comments about the closure process.
But the retired
commander of the L.A. base, Eugene Tattini, now deputy director
of the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, said Southern California
provided the Air Force with a unique intellectual synergy.
The region not
only has the Air Force and defense industry sector, but JPL, which
makes NASA's deep space probes, a large commercial satellite industry
and the engineering schools at Caltech, UCLA and USC, along with
a half dozen other engineering schools.
"There
is almost daily contact among them," he added.
One argument
against moving the L.A. installation is based on the belief that
few of the experienced civilian scientists and engineers in California
would be willing to move.
When Boeing
decided to move its space shuttle engineers from Huntington Beach
to Houston just before the 2003 Columbia accident, about 80% of
them refused to relocate and new engineers had to be trained in
Houston.
After the accident,
investigators found that the "inexperienced team" in Houston
conducted a flawed analysis during the flight that contributed to
the disaster. Boeing is now rehiring shuttle engineers in Huntington
Beach.
Lewis, the chairman
of the House defense appropriations subcommittee, also invokes a
provocative argument that additional base closures in the West,
coming after the heavy shutdowns in past years, would threaten the
very defense of California amid growing threats of terrorism and
power shifts in Asia.
"There
is a lack of recognition of the long-range importance of adequate
basing in our state on the West Coast," Lewis said, "particularly
as the Pacific becomes ever more important in this changing and
shrinking and complex world."
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