This report discusses key base closure developments, beginning with the 105th Congress andcontinuing into the 107th Congress. The most recent notable development has been the December28, 2001 signing into law ( P.L. 107-107 ) of legislation, initially sponsored by Senator Carl Levin andSenator John McCain, to conduct one new base closure round in 2005. The legislation extends andamends the 1990 base closure and realignment Act ( P.L. 101-510 ) that expired after the 1995 round. All action on the 451 installations scheduled to be closed and realigned by the 1988, 1991, 1993, and 1995 BRAC commissions was completed by the end of FY2001, as scheduled. (2) Ninety-seven installations were major military bases. According to the most recent estimates, theseBRAC closures and realignments have produced net savings of about $16.7 billion, and annualrecurring savings thereafter of about $6.6 billion. (3) It was widely acknowledged, at the time of the 1995 round, that additional base closures wouldbe necessary, given the continuing downward trend in defense spending and force structure (unitsand personnel). Two years later, the Department of Defense began to press its case in earnest. OnMay 19, 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen released a long awaited report, the QuadrennialDefense Review (QDR). In the report, a major review of military strategy and capabilities, he calledfor two more rounds of closures, one in 1999 and the second in 2001. He explained that, despite fourprevious rounds, the downsizing of DOD's base structure had fallen behind the downsizing of itsforce structure. He pointed out that Since the first base closure round, force structure has come down by 33% and will have declined by a total of 36% when we finish the reductions underthe QDR. During the same period, we will have reduced domestic infrastructure by 21%.... We mustshed more weight. (4) He further explained that closing more bases was dictated not only by the need to achieve a proper balance between infrastructure and force structure, but also by the need to secure significantsavings that would allow DOD to fund adequately future readiness and weapons acquisitionprograms. He stated that without the savings from new rounds of closing, DOD would behard-pressed to fulfill its missions and responsibilities in the future. Secretary of Defense Cohen's plan to begin new rounds of closures within the next five yearswas met with a decided lack of enthusiasm on Capitol Hill. Many Members expressed deep concernover the likely economic and political fallout in their districts from any such new rounds. Bothdefense committees of the House and Senate, during their mark-ups of the FY1998 DODauthorization bills, declined to support new base closure legislation. On June 12, 1997, the SenateArmed Services Committee narrowly failed, on a 9-9 vote, to approve a proposal to authorize twomore rounds of base closing in 1999 and 2001. The next day, Senator Carl Levin, the committee'sranking Democrat, along with Senator John McCain, Senator Dan Coats, and Senator Charles Robb,pledged to push for more base closings when the DOD authorization bill went to the floor. SenatorLevin said that, if Congress was serious about having funds for new weapons, it was necessary toreduce excess infrastructure. On July 9, the full Senate voted 66-33 against the McCain-Levin initiative and in support of a substitute amendment that delayed any new base closings until DOD developed "accountingtechniques" to accurately measure the costs and savings from previous and future rounds. Under thesubstitute amendment, sponsored by Senator Byron Dorgan, Senator Trent Lott, and Senator TomDaschle, DOD was required to prepare and submit its cost/savings report to Congress "in a timelymanner." Although no specific date was set, the provision stipulated that the report must becompleted with adequate time for Congress to authorize another round of base closings in 2001. In the House National Security Committee, opposition to a new round of closures was considerably stronger. Representative Joel Hefley, chairman of the subcommittee on militaryinstallations, indicated that there should be no new base closure rounds for at least five years. He,as well as others, questioned DOD's estimate of actual savings, especially in the short- andmedium-term, given the substantial up-front costs of shutting down bases. Although DOD officialshave claimed net savings, beginning in FY1996 and increasing into the future, the CongressionalBudget Office, in a December 1996 report, stated that it was unable to confirm or assess thoseestimates. (5) Congressional opponents, further, objected to rushing into new rounds of closures without a complete and thorough understanding of the military implications of previous rounds. In this regard,they also questioned the validity of DOD's major premise that there should be a one-to-onecorrelation between the percentage of reduction in end-strength and in base closings. Despite the lack of broad support on Capitol Hill, senior DOD officials, as well as the President, continued to press for new rounds of base closures in the near future. Both Secretary of DefenseCohen and the retiring Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Shalikashvili, issuedstatements in September 1997 calling for more base closures as a way of making funds available fortop priority weapons programs. (6) On November 10,the Secretary of Defense and other seniorPentagon officials announced a series of reforms, titled "Defense Reform Initiative" (DRI), thatincluded two additional rounds of base closures in 2001 and 2005. These rounds, it was asserted,would eventually result in annual savings of about $1.4 billion each, or a total of $2.8 billion. (7) Thisfigure represented about half of the overall $6 billion annual savings anticipated from DRI actionsthat include, in addition to base closings, increased outsourcing to private industry, shifting topaperless contracting, administration, and publishing, and reducing the number of personnelemployed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense and other agencies, departments, and activities. Further support for two, or more, new rounds of base closures came from the December 1997 report entitled Transforming Defense: National Security in the 21st Century . (8) Members of theDOD-sponsored National Defense Panel that prepared the report strongly urged Congress and theDefense Department to "move quickly to restore the base realignment and closure process." Theycalled for closures to begin "earlier than the current 2001-2005 department proposal." In hisendorsement of the panel's findings, Secretary of Defense Cohen emphasized, as he had in the past,the importance of two additional BRAC rounds as a means of financing and accelerating thetransformation of U.S. military capabilities. (9) A highly contentious aspect of the base closure debate involved President Clinton's actionsconcerning the last of the four rounds. The 1995 base closure commission had recommended theclosing of two of the Air Force's five major maintenance depots: at McClellan Air Force Base (CA)and Kelly Air Force Base (TX). The recommendation had been justified on the grounds that all fivedepots were operating at under 50% capacity, and that significant savings could be achieved bytransferring McClellan's and Kelly's workloads to the three remaining depots in Utah, Oklahoma,and Georgia. (10) President Clinton vigorously opposed closing McClellan and Kelly depots, arguing that California and Texas had already suffered disproportionately from effects of the three previousclosure rounds. (11) He moved to prevent furtherloss of jobs in California and Texas by directing thatprivate firms be allowed to assume the work on site -- otherwise known as "privatization-in-place." Opponents of the President, however, were quick to charge him with unprecedented politicalmeddling in the base closing process. They accused him of trying to curry favor with the people ofvote-rich California and Texas, vital in his bid for reelection. (12) Legislators from Oklahoma, Georgia, and Utah opposed the privatization plan, believing that it deprived their local populations of jobs that would have been otherwise created under the initialrecommendation of the 1995 base closure commission. Also, they knew that the existingprivatization plan, if permitted to proceed, left their depots highly vulnerable to closure wheneverthe next round of base reductions occurred. (13) Resentment among some Members over President Clinton's 1995 intervention persisted until the end of his second term. His action was repeatedly cited by congressional opponents as reasonfor their opposition to any new base closure rounds. (14) Some Members sought to block DOD fromproceeding with plans to privatize depot maintenance work at McClellan and Kelly air force bases. On June 5, 1997, the House military readiness subcommittee approved an amendment to the FY1998defense authorization bill prohibiting privatization at the two depots unless the Secretary of Defensecertified that the three remaining depots were operating at an efficient 80% capacity. These otherdepots, as mentioned above, were operating at approximately 50% capacity. The full House NationalSecurity Committee approved the measure on June 16. Similar depot language was approved by thefull Senate Armed Services Committee on June 17. However, in the face of a threatened filibusterby the four Senators representing California and Texas, the depot-related provisions were removedfrom the DOD authorization bill prior to floor consideration. (15) In floor debate, on June 23, 1997, Representative Terry Everett led an effort to delete the depot-related restrictions in the House FY1998 defense authorization bill. His amendment wasdefeated by a vote of 145 to 278. In the other chamber, Senator Inhofe spearheaded an effort torestore depot-restrictions to the Senate bill.