BRAC-related amendment fails

By By Buddy Bynum / editor
May 19, 2004
U.S. Sen. Trent Lott's move to modify the 2005 round of military base closures was dealt a narrow defeat Tuesday in the Senate.
A Lott-sponsored amendment would have required the Defense Department to look at realigning 721 U.S. military installations overseas before closing any bases at home. The amendment failed on a 47-49 vote.
The $422.2 billion defense authorization bill being considered by the Senate still includes a House-passed amendment that would delay the 2005 BRAC, or base realignment and closure, by two years. That amendment was championed by U.S. Reps. Gene Taylor and Chip Pickering as it worked its way through the House last week.
Lott, an opponent of base closures, said it makes no sense to close domestic bases when more than 200,000 U.S. troops are stationed around the world, some, ironically, in spots that are less than hostile, such as unified Germany and the United Kingdom.
He said four previous BRAC rounds had resulted in little or no excess capacity in the U.S. The 2005 round, for the first time, includes National Guard installations; Naval Air Station Meridian and the 186th Air Refueling Wing of the Mississippi Air Guard are potential targets.
He said the National Guard and reservists are filling up to 40 percent of the deployments in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Lott's amendment would not have affected the base closure schedule, but would require a force structure analysis of U.S. bases located overseas.
Lott said about 700 bases in Europe have been closed since the Berlin Wall came down, but the U.S. still has 80,000 active duty troops in Germany and 310 military installations in the country. Germany recently said it would not provide 2,500 troops to guard U.S. bases in Germany while American soldiers ordinarily stationed there are fighting in Iraq.
Besides Germany, Lott said the U.S. maintains 18 installations in Belgium, 12 in The Netherlands, 101 in South Korea and 54 in the United Kingdom.