Blunted by the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) commission, the US Department of Defense’s plans to streamline the Air National Guard (ANG) are under attack in the courts as states move to save bases and units from the axe.
The seven-member BRAC panel voted in late August to overturn parts of the DoD’s plan to consolidate ANG and Air Force Reserve aircraft at fewer bases, and the cuts that survived are now being challenged in court as state governors argue that the Pentagon does not have the authority to remove national guard units.
In its final deliberations, the panel voted to approve the DoD’s plans to remove Fairchild A-10s from Bradley Air Guard Station (AGS) in Connecticut; to close Otis AGS in Massachusetts, relocating its Boeing F-15s, and Naval Air Station Willow Grove in Pennsylvania, removing its A-10s; and to relocate Lockheed Martin C-130s from Nashville, Tennessee and F-15s from St Louis, Missouri.
Several of the affected states have filed lawsuits to block the BRAC panel’s recommendations, which may delay delivery of the commission’s final report to the White House on 8 September for approval by President Bush.
The BRAC panel rejected the DoD’s plan to close Cannon AFB in New Mexico, voting to relocate its Lockheed Martin F-16s but keep the base open until at least 2009 in the hope of finding a new mission. The closure of Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota and consolidation of its Rockwell B-1s at Dyess AFB in Texas was also blocked, as was the planned removal of F-16s from Eielson AFB in Alaska, although its A-10s will be relocated.
A decision on whether encroaching development will force the US Navy to relocate its East Coast fighter base from NAS Oceana in Virginia to the previously closed Cecil Field in Florida has been set for March 2006.
In other actions, the panel voted to convert McGuire AFB, New Jersey, into a joint base and Pope AFB, North Carolina, into a US Army base, and to move undergraduate navigator training from Randolph AFB, Texas to NAS Pensacola, Florida.
GRAHAM WARWICK/WASHINGTON
Source: Flight International
