THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 28, 1995 TAG: 9501280251
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Even children learn that to save money, you first must stop spending it. Simple, right?
Not in this town, and particularly, not at the Pentagon.
Independent and congressional analysts suggested Friday that the realities of military financing have taught the Clinton administration a different lesson: To save money by shedding unneeded military bases, you first must pay to clean them up and retrain their workers. In other words, to save the big money later you must spend now - a lot more than you can afford.
Defense Secretary William Perry acknowledged the lesson on Thursday, the analysts said, when he told the U.S. Conference of Mayors that he now anticipates a smaller round of base closings this year than in 1993.
Some 130 installations were ordered shut or reorganized then; top Pentagon officials had suggested that at least as many would be targeted this year.
``There's no profit to be made in closing more bases,'' said Robert Borosage, director of the Campaign for New Priorities, a Washington-based group that argues for lower defense budgets. So the Pentagon is cutting back on cuts.
Pentagon budgets and budget projections illustrate the point. Perry told the mayors conference that the Defense Department expects to spend $15 billion on environmental cleanups, worker assistance and other items related to closing the 70 major installations targeted in past base-closing rounds.
Those closings eventually will save far more than $15 billion. And the Pentagon once hoped to use that money for new weapons, better troop pay and benefits. But that's tomorrow, and cash is scarce today.
``It will take them the rest of this decade to catch up'' on the expenses of base closings ordered in 1988, '91, and '93, said Arnold Punaro, minority staff director for the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The concerns of Hampton Roads mayors are local, and many who heard Perry's remarks firsthand emerged from the mayors conference optimistic. Still, while fewer bases overall may be closed, they won't rest until they see that none are in Hampton Roads.
``Last time, we got caught by surprise,'' said Portsmouth Mayor Gloria Webb, recalling how officials had to scramble to defend several area installations that were added late to a list being considered for closure.
``We're still preparing. We can't let down,'' said Chesapeake Mayor William E. Ward.
Perry's remarks may have caught the mayors by surprise, but the Pentagon's economics made it ``pretty evident even a year ago'' that 1995 closing forecasts would have to be scaled back, Punaro said.
``What it really gets to,'' said Heritage Foundation analyst John Luddy, ``is this issue of the upfront cost of closing bases running straight into the tightly constrained defense budget. . . . Any budget relief the Pentagon gets has got to go to other things.''
Run by conservative Republicans, the Heritage Foundation is a hawk's nest when it comes to questions about the need for a strong defense. But Luddy's analysis of the Pentagon's new position on base closings is strikingly similar to Borosage's.
``There's a mismatch'' between the size of the military force now planned and the number of facilities in place to support it, Luddy said. His group believes a stronger force is needed, but even with that the Pentagon has more bases than it needs, he acknowledged.
Conservatives like Luddy and liberals like Borosage part company on how the Pentagon ought to proceed.
``By postponing the short-term costs of shutting them down, you're adding to the long-term costs'' Borosage said. His group would have the Pentagon trim its actual forces more sharply, freeing additional dollars for base closures and a variety of domestic needs.
``We have a military that's far beyond our needs and that military has a base structure that's far beyond its needs,'' he said.
Luddy, in contrast, suggested that the Pentagon try to make closings more affordable by seeking relief from tough environmental regulations.
Under current rules, cleanups often ``have to be done to a standard that would enable you to have a nursery school on the grounds'' once the military has gone, Luddy said. The administration ought to find uses for discarded bases that wouldn't require such strict environmental compliance, he argued.
Either way, without a vigorous round of closures this year, the continuing expense of maintaining unneeded bases will generate pressure for another and even more expensive round in the future, said Marcus Corbin, a base-closing analyst at the Center for Defense Information.
``I don't think we've heard the end of it,'' he said.
KEYWORDS: BRAC COMMISSION DEFENSE BASE CLOSURES by CNB