THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 24, 1995 TAG: 9502240559
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 68 lines
Two years and millions of dollars worth of preparation for the movement of 160-plus Navy attack jets to Cherry Point, N.C., will be wasted if the transfer order is reversed this year, a North Carolina congressman warned Thursday.
Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr., whose district includes the Marine Corps Air Station at Cherry Point, said news stories suggesting that Navy F/A-18s might be shifted to Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach raise questions about the integrity of the federal base-closing process.
The jets are now based at Cecil Field, a Navy facility near Jacksonville, Fla. After lengthy and often contentious hearings, the 1993 Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission ordered Cecil Field closed and accepted a Navy recommendation to move most of the planes to Cherry Point.
But defense and congressional sources said this week that the Navy has concluded that decision was a mistake. Navy Secretary John H. Dalton, the sources said, wants the F/A-18s to go to Oceana and has asked Defense Secretary William F. Perry to recommend the change to a new base closing commission.
Perry's recommendations are to be released Tuesday. The commission is to review them and by July 1 issue a final list of bases to be shut or reorganized. President Clinton and Congress must accept or reject the list as a package.
Jones, a Republican serving his first term, raised questions about the Cherry Point situation in a hearing and brief private conversation Thursday afternoon with Joshua Gotbaum, an assistant to Perry.
Gotbaum declined comment on what Perry may recommend but tried to reassure Jones that the kind of changes Dalton reportedly is seeking are ``not something that a service could do on their own.'' Because a previous commission specifically ordered the move from Cecil to Cherry Point, only a new commission can override it, he said.
Jones said later that he was satisfied with the explanation. The case to bring the planes to Cherry Point remains strong, he asserted.
Other members of a House National Security subcommittee questioning Gotbaum on Thursday challenged Pentagon claims that three earlier rounds of base closures will produce long-term savings of more than $30 billion.
Gotbaum conceded that defense officials initially underestimated the costs associated with closing some bases and overestimated the profits the Pentagon could realize by selling off unneeded land.
But on balance, the almost 200 closures and realignments ordered to date have produced a substantial savings, he insisted.
A General Accounting Office report given to the subcommittee was particularly critical of past Pentagon estimates of the potential profits from sales of base property.
The Defense Department originally put those profits at $4.1 billion for closures ordered in 1988 and '91, the report said. Those sales actually have generated less than 2 percent of the estimate, or about $63 million.
Similarly, the report said, the military underestimated the cost of environmental cleanups at bases. The Pentagon's 1995 budget request sought $4 billion for environmental work at 123 bases being closed or realigned. More comprehensive estimates later developed by just 84 of the facilities totaled $5.4 billion.
``We found that even these estimates were understated,'' the GAO report said.
KEYWORDS: BASE CLOSINGS MILITARY BASES by CNB