THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506250092
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: FROM WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
President Clinton is about to get the political equivalent of a live hand grenade: a list recommending scores of military base closings that includes shutdowns in voter-rich California.
Two of the significant recommendations - closing Oakland Army Base and McClellan Air Force Base in Sacramento, Calif. - were not part of the original White House proposal. Already California's two Democratic senators and Gov. Pete Wilson, a Republican presidential contender, are demanding that Clinton reject the list.
Bases in Hampton Roads survived another round of closures. Oceana Naval Air Station will expand when a fleet of Florida- and California-based Navy fighters comes to the area within a year. Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth and all other major military facilities in the region were left untouched.
The Pentagon also expressed unhappiness Saturday that its recommendations had been changed more than in previous closure rounds.
Underscoring the high stakes for Clinton, the administration wasted no time issuing statements indicating he may disapprove the list.
The president will get the list from the Defense Base Closure and Realignment Commission by July 1. He has until July 15 to make a decision. In the three prior closure rounds, no president rejected a list. And the White House is under pressure to save the military money.
If Clinton accepts the recommendations, Congress must vote to approve or reject them without making changes.
``I certainly do expect him to accept the list,'' said Alan Dixon, the commission's chairman and a former Illinois senator. ``But I don't expect everything we have done here will necessarily delight people that talk to him.''
Statements from the administration suggest the president is seriously considering sending the list back to the commission for revision.
Vice President Al Gore said administration officials were ``concerned'' about the commission's decisions, but that it was too early to draw conclusions.
``We have to wait until the process has completed this stage and look at the entire plan in order to evaluate every aspect of it,'' Gore said.
The Pentagon issued a statement Saturday expressing dismay that the panel overturned so many military recommendations.
``We are concerned that, compared to past reviews, the commission has made an unusually large number of additions to the closures and realignments recommended by the military services.'' The statement said the Pentagon would review ``the cumulative economic impact of this and previous base closure actions'' on states and communities.
Dixon, a Democrat, said the commission was not trying to embarrass the president but merely to unload unneeded bases.
``As luck would have it, several were in California,'' Dixon said.
In two days of deliberation ending Friday night, the eight-member commission recommended closing completely or nearly completely 90 bases; keeping open 43 that were on the review list; and realigning 33 others.
Near the end of its deliberations, the commission voted to close the Fleet Industrial Supply Center in Oakland, Calif. That came on top of earlier votes recommending major shutdowns at the Oakland Army Base, the Long Beach Naval Shipyard and McClellan Air Force Base.
Combined, these would translate into 18,000 lost jobs in California, a state already hit hard by defense cuts.
California accounted for 88,000 of the 150,000 jobs lost nationwide due to base closings in the past seven years, Sen. Dianne Feinstein said.
``I frankly think it's somewhat unfair,'' Feinstein said Thursday after the commission vote on McClellan. ``I think the president has to step in.''
At Long Beach, the sprawling shipyard whose towering cranes and thousands of workers have serviced Navy ships since World War II, the mood was black.
``With the Southern California unemployment rate exceeding the national level, the only option is for the president to look at the list, and for the president to give it back and say `People, do your homework,' '' said Louis F. Rodriguez, president of one of the shipyard's union locals.
In a few instances, the devastating impact of a closure on a local economy caused the commission to spare a base, as in the case of Red River Army Depot, Texarkana, Texas. The commission also rejected Pentagon recommendations and kept open Rome Laboratory at Griffiss Air Force Base, Rome, N.Y., and Brooks Air Force Base, San Antonio.
On other bases, the commission went in the opposite direction, voting to close facilities the Pentagon wanted preserved. High on that list were two Air Force aircraft maintenance depots, California's McClellan and Kelly Air Force Base, San Antonio.
Top Army officials had told the commission they needed Oakland Army Base as an embarkation point in case of war in the Pacific. The commission rejected that argument, noting the base is functioning at less than half its capacity.
``If I were president, I would ask that there be a revision of the process altogether,'' Gov. Wilson said. He said the cuts are too deep and would result in ``sacrificing our military capability.''
But Commissioner Josue Robles, a retired Army general, said base closures free the military from burdensome overhead.
``Every dollar for base closure will be a dollar for readiness,'' Robles said.
On the political front, there was at least one bright spot for Clinton: The commission voted to keep open the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, a major employer in New Hampshire, the nation's first primary state.
KEYWORDS: MILITARY BASES BASE CLOSINGS by CNB