Snowe, Collins seek base closing delay

AUGUSTA – Maine’s two U.S. senators are supporting a delay in the base closing process, with Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe joining a bipartisan group of senators to introduce an amendment, possibly today, to the Defense Authorization bill being debated this week.

“Several of my colleagues and I will be offering an amendment that will defer the process,” Snowe said, “and it will focus it on foreign bases. This is not the time to be reducing our domestic bases.”

The amendment is similar to language crafted by the House Armed Services Committee that delays the planned 2005 round of base closings for at least two years. Snowe agrees with the House criticism that there are too many unresolved defense issues to be closing bases at this time.

“We are in the midst of the war on terror. We are in the midst of the war in Iraq,” she said. “We have multiple security challenges both here and abroad. This is not the time to be phasing down our domestic bases.”

Snowe said Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss. and Sen. Bryan Dorgan, D-N.D., have signed on to her amendment. Snowe said it will be a tough battle, but it is important to delay the process.

Both the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard at Kittery and the Brunswick Naval Air Station are at risk for closing or downsizing under the base closing process now underway.

The base closing commission is supposed to make its recommendations to the president by September 2005. The Defense Department has estimated it could save $5 billion by 2011 by closing as many as one-fourth of the country’s military bases next year. The savings would increase to an estimated $8 billion per year after 2011, according to the department.

“I am pleased the House has passed legislation that would delay the whole base closing and reorganization procedure,” said fellow Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins. “Now is not the time for us to be closing bases. We are re-evaluating the entire force structure of our military and it is very likely the Army will be enlarged.”

Collins serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee and said efforts to delay the base closing process during committee deliberations were unsuccessful. She said while she supports the delay efforts, she is not optimistic they will be successful.

“I think it is unlikely the Senate will approve,” she said, “but I am going to do everything I can to try to advance this bill and make the case for it.”

If the Senate does not approve the amendment to delay the process, the differences between the House and Senate versions of the Defense Authorization bill will still have to be worked out in a conference committee. Collins expects to be named to that committee, where there will be another opportunity to get the delay included in the legislation.

Snowe has served on both the Senate and House Armed Services committees during her career. She said the Pentagon has a long history of not preparing for the conflicts the United States has been involved in during recent years.

“Clearly, the Defense Department has failed in the past to accurately project the threats and the force structure needed to deal with the threats,” she said. “That has also been the case in the war on terror.”