BRAC Sword Falls

The base-closure list, Sen. Susan Collins said the other day, is “like a sword of Damocles hanging over our head.” Yesterday, it fell on Maine. And fell. And fell. It chopped 6,938 jobs from the state (13,000 indirectly), making Maine easily the hardest hit in the nation. The impulse of the state’s political leaders will be to fight the listings with all their energy. Certainly they should make their cases loudly and forcefully ? but not stop there.

The Defense Department proposed to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard be closed (4,510 jobs), the work force at Brunswick Naval Air Station be cut in half (2,420 jobs), the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center at Loring be closed (362 jobs) and the Naval Reserve Center in Bangor also close (seven jobs). The Air Guard in Bangor would gain 240 positions.

It is devastating, and seems especially directed at the Northeast. As Texas, Florida, Alabama and Georgia gain thousands of jobs and expanded bases, Connecticut suffered the greatest job hit, at 8,586 lost directly. New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania lost thousands too.

Most of the bases on the list will still be listed in September, but the political fight between now and then will depend on solid arguments ? Maine has those ? and a broader Northeast coalition of members of Congress willing to use that strong argument as a political lever.

The big potential loss for Maine is Portsmouth, which services and fuels a shrinking number of Los Angeles-class nuclear-powered submarines. The strength of the Kittery shipyard is its labor force, which is known for doing high-quality work ahead of schedule and under budget. The savings from this is huge. Its challenge is that the Navy will cut the number of submarines in its fleet from about 100 to 41, and a new class of submarines, the Virginia, does not need refueling. Maine and the Northeast should argue that, if a base is saved on the Atlantic, it should be the more efficient one.

The decision on Brunswick is without qualification wrong-headed. As Rep. Tom Allen noted, “The base has proven to be critically important for providing immediate crisis information essential to rapid response to natural and man-made disasters.” The Brunswick base, says Sen. Olympia Snowe, “is vital to executing the National Maritime Security Strategy being developed by DoD and the Department of Homeland Security for maritime interdiction of seaborne threats.”

The closure of DFAS at Limestone ? part of a major reform involving dozens of these centers ? ignores that it was put there as part of the revitalization of Loring Air Force Base after its closure. If Defense wants to send the message that this is how it treats closed bases, no state has any reason to relent through the closure process.

Brian Hamel, former CEO of the Loring Development Authority, observed recently that in addition to making the case to be removed from the list, “I would recommend that the community move full steam ahead on the planning process required to close and redevelop the base.” That needn’t happen loudly, but it should happen.

This balance of fighting to save the bases and preparing for the fact that not all will be is extremely difficult. For the coming months, the emphasis should remain on why the bases are strategically needed. But Maine has a lot of quiet work to do on both sides of the balance.