Shaheen, Ayotte Vow to Oppose New Round of Base Closures

Press Release

Following the release of the Administration's Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 defense budget, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) today renewed their opposition to a new Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round. The Administration's FY 2014 budget proposal calls for a BRAC round in FY 2015.

"The last BRAC round did not achieve the intended savings," the Senators said. "Now is not the time to spend billions of dollars on another BRAC round, especially as the Department of Defense grounds combat aircraft, cancels ship deployments, and furloughs workers due to sequestration."

Shaheen and Ayotte serve as Chairman and Ranking Republican, respectively, of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness and Management Support-which is responsible for BRAC oversight.

In 2009, a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report found that the most recent BRAC process, which occurred in 2005, cost taxpayers $35 billion -- 67 percent more than initially estimated.

During October 2011 testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, then-Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said, "I went through the BRAC process and I know that all the dollars that people looked...for, you know, huge savings in BRAC, and yet they didn't take into consideration the cleanup, they didn't take into consideration all the work that had to be done, they didn't take into consideration all of the needs that had to be addressed, and in many cases, it wound up costing a lot more."

Source