CLOSURE OF CANNON AIR FORCE BASE AN ENORMOUS MISTAKE -- (House of Representatives - May 16, 2005)
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of January 4, 2005, the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Udall) is recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
Mr. UDALL of New Mexico. Madam Speaker, Friday the 13th unfortunately lived up to its ominous reputation when this administration and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of the Department of Defense announced that they were closing Cannon Air Force Base in Eastern New Mexico. They announced that Cannon was closing and all 2,800 employees would be moved to other areas.
I can tell you one thing; our Congressional delegation, all the Democrats and all the Republicans, along with our Governor, Governor Richardson, are united to fight this, because we believe this is an ill-advised decision, an ill-considered decision and a wrongheaded move. I just want to talk today about a couple of the reasons why this is ill-considered.
First of all, there is the issue of encroachment. When you have an Air Force base, you do not want residential areas nor industrial areas nearby. Of the 56 Air Force bases in this country, this is one of the best in terms of the encroachment issue. The local communities have worked very closely and formed a committee to try to make sure that this Air Force base was not encroached upon. There has been a robust buffer around this base for years and years.
Secondly, there is the issue for our airmen and women of practicing and training in supersonic air space. We have initiated in New Mexico something called the New Mexico Training Range Initiative. It will be approved in October by the FAA and the Air Force. What that training initiative is going to do is make sure that as those pilots get off the ground, within a matter of minutes, they can train in supersonic air space. This is not true anyplace else in the country. For many, many pilots, they must fly 2 to 3 hours in order to get to a training area.
At Cannon Air Force Base, there are nearby bombing ranges, there is training, there is going to be this access to supersonic air space, which is enormously important, and they will be able to train immediately and not have to travel those long distances. That fact was not even considered by the Department of Defense because their cut-off date was December of 2004, so we are going to put that fact before the commission.
The third issue is what is called the military value and mission of this particular base. This is a top-notch base. It is an exceptional base. We have spent as a country $53 million over the last 6 or 7 years improving the towers, improving the runways, improving and enhancing the fire-fighting capability on the base and increasing base housing so that the base is in the kind of shape to make sure that our airmen and women that train there are ready to go into battle.
To close, this is a bad decision. Our Congressional delegation and Governor are united. We are going to persuade that base closing commission that this was not the right decision for the country.
Madam Speaker, Friday the 13th was a day that unfortunately lived up to its ominous reputation when the Department of Defense (DoD) released its Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) recommendations. In what I and the entire New Mexico Congressional Delegation believe is an enormous mistake, the Secretary of Defense included Cannon Air Force Base on its list of bases recommended for closure.
The BRAC process was established over a decade ago following the collapse of the Soviet Union as a means to realign or close military installations that are believed to be no longer needed for our Nation's defense. There have been BRAC rounds in 1988, 1991, 1993, and 1995. This year's BRAC round, however, was expected to be one of the largest as Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld pledged to shrink the number of military installations in the United States by as much as 25 percent. Although Secretary Rumsfeld recently acknowledged that the BRAC round would be less extensive than earlier thought, DoD still recommended closing 33 bases, including Cannon.
This is just the beginning of our fight to save Cannon. The list of recommendations submitted by the DoD to the BRAC Commission is only the first stage of a lengthy process. The next step is the Commission must submit its list of recommendations to President Bush on September 8th. The President will then either approve or disapprove the recommendations made by the BRAC Commission and submit to Congress. Congress will then have an up-or-down vote on the recommendations. Until September 8th, however, I will work with the entire Congressional Delegation, Governor Richardson, and the Clovis and Portales Communities to fight to get Cannon off the list of recommended closures.
A central argument we will make to the commissioners is the issue of "range encroachment." It is the process whereby a military base is progressively hemmed in by urban growth, competition for air space, and other factors. Such a development can detract from a base's desirability, and thus make it a target for future closure and realignment in the BRAC round. Cannon has two long runways, excellent airspace, and bombing ranges with no encroachment issues.
Additionally, the Department of Defense did not take into account the New Mexico Training Range Initiative as part of its analysis of Cannon's military value. Although the Initiative has yet to be fully approved, it is expected to be by October of this year. The Training Range Initiative will allow training at supersonic speeds, only further adding to the exceptional capabilities offered by Cannon Air Force Base. It is further evidence of the DoD's shortsightedness that they failed to take into account this valuable initiative.
Cannon Air Force Base is a critical component of our Nation's defense. It is also equally, if not more, important to the communities of Clovis and Portales and the entire State of New Mexico. There are several months to fight the DoD's recommendation and I plan to do so vigilantly side-by-side with you, the other members of the Congressional Delegation, and Governor Richardson to show the BRAC Commissioners just how valuable Cannon, Clovis, and Portales are to our Nation.
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