Mike Levin: “a number of arguments have been raised this afternoon about the Bunning amendment which would strike the BRAC language…”

“a number of arguments have been raised this afternoon about the Bunning amendment which would strike the BRAC language from our bill. By the way, this is the first time the Armed Services Committee--at least within my memory--has adopted a bill for an additional round of base closings on a very strong bipartisan vote. It was adopted because the civilian and uniformed leadership of our Armed Forces pleaded with us to allow them to get rid of excess structure, which costs a lot of money and makes it impossible for us to do the things we want to do to modernize Air Forces, make them more ready and more lethal, to make them more mobile, to give them greater pay, because we are spending billions of dollars on infrastructure we do not need. For the last 4 years, Senator McCain and I have come to this floor and said our leadership is asking for the authority--just the authority--to have another round of base closings. It has been denied year after year. We have been told ``this is not the time,'' year after year. We have been told we should have a study year after year. As a matter of fact, in 1997 there was a study that was substituted for the round of base closings. The April 1998 report contained 1,800 pages of detailed backup material for why we should have another round of base closings. I think the most important question that has been raised is, Does September 11 change all this? That, to me, is the real vital issue.…”