Tom Udall: “Friday the 13th unfortunately lived up to its ominous reputation when this administration and Secretary Donald Rumsfeld…”

“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.…”