Look on those who joined us on our heritage. Org website as well as those joining us on the cspan network. For those in house we ask the courtesy to see the mobile devices have been silenced or turned off to avoid any unnecessary distractions. For those online youre welcome to send questions or, at any time by emailing speaker at heritage. Org. Will post the program on the heritage homepage for your future reference following the presentation straight. Leading our discussion i want from our guest is fred rico, fred is a policy analyst for defense budgeting in the center for National Defense at the Heritage Foundation. Please welcome fred. [applause] think everyone for making the time to come here in this first day of congress being back into which i assume is busy for everyone. First, i will introduce her guest and then explain that if youre here by accident and dont know what this is, i will give you a twominute introduction to make sure the audience knows as well while talking of the same thing. So, to my left my the assistant secretary of defense it dod. He served as a professional staff member on the up Service Special committee will provide oversight for 2005 round. A retired air force officer and National Guard services. To his left is anthony, chairman of the 2005 commission in 2001 through 2005 he was secretary of virginia. Tony has multiple and he is a graduate of the u. S. Naval academy in annapolis. To his left is Andrew Hunter. A senior fellow at the International Security program and director of the Initiative Group as csi us. Hes worked a Senior Executive it dod and chief of staffcarter and Frank Kendall while working. He also served as professional staff member has staff Armed Services committee before all of that. So, this was created as political compromise between executives of the legislative branch the power the initially the executive is on the basis to be close. Theyre able to stop all closures. This reporting requirements. They were only overcome with the creation of brack. Enter a is establishment of criteria for possible closures. Dod has a list of recommendations which are assessed by an independent nine Person Commission before going to the president and congress for approval. The first round took place in 1980 followed by three consecutive rounds and 91, 93, 95. The last round took place in 2005. Twelve years later authorizing a new round is part of the political discussion. The need is based on estimates we currently have over 20 of the infrastructure. The resources dedicated would be better allocated somewhere else in the defense budget. To talk about why we need this now, the secretary is going to inform us on that. I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity to talk at heritage on this important topic. And one that is timely. For those who watch the on goings of congress from daytoday we know the senate is about to consider the fy 19 Defense Authorization act on the senate floor. We do have an amendment pending for both the chairman and Ranking Member that provide for an authorization of the closure. Its important to talk to and take questions and talk about why we believe the department is in a good place to request via authorization. To carried out with the intent of congress and what theyre looking for cost savings and the ability to make this more effective. Some quick hits for my background, when i was in the air force and on the committee and ultimately now serving in a new capacity. Have been on the job for three weeks. Two of those ive been traveling just got back from 60s and gone. If i start to not off its because im still on guam time. To really look at it back is been a great process of the department of defense to take a look at itself where do we need to look at whats happening in the world of weapon systems and how do we join it domestically with the next and then maximize the effectiveness of it. If you look back on it congress has shared this position and provided in this authorization for five previous rounds. For those of us here who say theres no way congress will authorize the brack, my responses that theyve done appointed times before so i think congress believes in that to conduct a process that is free and transparent. Look at what the authorization provides. We need to step back. Or that its a Standing Authority, the only Standing Authority that the commanderinchief has now is to Close Military installations. Standing in the way of that is section 2067 which provides an onerous component which made it tough for the secretary to get recommendations to the hill and have it consider. That resulted in a separate legislation that allows for a transparent and open process for them to have recommendations which would take a look at it for the president. The value of that legislation to communities is immeasurable. Not that any Community Wants to suffer from a closure, but if you look at the law theres about 20 pages that talk about how the secretary will conduct the review and how the commission will consider the recommendation. The rest of the law is a series of actions that allow communities to quickly redevelop the property. About a hundred pages of the authority for the establishment agencies. And also an opportunity for funding for the department of defense to assist. If you look at it, send it back from what the department is trying to do, brack really does provide not just a transparent process, but a great to of ability for the department of defense to assist the communities impacted. If you look at it from that standpoint in the community faced with the reduction of forces or the potential of being closed, they are much would prefer under the brack process rather than understand or process where you declared, you go no further than test the folks in the community surrounding the sugar grove and west virginias are struggling to fix a figure out what to do with that parcel. That was close by the navy couple years ago under authority other than brack with that said, the department has asked for request an authorization can to conduct a brack over the last five years. In the past the request was based on the justification there could be an efficiency to be gained, this offer dubs an opportunity to see where we might have excess capacity to close or reduce basis in order to eliminate. No doubt its a noble cause and even in our administration thats one of the goals. The more important thing right now is the department of defense. The facts were undergoing a process in the department for the review and update of a National Defense strategy. Also looking at a new realm an era of new technologies and methods of warfare. Emerging capabilities and will fifth generation weapon systems. For us that needs an updated basis strategy and emerging National Defense. That is the sole and primary reason why congress allowing the ability to make prudent decisions on where to put our forces. We go back to secretary mattis when he took over secretary defense. He wants to address readiness concerns increase military capabilities and enhance lethality. From my perspective working from him this process offers the opportunity to address readiness by providing our forces the best ranges and installation for them to be stationed at. Will thank you. Thank you fred and Heritage Foundation for having us here today to talk about a very important topic and im certainly pleased to join with my colleagues, my former colleagues and andrew in discussing it. I recall in 1993 after i was leaving the first bush of i received a call from senator Strom Thurmond who was Ranking Judiciary Committee and i was ready to go back to california and practice law. He says i needed to be my staff director and Armed Services. Charleston Naval Shipyard was on that and i accepted the invitation to go back to the Armed Services committee. I should have learned my lesson that someone asked you to chair brac you say no when you move on but it didnt and started in 2005 and i just want to build on what lucian said. Its been if brac is authorized to take place in 2020 when that will be 16 years since the last brac and think about the changes that have taken place instruments in the army combat air wings brigades changes in Technology Emergency technology and how that impacts our defense establishment changing the threat environment if we still have the same footprint. At the same time theres really a brac going but its a brac on the radar screen kind of scope brac. They are limited in terms of closing military bases but the air force because it touches very constraints to people so brigades have consolidated and other changes are taking place so you have a lot of racist. You need to heed the need to cool. That can be better expended advancing our defense establishment and our National Security concerns. One could make the argument that indeed we need to have a brac and the women and men charged with leading our defense establishment has been pleading for brac over several demonstrations including as lucian indicated the Current Administration has done so as well. 2005 was unlike any other brac in my view and limited experience in the 1993 brac great but in terms of major and minor closures and realignments double the number produced backgrounds combined. 190 recommendations that have 783 distinct Closure Realignment actions associated with it because the way the brac recommendations are structured and secretary rumsfeld made it very clear that this was not about cost savings. This was about military transformation and im not sure we carry the ball over the goal line but we certainly moved move it down the field somewhat and unlike other creepiest brac we were combating an ongoing time a stable order enforcing for structure. 2005 is increasing in the projected deployment of 70,000 troops and their families from asia and europe so thats the context upon which the 2005 brac took place. A number of things went well. I was blessed to have a commission of three retired fourstar flag officers armynavy and air force cabinet officials and two former members of congress both republican and democrat, former secretary of defense has served as assistant secretary of energy in the White House Office of technology really an expert Nuclear Power matters and the former retired twostar Major General who was the head of the air force school so indeed the commission had people of experience the flag officers on the inside of the military whose advice was invaluable to all of us on the commission. We also have an incredible professional staff who had served on previous brac detailees from jail in the pentagon who came to work on the staff working 24 7 for period of time and of course as lucian mentioned it was an open and transparent process. Youd never take politics out of it never take completely out of that we tried to make it transparent and apolitical. 183 site visits to military installations around the country, 40 hearings around the country in washington and having to produce a report for congress. Number things went wrong. When we were nominated confirmation by president bush one senator wanted to kill brac soy put a hold on all of our nomination so he had to wait for the day after we received this volume of information from dod the recommendation of all the data they determined oh my gosh this is classified. When you consolidate all this information that becomes classified so we had to wait until the c. Class and thats the time. Of course we only had four months upon which to act on all of these recommendations. Cost issues, i mean you know the quantitative analysis that had gone to determine cost savings based on the model cost of raise realignment actions. Gao found it was a reasonable calculator to determine what the cost of savings were as you can. These various military bases that the problem was they underestimated the requirements. For example they estimated implementation costs or new construction to be 13. 4 billion. It turned out to be 25point 5 billion that for the underestimated the Information Technology requirements that caused significant amount of money to implement brac and importantly the underestimated the personnel costs savings by saying if you close a military base in the 5000 people you have 5000 troops cost saving that there is the reduction in force structure. Those people which is the moves of the savings they projected at 45 billion over 10 or 20 years, i dont recall really was less so those are some of the things that went wrong that im hopeful when the next brac round comes those issues are identified and addressed. I will conclude. We are blessed to have lucian as the secretary of Installations Energy and environment in knowing basically living brac on the Arms Committee staff so with that i will conclude than happy to answer any questions you might have. Im going to talk a little bit about the environment for brac on the hill both big picture and the Current Situation. Im going to start big picture and what is the logic of brac alighted brac never work and why might it work again . I want to start actually with what i think is the key point which is brac is always hard and its not popular. Its not Something Congress likes to do so the key element is that there has to be a champion. There has to be someone in congress that is highly respected he was taking the sauna and pushing it forward and of necessity. That needs to be somebody who is is who cares and in the past various folks have served that role. The last was senator warner who served that role and what is interesting and notable and i think very significant this years that we have a champion who stepped forward and senator mccain along with his colleague senator reed together to serve. Thats a really critical and i think the critical event and i should recognize congressman smith has been there for some time as the Ranking Member pushing the issue which was incredibly helpful and move the process forward. As the Ranking Member hes in a position to really push it through and thats a key element of fell into place this year. The basic formula the previous brac operated on is that they started the level and though the authority is granted when there are no specific winners or losers the authority has been granted when in theory everyone could be either a winner or loser. In reality a lot of members of congress either know or believe that they have a target on their back when it comes to brac so they think they are at risk and by the way there are winners and brac although we tend to think of it as a losing game. I happen to work for one member of congress during my stint on the hill who gained out of every background gained substantially out of every brac round and interestingly enough to lucians point in the secretarys point about brac the one that didnt benefit from brac of lost a lot of work was the Shipyard District because the navy got smaller so courses should fear god smaller. They never benefited because there was no brac benefit. There is a decline in the number of ships and they lost after the personnel and never received assistance as a result of 50 decrease in their scope. Understood brac his district was the gainer so there are winners and brac and in many cases folks who are like the to win know who they are. One of the key formulas is the brac authority is granted before the winners and losers have been definitively identified then when the recommendations come back from the commission its an upordown vote and trying to stop something thats in process rather than affirmatively voting to close someone elses space. You are just voting to keep the process going and generally speaking the political, the winners in the process have been able to say the process work its will. Its not that we are greedy and trying to disadvantage our colleagues but all we are doing in the point is thwarting authority. I will circle back to that point and get to where we are with today the Current Situation in congress. Congress has obviously really struggled to cope with brac and the i. D. Of the new brac round. Other objections raised upfront costs during a time when the department was hit with the spending reduction in 2013 as a result of the budget control act obviously there was a strong logic for savings but one of the concerns was right now the first two years of sequestration in the budget was low lowest was the biggest cut at that point there would have been an increased cost if they would have done it at that the time when the department started requesting it at that point. The idea that funding is the shortest now that but you need your money today to start closing bases we dont want that. Thats not a political winner at that time. Upfront costs have always been a concern. Obviously the concern of economic communities of job loss is a huge concern for members of congress. As i mentioned thats tempered by the fact that theres a relatively small number of folks that get close. Theres a small number of losers there has been traditionally concerned and in fact brac originated out of closures and that remains a concern. Every brac round found a way to detect politicization whether its really there or not in the process. Is one reason why the issue is of military value has been so pro found. The recommendations seem to be based on those and that gets a little complicated as secretary principi indicated to have to crunch the numbers someone turns his military guy you into the number that