Good morning. Welcome to the Heritage Foundation and our auditorium. Of course welcome those who join us on our heritage. Org website as well as those joining us on the kprrks spcspan network. Mike sure that your mobile devices have been silenced or turned off simply to avoid any unnecessary sash distractions. Those watching online, youre welcome to send questions or comments at any time, email speaker at heritage. Org. Well post the program on the heritage home page for your future reference following the presentations today. Leading our discussion the fred. Hes in the center of National Defense here at the Heritage Foundation. Please join in welcoming him. Fred. Thanks, john. [ applause ] thanks for making the time to come over here on a day of congress being back in town which i assume is a busy one for all of us. Im going to introduce our guests and explain to everyone if youre here by accident and you dont foe what brac is, im going to give you a twominute introduction to make sure that the audience knows as well and were all talking about the same thing. So to my left is the assistant secretary of defense for energy and installations experiment at dod. And can provide oversight for the 2005 brac round. Hes a retired air force officer with active duty in the air and National Guard services. To his left is anthony. He was the chairman of the 2005 Brac Commission. And from 2001 to dwoo2005. He was the secretary of va. He is a graduate of the u. S. Naval academy in annapolis. And to his left is andrew hunter. Hunter is a senior fellow at the International Security program and director of Defense Industry initiatives group at csis, a Senior Executive at dod and chief of staff to both ash carter and frank kindle. He also serve as a professional staff member at the House Armed Services committee before all of that ncis. So brac was created to close and realign domestic military bases. The pow tore Close Military bases is part of the powers of the commander in chief. The executive was able to determine at loan which bases would be closed. In 1977 congress was able to stop all closures fsh highly visible reporting requirements. They were only overcome with the creation of brac. A brac round involves establishing possible closures, dod has a list of actions which are later assessed by an independent 9person commission before going to the president and congress for approval. The first round of brac took place in 1988 followed by three consecutive rounds in 91, 93 and 95. The fifth and final round took place in 2005. Now 12 years later authorizing a new round of brac is part of the political discussion. The need is based on estimates that we have 20 of excess infrastructure and the resources dedicated to the upkeep of these bases could be better allocated somewhere else in the defense budget. And to talk about why we need a brac now. The secretary is going to be able to inform us on that. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. And i really appreciate the opportunity to talk here at heritage on this important topic and one thats pretty timely. For those of us who watched the ongoings of congress from day to day, we know that the senate is about to consider the f 19 Senate Authorization act on the floor. And we do have an amendment pending for the chairman and the Ranking Member that would provide for an authorization of a line of base alignment closure. Its important to talk with you all, to take questions and be able to talk about why we believe the department is in a good place right now and a good position to request an no, sir for base closure and to carry it out with the intent of congress and what theyre looking for both in cost savings and the ability to make the military more effective. A couple of quick hits from my background on brac. When i was in the air force and then on the committee and then ultimately serving in a new capacity, ive been in the job for three weeks. Two of the week ive been traveling. Just got back from six days in guam. So if i start to nod off here on stage, its because im still on guam time. Great. If you really look at it, brac has been a great process for the department of defense to take a look at itself. To stand back and say okay where do we need to go with military value. Where do we need to look at what is happening in the world of weapons systems, e mirjing technologies and how can we best station the forces domestically in order to take advantage of those opportunities provided by installations of infrastructure and to maximize the effect of the weapons and training. If you look back on it, congress has also shared this position and provided authorization for five previous rounds. For those folks who here say theres no way congress is going to authorize a brac, my response is theyve done it plenty of times before. I think ultimately congress does believe in the value of being able to do a conduct a process which is fair and transparent. If we look at also what the authorization provides and again, we need to step back a little bit. People think sometimes that your commission is still in law or that it is a Standing Authority. The only Standing Authority that the commander in chief has right now is to Close Military installations. Standing in the way of that is section 2867 which provides somewhat onerous reporting requirement thats made it tough for the secretary to get the recommendations up to the hill to have them considered. Thats resulted in a separate piece of legislation that allows for the secretary to send in recommendations, develop them and submit them to the commission which will take a look at them and then forward them on to the president. The value of that particular piece of legislation to communities is immeasurable. Not that any community actually wants to suffer from a b rxrac round or suffer from a closure, if you look at the actual law, there are only 20 pages that talk about how the secretary will conduct the review and how the commission will consider those recommendations. The rest of the brac law is actually a series of actions that allows communities to quickly read about the property. Only 100 pages of abbreviated authorities for the establishment of local redevelopment authorities agencies and also an opportunity for funding for the department of defense to assist in the transition. So if you look at it, standing back from what the department is trying to do, brac really does provide not just a transparent process but also a great deal of ability for the department of defense to assist those communities impacted by brac. I think if you look at it from the standpoint, a community thats faced with the reduction of forces or a community thats faced with the potential of being closed, the installation being closed, they much would prefer to do it under the brac process than under standard process where you would declare the property excess and subject it to property disposal act. You go no further than to ask the folks in the communities surrounding the naval area in sugar grove, theyre still trying to figure out what to do with that. That base was closed by the navy a couple of years ago under the authority other than brac and theyre still struggling on how best to use that property. The department asked for a request an authorization to conduct a brac for the last five years. In the past the request was based on the justification that there might be an efficiency to be gained, there might be savings to be obtained. That brac offered us an opportunity to see where we may have excess capacity to close or reduce spaces in order to eliminate the capacity there by saving dollars. No doubt thats a noble cause and even in our administration, the current request, that is one of the goals. But vi to say right now that this the n important thing for us at the department of defense is the fact that were undergoing a process within the department for the review and update of the National Defense strategy. Were also looking at a whole new realm and era of new technologies, new methods of warfare, emerging capabilities and fifth generation weapons systems. And that really for us needs an update ud bad updated. From the department of defense perspecti perspective, that is the sole and primary reason why congress allowing us to ability to look the our basing to make prudent decisions on where to station the forces. You go back to secretary mattiss three priorities when he took over as secretary of defense. He wants to address concerns, he wants to increase military capabilities and enhance he thalty. For my perspective working for him, the brac process offers us the opportunity to address readiness by providing the forces the best possible ranges and installations for them to be stationed at, allows us to consider where we might want to add capability to the department of defense, particularly domestically and it allows us quickly and effectively to increase the forces by coming up with ideal stationing opportunities for combined arms in order to make ourselves for effective and lethal on the battlefield. Ill stop there. But for us, its not just a matter of finding efficiencies. s a mat are of improving the military value and the effectiveness of our military forces. Thats why we continue to push hard and we support the senates attempt to try to get a brac authorization inserted into the defense, 2019 Defense Authorization act. Well thank you. Thank you, fred. And the Heritage Foundation for having us here today to talk about a very very important topic. And im pleased to join with my colleagues, my former colleagues in discussing brac. I recall in 1993, after i was leaving the first Bush Administration, bush 41 i received a call from senator thurman. And i was ready to go back to california and practice law and he says, i need you to be my staff director in Armed Services because were going to save charleston from the brac. Charleston naval was on the closure list. And i accepted his invitation. And i should have learned my lesson. Someone asks you to share a brk brac, you say no thank you and move on. If a brac is authorized in 19 to take place in 2021, that will be 16 years since the last brac round. Think about the structure changes that have taken place, redungss and strenenning the army, come bath wings, brigades, changes in technology and how that impacts our defense establishment. Changing the threat environment. We still have that same footprint. At the same time theres really a brac ongoing but a brac on the radar screen, a stealth brac. Of course dod is limited in what they can do in terms of closing military bases. But theyre forced because of budget tear restraints to move people. Brigades are consolidated and other changes take place so you have a lot of bases with empty buildings that you need to heat and cool. Dollars that could better be expended advancing our defense establishment, our National Security concern. So one could make the argument that indeed we need to have a brac. And of course the men and women charged with leading our defense establishment have been pleading for brac over several several administrations, including just as indicated, the Current Administration has done so as well. 2005 was unlike any other brac in my view. Limited experience in the 1993 brac. In terms of may jr. And minor closures and realignments, it was double the number of all previous brac rounds combined. 190 recommendations that really had 783 distinct closure or realignment actions associated with it. Because the way the brac recommendations were structured. And secretary rumsfeld made it very very clear this was not about cost savings, this was about military transformation. And im not sure we carried the ball over the goal line but we certainly moved it down the field somewhat. And unlike other previous brac rounds we were asked to evaluate recommendations at a time of ongoing conflicts in southeast asia. Back in gief. 2005 it was increasing. And the redeployment of 70,000 troops and their families in asia and europe. So thats the context upon which 2005 brac took place. Number of things went well. You know, i was blessed to have a commission, a three retired fourstar flag officers were army, navy and air force, two former cabinet officials, two former members of congress, both republican and democrat, a former assistant secretary of defense who also served as assistant secretary of defense. Really an expert in power matters and a former retired twostar Major General who was the head of the air force school. So indeed the commission had some people of experience, especially the flag officers inside the military whose advice was invaluable to all of us on the commission. We also had an incredible professional staff who had served on previous brac rounds. Details from the pentagon came over to work on the staff. Working 24 7 for a period of time. And of course as was mentioned, it was an open transparent process. You never take politics out of it, never take lobbying completely out of it. We tried to make it open, transparent and political. 183 site visits to military installations around the country, 40 hearings around the country and washington and having to produce a report to be submitted to congress. A number of things went wrong. When we were nominated for confirmation by president bush, one senator wanted to kill brac so he put a hold on all of our nominations so we had to wait to get recess appointments. The day after we received this volume of information, the recommendations of all of the data, they determined oh my gosh, this is classified when you consolidate all of this information it becomes classified. We had to wait until it was declassified. And that took time. And of course we only had four months upon which to act on all of these recommendations. The cost issues, i mean, you know, the quantitative analysis that is done to determine cost in savings is base on the acumen model, cost of base realignment actions. They found that it was a reasonable calculator to determine what the cost and savings were as you compare these various military bases for closure. But the problem was they underestimated the requirements. For example, they estimated implementation cost for new construction to be about 13. 4 billion. It turned out to be 25. 5 billion. They underestimated the Information Technology requirements that cost significant amounts of money to implement brac. And very importantly they undere estimated or overestimatesed the personnel cost by saying if you close a military base and move 5,000 people, you have 5,000 troops cost savings but there was no reduction in force structure or end strength. Those people were being moved. So the savings they projected at 45 billion over, i think it was ten or 20 years, i dont recall, really was significantly 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. Can i borrow your pen to write some of that done. Ill conclude. I think were blessed to have lushan has the secretary of installations in the environment. And knowing basically living brac as a member of the Armed Services committee, staff on the Armed Services committee. With that ill conclude and im happy to answer any questions you may have. Andrew. Im going to talk about the environment for brac on the hill both pig picture and the Current Situation. Im going to start big picture and sort of what is the logic of brac. Why did brac ever work and why might it work again. I want to start actually with what i think is the keypoint, which is brac always is hard. And its not popular. Its not something that Congress Like to do. And so the key element is that there has to be a champion. There has to be someone in congress who is highly respected who is really taking this on and pushing it forward and of necessity that needs to be someone who chairs one of the two Armed Services committee because thats the position you need to be in to really serve as the champion. And in the past various folks have served that role. The last 2005 round it was senator warner who served that role and what is interesting and notable and i think very i guess significant this year is that we have a champion who has stepped forward in senator mccain, along with senator reid, the two of them together to serve as a champion. That is the critical event. And i should recognize obviously congressman smith mhas been thee for some time as a Ranking Member, pushing the issue and been incredibly helpful and moved the process forward. But as the Ranking Member he hasnt been in a position to push it through. And thats a key element thats fallen into place this year. The basic formula that the previous brac rounds have operated on is that they start at the level of theory. And so the authority is granted. When there are no specific winners and losers. The authority has been granted when in theory everyone could be either a winner or loser. Now 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 and they think they facility is at risk. By the way, there are winners in brac all thoi we think of it as a losing game. I happen to work for one member of congress during my stint on the hill, norm dicks, who gained out of every brac round, gained substantially. And interestingly enough to lushans point and to the secretarys point about stealth brac, the one facility that didnt benefit from brac and lost a lot of work, which was the shipyard in his direct, just because the navy got smaller, so of course the shipyard got smaller, they never benefitted from brac. There was no brac action that led to the navy getting smaller. It was a decline to the number of ships. They lost half their personnel and never received any economic assistance as a result of a 50 decrease in their scope because that wasnt under brac. But under brac he was a big winner. So there are winners in brac and the folks likely to win know who they are. But one of the key formulas has been that th