Fairchild keeps ‘em flying
Fairchild Air Force Base is expected to survive the latest Pentagon base-closing recommendations, but it could lose planes assigned to the Washington Air National Guard.
Congressional sources said Thursday that Fairchild and other Washington state military facilities should come through the latest step of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission relatively unscathed.
“We’re cautiously optimistic,” a spokeswoman to U.S. Rep. Cathy McMorris said late Thursday. “Everything we’ve been hearing and understanding is that everything’s looking pretty good for Fairchild.”
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is scheduled to announce the list of bases the Pentagon wants closed or reduced today at 7 a.m. Because the closure of a major military base has major economic effects for a nearby community, and political fallout for members of Congress who represent those areas, the official list is being tightly held until the announcement.
McMorris spokeswoman Connie Partoyan said there were several lists floating around Capitol Hill Thursday, none of them on official Department of Defense stationery. But the lists that have passed through McMorris’s office all agree that Fairchild would stay open.
Grand Forks Air Force Base in North Dakota, which like Fairchild is the home to KC-135 refueling tankers, would close, according to one list. McConnell Air Force Base in Kansas would gain some of those tankers.
Fairchild would gain two tankers for its active duty Air Force unit, the 92nd Air Refueling Wing, for a total of 32 tankers, that list says. It would also get 10 of the next generation of tankers when they come into service, something that might not happen for five years or more.
That list also says Fairchild would lose the eight tankers assigned to the Washington Air National Guard’s 141st Air Refueling Wing, and possibly the personnel assigned to them. The Air Guard unit, which has roots in Spokane dating to the 1920s, is a tenant at Fairchild where its tankers are located down the flightline from the active-duty planes.
But Partoyan stressed that the movement of Guard units “is going to be a contentious issue.” House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and others have said publicly they believe the Guard units, which are state entities, are under the control of governors, not the Pentagon.
Other congressional sources said Fairchild was not on summaries that they have seen for the closure list being prepared for Friday’s announcement. But one cautioned that while the summary seen Thursday afternoon came from the Defense Department, it was impossible to say how current it was.
The list Rumsfeld is scheduled to announce this morning will be forwarded to the BRAC Commission, which will study it and hold hearings through September. The commission must send a list to President Bush for his approval in September, and Congress has 45 days to either accept or reject the list in its entirety.
Spokane business and political leaders have mounted a high-profile lobbying effort to convince the Pentagon that Fairchild is a base that is critical to the military’s structure, is free of serious encroachments and available for expansion, and has strong support in the community.
They’ve been joined by Washington state, which is helping Spokane and other communities with military facilities to protect their bases.