Hearing of the Military Construction Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee
HEARING OF THE MILITARY CONSTRUCTION SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE
June 22, 2004 Tuesday
SUBJECT: AIR FORCE CONSTRUCTION
CHAIRED BY: REPRESENTATIVE JOE KNOLLENBERG (R-MI)
WITNESSES: GENERAL JOHN JUMPER, CHIEF OF STAFF, UNITED STATES AIR FORCE; NELSON GIBBS, ASSISTANT AIR FORCE SECRETARY FOR INSTALLATIONS, ENVIRONMENT & LOGISTICS
LOCATION: B-300 RAYBURN HOUSE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.
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REP. NORMAN DICKS (D-WA): Well, I want to welcome General Jumper and Secretary Gibbs.
I've had trouble understanding a project out at McChord Air Force Base. Let me just go through this. I hate to take everybody's time up on this. And I've asked-Secretary Fred Kuhn, the deputy to Mr. Nelson, to work on this. He's been very helpful. And hopefully we can come up with the answer.
But this is what's troubling me. At McChord Air Force Base, we have 981 family housing units. There's a 98 percent occupancy rate, and there's a waiting list to be-to come on-to be in that family housing.
Now, apparently because of new DOD standards, there's a new way of looking at how much family housing is needed, and the Air Force now says all we need is 380 units of family housing at McChord. And therefore the plan is to take out the rest of this housing that's existent.
Now some of it, about 100 to 150, is truly substandard. The rest of it could very well be fixed up or utilized.
And so I'm having a hard time understanding why we want to take and eliminate this housing that's there.
Point number two, right up the road three miles on I-5 is Fort Lewis. Fort Lewis is going through privatization. I know the same thing that the Air Force wants to do. And I asked General Soriano (sp), who's the commanding officer there, to have their privatization people and their housing people look at whether they could work out a joint venture with McChord. And apparently you've done this at Fort Dix and McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, where you've worked out a joint arrangement.
And according to the people at Fort Lewis who run this deal, who have taken over the privatization, Lincoln, the company, they are very interested in some of this existing housing that's at McChord.
So I just hope that we can work together to try to see if we can't come up with a reasonable solution. I don't think it's right, when there are people who need this housing and who want to be on base, to have them forced to move out into the-a lot of people love in this my district, and I probably-the realtors would probably not agree with what I'm saying here. But to take 6(00) or 700 families out of existing housing, force them out into the deal, because we're trying to get rid of this stuff-that's what it looks like to me. It isn't that we're looking at the best interest of the airmen here. We're looking at trying to get our numbers down, so that we can say we don't have as much substandard housing. And that's what it looks like to me, okay?
And so I'm going to urge our committee to be resistant to this unless we can work out something that makes sense. And hopefully-and I'm a reasonable person, but you know, I-but I want to make sure that what we do here make sense.
And I'm sure that's your position. I know General Jumper much-for many years, and I know that's what you'd want us to do here. But we need a little help.
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REP. DICKS: But in fact this is what would happen.
MR. GIBBS: Well, the process now --
REP. DICKS: They'd certainly be off the base. We all admit that.
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REP. DICKS: I understand that, being a politician. (Laughter.)
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REP. DICKS: Well, they also expanded the range from a half hour to a full hour. And so that makes it look like there's been-and by the way, we have an enormous traffic problem on I-5. I mean, getting these people to and from that base is a challenge. And in that area-I live there; it's my district. I mean, it is a big challenge to get people up and down I-5 in the evening and in the morning.
MR. GIBBS: You are correct. And --
REP. DICKS: So even if you expand it by an hour, it's going to mean that there's going to be a tremendous commute for a lot of these people.
MR. GIBBS: And some people would prefer not to do that.
REP. DICKS: Right.
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REP. DICKS: Does that mean no military construction, no new housing?
MR. GIBBS: That's correct. We cannot put any money in the --
REP. DICKS: The privatization can do it.
MR. GIBBS: Yes.
REP. DICKS: They can add the housing?
MR. GIBBS: Yes, they can do it, but we can't.
REP. DICKS: But you can't.
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REP. DICKS: O&M money? Are you talking about O&M money?
MR. GIBBS: We can't put any substantive amount of money. We can maintain it --
REP. DICKS: What does "substantive" mean, because that's a word of art.
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REP. DICKS: You can't add a garage or -
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REP. DICKS: It gives me a better picture.
MR. GIBBS: We will keep --
REP. DICKS: And you're talking to the Army too, right?
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REP. DICKS: Well, I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
REP. KNOLLENBERG: -- and have the ability to get back to these folks or they to you.
REP. DICKS: Oh, they're working with us. They're being very cooperative.
Thank you.
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REP. NORMAN DICKS (D-WA): How much do you think we've saved by the BRAC that we've gone through so far, Secretary Gibbs? I mean, do you have any numbers for the Air Force in terms of how much money's been saved?
MR. GIBBS: I rely on the GAO report, and the last one through I think said something about $12 billion to $14 billion.
REP. DICKS: That's DOD-wide, right? Or is that Air Force?
MR. GIBBS: No, I think that was the Air Force.
REP. DICKS: So by shutting down unnecessary bases, you-you know, it's reduced expenditures by that amount.
MR. GIBBS: Yeah --
REP. DICKS: See, I think there's a lot of people who just think there's-well, there's-why do this? I mean, you know, and I think there's a real reason because you say, well -
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REP. DICKS: So your position is let's keep moving forward with BRAC because it saves money and makes sense, and to delay it there really isn't a justification that you know of to do that.
Now do we-do you still have some environmental restoration work to do at bases that we have closed down? What's the backlog there? You talked about a -
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REP. DICKS: Do you have any idea what the backlog is on that?
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REP. DICKS: On environmental restoration work?
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REP. DICKS: Describe some-what-give me a-what would the, you know, the top two or three --
MR. GIBBS: The principal areas are principally water is the major one.
REP. DICKS: Wastewater discharge, or --
MR. GIBBS: Well, no. This is where --
REP. DICKS: Contamination of water?
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REP. DICKS: On environmental restoration.
MR. GIBBS: -- on environmental restoration in the Air Force, yes. And again, that's both active and closed bases. I mean, we're just going to do that. It's going to take a long time, and we will finish that job. Not in my lifetime, though.
REP. KNOLLENBERG: Thank you, Mr. Dicks.
REP. DICKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman..
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