WASHINGTON — In the wake of a Pentagon report that says 22 percent of military bases will be unneeded by 2019, the House Armed Services Committee's top Democrat is introducing legislation that would let the military close and consolidate its domestic installations.

Rep. Adam Smith of Washington state plans to offer an amendment during his committee's markup of the 2017 defense policy bill which would remove a ban on a new round of military base closures and replace it with a process for the Pentagon to consolidate bases.

Such a measure, which comes at the start of a lengthy process to hammer out the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act, would face an steep uphill fight in Congress and is likely an opening salvo in the latest battle for base closures.

After offering the amendment, Smith will have to withdraw it for procedural reasons, though Smith may file an amendment to he NDAA on the House floor, and if that fails, later introduce it as a stand-alone bill.

Smith, in an interview with Defense News last week, expressed support for this draft of the NDAA, but criticized lawmakers for skirting hard, fiscally responsible decisions to limit Pentagon spending, which would include a round of the politically unpopular base realignment and  closure process, known by the acronym BRAC.

Lawmakers, Smith said, "could do a better job of making choices on our national security strategy, and BRAC is the biggest example of that. We have some potential to save some money there."

A recent Defense Department report pointed to 22 percent excess capacity across DoD, and Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work urged lawmakers in an accompanying letter to consider a new BRAC round. It would be the first since 2005, though the Pentagon has been asking for years.

That document, released in February, threatened that the Pentagon has the authority to start closing unneeded military bases unilaterally. The "need to reduce unneeded facilities is so critical that, in the absence of authorization of a new round of BRAC, the Department will explore any and all authorities that Congress has provided to eliminate wasteful infrastructure," it reads.

Lawmakers arguing against a BRAC say the 2005 round was more expensive than expected. According to analysts, it cost more than all previous rounds combined but its scope included the realignment of organizations.

"That BRAC was more of a realignment than outright closures, and realignments are much more expensive than clean kills," said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "What DoD is proposing now is more like previous rounds and not at all like that."

Smith's planned amendment includes a few Congress-friendly provisions, including an additional opportunity to stop BRAC early on, a prohibition on DoD recommendations for BRAC that do not yield savings within 20 years and a cost cap on each recommendation based on the estimates of the recommendations submitted by a BRAC commission.

Existing language in the defense policy bill, if passed, would deny a round of BRAC in the next fiscal year but authorize the Pentagon to conduct studies to answer lawmakers' questions about it.

House Armed Services Chairman Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, has condemned the Defense Department study as not providing the data Congress requested, but he expressed openness toward a future BRAC round, if justified.

"You say you have enough infrastructure, well give us the data that leads you to believe that, and they haven't given that to us yet," Thornberry said. "We can take it a step at a time. … I'm willing to have a rational conversation about this, but we're not there this year."

Email: jgould@defensenews.com

Twitter: @reporterjoe

Joe Gould was the senior Pentagon reporter for Defense News, covering the intersection of national security policy, politics and the defense industry. He had previously served as Congress reporter.

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