Congressman Thomas M. Reynolds - Produly serving New York's 26th District

Reynolds Hails Legal Opinion from BRAC Attorney

When the Pentagon released its proposed list of military base closings on May 13th, U.S. Representative Thomas M. Reynolds, R-Clarence, accused the Air Force of misusing the base closing process in order to take airplanes from Guard and Reserve units and move them to active duty bases.  A new memo from the base closing commission's Deputy General Counsel agrees.

"Not only do we believe that evidence has continued to build that the Air Force manipulated data and misused the BRAC (Base Closure And Realignment Commission) process, BRAC staff is now using Niagara Falls as a national example of what was wrong with Pentagon thinking," Reynolds said.  "This is huge."

Yesterday, Reynolds received a copy of a memo sent to BRAC Commissioner's from the office of General Counsel.  The memo questions air force rationale in base closing recommendations, and uses Niagara Falls as an example throughout the report, stating "AF33 (the Air Force code for Niagara's recommended closing) includes elements common to many of the other Air Force recommendations that are of legal and policy concern to the commission."

"Among those concerns are the use of the BRAC process to move equipment, and the effect of Air Force recommendations on Guard units, which have been central arguments in our efforts on behalf of Niagara Falls," Reynolds said.  "As I testified before the Commission, Major General Heckman, who co-chaired the Air Force BRAC process, said that Niagara was closed because of the need to correct the imbalance of the C-130 fleet between the Active and Reserve Component.  And as Governor Pataki testified, he was not consulted prior to the BRAC Commission's decision to move the New York Air Guard's 107th refueling wing to Bangor, Maine."

Reynolds also blasted the Pentagon's response to a request for information from the BRAC Commission regarding Air Guard units.  Pentagon attorneys responded that such information was "protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege."

"If the Pentagon had a reason to believe that they had the authority to implement recommendations effecting Air Guard units without consulting our nation's Governors, then they should tell us what it is," Reynolds said.  "These Air Guard realignments have very serious effects on homeland defense and homeland security missions."

Reynolds noted that the memo does not necessarily reflect the opinion of BRAC Commissioners, but believes the fact that staff attorneys are raising the same questions as the Governor and members of Congress is helpful to Niagara's cause.

"As the memo concludes, the 'commission should analyze each recommendation for the presence of these issues,' and 'where there is substantial deviation...the Commission must act to strike the recommendation from the list'," Reynolds said.  "And as we have said, and BRAC staff has now found, there is no better example of what the Air Force did wrong than what they did to the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station."

On Monday, the BRAC Commission will hold a hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, where the Secretary of Defense will provide testimony in response to questions raised in a July 1st letter sent by the BRAC Commission, and the Comptroller General will testify regarding the Government Accountability Office's analysis of the Department of Defense's 2005 selection process and recommendation for base closures and realignments.

"This hearing should provide even more information we need on behalf of our fight to keep Niagara open," Reynolds said.  "The Secretary of Defense has been asked by the Commission about their recommendations to re-allocate aircraft, personnel, facilities and missions from states, without first consulting the nation's Governors.  And the GAO report buttressed our contention that the savings projected by the Air Force are incorrect."

Reynolds has testified that estimates show that the cost of closing Niagara actually exceeds savings.  He further noted he is continuing to speak with, and meet with BRAC Commissioners.  Most recently, Reynolds spoke late yesterday with former Utah Congressman Jim Hansen.

"Despite the good news we've been getting, we still need to convince a majority of commissioners that Niagara should be removed from the closure list," he said.  "And that effort, that fight, will continue until the last possible moment."