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Washington, D.C., December 14th – The National Defense Authorization Act, which passed the House of Representatives earlier this week, contains language allowing the Army to negotiate a transfer of the General Services Administration (GSA) warehouse facility in Springfield, VA.
Reps. Jim Moran and Tom Davis have pushed the Army to consider the GSA property as a possible location for DoD personnel relocating to Fort Belvoir as part of the 2005 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process. All told, 19,000 people are scheduled to come to Fort Belvoir, raising serious concerns about the lack of transportation infrastructure and the resulting impact on traffic congestion.
In last year’s NDAA, Moran and Davis required the Army to study the feasibility of using the GSA site, which is located close to existing Metro and VRE facilities, for BRAC purposes. Both believed the Army’s original plan to site 17,000 personnel on the Engineering Proving Ground portion of the base was impractical.
The original language of the BRAC law only allowed the Army to consider locations on current Fort Belvoir property. The new provision allows the Army to consider the GSA site or other locations in the vicinity of the base.
“We’ve given the Army the flexibility needed to place BRAC’d employees at Metro accessible locations,” said Moran. “The more civil servants with the option to commute using Metro, the less traffic the influx of 19,000 employees moving to Ft. Belvoir will create.”
“Taking the pressure off EPG was the top priority,” said Davis. GSA has a lot of features the Army should consider, and I am glad they are going to do so.”
Both the House and Senate cleared the Defense Authorization bill this week. The White House has not threatened to veto the bill in its current form and the President is expected to sign it into law.
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