Military Base Realignments and Closures: DOD Is Taking Steps to Mitigate Challenges but Is Not Fully Reporting Some Additional Costs

The 2005 Base Realignment and Closure BRAC round is the fifth such round undertaken by DOD since 1988 and is the biggest, most complex, and costliest BRAC round ever. With this BRAC round, the Department of Defense DOD plans to execute hundreds of BRAC actions affecting over 800 defense locations, relocate over 123,000 personnel, and spend over 35 billion-an unprecedented amount, given that DOD has spent nearly 26 billion1 to implement the four previous BRAC rounds combined when all relevant BRAC actions have been completed. As with prior BRAC rounds, DOD is required to implement the BRAC Commissions 2005 recommendations within 6 years of their approval by the President and transmittal to Congress.2 Unlike with prior BRAC rounds, DOD is implementing the BRAC 2005 round during a time of conflict and significant increases to the defense budget to support ongoing contingency operations. Compounding this challenge, DOD is also implementing other extensive worldwide transformation initiatives such as the permanent relocation of about 70,000 military personnel3 to the United States from overseas transformation of the Armys force structure from an organization based ondivisions to more rapidly deployable, combat brigade-based units an increase in the active-duty end strength of the Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 members4 and the drawdown of combat forces from Iraq while simultaneously increasing the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. All of these initiatives are exerting an unusually high demand on DODs domestic facility infrastructure to accommodate new forces and existing forces being deployed or redeployed.