1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission


The 1995 Base Realignment and Closure Commission preliminary list was released by the United [States Department of Defense] in 1995 as part of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission. It recommended closing 32 major United States military bases.

Commissioners

Over the past 57 years military base closures have taken place though various processes. The Secretary of Defense implemented closures on an ad-hoc basis during 1961 - 1979. Individual service Chiefs and Congress strengthened its veto power for closures during 1980 to 1987. These changes lead to a few major bases being closed and none actually being closed. This being an issue, Congress finally granted authority to an independent Defense Base Closure and Realignment commission to work with the Department of Defense to identify bases and installations to the executive and legislative branches for closure or realignment between 1988 and 1995. The BRAC had to responsibility of selecting which bases were to close throughout four rounds of base closures. Even though these BRAC actions represented a large amount of physical reductions in installations and associated units, the DoD continued to request more infrastructure cuts to offset reduced congressional funding for defense. Additional BRAC rounds were requested by the United States Department of Defense because there continues to be a significant disparity between support structure capacity versus the number of units and associated military personnel levels. Congress however delayed providing additional BRAC legislation until the fall/winter of 2002.
DoD had reported to Congress that billions of dollars could be saved annually if excess base infrastructure could be eliminated.
All three of the BRAC rounds of the 1990s were authorized under the same law, Public Law 101-510.

Recommendations

Major facilities slated for closure included: