Federal Manager's Daily Report

In a report that could further undercut the already weak support in Congress for an additional round of DoD base closings and consolidations, GAO has reported the Pentagon is still incurring major environmental cleanup costs arising from the most recent round of closings that started more than a decade ago.

DoD’s most recent estimate is that it will need another $3.4 billion, in addition to the $11.5 billion already spent, for environmental cleanup work and it has not provided full information on the difficulties it faces regarding certain especially dangerous contaminants, GAO said. “Without DoD including in its annual report to Congress its best estimate of these increased costs, Congress will not have visibility into the significant costs and efforts associated with the cleanup of emerging contaminants on BRAC installations and therefore will not have the necessary information to make more informed funding decisions,” it said.

While one touted advantage of base closings is disposing of excess land–in avoided maintenance costs, the profit from selling it, and the potential benefits to the local communities of redeveloping it–DoD still owns about 15 percent of the land freed up by the 2005 closings round and the four that predated it.

DoD continues “to face challenges, such as navigating multiple regulatory agencies or disposing of radiological contamination, that increased the time it takes to clean up and transfer property” and lacks a formal mechanism for coordinating among installations and the military services to speed up the process, GAO said.

The Pentagon has recommended additional base closings in its budget proposals of recent years but Congress has not been receptive, citing the underestimated costs, overestimated savings, and general disruption–including abolishing or transferring the jobs of many thousands of civilian DoD employees–of prior rounds.