Georgia lawmakers: Plan now to protect military bases

ATLANTA — Lawmakers say the state needs a game plan to protect Georgia’s military installations should Congress decide to scale back bases.

“We’ve got to be proactive,” Rep. John Corbett, R-Lake Park, said Monday. “We can’t wait until we’re on the list to be closed to start.”

Corbett has been tapped to serve on a study committee created earlier this year. Moody Air Force Base and Kings Bay Naval Submarine Base are located in counties that he represents.

The Pentagon has proposed another round of base closures as a cost-cutting measure, sparking new discussion on the issue. Congress has so far rejected such closures.

The last round of base closures, which took place more than a decade ago, took a toll on Georgia. Fort McPherson in Atlanta, Fort Gillem in Forest Park, Naval Air Station-Atlanta in Marietta and the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens were all affected.

At the time more than 128,000 military and civilian workers were assigned to bases in Georgia, according to the Defense Department. Nearly 13,000 were assigned to facilities that closed.

Lawmakers are looking to avoid a repeat.

“In 2005, we lost four bases out of 13. We really can’t be doing that again,” Rep. Dave Belton, R-Buckhead, who proposed the study committee, said earlier this year. The Morgan County lawmaker will lead the committee.

Belton’s resolution creating the House Study Committee on Base Realignment and Closure notes that Georgia’s military population — the fifth-largest in the country — provides a direct economic impact of more than $20 billion annually.

The committee will likely start meeting this summer and issue recommendations later this year.

Jill Nolin covers the Georgia Statehouse for CNHI’s newspapers and websites. Reach her at jnolin@cnhi.com.