Defense Bill Affects Pay, Separation Bonuses, More

The newly signed Defense Authorization Act gives modest pay increases to active duty personnel, reduces minimum force end strength for the Army, assesses overseas troop basing, places the Chief of the National Guard Bureau on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, limits healthcare enrollment fees for retirees and sets metal health requirements for those deployed for contingency operations.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31, 2011 – President Barack Obama today signed the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which increases active-duty and reserve pay by 1.6 percent and governs Defense Department activities, from procurement to military personnel policy.

Several provisions in this year’s act will potentially affect active-duty and retired service members and their families.
Section 347 requires DOD to finance an independent assessment of overseas troop basing, advising retention, closure, realignment or establishment of U.S. military facilities outside the United States “in light of potential fiscal constraints on [DOD] and emerging national security requirements in coming years.”

Section 402 reduces authorized Army minimum end strength from 562,000 to 547,000. The other services’ authorized minimum strengths are unchanged, with 325,700 for the Navy, 202,100 for the Marine Corps and 332,800 for the Air Force.

Section 512 of the act creates a new member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which currently includes the Army and Air Force chiefs of staff, the chief of naval operations and the Marine Corps commandant. The new member will be the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who will have responsibility for “addressing matters involving non-federalized National Guard forces in support of homeland defense and civil support missions.”

Section 526 extends voluntary separation pay and benefits authority, formerly set to expire Dec. 31, to the end of 2018. Section 530 converts the high-deployment allowance from mandatory to authorized. The allowance currently pays $100 a day, in addition to all other pay and allowances, to a deployed service member who has been deployed 401 days or more out of the preceding 730 days.

Section 701 limits annual Tricare enrollment fee increases for retirees and their family members to an amount equal to the percentage by which retired pay increases that year.

Section 702 sets mental health assessment requirements for service members deployed for contingency operations. The act calls for a series of assessments: one within 120 days before deployment; another during the period between 90 days after a deployment begins and 180 days after it ends; a third within a year after the deployment ends; and a fourth between 18 months and 30 months of redeployment.

The act states assessments are intended to “identify post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal tendencies, and other behavioral health conditions … in order to determine which such members are in need of additional care and treatment for such health conditions.”
Assessments are not required for service members “not subjected or exposed to operational risk factors during deployment in the contingency operation concerned,” the act states.

Section 954 affirms that DOD “has the capability, and upon direction by the president may conduct offensive operations in cyberspace to defend our nation, allies and interests,” subject to the law of armed conflict and the War Powers Resolution.
Signing the bill into law today, President Barack Obama acknowledging “serious reservations” about parts of the act, particularly provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists.

“I have signed the act chiefly because it authorizes funding for the defense of the United States and its interests abroad, crucial services for service members and their families and vital national security programs that must be renewed,” Obama said in a statement released today.

The act also contains critical initiatives to control spiraling health-care costs within the Defense Department, develop counterterrorism initiatives abroad, build the security capacity of key partners, modernize the force and boost the efficiency and effectiveness of military operations worldwide, he noted

Impact of Fort Belvoir's BRAC spurs development

As a result of BRAC related growth at Fort Belvoir, the surrounding area is experiencing increased economic and physical development. This increase in businesses and personnel indicated that further road improvements to Route 1 are needed in the near future.

Historic Route 1 in Fairfax County, Virginia, is seeing plenty of new faces thanks to Fort Belvoir's assignment in the military's base realignment and closure project (BRAC), WTOP News reports.

The BRAC move brought thousands of military personnel to Fort Belvoir, and also included a new hospital on the base. As a result, the surrounding community is seeing a boom in economic and physical development. Hotels in the area are experiencing a spike in occupancy thanks to the hospital, and officials have seen more interest in surrounding retail space for offices related to the the hospital and other defense contractors.

"We're just now starting to see a lot of interest in taking on that land and starting to see some construction," Fairfax County Economic Director Gerry Gordon told the news source.

While traffic has been increasing on the Route 1 corridor, Gordon says this has only created more of an interest to upgrade the roads.

"You have an opportunity to reduce commute times," he says. "You have an opportunity to get people from the base to the office space more easily."

According to the Fairfax County official website, the 2005 BRAC relocations finished September 15.

Capitol Hill Could Scuttle Aegis Mission In Spain

Budget pressure in Congress may help the cause to keep Hampton Roads based Aegis boats at home instead of Rota, Spain.

A Navy plan to base four Aegis warships in Spain could end up being sunk by congressional lawmakers looking to protect their own political interests.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta announced the ship relocation plan in October at NATO headquarters in Brussels. The decision "should send a very strong signal that the United States is still continuing to invest in this alliance, and that we are committed to our defense relationship with Europe even as we face growing budget constraints at home," according to Panetta.

The four ships would be sent to NATO's naval station in Rota, Spain as part of the White House's plans for a European missile shield to protect the alliance from Iranian missile strikes.

The final phase of the plan includes an "Aegis ashore" missile facility in Poland supported by radar warning sites in Turkey and Romania. Both the sea and land-based Aegis systems use the SM-3 missile. The first two Aegis ships will deploy to Rota as part of Sixth Fleet in 2014 with the last two arriving in 2015, fleet spokesman Cmdr. Mark Boyd said. But looming budget constraints at the Pentagon could increase the current pressure in Congress to reduce the overseas basing of U.S. troops.

That pressure will only ramp up the rhetoric on Capitol Hill to bring American forces home, particularly U.S. naval forces. With the Navy preparing to drawdown the size of its fleet, each ship -- and the payroll associated with its 300-plus crew members -- is even more valuable to lawmakers eager to claim that they're bringing home the bacon. "The political priority is going to be: Bring them home and put them in my district," Gordon Adams, a former White House defense budget manager, said regarding congressional concern over deployed U.S. forces. The Rota plan calls for family members and some U.S. civilian employees to join the 1,300 crew members, resulting in nearly 3,500 Americans located at the NATO naval station.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin grilled Defense Undersecretary Ash Carter on Pentagon plans to bring home 300,000 U.S. troops stationed overseas and close of some of the 700 overseas installations "Is that on the table," Levin asked point-blank. "On the table," Carter replied.

During the same hearing, Alabama Republican Jeff Sessions said argued that bringing back U.S. troops would give the economy a much-needed shot in the arm. "It's better for those troops to be in the United States, spending their wealth and creating tax growth for the local communities, and jobs," Sessions said. Levin's spokesman Bryan Thomas declined to comment on the Aegis deployments to Spain.

Most of the Navy Aegis destroyers destined for Rota will be pulled from the Navy's Hampton Roads facility, retired Rear Adm. Craig Quigley, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, said in October. Lawmakers representing Hampton Roads already are fighting a Navy plan to move an aircraft carrier from Norfolk to Mayport, Fla., which lost its carrier with the retirement of the John F. Kennedy.

Sen. Jim Webb, who has led the fight against the carrier move, was mum on the Aegis deployment plan. The former Navy Secretary is backing Panetta's support to grow the Navy's fleet to 313 ships. "We are building new [ballistic missile defense]-capable warships and upgrading older ships to grow from 21 ships today to 41 by 2016. Forward deploying four warships to Spain is an example of how these additional capabilities could be used," Webb said. But the Congressional Research Service and other analysts have said the Navy could not afford to buy the ships it needs to reach 313 even before the decision to cut $450 billion in defense spending over 10 years.

The likelihood of Congress approving the Rota basing plan "depends on proving you can afford it," Adams said. The U.S gets $5 million in subsidies from Japan to support the U.S. ships and personnel based there, according to Adams. "I donít think Spain can afford to do that, with their current economic crisis," he said. "If it looks like it's going to cost more [than deployments], that would be a real yardstick for Congress." Dov Zakheim, a former Republican Pentagon official, was less enthusiastic about the Pentagon's chances of getting the plan through Capitol Hill. "It's not clear to me that Congress, both sides, are committed to this plan," Zakheim said. The Senate Appropriations Committee's decision to cut advanced SM-3s funding is "rock solid evidence of a lack of commitment," Zakheim said.

Milcon Funding Suffers Noticeable Cut in Omnibus Agreement

After accounting for the completion of the BRAC 2005 construction push, funding for military construction, family housing and BRAC in fiscal 2012 will fall $1.4 billion from last year's level, under the conference agreement for a nine-bill spending package reached last week. Without adjusting for the sharp drop-off in BRAC spending, milcon funding actually declines $3.5 billion ...

Now is the Time to Reach out to Base, Elected Officials, Panelists Urge

Community leaders anxious about the potential for approaching budget cuts to strip missions and personnel from their local installations need to start reaching out to base commanders and their congressional delegations immediately, recommended panelists on the inaugural Defense Communities 360 Live Webcast Thursday. The most critical task is to learn what is going on at the base ...

Defense Business Board

• Task Group on Assessing the Defense Industrial Base January 2010
• Task Group on a Culture of Savings (Implementing Behavior Change in DoD) January 2011

Center for Strategic and International Studies

• Structure and Dynamics of the U.S. Federal Services Industrial Base, 2000-2010 November 2011
• Defense Contract Trends (US Department of Defense Contract Spending and the Supporting Industrial Base May 2011
• DHS Contract Spending and the Supporting Industrial Base July 2011

Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments

• Sustaining Critical Sectors of the US Defense Industrial Base September 2011
• Analysis of the FY2012 Defense Budget July 2011
• The Maturing Revolution in Military Affairs June 2011

N. Virginia Delegation Achieves Goal of Limiting Mark Center Parking

Congress has now mandated that only 2,000 parking spaces at the Mark Center may be occupied until the traffic quandary surrounding the Department of the Army’s initial traffic study is resolved.

The Northern Virginia congressional delegation celebrated a long-fought victory Friday, after language capping parking at the Mark Center in Alexandria was included in the conference agreement for the fiscal 2012 omnibus spending bill reached last week.

The provision limits parking at the complex to roughly 2,000 spaces until DOD can demonstrate that congestion hasn’t reached failing levels at intersections surrounding the complex. About 4,000 civilian DOD workers already have moved into the building, with an additional 500 expected to move by the end of the month. All 6,400 DOD employees are scheduled to complete the BRAC 2005 move from leased space in Arlington, Va., to the Mark Center by September 2012.

The provision also requires the Army to conduct a new traffic study utilizing accurate and reliable data. A recent report from the DOD inspector general concluded the Army had relied on badly flawed data in compiling traffic impact projections that it used to defend the planned transfers, reported the Washington Post.

Now is the Time to Reach out to Base, Elected Officials, Panelists Urge

With Pentagon budget cuts just over the horizon, it is more important now than ever for communities to sure up their relationships with installations that call Virginia home. Each installation will experience major changes in the years to come and without robust community –installation interface, the DoD could easily decide to close or realign important jobs located within the Commonwealth. This article suggests solutions similar to the approach of VNDIA’s Local Coordination, Support & Communication Committee which has fostered community-installation interface since 2005.

Community leaders anxious about the potential for approaching budget cuts to strip missions and personnel from their local installations need to start reaching out to base commanders and their congressional delegations immediately, recommended panelists on the inaugural Defense Communities 360 Live Webcast Thursday.

]The most critical task is to learn what is going on at the base so you can form a strategic plan to guide your future efforts. The plan would include the installation’s funding priorities for construction and other projects, and opportunities for growth, said John Simmons, senior advisor at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.

Alternatively, communities can perform a “SWOT” analysis of their installation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, added Cece Carman Siracuse, senior associate at Hurt, Norton and Associates.

The next step is to work with your congressional delegation to help position the base for the future. At the same time, community officials need to meet with senior civilian and military leaders in the Pentagon to discuss their plans for the installation, while also highlighting community efforts to support the military. Communities need to demonstrate that they are true partners of the base — investing in access roads or working with employers to hire military spouses, for example. Being a cheerleader on the sidelines isn’t enough, Simmons said.

If communities start those efforts now, their chances of influencing high-level deliberations affecting their local installations are vastly improved, he said.

A key benefit of staying connected is being prepared when policy changes come out of the Pentagon, Simmons said. Researching assessments of the base’s assets and military value reached in earlier BRAC rounds also is valuable.

Communities should read major defense legislation, including the fiscal 2012 authorization and military construction appropriations bills released last week, to find out about current and future funding for installations. The strategic review of the military’s roles and missions that DOD plans to release in January and the department’s FY 2013 budget request scheduled to come out by February also are critical, according to the panelists.

It’s not too early for communities to think about the worst-case scenario, a closure or a realignment that significantly shrinks an installation’s mission. Leaders should consider how vital their base is to the community and whether military activities there can be replaced with other economic uses, said Barry Steinberg, partner at Kutak Rock.

UMW opening Dahlgren campus

A new campus located just outside the gates of Naval Support Facility Dahlgren is set to open on 3Jan2011. The new campus will support the needs of the Dahlgren workers looking to further their professional education in science, technology and math.

The University of Mary Washington is opening its third campus on Jan. 3, the school announced today.

UMW’s Dahlgren Campus Center for Education and Research off U.S. 301 will provide science, technology and math programs for professionals on and near Naval Support Facility Dahlgren, or NSF, as well as the general population.

“This is a natural partnership for UMW,” stated UMW President Rick Hurley. “We have literally hundreds of alumni working at the NSF, and many of our faculty members have been affiliated with Dahlgren. Being in even closer physical proximity, we look forward to many more opportunities to share ideas and resources.”

The 27-acre campus will centralize graduate science and engineering programs currently offered by state schools on the Naval base, according to a press release.

The Naval Postgraduate School and four state universities—Virginia Tech, Virginia Commonwealth, George Mason and Old Dominion—will offer engineering graduate courses.

The $20.4 million graduate school is two stories and 42,000 square feet. It will have 19 classrooms, a conference room and a divisible 2,800-square-foot multipurpose room with theater seating for up to 220 and instructional seating for up to 160.

Deficit Reduction Will Prompt BRAC Round by 2017, Panelists Surmise

Military personnel and missions are not safe from another BRAC round according to Panelists at the inaugural Defense Communities 360 Live Webcast. With the Pentagon now forced to find savings at every opportunity, every installation is likely to undergo some sort of major change. Some say another BRAC could come as soon as 2015 or 2017.

Amid the uncertainty as to how deep the Pentagon’s budget will be sliced over the coming decade and where the cuts will fall, the panel of speakers featured on the inaugural Defense Communities 360 Live Webcast Thursday warned defense communities that the consequences of the government’s imperative to reduce spending would be widespread at installations across the nation, affecting personnel and missions.

“Every military base should seriously contemplate that something adverse is going to happen to them,” Barry Steinberg, partner at Kutak Rock, told listeners.

Whether or not defense spending drops by $450 billion — or closer to $1 trillion over the next 10 years due to automatic spending cuts slated to take effect in January 2013 — the military’s force structure, along with aircraft and other weapons systems, will decline.

Fellow panelist Cece Carman Siracuse echoed Steinberg’s advice: “I don’t think there’s any mission out there that won’t be impacted.”

the budget. Depots and other logistics facilities, for example, could be vulnerable, Steinberg said.

With falling troop levels and the consolidation of missions, excess capacity at bases will grow, increasing pressure on the department to scale back its real estate.

“I don’t see a scenario where there’s not going to be some type of base closure process,” stated Siracuse, a senior associate at Hurt, Norton and Associates.

As a result of the combination of a shrinking force structure, surplus capacity and the urgent need to pare the budget, “you will hear the drumbeat grow for a base closure round,” added John Simmons, senior advisor at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
The most likely timing for a new base closure round would be during a non-election year. It’s most likely too late to schedule one for 2013, leaving 2015 as the next most likely time, Steinberg suggested. Simmons pegged 2015 or 2017 as likely dates for a new BRAC round that he said he is confident is coming.

The Pentagon’s need to identify immediate savings raises the possibility that the department asks Congress for a “limited BRAC authority,” Siracuse said, especially if the $500 billion in defense cuts triggered by the supercommittee’s failure stays in place. The payoff for major BRAC rounds — with the last one a perfect example — does not occur until many years later, she explained.
Such an authority would allow DOD to consolidate various missions through realignment without Congress overseeing the process. For example, officials likely would merge similar functions performed across the services, such as aircraft repair or pilot training, Siracuse said. Use of the authority almost certainly would result in the department slashing its infrastructure to a greater extent than occurred in the the last round.

The next BRAC round largely would resemble past ones, mostly because they succeeded in identifying excess capacity and eliminating it, Steinberg said. Congress likely would impose more precise constraints on what approaches DOD could pursue in overhauling its real estate, as compared to the 2005 round. Another change would be requiring officials to adopt a more accurate way to assess the costs and savings associated with base closure recommendations, Steinberg said.

Mayport money in 2012 budget

Hampton Roads is not out of the woods despite continual efforts from its Congressional delegation. The next phase of improvement at Mayport which is needed to accommodate growth associated with a new carrier has been budgeted for.

Yesterday the Defense Authorization Conference Report was concluded and the $14.9 million for the next planed phase of a CVN move to Mayport was included. The Pilot stated that the road project was not part of the carrier effort. “House and senate negotiators stated in their report that the Mayport Naval Station project has merit regardless of whether a carrier is homeported there”. The Florida delegation (Crenshaw, Nelson, Rubio) put a different ‘Spin’ on the report. Crenshaw “The House and Senate agreement is another win for Mayport and means military construction projects needed to homeport a nuclear carrier at the base will keep moving forward”. Nelson “Despite repeated attempts by some lawmakers to block improvements needed to bring a nuclear carrier to Mayport, we’re still on track”.

The $14.9 is for P503 road improvement project which has been a part of the CVN move project. The project was needed to support P502, $30,933 parking garage which is needed when the Controlled Industrial/Ship Maintenance/Support Facility is to be constructed in the present major parking lot. This is the plan that the Navy briefed last year, not sure it has changed, but after visiting Mayport I wonder if a road is a high priority project. If the CVN does not go to Mayport (in 2019), there will only be 8 ships assigned by 2016, congress needs to be on the same page. The CNO is presently evaluating the CVN move, before any more money is spent at Mayport it would be better to wait for the Navy study to be complete.

The same bill permitted fee increases for Tricare fees, wouldn’t it be better to put Mayport money towards the Tricare account, take care of the troops and their families??

ITT Exelis announces plans for job cuts in 2012
The company cites less demand for its products as troops are withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan.

By Sarah Bruyn Jones

As a result of the impending Department of Defense cuts, Roanoke Count based ITT Exelis, maker of military spec. night vision equipment will begin to lay off workers in a region already starved for employment.

Latest IG Report Prompts Renewed Calls for Parking Cap at Mark Center

The Department of Defense’s critical report of the Army’s planning process suggests a parking cap at the Mark Center in order to help alleviate the impending gridlock once employees begin to transition to their new work spaces in Arlington County.

The Impact of BRAC Virginia has fared better than expected
VirginiaBusiness.com

By Tim Loughran

Using preliminary information from VNDIA’s Economic Impact of BRAC on The Commonwealth of Virginia, Tim Loughran discusses the impact BRAC has had on Virginia in terms of personnel growth and military construction as well as a look at business development in the areas surrounding BRAC related growth.

Va. Beach pays Rock Church $5 million for land

By Deirdre Fernandes

Continuing efforts by the City of Virginia Beach to maintain the relationship with Naval Air Station Oceana, the city has purchased another tract of land which will help to alleviate encroachment issues and move more people out of the flight path between Oceana and Fentress Naval Auxiliary Landing Field located in Chesapeake.

NSWC Dahlgren Scientists Discover IED Detection Technique

New Synthetic Aperture Radar developed at NSWC Dahlgren will be able to detect IED’s from airborne platforms and will dramatically improve surveillance and battlefield awareness for soldiers and marines on the ground.

DAHLGREN, Va. -- Improvised explosive device and target detection capabilities will be transformed by a new technique developed by Navy scientists, a Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division official announced Nov. 16.

Navy Scientists Discover IED Detection Technique

DAHLGREN, Va. -- Thanks to a discovery while researching synthetic aperture radar, detecting improvised explosive devices will now be easier, according to a Nov. 16 announcement by Navy scientists at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD).
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) provides high-resolution imagery from airborne or space-borne platforms, coupling the long-range propagation characteristics of radar signals and digital electronics. Expected results include improved ability to conduct target detection and discrimination, supporting intelligence analysis.

"New detection techniques will lead to enhanced remote sensing capabilities with immediate application to asymmetric operations and battle space awareness in addition to intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting applications," said Houra Rais, an NSWCDD scientist.
Dahlgren scientists George Rogers and Houra Rais made the discovery while conducting research on an Office of Naval Research-sponsored project focusing on polarimetric synthetic aperture radar that uses multiple polarizations to provide detailed information at the pixel level, the smallest addressable screen element in a display device.

Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division, Dahlgren is a Naval Sea Systems Command field activity and a research and development center that serves as a specialty site for weapon system integration. The activity rapidly introduces new technology into complex warfighting systems based on its longstanding competencies in science and technology, research and development, and test and evaluation.

Retired admiral: Defense cuts will affect region

A leaner defense budget may be worse for Langley than Oceana, and harder on Navy riverines than SEALs and aircraft carriers, the head of Hampton Roads' defense lobbying organization said Tuesday.

While no one can say yet how much of the region's $20 billion annual federal income might be lost from impending defense cuts, retired Rear Adm. Craig Quigley outlined specific military operations that might be in jeopardy and others that might expand as the Pentagon seeks to trim and consolidate. He also warned of long-range changes in national defense, particularly the Navy's growing focus on the Asian Pacific region rather than the Atlantic, that will affect southeast Virginia in decades to come.

"The federal presence in Hampton Roads will probably be smaller, but we're not going away," said Quigley, executive director of the Hampton Roads Military and Federal Facilities Alliance, in a speech to the Economics Club of Hampton Roads.

Congress and the Obama administration are considering about $460 billion in defense cuts over the next decade to help deal with a large budget deficit. In addition, at least $500 billion in other defense cuts could be required under a related congressional agreement if a special House-Senate committee fails to agree on a broader deficit plan by Nov. 23.

Department of Defense Announces Funds for Transportation Projects to Improve Medical Access at Four Bases

The Department of Defense announced today its plans to distribute $299.6 million to eight transportation projects to improve access to medical facilities affected by the 2005 Defense Base Closure and Realignment (BRAC) process. Congress included $300 million for these transportation improvements in the Department of Defense and Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011.

The eight projects will improve transportation access to medical facilities at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, Md., Joint Base Lewis McChord, Wash., Fort Belvoir, Va., and Joint Base San Antonio, Texas. A list of the selected projects may be found at: http://www.oea.gov .

The projects were selected through a competitive process that considered proposals from states and communities around installations whose medical facilities were affected by the most recent BRAC round. Congress directed the department to give priority to those locations where BRAC actions created transportation challenges that might impede access to medical care. The selection panel included health care and transportation experts from the Departments of Defense and Transportation.

Funds will be distributed by Department of Defense’s Office of Economic Adjustment once the applicants provide comprehensive plans and environmental information pertaining to the projects in question.