BRAC Process Said to be Skewed by Improper Withholding
Defense Department officials improperly withheld crucial data from the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) Commission that might have justified the continued operation of certain Department laboratories and facilities, according to a new insider account (pdf).
A detailed timeline supported by a hundred pages of internal documentation leads the author to urge a reversal of the decision to close Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, among other actions.
The anonymous author, known to Secrecy News, said he has no financial or other material interest in the matter. He wrote that “integrity in Government decision-making is fundamental and essential to democracy.”
See “Pentagon Officials Withheld BRAC Data to Protect Proposals That Failed Legal Requirement” (119 pages, 4 MB PDF file).
A House Armed Services Subcommittee will hold a hearing on December 12 “on implementation of the Base Realignment and Closure 2005 decisions.”
January saw us watching whether the government would fund science. February has been about how that funding will be distributed, regulated, and contested.
This rule gives agencies significantly more authority over certain career policy roles. Whether that authority improves accountability or creates new risks depends almost entirely on how agencies interrupt and apply it.
Our environmental system was built for 1970s-era pollution control, but today it needs stable, integrated, multi-level governance that can make tradeoffs, share and use evidence, and deliver infrastructure while demonstrating that improved trust and participation are essential to future progress.
Durable and legitimate climate action requires a government capable of clearly weighting, explaining, and managing cost tradeoffs to the widest away of audiences, which in turn requires strong technocratic competency.