Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Kingsville proposal may defuse anger over Vieques closure

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Sunday, June 24, 2001
Kingsville proposal may defuse anger over Vieques closure
Bush could mollify conservatives upset over losing the base
By Tara Copp and Lisa Hoffman
Scripps Howard News Service

   WASHINGTON - By having his senior political adviser push Kingsville as an immediate substitute location for Vieques, President Bush could make closing the Navy bombing training base less politically explosive, political analysts and lobbyists said.
   "The one thing that may be driving it is the desire by the administration to do some quick damage control," said Marshall Whitmann, a political analyst at the conservative Hudson Institute. "At the moment there is extreme displeasure in the defense and conservative circles about how the administration is handling this issue, so they may be looking for a quick resolution, and they may be looking to Texas where the administration may have certain political clout to make it happen quickly."
   A 100,000-acre area between Kingsville and Harlingen is among locations being considered in the wake of President Bush's announcement last week that the Navy would withdraw from Vieques in two years.
   For years, protesters said bombing on the Puerto Rican island was harming the environment and people's health. The Navy has denied those assertions.
   'Prime opportunity'
   Corpus Christi's lobbyist in Washington, Larry Meyers, said he suggested Kingsville as a substitute base to the Senate's military readiness subcommittee two weeks ago and that "they were not the least bit interested" in closing Vieques, but welcomed the possibility of an additional training base, he said.
   Now though, with Bush's hard line on closing the base, having Karl Rove suggest Kingsville as an immediate substitute might make the closure easier to swallow, he said.
   "It sounds to me like Kingsville has a prime opportunity here," Meyers said. "I would think that the opportunity for immediate replacement makes closure much easier."
   However both Whitmann and Meyers said Bush doesn't have Congressional support yet. Next Wednesday, both the House and Senate Armed Services Committees will be holding hearings on the issue, and both Democratic and Republican members of those committees have already started voicing their opposition to closing Vieques.
   "It's going to be a challenge to the president," Meyers said.
   Panel to be chosen
   Meanwhile, the Navy said Friday any speculation on where a replacement for Vieques might be located was premature.
   Navy Secretary Gordon England intends to appoint a panel to analyze possible sites, but hasn't even chosen the members yet, said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Dawn Cutler on Friday.
   "Nothing has been put together yet," Cutler said.
   One of the options the Navy will study is choosing several sites to replace Vieques, which the Navy considers its "crown jewel" because it offers a variety of training opportunities. Most alternative locations, including Kingsville, lack at least one piece. For Kingsville, the deficit is no suitable place to practice amphibious landings. Amphibious landing training here would require using a swath of Padre Island to allow passage of troops and equipment from the Gulf to the Laguna Madre and the mainland, said Corpus Christi Mayor Loyd Neal on Friday.
   Republican outrage
   Neal, who has been working with Navy officials through his position as chairman of the South Texas Military Facilities Task Force, said such an arrangement would require softening the environmental regulations governing the island.
   Meanwhile, many Republicans in Congress are vowing to vigorously fight to overturn the White House's decision to abandon Vieques. Outraged at the White House's decision to bail out of such a prime training ground, Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., has called a hearing for Wednesday to air these objections.
   Criticism from the conservative wing continued to pour in Friday. The American Conservative Union was the latest to blast the decision as little more than political pandering to Hispanic voters and a boost for New York Gov. George Pataki's political future.
   Growing opposition
   "Conservatives can't help but think our government is more concerned with the requests of a lightweight Republican governor and opportunistic celebrity protesters in this case than the need to 'provide for the national defense,' " said David Keene, chairman of the group.
   In recent years, U.S. bomb training sites have become more and more unpopular in nearby communities across America and overseas.
   The Pentagon faces growing local opposition from West Texas to Big Sur, Calif., to Okinawa, where residents are up in arms over environmental damage, physical danger, noise, lowered property values and economic disruption.
   The Abilene area has been embroiled for more than three years in a fight over Air Force plans for low-level training flights by B-1 bombers from Dyess Air Force Base. Ranchers have objected on the basis of their fears that such flights will harm livestock by spooking them. Two groups have taken the fight to court.
   Unlike at Vieques - and, theoretically, Kingsville - the Dyess flights do not involve the dropping of munitions, live or otherwise.


Scripps Howard correspondent Tara Copp can be reached at coppt@shns.com; Scripps Howard correspondent Lisa Hoffman can be reached at hoffmanl@shns.com

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