Maine’s senate delegation wants the Pentagon to donate to Maine the military facilities in the state that are marked for closure under BRAC 2005. To see that this happens, the senators want to tack an amendment onto the Fiscal 2006 defense authorization bill. It may be a worthy idea, giving something back to the losing communities. Considering the crunch to just get a Senate authorization bill out the door and into conference with the House, chances of passage seem slim. Read here about the measure.
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall doesn’t see great value in trying to break the Sentinel ICBM program off as a separate budget item the way the Navy has with its ballistic-missile submarine program, saying such a move wouldn’t create any new money for the Air Force to spend on other…