Craig receives commitment for Mountain Home AFB

Thursday, May 8, 2008

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- An Air Force representative assured Idaho Senator Larry Craig today that the construction of a new Logistics Readiness Center at Mountain Home Air Force Base will be in the Air Force budget for fiscal year 2010.

The commitment came during a budget hearing by the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, during which Craig called attention to the dire conditions of the Base's Logistics Readiness Center which was condemned in the late 1990s.

Kathleen Ferguson, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Installations, told Craig and the Committee, "We have funded and begun the design for the replacement facility at Mountain Home. It is ongoing right now and will be 35% designed in October. The cost for the replacement facility is about $20 million, and we anticipate that it will be in our FY10 submission to the Congress."

"For the last five years, the Idaho congressional delegation has suggested that this Center become a top priority for this facility," Craig told Ferguson. "It used to house at least seven base activities which we've had to move. The people who work in this building now have to wear hard hats for fear of something falling on them. And yet this building is still operable until it gets four inches of snow on it, and we have to evacuate everybody for risk of the roof falling in.

"I know we send our soldiers on very dangerous missions…but the greatest danger to some of Mountain Home's airmen and women is entering this building."

Craig credited Idaho Representative Mike Simpson with including almost $1.6 million in legislation last year to begin design work on the Center. ~"We wanted to start the process, get the logistics and the design ready,"Craig said. "I don't know any other way to impress upon the Air Force the reality of this problem. It is a significant problem at a world class air base and the most egregious example of inefficiency I've seen to date."

When Craig asked Ferguson if there was anything he could do to move the process along faster, she responded, "I think you just did. We still have a long way to go…but what we're hearing from our combat command is that they've made (Mountain Home) their number one priority."

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