Community Correspondence - Article sent in by an individual: "War Games Seen as 'Message' "

State Input - Rock Island Arsenal, IA/IL Community Presentation - June 20, 2005 - Includes: Statement, Supporting Docs, map, and Community Briefings

State Input - 183rd Fighter Wing Air National Guard - CD Includes: Executive Summary and Testimonies

General - DOD Input - Air Force BRAC Process Presentation

Community Input - COBRA Run - Naval Air Station Brunswick

Memorandum of meeting with Stephen Moffitt regarding the Air Force's management of the C-130 fleet at General Mitchell International Airport Air Reserve Station.

Memorandum of Meeting with Naval Hospital, Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point officers regarding initial introduction/orientation of BRAC staff visit.

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "A fundamental military readiness principle is that the military must train as it intends to fight, and military training ranges provide the primary means to accomplish this principle. To successfully accomplish today's missions, U.S. forces are conducting significantly more complex operations, requiring increased joint training and interoperability between and among the military services, combatant commands, and other Department of Defense (DOD) and non-DOD organizations. For some time, senior DOD and military service officials have reported that they face increasing difficulties in carrying out realistic training at military installations due to training constraints, such as those resulting from encroachment. In recent years, we have reported on these training constraints and identified the need for an integrated, readily accessible inventory of training ranges, capacities, and capabilities so that commanders across the services can schedule the best available resources to provide the required training; a comprehensive plan that includes goals, timelines, projected costs, and a clear assignment of responsibilities to address encroachment on military training ranges; and a more comprehensive approach for addressing deficiencies to ensure that ranges are adequately sustained and modernized in order to accomplish the department's transformation goals …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "This letter responds to a question from the Chairman, House Committee on Education and the Workforce, related to the recommendation we made in our October 31, 2003, report Student Loan Programs: As Federal Costs of Loan Consolidation Rise, Other Options Should Be Examined (GAO-04-101), which we completed at the Chairman's request. We reported that then recent trends in interest rates and consolidation loan volumes had affected the federal costs of consolidations in the Department of Education's two major student loan programs--the Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP) and the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program (FDLP)--in different ways, but in the aggregate, estimated federal subsidy costs for consolidation loans had increased. In light of these increased costs, we recommended in our report that the Secretary of Education assess the advantages of consolidation loans for borrowers and identify options for reducing federal costs, taking into consideration how best to distribute program costs among borrowers, lenders, and the taxpayers. Among the options we suggested for the Secretary's consideration was changing the borrower interest rate on consolidation loans from a fixed to a variable rate. Given that some time has …

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "China's 2001 accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) raised expectations with Congress and the private sector about the prospects for China to reform its markets and allow greater access to foreign goods and services. As part of our long-term body of work related to China's membership in the WTO, we reported in October 2004 on how the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Departments of Commerce, State, and Agriculture were positioned to monitor and enforce China's compliance with its WTO commitments in 2003. In that report, we examined the multilateral annual WTO review of China's progress, referred to as the Transitional Review Mechanism (TRM). We found that the TRM has ongoing limitations in its participation and its procedures. We made recommendations to improve related U.S. government activities. In a subsequent request, Congress asked us to provide detailed information about the TRM process in 2003 so that they could better gauge the level of activity and the efficacy of the United States and other WTO members' efforts to utilize it."

Correspondence issued by the Government Accountability Office with an abstract that begins "In response to congressional concerns about the Department of Defense's (DOD) performance in accounting for missing personnel, DOD established the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing in Action Office in July 1993. This office is now called the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office (DPMO). DPMO's original mission was to provide centralized management of prisoner of war/missing in action affairs throughout DOD, and the office initially focused on missing service personnel from the Vietnam War and, to a lesser extent, incidents during the Cold War. Since its inception, Congress and DOD have expanded DPMO's mission and responsibilities. Concerned about the level of DPMO's resources, Congress in 2002 directed the Secretary of Defense to ensure that DPMO was provided with sufficient military and civilian personnel and funding to enable the office to fully perform its mission. Specifically, Congress established minimum levels of resources for DPMO, providing that the military and civilian personnel levels, as well as funding, would be not less than requested in "the President's budget for fiscal year 2003." On the basis of this congressional direction, DOD concluded that these minimum levels were: 46 military and 69 civilian personnel …

Memorandum of meeting regarding a briefing and tour of Naval Air Depot (NADEP) Cherry Point, NC.

Attachments to July 25, 2005 Memorandum of Meeting with representatives from Ellington Field Task Force consisting of 8 point papers prepared for the 2005 BRAC Commission.

Memorandum of Meeting with representatives from Ellington Field Task Force. Purpose of meeting was for the community representatives from Ellington Field Task Force to share information with the BRAC Commission representatives regarding their concerns about the proposed realignment of the 147th Fighter Wing Air Guard Station.

Community Input - Key Field Air Guard Station - Memo and supporting data from Langford Knight and Tom Williams

Community Input - Proposal of the South Texas Military Defense Community

Community Input - Substantial Cost Savings in Closing Ellsworth and Transferring the B-1s to Dyess

General - Responses of James Woolford, EPA, to Questions for the Record from the BRAC

Community Input - Coalition Rebuttal to Air Force C-130 Response

Community Input - Substantial Cost Savings in Closing Ellsworth and Transferring the B-1s to Dyess - Ellsworth Air Force Base -

Community Input - BRAC Commissioner Talking Points - Niagara Falls International Airport Air Guard Station

Community Input - Navy Post Graduate School Facility Data -

Base Input - U.S. Army Garrison-Presidio of Monterrey - CA - Presentation

Base Input - U.S. Army Garrison-Presidio of Montery - Executive Summary, Organizational Profile, Command Brief, BOS Structure, and Information Papers