House committee approves bills expanding Navy control at 2 Calif. bases

E&E News
By Dylan Brown
May 8, 2014

Republicans on the House Natural Resources Committee today sent to the House floor two bills expanding the Navy's control over public lands near two of its installations.

The move came over the opposition of not only committee Democrats but the Department of Defense, the National Park Service and, for one of the bills, the Navy itself.

Put forward by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), H.R. 3687, the "Military Land and National Defense Act," would essentially veto the request submitted by local surfers to make the Trestles Beach a National Historic Landmark. The surfers have long shared the surf break south of San Clemente with naval training exercises in the sand.

In explaining Issa's bill, which passed 20-12, Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) said the Navy was concerned that adding the beach to the National Historic Register would give the National Park Service the power to veto requests from the armed services without allowing for national security considerations.

"This bill takes one particular issue and tries to solve it by simply making clear the purposes for this piece of real estate that is used by the military," he said.

But Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) called the bill "an unnecessary overreach that politicizes a process that is intended to be apolitical," citing the Navy's own inability to provide examples of a historic designation getting in the way of military readiness.

"I recognize this bill is a reaction to a specific situation in Mr. Issa's district," he said, pointing to the Defense Department's opposition to the bill. "But it is so out of character for him to use a meat cleaver when a penknife would be an appropriate tool."

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) criticizing the bill for allowing military objections based on "vague reasons of national security" for use of public lands. He echoed National Park Service testimony arguing that programs protecting shared heritage shouldn't be fundamentally weakened.

"We are again pushing legislation that is a solution in search of a problem," he said. "It's not a matter of whether we need a meat cleaver or a scalpel here; we don't need any instrument at all."

Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), however, reminded his colleagues that the bill was part of a package of amendments unanimously approved by the House Armed Services Committee on the prior day.

Permanent weapons station expansion

The Natural Resources Committee also split largely along party lines on the second bill considered today, which would permanently transfer responsibility for public lands surrounding a Navy air weapons station in the desert about 2 ½ hours' drive north of Los Angeles from the Bureau of Land Management to the Navy. Only California Democratic Rep. Jim Costa broke ranks to vote in favor of the bill.

H.R. 4458, the "Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake Security Enhancement Act," from House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would extend the base's fence line to encompass all the range beneath already restricted airspace the Navy uses for testing of unmanned systems and other airborne war-fighting technologies.

With the land already withdrawn until 2039 under last year's National Defense Authorization Act, Grijalva opposed the bill, invoking the Navy's own testimony against it. Roger Natsuhara, the Navy's acting assistant secretary for energy, installations and environment, testified last week that the Navy did not want the added responsibility of managing the land and wanted the flexibility to reconsider its priorities when reauthorization was needed again in 25 years.

"This might sound good to those who want to sell off our public lands to the highest bidder, but it's not what the Department of Defense asked for, and it's unfair to the American taxpayer," Grijavla said.