Appropriators Vote to Keep Walter Reed Open
House Committee's Action Could Reverse Base Closing Scheduled for 2011

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 16, 2007

The House Appropriations Committee unanimously approved a measure yesterday that bars the closure of Walter Reed Army Medical Center, an action supporters say will reverse plans to shut the hospital in 2011.

The provision, attached to a bill with additional funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, blocks the use of any federal money to close Walter Reed.

Keeping open a base that has been chosen for closure by the Defense Department's Base Realignment and Closure Commission would be unprecedented. The system creating an independent commission to make such decisions was adopted by Congress to prevent political interference with base closures. But recent disclosures of serious problems with the long-term care of wounded soldiers at Walter Reed have sparked calls in Congress and elsewhere to reverse the decision. Senior Army officials also suggested that the decision be reconsidered.

"This is a done deal," Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), a committee member, said after the hearing. "Walter Reed will stay open."

"I can say without fear of contradiction it's not going to close," said Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.).

Walter Reed was selected to be closed by the BRAC panel in 2005. The recommendation, which Congress approved and President Bush signed into law, calls for the Army hospital to be consolidated with the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, where a $2 billion expansion is planned.

Yesterday's amendment came with bipartisan muscle, including the support of Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), chairman of the Appropriations military subcommittee, and Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), the panel's ranking Republican. A spokesman for Murtha, Matt Mazonkey, said that the prospects for approval by Congress are good but that some members may be loath to open the BRAC process for other reversals.

Jeremiah Gertler, a senior analyst for the 1995 BRAC commission, said last week that Congress would have to invalidate the existing regulation and create a new law.

But Moran said the committee's action yesterday will be sufficient. "What they're saying is BRAC is sacrosanct, and a lot of us don't believe that's the case," Moran said. "If this unravels BRAC, too bad."

The language specifies that "none of the funds in this or any other Act may be used to close Walter Reed Army Medical Center."

It is a tiny part of a $124 billion emergency war spending bill that would set timetables for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq.

That bill goes to the House floor next week. Bush has vowed to veto any war spending bill that sets timelines for troop withdrawals or conditions for the use of combat forces, as the House bill does.

Still, the overwhelming support shown for the Walter Reed measure should buoy supporters. If the provision does not survive in the spending bill, it will almost certainly be revisited in a separate war policy bill that will come before Congress later this year and in a defense spending bill for 2008.

Staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this report.