BRAC recommendations for Coastal Mississippi

The Pentagon has recommended that Naval Station Pascagoula be closed. This will result in 844 military jobs, 112 civilian jobs, and 8 mission contractor positions lost. That is a total of 963 positions that may be lost.

Keesler Air Force Base been has recommended for realignment. This will result in 181 military jobs, 31 civilian jobs, and 190 contractor jobs lost.The total number jobs in jeopardy is 402.

This are not set in stone. Now begins the fun part with Senators Thad Cochran and Trent Lott lobbying to keep Naval Station Pascagoula open and the lose of jobs at Keesler to a minimum.

I showed my boss the BRAC recommendations and he bet me a hamburger that we will not lose anything. I hope he is correct.

Of course Senator Trent Lott may be in trouble with the Republican party. In an article in today's Sun Herald, Senator Lott has been accused of naming the constitutional option to change filibuster rules the "nuclear option" in order to get back for losing the Senate Majority Leadership over he comments made two years ago. Senator Lott is the chairman of the Senate Rules Committee.

He denies those charges and his office states he working with the current Senate Majority Leader Frist, Democrats, and Republicans to negotiate a solution for the filibusters. The Democrats have been using the filibuster to delay judicial appointments and the Republicans want to change the rules so that filibusters can no longer be used in judicial nominations.

The one thing I am most worried about is the fact that there is a lot of developers who want to build condos along the beach. Some of the proposed buildings would need height variances and could directly affect flight paths at Keesler.

We have never been impacted by BRAC recommendations in the past. I hope the trend continues.

UPDATE
Senator Lott had this to say:

No state is more familiar with the BRAC process than Mississippi. Three times in the 1990s we saw Mississippi bases targeted by BRAC lists, and yet our state has never lost a base to BRAC.

You go Senator!!! We love a good knockout fight and Senator Lott usually comes out ahead for Mississippi.