A new Department of Defense Inspector General report requested by a top Alabama lawmaker asked for an examination of how the Biden Administration decided to make Colorado Springs the permanent home for Space Command. Alabamans still hope Trump will move the command to their state.
The IG report sheds no new light on the rationale behind Biden’s decision, nor does it provide a clear path to move the command to Alabama. Instead, the report rehashes the long battle between Colorado and Alabama to claim the headquarters and the arguments each side has made.
It’s essentially an argument between operational readiness, which would favor Colorado, and cost savings, which would favor Alabama.
The report found that Alabama’s Redstone Arsenal was named the preferred location as of 2021 after a year-long review in which Colorado Springs was also a finalist. The Biden-appointed Air Force Secretary agreed with this decision due to concerns about costs. But Redstone was never named the permanent headquarters.
Instead, the command built up its capabilities in Colorado. That led the head of U.S. Space Command to recommend it stay in Colorado over concerns about readiness in spring 2023. He said there was a risk that most of the 1,000 civilians, contractors and reservists would not relocate, although no official survey was done.
In the IG’s new inquiry, a leader within the command is quoted as saying “their worst fear was that the announcement of a relocation would accelerate staff departures.”
Aside from losing people earlier than expected, the report concluded that “constructing temporary operational facilities and re-establishing secure, mission-critical networks a [Redstone] would take 3 to 4 years following a final basing decision.” However, Air Force leadership felt like they could mitigate the risk.
One area of agreement between both camps was that the 2025-2029 timeframe is likely “a critical period” as adversaries like China improve their capabilities.
Space Command achieved full operational capability in Colorado Springs in December 2023.
Still, if either Colorado or Alabama were hoping to get a decisive victory with the IG’s review, it did not happen. Both camps found things to tout in the report.
Alabama Rep. Mike Rogers, who chairs the House Armed Service Committee, said in a statement, “The fact is that the Air Force recommended SPACECOM HQ be built in Huntsville, that any disruption associated with that move could be mitigated, and that moving to Huntsville would save the taxpayer over $420,000,000.” The cost savings would come from the cost of living differences between the two locations, among other things.
He and other Alabama lawmakers continue to say they expect Trump to reverse the Biden Administration decision and move the headquarters to Redstone in Huntsville.
But Colorado’s Democratic lawmakers put out a statement saying the report “confirms what we have long known: keeping U.S. Space Command in Colorado is the best decision to protect America’s national security.”
Colorado’s Republicans put out their own statement saying, “If moved, the loss of Space Command’s civilian personnel will significantly impact the full operational capability during a time when our foreign adversaries pose a real risk to our national security. We cannot afford to move backwards during such a critical time.”
The objective of the IG report was to evaluate the Defense Department’s leadership role in the decision, but the former Secretary of Defense and Secretary of the Air Force were not made available for interviews without DOD legal counsel present, citing concerns about executive privilege. Still, the report said that even without all the interviews, “We were able to draw conclusions about DAF and USSPACECOM priorities” which led to the decision to keep Space Command in Colorado Springs.
The interviews were done in the last year of the Biden Administration.
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