Prime Republican launches investigation into delayed Spacecom relocation

The chairman of the Home Armed Providers Committee has launched an investigation into the delayed relocation of U.S. Area Command (Spacecom) from Colorado to Alabama.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) on Thursday despatched a letter to Air Power Secretary Frank Kendall and Spacecom Commander Gen. James Dickinson expressing concern about obvious “modifications” to the deliberate relocation of Area Command’s headquarters to Huntsville.

“These apparently sweeping unilateral modifications to insurance policies and posture appear to have been made with zero civilian oversight on the Division of Protection,” Rogers wrote.

Rogers is asking for all paperwork and communications because the starting of the Biden administration associated to Spacecom’s mission or headquarters.

Former President Trump resurrected Spacecom in 2019 after its discontinuation in 2002 and introduced a short lived headquarters in Colorado Springs.

A everlasting location was ultimately slated for Huntsville, referred to as Rocket Metropolis for its lengthy historical past as a location growing house rockets, together with Saturn V, which introduced the primary people to the moon in 1969.

Whereas there was some hypothesis that Trump could have chosen Huntsville for political causes, as he enjoys extra help in Alabama, critiques ordered beneath the Biden administration on why the choice was made have discovered nothing improper.

The gradual finalization of the brand new Spacecom headquarters for the previous two years beneath President Biden has infuriated Alabama lawmakers searching for the increase in jobs and enterprise introduced by a relocation.

In his letter, Rogers stated Kendall, the Air Power secretary who oversees Spacecom, just lately met with a bipartisan delegation of congressional lawmakers from Alabama.

In keeping with Rogers, Kendall stated he didn’t make any resolution to vary the deliberate relocation and was not knowledgeable of any change to the relocation.

Earlier this month, NBC Information reported the plan to relocate the headquarters is perhaps scrapped solely out of concern about restrictive abortion legal guidelines in Alabama.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.), who has incessantly spoken out in opposition to the delay and any change to the deliberate relocation, stated he supported Rogers’s investigation of the incident.

“It appears DoD leaders are letting partisan politics undermine our army readiness and nationwide safety,” Tuberville tweeted Thursday.

Tuberville can be holding up nearly 200 Pentagon nominees over concern a couple of Protection Division coverage offering reimbursement for journey prices for service members who elect to get an abortion, although each the White Home and the senator have agreed that challenge is separate from Spacecom.