mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time .  mr. chairman , many of us who have been privileged to serve in this great institution for some time have been through this process many times .  this is not the first or second or third .  we have had brac after brac .  but i could not agree more with my distinguished colleague from colorado ( mr. hefley )  who observed this was the best brac of all .  we are finally getting it right .  this was the least political , most professional brac we have ever had .  and that is a tribute to chairman principi and all of the distinguished members of the panel : admiral gehman ; general newton ; former congressman and colleague jim bilbray ; phil coyle ; sam skinner ; general turner ; jim hansen , another former colleague who served with great distinction ; and general hill .  this reads like a who 's who list of distinguished americans who are providing a very important service for our nation .  the fact is dod had too much physical inventory .  it is costing dod to maintain that physical inventory .  it is costing the taxpayers .  so understandably they wanted some realignment , adjustments ; and there had to be winners and losers .  as someone who has been on both sides of that issue , let me say i know what it is like .  i can feel the pain of the losers .  but i would say to those who are on the short end of the recommendation , one , you should have confidence that the recommendations were made once again by the least political , most professional brac we have ever had , a brac whose individual members , including the chairman , were available not just to have a courtesy photo opportunity , but to hear out those of us who had presentations before that commission .  they asked pertinent questions .  they had on-site visits .  they were very , very serious about their important work ; and they were not alone .  the highly dedicated and very competent professional staff of brac was even more accessible .  you can understand when you get on the phone and you try to get a conversation with chairman principi or general so-and-so or admiral so-and-so , a lot of people want to talk to them .  i must say that i was fortunate to be able to talk to each and every one of them .  i had quality time .  but the fact of the matter is the staff followed through once again with on-site visits , and that was so very important .  the dedication and determination demonstrated by the commission , its accessibility for individual members , their willingness to listen produced a product that i think we can all be proud of .  let me once again address those who represent communities who are not treated favorably by the brac recommendations .  i have been through that before with a magnificent air force base that dissolved back as a result of the 1993 commission report , and in 1995 it actually closed down with a couple of exceptions .  and there were some people in the community at large who wanted to write the economic obituary for that community , rome , new york , and the surrounding areas .  there were others , a lot of us , not just me , the mayor , the county executive , local officials , business communities , that were determined to make the best of a bad situation .  today , that once-vibrant military installation , griffis air force base , is now a very vibrant business and technology park with upwards of 4 , 000 people gainfully employed there ; but part of that installation involves an air force research laboratory which was set off as a containment area as a result of the decision to close the base in 1993 , and the people at dod and everywhere were wondering would this work .  it has worked in spades , and now the air force research laboratory , incidentally operating out of a $ 25 million state-of-the-art new facility , is the center of excellence for the entire air force in command , control , communications , and intelligence technology .  it is an information directorate , and it not only services the air force well but it services a whole wide range of other activities .  it is serving so well .  so brac looked at that and made the decision that some operations that had been located there should be transferred elsewhere in line with the overall scheme of the air force to consolidate like operations at a central facility .  some moved out ; some moved in .  the net result is maybe a gain of 15 to 25 jobs for rome , new york .  i am not supporting the brac because we have got 15 or 25 jobs .  i am supporting the process and what it did and what it produced .  let me tell my colleagues another story .  at that same business and technology park , we now have a defense finance accounting service , and that employs exactly 382 people .  dod said , well , we want to consolidate , restructure .  we do not need 26 locations all over the country .  we want to go down to three locations .  that did not really make a heck of a lot of sense ; and when all was said and done , when the brac looked at that , they recognized that maybe the answer was somewhere in between .  instead of going from 26 to three , they went from 26 to about five or six , consolidating , saving money , improving efficiency .  guess what .  this facility at rome , new york , which incidentally is operating and out of a new $ 10 million state-of-the-art facility , was examined very carefully .  they did not just listen to me , and they did not make a decision that was posited with that because i had a scintillating personality or i had some influence down here .  influence down here did not make much difference in this process .  what they listened to were the facts , and the facts are that when they examined all of the dfas operations , in 16 measurable categories where you could quantify , where you could measure , where you could compare the output of one against the other , this installation was at or near the top .  a final brac decision , not only are those 382 jobs preserved , 600 additional are coming .  so i say it from the perspective of a proud member of a district who is gaining , and i say it as a proud member of this institution who identified with creating a process that is serving our nation well ; and therefore , i would strongly oppose the resolution to disapprove and urge that the movement go forward .  