Along the Georgia coast, federal law enforcement officers from across the country gather to train in marksmanship, interrogations and high-speed driving, among other areas. The State Department for years has searched for a new place to train its employees in skills including firearms, explosives and high-speed driving.
Last week, the Obama administration announced it was buying land and moving forward on the new State Department facility — in Virginia.
Not so fast, said key Republicans in Congress, who say the Obama administration could save hundreds of millions of dollars by simply expanding the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, near Brunswick. The administration says the site it selected in southern Virginia is more convenient to Washington and best met the State Department’s needs.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, R-Calif., subpoenaed the White House Office of Management and Budget for a cost estimate for the Virginia facility, which it has kept out of public view. OMB did not reply by Royce’s Tuesday evening deadline, and the next steps remain unclear.
Congress has also blocked money from going to the project for the past couple of years. U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, a Pooler Republican who represents the area that’s home to the law enforcement training center, has asked the House Appropriations Committee to block the funding again, but the annual spending bill covering the State Department has not yet been released.
Carter said OMB’s decision not to release its cost estimate most galls him.
“I’m gonna holler as loud as I can as long as I can,” Carter said. “It’s ridiculous. People deserve an answer. As a member of Congress, I deserve an answer. And I’m not getting an answer.”
Thousands of students
The State Department now conducts “hard skills” security training in 11 places scattered across the country. It has been looking for a combined facility since 1993, and global security concerns for foreign service officers and others have mushroomed since then.
The Foreign Affairs Security Training Center is set to host 8,000 to 10,000 students per year, with 339 staff members, according to an April environmental impact statement.
The government settled on a site adjacent to the Army National Guard base at Fort Pickett, outside Petersburg, Va.
But plans to develop the site were put on hold in 2013 so the administration — at Congress’ behest — could take another look at Glynco.
The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center moved to the former Glynco Naval Air Station in 1975 and has been the hub for federal law enforcement training ever since. Its classes span from forensics to firearms to wildfires.
In response to OMB’s decision to look at Glynco as an alternative to Fort Pickett, the law enforcement training center put out a report saying it could house the State Department training for $272 million, as opposed to $937 million in Virginia.
The State Department has since scaled back its plans for Fort Pickett, but it still would cost $413 million.
Glynco says it can accomplish the goals much more cheaply because it already has $625 million worth of facilities that align with what the State Department wants to do.
Virginia moves forward
OMB still chose Virginia, and the General Services Administration’s record of decision last week was another major step forward for the project.
“The GSA and (State Department) have done their due diligence and have undertaken an extensive process in search for the best possible and most cost-effective site for the (center),” Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, said in a press release.
“It is no surprise that Virginia emerged as the right home for this important project, which will be an enormous economic driver for the region and our Commonwealth, creating as many as 1,000 jobs.”
In the same release, U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., brought up the Benghazi attack as he alluded to the congressional roadblocks that have slowed the Virginia project.
“Nearly three years after the attack on the U.S. (Consulate) in Benghazi, Libya, a permanent facility to properly train our diplomatic personnel for service in an increasingly dangerous world is long overdue,” Kaine said.
The final paperwork released this year did not directly address why Glynco fell short, but it does include one requirement that Georgia could not possibly meet: The State Department mandated the site be within 220 miles – a four-hour drive – of the Arlington, Va., headquarters of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security.
But Georgia's boosters scoff at the idea that driving instead of flying trainees to the site could save hundreds of millions of dollars. The administration requested $99 million this year for the project, a sum that requires Congress' approval.
Georgia Republican U.S. Sens. Johnny Isakson and David Perdue, in addition, are asking the Government Accountability Office for a thorough and impartial review comparing the Virginia and Georgia sites.
Former U.S. Rep. Jack Kingston, a Savannah Republican who left Congress in January, said he thought Georgia “won” the argument two years ago. He did not sense a huge push from the Virginia congressional delegation, so Kingston said he couldn’t put his finger on why the Virginia facility continues to move forward.
“OMB is a political entity,” Kingston said. “It’s not some fair and just arbitrator of what goes on in Washington. They’re in the thick of it, just like the rest of us.”
