SENATOR COLLINS DISCUSSES BRAC PROCESS WITH DEPUTY SEC OF DEFENSE

WASHINGTON, DC-- Senator Susan Collins today met in her Washington, DC office with Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England to discuss the Department's production of BRAC-related documents. Secretary England agreed to make available key department of defense analysts responsible for generating the data that led to the BRAC decisions. In addition, Senator Collins raised the problem of reviewing the approximately 25 million pieces of information on the DoD website that currently require a manual search for a complete review. Secretary England acknowledged the problem.

Senator Collins requested that Pentagon officials who are closely involved with the BRAC process be made available to help answer questions that might arise as newly released documents are more closely analyzed. "It is important to be able to talk to the analysts because some of the judgments and assumptions that they used have not been captured in written form. Therefore, the only way to get to the bottom of DoD's BRAC decisions is to talk to the analysts who actually crunched the numbers that led to the decisions," said Senator Collins.

In addition, Senator Collins pointed out that information that the Pentagon has released and posted on its website is difficult for most individuals to search. She requested that Secretary England work to better organize the material on the website so that it is more "user friendly." "I am concerned about the public's inability to efficiently search the volumes of information and hundreds of files posted on the DOD website," said Senator Collins. "I am pleased that Secretary England acknowledged the problem and hope that the DOD will be able to improve the situation."

"This was a very productive meeting, and I appreciate Secretary England's responsiveness," said Senator Collins.

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