Defense Infrastructure: DOD's Excess Capacity Estimating Methods Have Limitations

Abstract : Due in part to challenges the Department of Defense (DoD) faces in reducing excess infrastructure, DoD's Support Infrastructure Management is on GAO's High Risk List of program areas vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse, and mismanagement, or are most in need of transformation. Since 1988, DoD has relied on the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) process as a primary means of reducing excess infrastructure or capacity and realigning bases to meet changes in the size and structure of its forces. In 1998 and 2004, Congress required DoD to submit reports that, among other things, estimated the amount of DoD's excess capacity at that time. Also, in March 2012, DoD testified that it had about 20 percent excess capacity. The methods used to develop such preliminary excess capacity estimates differ from the data intensive process -- supplemented by military judgment -- that DoD has used to formulate specific base closure and realignment recommendations. A Senate Armed Services Committee report directed GAO to review how DoD identifies bases or facilities that are in excess of its needs. The objective of this report is to discuss how DoD has estimated its excess capacity, outside of the BRAC process. To do so, GAO reviewed excess capacity estimates from 1998, 2004, and 2012; analyzed DoD's data; reviewed supporting documentation; assessed assumptions and limitations of DoD's analysis; and interviewed DoD officials. In commenting on a draft of this report, DoD stated that GAO had properly highlighted the limitations of its approach to estimating excess capacity and contrasted it with the method used to develop BRAC recommendations.