Would you pay $31.5 million to replace a majestic 12,000 acres of public land with a completely unnecessary bombing range? Well, at least one Senator would.

Retiring Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID) has included an amendment in the FY99 Defense Authorization bill to help create an unneeded new military electronic combat and bombing range in the Owyhee Canyonlands of southwestern Idaho, Nevada, and Oregon. The amendment is likely up for a vote this week. The proposed new range would be called Enhanced Training in Idaho (ETI). Creating ETI would waste over $30 million despite the fact that both the Defense Department Inspector General and the U.S. General Accounting Office have reported that the expansion has not been shown to be necessary.

ETI is intended to serve as a training facility for the 366th Wing of the Air Force, stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, and the Idaho Air National Guard. Although the 366th Wing and the Idaho Air National Guard presently use the Saylor Creek Range in Idaho and others nearby, some Air Force officials feel it is unsuitable for certain types of training.

However, ETI is clearly unneeded. The Air Force has never established a need for additional training facilities in southwest Idaho. To the contrary, the Department of Defense is on record stating that existing training facilities, within standard flight range, in Idaho, Utah and Nevada meet the training needs of the pilots at Idaho’s Mountain Home Air Force Base. Two separate government reports found that a new range in Idaho would be redundant, duplicating facilities already available at the nearby Utah Test and Training Range. Moreover, according to the audit report by the Defense Inspector General, 366th Wing officials are on records as saying that the other ranges, that they presently use, are suitable and “all training requirements were being met.”

The audit report is clear. “The Air Force initial cost benefit analysis to justify [ETI] is not valid.” The report goes on to say the both the Air Force and the Idaho Air National Guard “have programmed $31.5 million for an as yet inadequately documented requirement.”

In addition to the obvious waste of taxpayers’ money, ETI would also involve the destruction of 12,000 acres of public land, the construction of 32 electronic emitter sites in and around designated wilderness study areas, and an airspace expansion that encompasses over 3,000,000 acres.

Senators Wyden (D-OR), Reid (D-NV), and Inouaye (D-HI) will offer an amendment to strike funding for ETI from the Defense Authorization bill.

Taxpayers Among “True Believers”

The respected magazine National Journal wrote a cover story (May 23, 1998) about dwindling number of ‘true believers’ left in Washington, DC. The story twice quoted TCS Executive Director Ralph DeGennaro.