Latest DoD IG report clears a hurdle for SPACECOM move to Alabama

Building 1 at Peterson Space Force Base, Colo. is the provisional headquarters of U.S. Space Command. (Space Command/Christopher DeWitt)

WASHINGTON — The finalization of a review by the Pentagon’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Biden administration’s 2023 decision to keep US Space Command’s permanent headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colo., clears a pro forma obstacle for a widely-expected decision by President Donald Trump to reverse course to move it to Huntsville, Ala.

The OIG’s report, released today, like those before it in essence shows that President Joe Biden’s July 2023 decision to keep SPACECOM HQ at Peterson SFB — which reversed the first Trump administration’s original 2021 determination to move it to Huntsville — was a judgement call.

Investigations in 2022 by both the OIG and the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that internal Department of the Air Force studies between 2019 and 2021 deemed a move to Redstone Arsenal, Ala., was the best choice based on the metrics, especially costs. However, the investigations also found that top military brass protested that the negative effects of such a move on combat readiness were not properly taken into account by the studies.

Thus the basing choice fundamentally came down to a matter of priorities. Prioritize saving money and potentially risks a few years of lowered capability for SPACECOM to respond to any adversary threats on high, or prioritize maximum readiness today but spend more.

Today’s OIG report does present some new details about the internal DoD argument in the run up to Biden’s decision. For example, then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall recommended that SPACECOM go to Redstone largely because the move would save $426 million, the report noted.

However, then-SPACECOM Commander Gen. James Dickinson recommended that the permanent headquarters remain in Colorado because the original Air Force studies also found that Huntsville wouldn’t be ready for occupation for three to four years, the report said. Further, top SPACECOM officers fretted that more than half of the current civilian staff in Colorado would quit rather than change location.

The OIG also noted that it “could not determine” why Kendall did not make a formal “announcement decision for the transition of SPACECOM” from Colorado Springs to Redstone following the September 2022 completion of an environmental assessment of the planned HQ site in Huntsville.

Failure to make that announcement allowed SPACECOM to continue on its pathway to declare full operational capability in its current home, the report noted, which it did in December 2023. 

The OIG report said the reason it couldn’t make that finding was because the Pentagon would not allow interviews with Kendall and former Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin without the presence of DoD legal counsel — suggesting that the White House played the executive privilege card with regard to their conversations with Biden. The OIG disagreed with the need for counsel so chose not to do the interviews.

However, the Air Force and DoD said in their comments that while DoD legal counsel was called for to monitor interviews with Kendall and Austin because of the potential for breaching the confidentiality of those conversations, that they had seen no declaration of executive privilege from the White House. In other words, the call for counsel was a Pentagon decision, in effect, to err on the side of caution.

Following the release of today’s report, Alabama politicians began touting the new OIG report as justifying a Trump move to reverse Biden’s basing decision.

Further, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, said in an April 8 podcast with Auburn University’s McCrary Institute that he expects Trump to make the announcement as soon as Troy Meink is confirmed as the new Air Force Secretary. While Rogers said he thought that would happen this month, Congress is on recess until April 28.