OKALOOSA ISLAND — Brig. Gen. Arnold Bunch told members of the Florida Defense Support Task Force on Wednesday he is striving to keep RDT&E at Eglin Air Force Base “flyable and viable.”
The words resonate because Bunch, as head of the Air Force Flight Test Center at California’s Edwards Air Force Base, has the muscle to greatly influence decisions regarding the fate of Eglin’s 96th Test Wing.
Members of the task force, local leaders and military-reliant businesses have worried greatly since early this year that the test wing and its valuable research, development, testing and evaluation functions would be moved to Edwards.
That’s when the Air Force Materiel Command announced its intention to cut its command centers from 12 to five and to put what was then the 46th Test Wing under the command of a two-star at Edwards.
The consolidation was accomplished in July. Bunch said he has visited Eglin twice since then.
“I know we made people a little uptight about how that was done,” he said of the consolidation. “But my focus is not Edwards. I’m equally focused on Eglin and Arnold and bases across the Air Force Materiel Command.”
Jim Breitenfeld, a member of the Okaloosa County’s Defense Support Initiative that works with the task force, said Bunch’s words offered him some degree of relief about the test wing’s future.
“Gen. Bunch is an admirable man. I think those of us who know him are comfortable taking him at his word,” Breitenfeld said. “His sensitivity to our concerns is an important thing, and I believe to the degree he can support the mission at Eglin he will do that. I am encouraged by what he said.”
The Florida Defense Support Task Force, which met Wednesday morning for the first time in Okaloosa County, was established in January shortly after the Air Force announced its consolidation plans.
Its goal is to protect the state’s 20 military installations as fears of severe budget cuts and more expansive base realignment and consolidation efforts loom.
Task force members closed their meeting to the public about halfway through so that they could discuss a report prepared for them on the strengths and weaknesses of Florida’s military installations.
The report will be used for guidance as efforts are made to protect those bases from downsizing and to sell them as destinations for missions displaced by realignment pressure elsewhere, task force member and state Rep. Matt Gaetz said.
Gaetz could not speak specifically about the report, but said Florida bases appeared to score well in comparison to others, and Northwest Florida’s bases scored particularly well.
Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, reported that the task force’s mission has been accepted and embraced across Florida and is being eyed with some envy.
“In my discussion with Gen. Bunch, he indicates that other states want to emulate what we are doing,” she said at the meeting.
Carroll said discussions of the task force’s efforts “are resonating in hallways in Washington, D.C.”
But she warned that “our installations and national defense can be very poisoned by sequestration.”
Sequestration, which calls for more that $50 billion in annual cuts to the military budget, would be imposed Jan. 15 if Congress and the president cannot agree to get out from under it.
John Walsh, who represents Gov. Rick Scott’s office in Washington, said the Defense Authorization Bill lying dormant in the Senate is “probably the biggest bargaining chip in sequestration discussions.”
Walsh said any movement toward preventing sequestration is likely to be postponed until after the Nov. 6 election. It’s also possible that Congress and president will figure out a way to “kick the can down the road.”
That’s not going to prevent severe cuts to military spending, Walsh added.
“It seems defense is the only cow left to slaughter,” he said.
In other business Wednesday, the task force approved an application form for businesses or individuals to apply for grants.
Grants from the task force’s $5 million budget would be given to those able to prove an ability to enhance Florida’s military mission.
Contact Daily News Staff Writer Tom McLaughlin at 850-315-4435 or tmclaughlin@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomMnwfdn.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Defense group hears soothing words