BRAC

Those include not closing a number of bases that were on the list to be shuttered including the Portsmouth Naval Yard, the Naval Submarine Base in Groton, CT, Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and Red River Army Depot in New Boston, TX. The panel also reversed a decision to add the Defense Language Institute and Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA to the list.

"We appreciate the important role of the Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission in the process at hand," says Michael Wynne, acting under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. "As we noted when the department submitted its recommendations in May, previous BRAC commissions have recommended adjustments to the department's submission, and we expected that this independent commission may do the same. We will begin to carefully review the commission's recommendations."

These votes will determine the commission's recommendations to President George W. Bush, submitted by Sept. 8. No vote is considered final until the conclusion of the last deliberations session on Saturday. The closures are expected to save the DoD as much as $50 million over the next 20 years.