Md. bids for aid on BRAC growth

The Baltimore Sun

WASHINGTON -- With tens of thousands of new workers expected in the next five years, Maryland's representatives in Congress are trying to loosen the first federal dollars to help local communities cope with military base expansion in the state.

The funding they are seeking so far has been modest: little more than $20 million, mostly for road and rail projects - an area in which state officials have identified $16 billion in needs. But they say it is only the beginning of the process, a trickle in federal funding that they will try to broaden into a more robust flow.

"The requests this year are a down payment for the future," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, who represents the communities surrounding Aberdeen Proving Ground and Fort Meade. "We hope that there's more next year."

The expansion of military installations in Maryland is expected to bring 45,000 to 60,000 jobs to the state. Officials are counting on the newcomers to contribute nearly $500 million annually in state and local taxes. But they also are bracing for the impact on roads, schools and services.

State officials wanted a piece of what some have called the largest economic development opportunity since World War II. They lobbied for the expansions during the 2005 round of the federal Base Realignment and Closure process known as BRAC.

But now, as Congress hammers out spending bills, state officials are looking for federal help with the billions of dollars that they say are needed to deal with the influx.

"These are federal facilities that are expanding," said Lt. Gov. Anthony G. Brown, who chairs Democratic Gov. Martin O'Malley's subcabinet on BRAC. "The federal government ought to want to play a role in ensuring that the infrastructure is in place to protect these activities."

Ruppersberger agrees.

"The Department of Defense made a decision to come here," the Baltimore County Democrat said. "We tried to prove our case. But now that they've made the commitment, we need their help."

Delegation members are using "earmarks" - federal funding that lawmakers secure for their pet projects - to get that assistance. Ruppersberger wants $1 million for roads that lead to Aberdeen Proving Ground in Harford County. Democratic Rep. Chris Van Hollen is looking for $1 million to improve safety on the road that passes in front of the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda. Democratic Sen. Barbara A. Mikulski is trying to nail down $13 million to expand the MARC commuter rail system.

Some local officials worry that the money isn't coming quickly enough. While Anne Arundel County Executive John R. Leopold lauds the effort to secure federal money for mass transit, he has expressed concern that the highway improvements won't be finished by 2011, when new residents begin arriving en masse.

State officials have identified $5 billion in BRAC-related transportation needs in Anne Arundel alone. There, no example is more emblematic of the challenge than the reconstruction of a five-mile section of Route 175 along Fort Meade's perimeter.

In 2003 - even before it was clear that Fort Meade would face BRAC growth - county officials said improving the road was their top transportation priority. The delegation secured $12.5 million in federal funding two years later to plan for its widening. But officials now say that the $500 million project probably won't be finished before 2016. By then, about 22,000 new workers are expected to settle near the base.

Leopold, a Republican, praised what he said were the efforts of the state's mostly Democratic delegation in Washington "to do everything they can to ensure that if the infrastructure is not there before the jobs arrive, it won't lag too far behind."

If the Democratic-led Congress finishes the appropriations process - the Republicans didn't last year - the 2008 federal budget would be the first to include earmarks for the base realignment approved in 2005. Ruppersberger and Mikulski, as members, respectively, of the House and Senate Appropriations committees, have taken the lead for Maryland.

"BRAC is in the federal lawbook," Mikulski said. "Now the battle is in the federal checkbook."

To illustrate local needs, Mikulski spoke of the planned expansion in Bethesda, where the National Naval Medical Center is to take on 1,889 new workers, across congested Rockville Pike from the National Institutes of Health.

"We could conceivably have thousands of people all at the same traffic light," she said. "I would not want to venture what they would be calling me or [Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin] or Chris Van Hollen" if they did nothing to improve the traffic flow.

Guided in part by priorities developed by the O'Malley administration - a $33 million list delivered to the delegation this year - the state delegation is seeking projects ranging from the $500,000 Ruppersberger is seeking to help "systemize" traffic lights on two state roads near Fort Meade to the $13 million Mikulski wants to help buy new locomotives and railcars for MARC and study possible sites for new stations on the commuter line.

"Our needs are much greater than that," Brown said. "But we take sort of a realistic approach, based on past experience and what will be available in the current pot."

Delegation members are pursuing other means to bring home federal dollars to help the state accommodate the base expansions. They lobbied successfully for a change in the federal formula for distributing highway funds that has increased Maryland's share from $540 million annually to $760 million. The state can use most of that money as it chooses; much is expected to pay for some of the 54 base-related transportation projects that state officials have identified.

Mikulski has argued for an increase in the amount spent nationally on Impact Aid, which helps school districts defray the cost of educating children who live on military bases, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs, which help districts accommodate the needs of students with emotional, mental or physical disabilities.

Mikulski says she also will work to speed the delivery of federal aid - making it available to a school district in anticipation of more students, instead of waiting until they have arrived - when the No Child Left Behind law comes up for reauthorization by Congress this year.

The delegation has also supported grant applications by the state and counties for federal funding related to BRAC. The U.S. Department of Labor has awarded $1.2 million to the state Department of Business and Economic Development to study the impact of the base expansions and $4 million to the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation to ensure that there will be enough workers to fill the new jobs. The Defense Department has given Anne Arundel and Harford counties more than $3 million to begin planning.

"Our priority," Ruppersberger said, "is to make sure that when you have this expansion ... that we do whatever we need to do so that we will not negatively impact on the quality of life of the existing residents and commercial entities."

The state is at work on some $6 billion in highway widenings, interchange upgrades and other transportation improvements. About 55 percent of that money is expected to come from the federal government.

Brown says the funding sends a message to those who would question the state's ability to absorb the newcomers. In New Jersey, politicians and others still are chafing over the impending move of plum technical jobs from Fort Monmouth to Aberdeen. New Jersey lawmakers introduced measures last week in Congress intended to stop the move, pending an investigation by the Government Accountability Office.

"So roads are being built, interchanges being constructed and bridges erected," Brown said. "We're making progress, and we're ready."

matthew.brown@baltsun.com tim.wheeler@baltsun.com phill.mcgowan@baltsun.com

Sun reporter Mary Gail Hare contributed to this article.

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