Rodents and rot: Military facilities are ‘failing,’ report finds

A quarter of the U.S. military’s facilities are falling apart, the Senate Appropriations Committee says.

“According to recent facility condition assessment data, one in four Defense facilities are rated as being in poor or failing condition,” the committee wrote in the report that accompanies the fiscal 2017 Milcon-VA spending bill that the panel approved Thursday.

Examples of the deteriorating state of U.S. military infrastructure are scattered throughout that report and a similar one, also produced this week, from the House Appropriations Committee. Both documents are rife with references to crumbling and unsafe U.S. military structures, some of which are riddled with mold and rodents.

The reports come during the same week that the Pentagon reported to Congress that the military has 22 percent excess infrastructure, including a third of the overhead in the Army and Air Force.

The upshot appears to be that the military has about a quarter more infrastructure than it needs and, perhaps not coincidentally, is having serious trouble maintaining about a quarter of its facilities — sometimes with adverse potential effects on safety and mission effectiveness.

Yet military construction appropriations have declined in the past few years. This year is shaping up as no exception.

For fiscal 2017, both committees recommend $7.9 billion, which would be $305 million below the current level but not as low as the White House had requested, which would have been $555 million below the current level.

CQ-Roll Call

This story was originally published April 15, 2016 at 8:54 PM with the headline "Rodents and rot: Military facilities are ‘failing,’ report finds."