The Air Force plan to transfer current housing at Minot AFB, N.D., to a private contractor does not sit well with Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), reports the Minot Daily News. Housing privatization is a DOD-wide initiative intended to let the services replace old housing with new at a faster pace than could be done under traditional military construction. Essential private contractors build new housing and then lease it to military members. Dorgan and fellow North Dakota lawmakers don’t believe the initiative should apply to bases in their state because much of the housing is relatively new. Dorgan told the newspaper, “It makes no sense at all.” As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Dorgan is trying to cut the purse strings that would enable privatization of housing at Minot and Grand Forks Air Force Base, which both fall under a plan that would turn the housing over to a private contractor in 2010.
In the wake of a major Chinese military shakeup, the head of U.S. Space Command warned of China’s “breathtakingly fast” advances in space during visits to Japan and South Korea. Gen. Stephen N. Whiting’s trip to the Indo-Pacific is his first overseas visit since taking command of SPACECOM in January.