December 17, 2007 |
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Today we are here to present to you the State BRAC Action Plan.
Before I do, Governor, what I would like to do is to thank you. Thank you for your leadership and your vision and for acknowledging Maryland's responsibility to the country. Our expanding role in our nation's defense and homeland security, as we support the DOD missions and activities that are coming to Maryland that, in turn, support the warfighter.
Thank you, Governor. You've inspired what we feel is now a national model for BRAC mission growth States to coordinate across both party lines and county lines.
I'd also like to thank the members of the subcabinet for your diligence, your hard and smart work, your expertise. And I'd like to thank also your BRAC coordinators for the hours that they put into assembling the BRAC action plan.
I'd like to also thank the members of the local government subcommittee for working with us in identifying priorities in and around the military installations.
I'd like to thank the military commanders for providing guidance and for articulating the needs of the Department of Defense.
I'd like to also thank the county executives and their local departments, I want to thank them for opening up their doors to their counties, to the City of Baltimore. They opened their doors to the BRAC subcabinet and they allowed us to form that most important partnership for success.
I'd like to also thank the Joint Legislative Committee on Base Realignment and Closure for inviting the subcabinet to meet with them and to engage in that most important dialogue between the Executive Branch and the Legislature.
And, finally, let me thank the BRAC subcabinet staff. Asuntha Chiang-Smith, you've done an outstanding job in marshaling the energy and the talent to go into this report. I also want to thank Brigadier General (Ret.) Mike Hayes, Frank Skinner, Melva George, and Raj Basubarajah (phonetic).
Governor, in the 1950s President Eisenhower made a decision to create the interstate highway system, provide for and facilitate the movement of our Armed Forces throughout our country. And in the years since, that same system has facilitated and promoted economic growth and development around the country. And without question, Maryland has surely been one of the largest beneficiaries of President Eisenhower's vision for a mobile future.
Two years ago, another decision was made that will bring a new and added prosperity to the State of Maryland, as well as a broader sense of duty. Between now and 2011 Maryland will experience the largest single economic growth since the end of World War II. The decision made by the BRAC Commission and enacted by Congress will bring as many as 45,000 to 60,000 jobs to Maryland and 28,000 households. New friends, new neighbors, new Marylanders. This is the largest BRAC growth State in the country on a per capita basis.
And the decision, while not a foregone conclusion, in retrospect seems obvious and inevitable. Maryland is a strong State and we are ready for BRAC. We're the wealthiest State in the nation, as measured by per capita income; we're the best educated State in the nation, as measured by college and advanced degrees in our workforce and by AP participation and performance in our schools. We have a renowned system of higher education, we have five colleges and universities that are designated as centers of excellence by the NSA. And we have an outstanding public and private system with flagships at College Park and Johns Hopkins.
Notwithstanding our strengths, there is considerable work to be done in Maryland. And to accomplish this work, Governor, you had the foresight to create the BRAC subcabinet. Working with the legislature we created the BRAC subcabinet to enhance that coordination that was already ongoing, that horizontal coordination across State agencies and that most important vertical coordination between county, State and Federal Government.
At your direction, Governor, we traveled across the State. We started in Pax River in Southern Maryland to learn the lessons of their successful BRAC expansion in the 1990s. We heard about the need for inter-Governmental coordination and to continually reach out to the public.
We then visited nine counties that opened their doors to us as we learned lessons, we learned about their needs and their challenges. We met with the Maryland Military Installation Council and with regional organizations like the Chesapeake Science and Security Corridor, the Installation Alliances, and the base commanders.
We engaged the counties. We sat with town leaders. We also met with the leadership and employers at Fort Monmouth and in Northern Virginia, at DISA. We listened, we learned, we analyzed. And today we present, Governor, you with the final action plan for BRAC.
The action plan is our playbook for success. A map that will guide our action to take on those challenges that we've identified. And let me briefly speak to two challenges today.
First is the area of workforce creation. Maryland's unemployment falls a full percentage below the national average. And while it varies among the five installations that we'll be gaining in the State, Governor, we expect to fill as many as 70 percent of the new jobs, the direct jobs, that will be coming to Maryland.
Low unemployment in our State, while a blessing on the one hand, creates that added challenge of finding skilled and educated workers to fill those jobs. So we're reaching out to future Marylanders and we're reaching in to develop and enhance the education and skills of those already living here.
In addition to our broad strategy of workforce creation, Governor, which you have articulated on several occasions, we are undertaking several specific steps as outlined in the action plan.
We're going to establish for the first time on-site one-stop employment and transition centers at Fort Monmouth in New Jersey and in Northern Virginia. We're going to facilitate the reciprocity of certification for spouses who want to accompany their BRAC employee husband or wife to Maryland.
We're investing in career and technology education and we're going to continue and expand our investment in science, technology, education, and math programs in K through 20.
We're instituting a security clearance education program through the State Department of Education working with our local boards. We're going to educate and encourage our students today so they can avoid making bad choices that will preclude them from well-paying BRAC jobs tomorrow.
Second, Governor, transportation challenges and solutions. Maryland, as you know, has the second worst traffic in the nation, particularly around the Washington suburbs. We rely heavily on our MARC system and that system is overcrowded. And while Montgomery County is not the only county to experience transportation challenges, theirs may be more acute, all four of the installations that are going to grow as a result of BRAC will experience transportation challenges.
So we're going to keep our promise to future Marylanders by investing in the long-term health of our physical infrastructure. Twenty-six BRAC related transportation projects have been identified in the consolidated transportation plan and we're currently allocating $1.6 billion to those projects.
As the result of the hard and smart work of the special session, Governor, we now have almost half a billion dollars, not only to maintain our transportation system, but to begin funding new projects. And between now and 2015 we anticipate investing $1 billion to expand the MARC system.
Governor, we understand that new responsibilities bring new challenges, but we also see the incredible opportunities of BRAC. Opportunities that we have an obligation to expand and extend to more and more Marylanders.
We're conducting an MBE procurement study to look at not only State and Federal procurement opportunities, but entrepreneurial opportunities for women and minority owned businesses in the State of Maryland. We're going to establish MBE liaisons for Federal procurement at Aberdeen and Fort Meade.
And while a great deal of our work has been in the formulation of best practices in State agencies, we have found the need for legislative action and we look forward to working with the General Assembly to pass three BRAC related priority bills.
The first will be the BRAC Higher Education Fund, which will be part of the higher education fund that we created during the special session.
The second will be the creation of BRAC revitalization and incentive zones to encourage residents and businesses to locate within Maryland's priority funding areas, where the infrastructure already exists.
And, third, to provide more flexibility for private development on military installations, we will introduce a proposal that allows the State to work with the military installations and the private developers to make sure that we can adequately offset and mitigate the impact and additional impact on infrastructure.
Governor, I'll borrow a line in closing, a line or two, from you. We're not going to wake up in 2011 and read a headline that says, Everything's Perfect, We Can All Go Home.
Real progress requires life-long work. Real progress requires that we all put our local interests aside in pursuit of the common good. Our work doesn't end with this report, nor does it end when the last truck from Fort Monmouth arrives at Aberdeen.
Our work continues so that future Marylanders, those from New Jersey, from Virginia, those born in Bethesda, our work continues so that every Marylander can enjoy the quality of life that we've come to enjoy.
To be successful in that work requires that we maintain the relationships we've built with our local, State and Federal Government partners, as well as the partnerships that we've built with the private sector.
It requires that we build on the strengths of our people and our State. And it requires that we continue to make investments in ourselves, in our human capital and our physical infrastructure.
And with that, Governor, it is my privilege to present to you, your subcabinet's BRAC State Action Plan. There it is. (Applause)