Cannon among installations that could lose funding

CLOVIS — Cannon Air Force Base is among military installations across the country and overseas that could lose project funding in favor of President Donald Trump’s proposed border wall. Both of New Mexico’s U.S. senators denounced that potential threat to military construction projects in the state while a Department of Defense spokesman said it was too early to speculate on which locations might be impacted.

Some $42 million toward building a new combat arms training and maintenance (CATM) facility and cargo pad area at Cannon are among $187.5M in DoD projects across the state that might go instead toward up to $3.6B the president is seeking from such funds for the wall, according to a news release Tuesday from Sen. Martin Heinrich. He and Sen. Tom Udall, both Democrats, said in statements that day that Trump’s national emergency declaration last month was unconstitutional and unfounded.

“We cannot allow President Trump to raid taxpayer dollars meant to help our military defend our nation to pay for a wall that New Mexicans don’t want or need,” said Heinrich. “I will do everything I can to oppose this effort to steal from our military to build a wasteful border wall under the false pretense of a national emergency.”

Trump said in a public address last month that over $3.5 billion in funds from military construction projects would be part of $8 billion he means to devote to the wall.

“The facts on the ground on our border do not justify the president’s unconstitutional national emergency declaration,” Udall said in a statement March 19 on his website. “As a member of the Appropriations Committee that helped secure these projects, I can tell you that these funds were appropriated deliberately and to help our bases and military installations fulfill their essential missions. Potentially raiding critical funding from White Sands, Holloman, Cannon and Kirtland will only make us less safe and less secure. The president is playing politics with military readiness and putting his border wall ahead of our safety and our service members.”

On Monday, the office of Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) shared online a DoD fact sheet detailing the “complete pool of all projects” eligible for that selection. The list specified that “the appearance of any project within the pool does not mean that the project will, in fact, be used,” a point which a DoD spokesman emphasized Friday when speaking with The News.

“The biggest thing to keep in mind is that there have been no decisions yet,” said Lt. Col Jamie Davis, to whom Cannon media officials directed inquiries. “I’ve had calls from, I would say all 50 states and several countries as well. Everybody wants to know, ‘What about me, what about me?’ and the short answer is we don’t have anything yet.”

Davis said the DoD’s secretary would make a decision but he doesn’t “have any idea of when that will be.”