Alabama Republicans are not backing down from their fight to move the United States Space Command headquarters from Colorado to the Cotton State, relying on a new defense policy bill or a second Donald Trump term to get it done.
House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) said in an interview with Politico that the Alabama congressional delegation’s wish to move the headquarters will be strengthened by investigations from the Government Accountability Office and the Pentagon inspector general.
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Rogers said that he expects the watchdog review will say “exactly what we think: that he politically manipulated” the process, referring to President Joe Biden. Biden reversed an end-of-Trump term decision to relocate the Space Command temporary base in Colorado Springs to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. In July, the president ruled that the base should remain permanently at Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado.
“We’ve got two paths, both of which are good,” Rogers said. “One, the IG — inspector general — can come back and say what we know they’re gonna say, which justifies us going forward with building in Huntsville.”
“And if that [does] not happen, Trump’s gonna be there. He’s going to enforce what the secretary of the Air Force said under his administration and the secretary of the Air Force said under Biden’s administration,” the congressman added. “That is, Huntsville won the competition … and that’s where it should be and that’s where he’s going to build it.”
Rogers has been at the center of the Space Command base location dispute. The 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which passed in mid-December, included language preventing Space Command from spending money on a new Colorado Springs location until the investigation into Biden’s decision concludes.
Alabama lawmakers’ continuous pressure on Pentagon watchdogs to uncover any alleged wrongdoing is the latest in a yearslong fight with the Colorado delegation over who should host the Space Command. Trump and Biden have both been accused by state leaders of weighing politics when making their decision, with Democrats targeting the former and Republicans the latter, saying, respectively, that they looked to reward a state that they won during the 2020 election.
Republicans believed Alabama’s restrictive abortion laws were a reason the Space Command and its civilian workforce were not moved. Though the Biden administration said operational readiness was the sole driver in keeping the base in Colorado, Alabama GOP members quickly capitalized on reports that abortion policy influenced the decision.
However, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), who chairs the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee, told Politico that he is not worried about the Pentagon watchdog review.
“They’re going to come up with the conclusion that the commander in chief ultimately has every right to make the decision however he wants to,” Lamborn said. “Anyone in their right mind would come to that conclusion.”
On Dec. 15, Space Command commander Gen. James Dickinson reported that the organization achieved full operational capability. Dickinson said “full operational capability” meant the organization could accomplish its mission on “our worst day, when we are needed the most.”
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If Biden had moved forward with relocating the Space Command’s base to Alabama, the new location would have taken years to reach full operational capacity. A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner at the time of Biden’s decision that a new site in Alabama would not open until “the early to mid-2030s.”
Rogers remained unconvinced: “Biden just pulled a political [move] to help him in next year’s election,” he said. “But he’s not going to be president after November.”
