Thursday, March 14, 2013
Congressman Mike Doyle lauds bipartisanship as key factor in the 911th Airlift wing in Moon remaining open for another year, but uncertainty remains about its future.
The 911th Airlift Wing will keep its eight C-130 tactical aircraft through 2014, maintaining its full flying mission for one year. United States Reps. Mike Doyle (PA-14) and Tim Murphy (PA-18) both praised the Pennsylvania Delegation’s bipartisan cooperation as a key factor to the success of the year-long fight to save the 911th Airlift Wing from closure. On Wednesday, the Air Force announced the 911th would keep its full flying mission with eight C-130 planes currently assigned to the base through Fiscal Year 2014. The Air Force renewed the base's mission on Wednesday. The 911th has faced previous closure attempts, including one in 2005. “This has been a real bipartisan team effort on the part of the western Pennsylvania Delegation,” …
Saturday, February 9, 2013
The governor is proposing to spend $200,000 to help communities gather economic evidence about how the closure of a base would impact their area. The money could help the 911th Airlift Wing make its case to remain open.
Buried deep inside Gov. Tom Corbett’s budget proposal released this week is a small line item to help communities gather economic evidence about how the closure of a base would impact their area. The $200,000 is just a drop in the bucket of the $28.4 billion budget, but it could go a long way to protecting the 911th Airlift Wing in Moon Township–and other bases across the state–from being shuttered by the federal government. Steve Kratz, a spokesman for the Department of Community and Economic Development, said that funding would provide additional staff for a committee tasked with gathering evidence about the economic impact of these military bases. “That’s going to allow the committee to hire an additional staffer and provide additional…
Saturday, December 29, 2012
The Pennsylvania governor speaks at the Moon Township-based air wing, urging military officials to scrap plans to shutter the base.
Standing beneath the wings of a C-130 aircraft at the 911th Airlift Wing, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett said he would work with Pennsylvania's federal lawmakers to fight renewed plans to close the Moon Township air base. Corbett, appearing alongside Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald, U.S. Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, and state Sen. Matt Smith, D-Mt. Lebanon, implored military officials and federal lawmakers to end efforts to close the 911th as a cost-saving measure. "I'm going to ask our (Pennsylvania) congressional delegation to do whatever they need to do to save this base," Corbett said. The U.S. Air Force has again taken initial steps toward closing the airlift wing after March 2013— after the expiration of a law put…
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Lawmakers are again working to stave off a closure of the Moon Township air reserve station.
The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee has endorsed efforts to prevent the Moon Township-based 911th Airlift Wing from closing down. Rep. Buck McKeon, R-CA, today urged Air Force officials to halt efforts to close the air wing as a cost-cutting measure. According to a statement from McKeon: Installations like the Pittsburgh Air Reserve Station have been vital to supporting our men and women deployed in harms way. New concepts in warfare have made our soldiers on the ground more dependent than ever on airlift assets like Pittsburgh's C-130s. The Air Force didn't take those missions into account when they offered their plans to cut inventory earlier this year. Congress has directed them to correct that error and fully …
Friday, March 9, 2012
Congressional officials as President Obama to intervene and block the closing of the Moon-based installation.
Lawmakers and local military supporters said efforts to save the Moon-based 911th Airlift Wing are not over, despite an Air Forceannouncement earlier this week that the base will close in 2013. Members of Pennsylvania's congressional delegation in a letter have asked President Barrack Obama to intervene and block the closing of the base, which would result in the loss of 1,122 military and 281 civilian jobs. Officials called the planned closure a "devastating mistake for the military, the taxpayers and the Pittsburgh region," in their letter to the president. The Pentagon plans to cut $8.7 billion from the Air Force's 2013 budget. The 911th is targeted for closure because of the age of its eight C-130 tactical aircraft, which were …
MSgt. John DeLallo
8:02 pm on Saturday, December 29, 2012
Robert: The wages, salaries, aircraft, aircraft spares, plant facility and even the Base Exchange are all funded by the Department of Defense, not the Commonwealth. Your blustering comments are indicative of a person that knows not one nit about the Patriots that bust their butts every day so you can post misinformation about "so called governor corbin". Since you obviously have no respect … more ›