State files for summary judgment on base-closing lawsuit
Associated Press January 5, 2006 The state of Tennessee has filed a motion for summary judgment in its lawsuit against the Department of Defense to keep the 118th Airlift Wing in Nashville, Gov. Phil Bredesen announced Thursday. The suit seeks to reverse an initial recommendation by the independent Base Realignment and Closure Commission that the Tennessee Air National Guard unit be dissolved and its eight C-130 Hercules planes sent to other states. But the BRAC panel amended its recommendation in the final version passed by Congress in October, delaying any relocation of the wing's planes for five years. The state is continuing to pursue the suit, in which Bredesen contends it's against the law for an Air National Guard unit to be relocated or withdrawn from a state without consent or approval from the governor, who acts as commander in chief of the state's Guard forces. Attorney General Paul Summers filed the motion last week. "Federal law says the Governor has the final say in whether a unit stays or goes, and I'm doing everything I can to ensure the 118th continues to call Nashville home," Bredesen said Thursday in a statement. The 118th Airlift Wing's medical squadron aided in the evacuation of medical patients from the Gulf Coast region in the wake of Hurricane Katrina last August. The governor has said the unit is vital to quick disaster response in Tennessee.