DENVER (AP) – The DOD’s inspector general announced on Friday that he was reviewing the Trump administration’s last-minute decision to relocate the U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama.
The January 13 decision, a week before Trump stepped down, surprised Colorado officials and raised questions of political retaliation. Trump had suggested at a rally in Colorado Springs in 2020 that the command would stay at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs.
But the man with whom Trump held that demonstration, Republican Senator Cory Gardner, lost his candidacy for re-election in November, and Colorado, unlike Alabama, voted decisively against Trump. The last-minute relocation of the Air Force command headquarters to Huntsville, Alabama – home to the U.S. Army’s Redstone Arsenal – surprised Colorado officials from both sides, who asked the Biden government to reconsider the decision.
On Friday, the inspector general’s office announced that it was investigating whether the relocation was in line with Air Force and Pentagon policy and was based on appropriate assessments from competing locations.
Colorado officials from both parties were enthusiastic. “It is imperative that we thoroughly review what I believe to be a fundamentally flawed process that focuses on grain counting rather than dominating American space,” said Rep. Doug Lamborn, a Republican whose district includes Space Command.
The two US Democratic senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, also welcomed the investigation. “Moving Space Command will interrupt the mission while risking our national security and economic vitality,” said the senators in a joint statement. “Politics has no role to play in our national security. We fully support the investigation. “
Among other functions, the Space Command allows satellite navigation and troop communication and provides missile launch alerts. Also based on Peterson are the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, and the US Northern Command.
Space Command differs from the United States Space Force, launched in December 2019 as the first new military service since the Air Force was created in 1947. Space Command is not an individual military service, but a central command for space operations from military scope. Operated at Peterson from 1985 until its dissolution in 2002 and was revived in 2019
The Air Force accepted offers of locations for the command when he was revived and was considering six finalists, including Huntsville, when Trump suggested he would stay in Colorado Springs.