Alabama remained the Air Force’s “preferred location” for U.S. Space Command’s permanent headquarters through multiple reviews—and moving it there would have saved the Pentagon hundreds of millions of dollars, according to a new report from the Defense Department’s inspector general.
The long-awaited, heavily redacted report on the Biden administration’s decision to base the command in Colorado over Alabama comes as President Trump is expected to relocate the command imminently.
The command has operated out of Peterson Space Force Base in Colorado Springs since its inception in 2019. But the location for a permanent home has been the subject of a years-long political debate, with the Biden administration reversing President Trump’s decision to move the command’s headquarters to Huntsville.
The report found that between June 2022 and June 2023, the Air Force conducted four reviews, all of which pointed to Redstone Arsenal in Alabama as the desired location. The “one-time cost” of moving to Alabama was $426 million less than remaining in Colorado because of lower personnel and construction costs, the report said. These findings follow prior investigations by the DOD IG and Government Accountability Office, which also backed the move to Alabama.
But SPACECOM officials were hesitant. The former commander Gen. Jim Dickinson advised then-Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall that the command should stay in Colorado Springs, the report said. Dickinson was worried that most of the command’s 1,000 civilians, contractors, and reservists wouldn’t move to Alabama. And SPACECOM leadership was concerned it would be “unable to secure the manpower investments needed to mitigate the impact of that loss on the command’s readiness,” the report said. Further, the inspector general found that building operational facilities at Redstone would take three to four years.
The report noted that inspectors did not interview Kendall or former Defense Secretary Llyod Austin because the Office of White House Counsel and DOD’s Office of General Counsel said lawyers had to be present for the interviews, a proposal that the inspector general rejected.
“Without interviewing the SECAF, we could not determine why he did not use the authority delegated to him by the SECDEF to make and announce a final decision on the permanent location of USSPACECOM HQ,” the report said.
Ahead of the IG report release, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Ala., put out a statement saying the report showed that Huntsville should be the headquarters’ home.
“After years of promises about ‘due diligence’ and ‘careful consideration,’ political employees at the White House cut out the Air Force and senior defense leaders to select Colorado over Alabama as the site for SPACECOM headquarters,” said Rogers, who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
The 2024 defense policy bill put a freeze on money for SPACECOM headquarters construction until the IG investigation wrapped up and the GAO finishes its review.
A new announcement from Trump to move the command to Alabama could come any day now, Rogers said last week.
“I expect sometime during the month of April, Space Command will be officially assigned to build its headquarters in Huntsville,” he said.
Meanwhile, a group of Colorado lawmakers sent a letter to Trump last week calling for Space Command to remain in Colorado Springs since the move would “introduce unnecessary risks, disrupt established operations, and waste valuable resources.”
