House Speaker David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) recently appointed State Representative Dave Belton (R-Buckhead) as the Chairman of the House Study Committee on Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC).

“I'm honored and very grateful to the Speaker for allowing me to chair such an important committee,” Belton said. “As a 23 year retired veteran of the Navy and the Air Force, I fully understand the strategic importance, not to mention the economic impact, of our military bases here in Georgia. Georgia has the fifth largest military population in the nation, with a payroll of over $20 billion a year, yet we lost four bases during the last BRAC. Georgia cannot allow that to happen again. The bipartisan committee will visit five bases this year to better understand what we can do to preserve these installations in our state. I applaud my friends from across the aisle for making this one of their main priorities.”

This fifteen member study committee is established by House Resolution 1135, authored by Belton, and will examine how to protect Georgia’s military installations from a future federal base realignment and closure action.

For more information on HR 1135, please visit http://www.legis.ga.gov/legislation/en-US/Display/20152016/HR/1135.

Belton represents the citizens of District 112, which includes all of Morgan County and the eastern side of Newton County. He was elected into the House of Representatives in 2014, and currently serves as a member of the Economic Development and Tourism, Education, and Interstate Cooperation committees.