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DoD announces investigation into Space Command move

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Posted at 10:15 PM, Feb 19, 2021
and last updated 2021-02-19 23:15:07-05

WASHINGTON D.C. — The Department of Defense inspector general has announced plans to investigate the decision to move the home of U.S. Space Command from Colorado Springs to Huntsville, Alabama.

In a memorandum sent to the Secretary of the Air Force, the inspector general said the objective of the investigation is to "review the basis for selecting Huntsville, Alabama, as the preferred permanent location of the U.S. Space Command headquarters."

The memo went on to say the Inspector General will evaluate the extent to which the Department of the Air Force, complied with DoD and Air Force policies during the location selection process, used objective and relevant scoring factors to rank the six candidate locations, and calculated the cost and other scoring factors accurately and consistently among the six candidate locations.

A number of Colorado lawmakers recently added their signatures to a letter requesting that President Joe Biden conduct a thorough review of the decision to move Space Command. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper signed the letter, as did Reps. Doug Lamborn, Joe Neguse, Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter, Jason Crow, Ken Buck, and Lauren Boebert.

Lamborn also asked a government watchdog for greater transparency about the decision. He sent a letter to the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) on Tuesday asking the organization to evaluate the methodology and scoring used in the process. The GAO provides auditing, evaluation, and investigative services for Congress.

This article was written by Tyler Dumas for KOAA.