Mayors join Sen. Brown in renewed effort to bring U.S. Space Command to Ohio

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown has picked up the support of the Ohio Mayors Alliance, the Dayton Development Coalition and at least 10 other economic development organizations in lobbying the White House again to relocate the U.S. Space Command to Ohio.

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Brown took the floor of the Senate on Thursday to urge the Biden administration to establish Wright-Patterson Air Force Base as headquarters of the U.S. Space Command and move additional U.S. Space Force units to Ohio in partnership with the NASA John H. Glenn Research Center’s Neil Armstrong Test Facility in Sandusky -- if the Pentagon decides to relocate the unit for a third time.

The renewed lobbying effort comes now because the White House and the Pentagon are -- for a third time -- reviewing a decision made in January 2021 to move the command from its temporary home in Colorado to Alabama. As of Thursday, the Biden administration has not said whether the decision about the move to Alabama will be approved.

“Ohio does deserve it,” Brown told News Center 7′s John Bedell on Thursday. “We’re going to fight for it. The administration understands that the process was rigged three or four or five years ago. Two independent studies said it was not a fair competition.

“Ohio didn’t compete much then. This time we are.”

This time, a bi-partisan group of Ohio’s U.S. representatives and the mayors alliance -- including board member and Beavercreek Mayor Bob Stone -- have joined Brown in the push.

Wright-Patterson “is already functioning as a point of contact for the U.S. Space Force through Space Delta 18 (NSIC),” the Ohio Mayors Alliance board of directors said in a letter to the Biden administration.

“With the continuation of this development in the form of a host space for new Space Force missions or a permanent headquarters of the U.S. Space Command, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and the surrounding region can continue to foster collaboration and innovation in the defense sector. Ohio’s cities both in the Dayton and southwest Ohio area as well as the rest of the state are ready, willing, and able to invest in educating, housing, and employing Space Force families and all of its related suppliers and services,” the alliance said in its letter.

In 2020, officials knowledgeable about the command said it would have brought 1,400 new jobs to Wright-Patterson.

“We are absolutely equipped, ready to go,” Brown said. “Some say it’s a long shot. Maybe it is, but we’re going to make that fight and I’m not giving up.”

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