The Georgia House of Representatives voted unanimously Wednesday to seek ways to prevent the state’s military bases from being targeted for closing.

House Resolution 1135 creates a 15-member committee to study ideas to make the military installations less vulnerable in the next round of base closings initiated by Congress. The committee will hold at least five meetings, probably one at each of the state’s bases.

The bases have a direct economic impact of more than $20 billion yearly. Georgia’s military population is the fifth-largest of any state. So, preserving the bases is a high priority for community leaders near them and for state officials.

Every three to 10 years or so Congress assigns a citizen commission to select which of the country’s domestic bases to realign or close as a way to save taxpayer money. While the Department of Defense can close overseas bases on its own, domestic closures require an act of Congress.

The last round in 2005 shuttered the Navy Supply Corps School in Athens, the Marine Corps base in Marietta and the Army’s Fort Gillem and Fort McPherson in Atlanta. 

Among the reasons for closing a base are a change in military usefulness, crowded development on the base’s boundaries, business or government practices that punish enlistees and a general lack of community support. While the legislature can’t do much about military strategy, it can adopt laws that make life easier for service members to show the Pentagon they are welcome here. One example is a bill under consideration this year for the state to accept service spouses’ professional licenses when they transfer here from other states, such as nurses and teachers.

The study committee will make its recommendations by yearend so they can be acted on in the next legislative session, just in time for the round of base closures expected to begin that year.