Pentagon will look into decision on Space Command headquarters

The Department of the Defense said Friday that it will investigate the reasons why the Space Command headquarters were moved to Huntsville, Ala., instead of Colorado Springs.

The agency’s Office of Inspector General said in a memo that the investigation will focus on three main points: whether the move followed Department of Defense and Air Force policies, whether “objective and relevant scoring factors” were used to rank the locations and whether the costs “and other scoring factors” were accurate and consistent.

Originally, the Space Command headquarters was supposed to be in Colorado Springs. But on Jan. 13, Huntsville was named as the new site, which Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said at the time was based on “politics.” Suthers alleged former President Donald Trump gave it to Alabama after one of the state’s senators challenged the election certification.

The investigation was lauded Friday by U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, who with the rest of Colorado’s congressional delegation had asked President Joe Biden to look into the situation.

If the Space Command headquarters does not come to Colorado Springs, the area would lose out on about $450 million of annual economic impact, said Dirk Draper, president and CEO of the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce, last month.

“Significant evidence exists that the process was neither fair nor impartial and that President Trump’s political considerations influenced the final decision,” according to a Jan. 26 letter signed by Lamborn, Sen. Michael Bennet, Sen. John Hickenlooper and Reps. Joe Neguse, Diana DeGette, Ed Perlmutter, Jason Crow, Ken Buck and Lauren Boebert.