BRAC: Two paths.

Byline: Mike Brue

May 19--Six U.S. senators and representatives from North Dakota and Minnesota have asked the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission to hold one of its public hearings in Grand Forks.

Meanwhile, their South Dakota congressional counterparts Wednesday drove legislation to delay the BRAC process and wipe the Pentagon's recommended closure list clean.

The separate efforts, coming just days after the Defense Department's BRAC recommendations, suggest different initial strategies to help their respective states.

Both North Dakota and South Dakota have communities facing deep cuts in personnel at their Air Force bases -- Rapid City with the recommended closure of Ellsworth Air Force Base, and Grand Forks with a proposed realignment that would pull its air refueling tankers from Grand Forks Air Force Base by 2009, according to Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota.

But, unlike South Dakota's …