DaytonDailyNews.com

Rep. Mike Turner hosted two members of a key House appropriations subcommittee Wednesday in hopes of securing funding for last year's base realignment recommendations.

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base garnered a handful of key missions as a result of the September 2005 recommendations, including the Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine, the Air Force Institute of Occupational Health and the Naval Aeromedical Research Laboratory.

But bringing those missions to the base will cost an estimated $200 million, Turner said Wednesday. Among the most high-price implementations: Bringing medical missions to the base.

"The BRAC (base realignment and closure) decision is not when the game is over," said Turner, R-Centerville. "It's when the jobs are actually here that it's over."

So he decided to do a little in-Congress lobbying: He invited Reps. Denny Rehberg, R-Montana and John Carter, R-Texas, to the base to show them the base's needs. Both are members of the House Appropriations committee's Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Subcommittee. Also serving on the larger House Appropriations Committee is Rep. David Hobson, R-Springfield.

Rehberg said the visit helped Turner make his case for the base. "By being here and seeing the projects, we become advocates," he said. He said initial implementation costs nationally have come in higher than anticipated, and communities that once scrambled to garner jobs for their bases are now scrambling for money to implement recommended changes.