WASHINGTON (AP) – A House committee rejected an effort Tuesday by a Republican congressman to kill the Pentagon’s proposal to close or downsize hundreds of U.S. military bases, including the Naval Air Station at Brunswick, Maine.

Nevertheless, under the law that authorized base closings, any House lawmaker can force the full House to consider Rep. Ray LaHood’s joint resolution to disapprove the plan to restructure the U.S. network of military bases.

Rep. Curt Weldon, the No. 2 Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, said he expected the resolution to reach the House floor as early as next week.

It’s highly unlikely that the House will support LaHood’s resolution. Members support the first round of base closings in a decade.

On Sept. 15, President Bush endorsed the report by the federal base-closing commission that reviewed the Pentagon plan. The report calls for closing 22 major military bases and reconfiguring another 33. Hundreds more from coast to coast also will close, shrink or grow.

The Brunswick Naval Air Station, which initially was to be scaled back, is to be shut down completely under the final proposal. Two other Maine facilities, the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery and the Defense Finance and Accounting Service center in Limestone – had been targeted for closure but were spared by the base-closure commission.

The commission said the plan would mean annual savings of $4.2 billion.

The report becomes law in mid-November unless the House and Senate pass a joint resolution rejecting it.

LaHood, R-Ill., introduced his joint resolution last week. LaHood, whose district includes a base in Springfield, Ill., that is to lose 15 National Guard fighter jets, says the base-closing commission and the Pentagon ignored the fact that the country is at war when it decided to close bases.

“These issues have been thoroughly discussed and debated,” Weldon said.

The House Armed Services Committee voted 43-14 against the resolution.

No lawmaker in the Senate has introduced a joint resolution. A GOP-led effort in the Senate to derail the plan fizzled last month after the commission reviewing the plan spared several bases in the home states of lawmakers who opposed it.

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On the Net:

Base-closing commission: http://www.brac.gov