An independent commission will visit the Western Pennsylvania region in June to tour two military facilities targeted for closure this month by the Department of Defense.

The 2005 Defense Base Realignment and Closure Commission, or BRAC, plans to tour Air Force and Army facilities at the Pittsburgh International Airport Air Reserve Station on June 21.

The Pentagon recommended that 33 major bases across the nation be closed and hundreds of others reorganized.

The closures included the Air Force Reserve 911th Airlift Wing in Moon and the Army Charles E. Kelly Support Facility in Collier. The plans also call for the 99th Regional Readiness Command in Moon to move to Fort Dix, N.J.

The Pentagon estimates that the region could lose nearly 700 military and civilian positions. The changes are to cost $24 billion nationwide but should save $49 billion over 20 years.

"The 2005 BRAC Commission is not going to serve as a rubber stamp," commission Chairman Anthony Principi, a former Veterans Affairs secretary, said in a statement.

"We will look at the [Defense Department] recommendations carefully and closely to see if they complied with, or substantially deviated from, the selection criteria and force structure against which all bases are to be measured," he said.

The fact-finding visits will involve briefings by base representatives and facilities tours. BRAC representatives will assess the facilities' military value as well as "economic, environmental and other effects the closure or realignment of a base would have on the surrounding community," said a news release announcing the visit.

The commission yesterday said Principi would not visit Willow Grove Naval Air Station on Tuesday, as previously planned. He is tentatively scheduled to visit it July 6 instead.

The 1,100-acre Willow Grove base outside Philadelphia, which employs 1,200, is home to the 913th Airlift Wing, which trains and equips reservists to perform aerial resupply, and also provides air logistic support for active and reserve Navy units.

A bipartisan coalition -- including Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., Reps. Tim Murphy, R-Upper St. Clair, and Melissa Hart, R-Bradford Woods, as well as Gov. Ed Rendell and Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato, both Democrats -- vowed this month to persuade the commission to save the Pennsylvania facilities.