Word on Fate of L.A. Air Base Due From Pentagon Today : Cutbacks: The site, cornerstone of the region’s aerospace industry, will survive, congresswoman from Marina del Rey predicts.

The Pentagon today is expected to make public its list of recommended base closures and relocations, amid reports that the Los Angeles Air Force Base in El Segundo--the cornerstone of the region’s aerospace industry--will not be affected.

For many, the suspense surrounding the list ended this week with news reports and statements by Rep. Jane Harman (D-Marina del Rey), who represents the South Bay, indicating that the quirky base with no aircraft but plenty of high-tech space research isn’t going anywhere. For now.

“It isn’t on the list,” Harman said, citing sources she declined to identify. She is believed to have close ties to the Defense Department through her friendship with Defense Secretary Les Aspin, who campaigned for her last year when he was a Wisconsin congressman.

“We are absolutely elated with the news that we are hearing,” said Kevin Peterson, president of the South Bay Assn. of Chambers of Commerce. Peterson was part of a delegation that visited Washington a few weeks ago and returned optimistic that the base would not be moved.

The base holds $5.4 billion in contracts with Southern California companies and its departure would have triggered the loss of 54,000 jobs throughout the region, business leaders said.

Base advocates said they now plan to keep up the fight to ensure that the base does not make the closure list two years from now, the last round of closures under the federal law enacted four years ago to reduce defense costs.

Still, some worried that the possible loss of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, which was on some lists of closures disclosed to reporters early this week, might strain the South Bay economy since the base does business with South Bay companies, principally in San Pedro.

But Harman this week said she has reason to believe that the shipyard may be spared, although she was not as confident about that as she was about the Los Angeles base.

While calling herself “hopeful” that the shipyard would be spared, she added, “I am not giving you this news with the same certainty as the Los Angeles base. . . . “

Business leaders in San Pedro braced for the release of the list. Although statistics on the South Bay connection to the shipyard are hard to come by, several South Bay companies hold various support service contracts with the base. In addition, some personnel assigned to the shipyard, which employs 4,200 civilians and 33 service members, live and shop in harbor-area communities.

“I’m not sure how much this area can take as far as the economic problems,” said Dolores Canizales, executive director of the San Pedro Chamber of Commerce. “San Pedro has been losing a lot of shipbuilding, canneries, fishing. What we are depending on now is tourism and we need some help.”

If the Long Beach base ends up on the list, San Pedro business leaders plan to join the fight to have it removed from the roster, Canizales said.

“On the one hand we spent a lot of time concentrating on the Air Force and we are grateful that the Air Force is going to stay,” Canizales said. “I think that’s one plus, but still the Long Beach closure would be devastating.”

South Bay and Los Angeles business leaders and politicians had mounted an aggressive campaign to save the Los Angeles Air Force Base ever since the Air Force proposed moving it elsewhere because of the difficulty in finding housing.

Officials apparently solved that problem by agreeing last December to turn over 23 acres of Los Angeles school system property to the Air Force so that it could build 250 units of housing.

That deal, as well as lobbying in Washington by the Los Angeles and South Bay chambers of commerce, was believed to be the primary reason the Defense Department will keep the base in El Segundo, Harman and business leaders said.

At the same time, Colorado, New Mexico and the Inland Empire, all of which had campaigned heavily two years ago to have the base moved from El Segundo, abandoned or significantly diminished their efforts this time around. Officials in the other regions said they would still like the base but do not plan strong efforts to get it unless the Air Force strongly indicates again its desire to move out of Los Angeles.

New Mexico had long been considered the toughest competition for the base since other space research facilities are located at Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque. Moreover, in the two years since the last campaign, Lt. Gen. Edward P. Barry, commander of the Space and Missiles System Division, the Los Angeles base’s chief tenant, assumed command of the Albuquerque facilities.

But New Mexico officials said they have not actively campaigned for the base for several reasons, including concern that they would generate bad publicity for trying to steal the vital base while the Southern California economy reels.

And, unlike two years ago, the Air Force has not recently proposed moving the Los Angeles base.

New Mexico Gov. Bruce King believes that New Mexico’s open space, cheap housing and lack of traffic congestion sells itself, his spokesman, John McKean, said.

“Gov. King tends to be low-key about economic development anyway,” McKean added.

“We could sure use the jobs and the economic growth,” McKean said, “but we are aware that the thing that is unique about New Mexico is that it is a relatively unspoiled state and it is an old state. There are a lot of traditional lifestyles, and you folks in California already get criticized for selling your houses and moving out here and running up property values. We like steady growth but what we encourage is steady, undramatic growth.”

In Colorado, where state officials had looked at Colorado Springs as a possible new home for the base, a spokeswoman for the governor said he has focused on keeping the bases the state already has.

That kind of talk allays the concerns of South Bay officials, although they vow to step up efforts to present the region as friendly to the military.

Peterson said businesses will look into the possibility of offering military personnel special discounts, among other things. The chambers of commerce association also plans to mount a campaign to make South Bay residents aware of the base.

“We have not given them the visibility they deserve in our community,” Peterson said. “I would say 95% of the people who live here don’t know it exists.”