WASHINGTON — The military newspaper Stars and Stripes, a hometown daily for troops deployed from Bastogne to Long Binh to Baghdad, has been ordered to vacate its headquarters here and move to a military base 30 miles away. It is a cost-cutting effort that has outraged staff members worried that they will lose their journalistic independence and also has attracted new high-level attention from Congress.

An inside-the-office debate began to simmer when Pentagon officials — answering the order from Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta to find significant budget efficiencies — saw a way to cut $1 million a year in rent by relocating the newspaper from the National Press Building, a prestigious downtown address. The 80-member newsroom and business staff was ordered to Fort Meade, Md., where it would be housed at no cost alongside the agency that oversees official Pentagon and military media operations.

Staff members objected. And now, concerns that proximity could potentially lead to interference have reached Capitol Hill — which heightens the debate, since Stars and Stripes is subsidized with taxpayer funds but operates with a Congressional endorsement to maintain journalistic independence.

One of the most powerful voices on military affairs in Congress, Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, wrote Mr. Panetta this week agreeing that questions of editorial independence for Stars and Stripes were “well-placed, and should lead to a review of possible alternatives to this decision.”