In light of the recently revealed
financial stakes of further TCE regulation for the world's most powerful polluter and the
LA Times series on TCE's
politics and
community impact, we found the following
article, entitled "Pollution Cleanups Pit Pentagon Against Regulators," both interesting and disturbing. From everyone's favorite color newspaper,
USA Today, in October 2004:
Across the nation, the Pentagon is taking extraordinary steps to limit the military's accountability for a 50-year legacy of pollution, a USA TODAY investigation finds...
Since 2001, Pentagon officials have stalled cleanups at scores of military sites where contamination from training and manufacturing has fouled soil and water. They've used their political clout to sidetrack new regulations that could force the services to spend hundreds of millions of dollars more to deal with pollution. And they've challenged state and federal regulators' power to make the military obey existing environmental laws...
Four years after President Bush campaigned on a pledge to make the military "comply with environmental laws by which all of us must live," the White House is the Pentagon's chief ally in pushing for relief from such laws.
Within the administration, "it's no secret that the EPA is running into this wall with the Pentagon," says Linda Fisher, who served two years as Bush's deputy EPA administrator — the agency's second-in- command — before returning to private work last year.
"Is the Department of Defense taking (regulatory disputes) to the White House more often? Absolutely," says Fisher, who has held environmental jobs in every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan's. "Is the Department of Defense more powerful than the EPA? Yes."
Defense officials say state and federal environmental agencies have too much power to demand costly and intrusive cleanups on military land. The Pentagon wants to cut its $4 billion a year in environmental costs — less than 1% of defense spending — by gaining more authority over where and how cleanups will be done.
"Some of these regulators are doing wrongheaded things based on poor scientific evidence," says Raymond DuBois, deputy undersecretary of Defense for installations and environment. "Shouldn't we, as stewards of the taxpayers' money, decide how we're going to clean up?"
Ummm. No.
The article goes on to highlight key findings of the
USA Today investigation:
•The Pentagon is thwarting environmental agencies' efforts to set cleanup rules.
Since 2001, the armed services have delayed more than 70 federal cleanup agreements that would dictate the scope and timing of restoration at contaminated military sites...
The Pentagon also is fighting EPA efforts to set new pollution limits on two military contaminants: perchlorate, a munitions ingredient, and trichloroethylene (TCE), a solvent. After military officials complained to the White House that the EPA's studies overstated the chemicals' health risks, the agency opted to wait for years of additional study before making new rules.
State environmental regulators are facing military resistance, too. In Colorado, California, Ohio and Minnesota, the services are fighting state efforts to restrict the future use of contaminated military property. In California, Florida, Hawaii and Alaska, the military has challenged the authority of state officials to fine the armed forces for pollution problems.
•The EPA is cutting efforts to make the military comply with environmental laws.
•The Pentagon is spending less on cleanups.
If you check out the
full article, you can read more about places like Lowry Air Force Base where AF appears to be deciding for itself whether toxic clean-up is really
necessary. Or you can check out USA Today's nifty Flash presentation in which you can view the clean-up status of 130 military-owned Superfund sites in 39 states, state by state (OK, we cheated, you can launch it from
here. <--- warning, must have
flash installed to view).
note: If any readers have a ton of time on their hands, here's a project idea. We'd like to post a list of these 130 military EPA Superfund sites, by state. We'll make it a point to extract all the names and descriptions from the
USA Today preso and will post it here when it's complete. It may be some time before we get to this. If anyone wants to get a jump on it in the meantime, we promise we will not complain. We might even be willing to publicly thank you for your effort. If you've got any interest in this project, please
let us know.
