[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6455]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE EXEMPTIONS

  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, throughout history, nothing has more 
profound impact on the world than the consequences of war; but as we 
examine that history, we often see the greatest devastation is in its 
aftermath, starvation, chaos, instability, retribution, unleashing a 
chain of events that continues centuries later, as we are currently 
seeing in the Balkans.
  The destructive power of today's military weapons and techniques used 
to develop them and practice with them can leave in its wake danger for 
generations to come. The consequences of past military action are not 
just limited to the mine fields in the Balkans or Asia or Africa. There 
is a toxic legacy right here in the United States as a result of 2 
centuries of testing, training, weapons manufacturing from unexploded 
bombs to nuclear waste. This affects millions of acres of land, 
actually in some cases inside city limits to some of the otherwise most 
pristine countryside in America.
  The good news is not only are our Armed Forces the most powerful 
fighting force the world has ever seen, but they know how to deal with 
environmental problems. Given the right resources and instructions, 
they are not just ready, but eager, to do a world-class job of clean 
up.
  The bad news is that as part of its approach to denying problems and 
avoiding the costs and consequences of its activities, this 
administration is pursuing policies that would avoid responsibility for 
environmental impact. For example, just last week the subject of 
Thursday's hearing in the Committee on Armed Services was a proposal 
from the administration to exempt the Department of Defense from five 
key environmental laws from the Clean Air Act to the Endangered Species 
Act.
  These laws not only protect endangered species and eco-systems, they 
protect the health of people living on and around military bases. If 
the exemptions were granted, American taxpayers and State and local 
governments would bear the burden of clean-up costs and face public 
health risks from toxic contamination resulting from military 
operations. The evidence shows there is no reasonable case for such 
exemptions. The environmental laws already allow the Department of 
Defense to apply for exemptions on a case-by-case basis if they really 
need it. Both the GAO and EPA Administrator Whitman have testified that 
environmental laws have not affected military readiness. There is no 
evidence that the military has ever been refused an exemption from laws 
that were necessary and that they sought it.
  Even with the current environmental laws in place, sadly, the 
Department of Defense has too often fallen short of the mark on 
environmental and public health. A critical area that I have been 
working on deals with unexploded ordnance: the bombs, missiles, shells 
that are scattered throughout the United States in all 50 States. We 
have made progress, but we have got a long way to go. We have millions 
of acres of current or former military installations spread across the 
50 States that contain unknown numbers of high-explosive military 
munitions that failed to explode when dropped or fired or which were 
buried for disposal.
  In 1998, the Defense Science Board found that we were simply ill 
equipped to address the unexploded ordnance challenge. We have been 
working with a bipartisan group of men and women in Congress to address 
this issue. We have been making headway, but we have got a long way to 
go. If we were to exempt the Pentagon from its responsibility for 
environmental clean up, it would be absolutely the wrong direction. 
Congress instead should be funding and encouraging the clean up, not 
exempting the Department of Defense from environmental laws.
  At the current rate of clean up, it is going to take us hundreds of 
years to be able to solve this problem. And that is at the current rate 
of funding. The President's budget just cut $400 million from the 
Department of Defense environmental programs.
  Putting off the toxic legacy of past military activities means we 
must delay the ultimate cleanup, we put more families at risk, and we 
set a terrible precedent as we ask others to obey environmental laws 
and respect nature at home and abroad.
  In preparing to protect this country, the administration should not 
give the Department of Defense authority to put at risk the environment 
that Americans cherish and the clean and healthy communities it 
demands. As the largest owner of infrastructure in the world, and 
sadly, as the biggest polluter, the Department of Defense should be 
setting the best example, not getting permission from Congress to cut 
corners on the protection of the environment and the health of our 
community. We should be working together in these troubled times to 
make our community healthy, safe, and economically secure.

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