Key Democratic lawmakers are raising jurisdictional concerns over DOD legislation and contending the military does not need the environmental exemptions it proposed last week in order to ease training constraints.
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Thursday, May 9, 2024
Key Democratic lawmakers are raising jurisdictional concerns over DOD legislation and contending the military does not need the environmental exemptions it proposed last week in order to ease training constraints.
Defense Environment Alert -- A Texas state senator is pursuing legislation that would initiate several measures aimed at preventing military bases in Texas from being included in the 2005 round of base closings and realignments, in part attempting to allay environmental and urban encroachment issues surrounding bases.
Defense Environment Alert -- A U.S. appeals court last week issued a ruling that strictly interprets the public notice procedures a local redevelopment authority must follow when seeking to dispose of military property under base realignment and closure rules.
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz earlier this month signed an overarching directive that establishes a uniform policy for ensuring the long-term sustainment of military test and training ranges, laying out a framework for how the military plans to ensure its ranges can continue to support realistic training and how issues such as environmental encroachment will be addressed, according to the directive obtained by sister publication Defense Environment Alert.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department is pushing the White House Office of Management and Budget to approve a draft executive order aimed at ensuring that EPA and other federal agencies consider the national security implications of their decision-making, according to recently unveiled DOD briefing papers.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department in 2003 may expand its legislative efforts to ease environmental requirements imposed on military testing and training activities, targeting regulatory and administrative measures that might also provide relief.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department is discussing internally the elements of a new legislative proposal that addresses what it sees as environmental regulatory restrictions on military testing and training.
Defense Environment Alert -- A federal district court has temporarily barred the Navy's planned use of low-frequency active (LFA) sonar, pending a look at ways to narrow its application to certain geographic areas.
Defense Environment Alert -- The National Governors Association is telling state governments that unchecked urban sprawl near military bases poses threats to local and state economies, advising them to take note of how some states have sought to effectively quell the problem through better land use planning or new laws.
Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby (R) and local government officials are expressing alarm over an Army proposal outlined in a series of internal e-mails showing plans to effectively blame local and state emergency agencies in Alabama for the community's lack of readiness to respond to an emergency, should one occur at the chemical weapons storage and disposal facility in Anniston, AL.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department is developing a revised policy that will attempt to more fully track how well military bases are implementing installation-wide plans for managing natural resources, according to a DOD source.
Defense Environment Alert -- The Defense Department has issued a document predicting no significant environmental impacts would result if the military were to pilot test non-incineration technologies for the destruction of chemical weapons at certain Army sites where the weapons are currently stockpiled.
A federal district court yesterday issued a final judgment in a bird protection case that in effect permanently bars military training on a western Pacific island that has been critical in training operations for the war in Afghanistan.
In an effort to ease the military's ability to win exemptions from environmental requirements, sources say the Bush administration, at the direction of Vice President Cheney, is preparing to float legislation that would change congressional rules for considering military-related legislation.
The Defense Department has scaled back its proposed legislation to exempt military readiness activities from key environmental requirements, dropping exemptions it had earlier proposed from the Clean Water Act and the Coastal Zone Management Act, while delaying application of some Clean Air Act requirements.
EPA staff plans to urge Administrator Christine Todd Whitman to oppose a draft Defense Department bill that would grant the military wide-ranging exemptions from key federal environmental laws in order to ease restrictions on military training, according to a confidential draft staff memo obtained by sister publication Defense Environment Alert.
Defense Environment Alert -- Prompted by concerns over potential terrorism threats, the Army is proposing to test, on a small-scale, neutralization of the nerve agent VX in bulk containers at its experimental Utah facility.
Defense Environment Alert -- The manager of the Army's multi-billion dollar chemical weapons demilitarization program, James Bacon, has announced his retirement as of April 3, according to a Feb. 21 press release from his office.
The Pentagon earlier this month named high-level House Republican staffer Benedict Cohen to be the Defense Department's top attorney on environment issues. Cohen became the DOD's deputy general counsel for environment and installations at the beginning of January, a DOD spokeswoman says.
The Defense Department in recent years has markedly increased its transfer of closing base property, and by the end of fiscal year 2000, had completed cleanup responses at more than 60 percent of BRAC sites, according to a recently released DOD report.