Just because the military needs our support right now, doesn’t mean that there’s any merit to the Pentagon’s proposal for loopholes and exemptions in environmental laws as they regard military installations and activities. Especially since there’s no proof yet presented that training and readiness has been impaired, or that exemptions couldn’t be covered by existing legal provisions.
A General Accounting Office report on military training issued in June found that ”[t]raining readiness, as reported in official readiness reports, remains high for most units” and that readiness data do not support the Pentagon’s claims that it is being hurt by the encroachment of environmental laws.
EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman said last week in testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, “I don’t believe that there is a training mission anywhere in the country that is being held up or not taking place because of environmental protection regulation.”
The firm I work gets a whole lot of money doing environmental clean-up of military bases that are being shut down. Believe me, we do not need the DoD being any more lackadaisical about the environment. The stories I could tell you …
Alien bodies at Area 51 makes for a better story than toxic waste problems.
“Hey! You can’t bury that dissected alien body there! That’s the breeding ground for the midget hopping grebe!”