CRITICAL CHALLENGES CONFRONTING

NATIONAL SECURITY—CONTINUING

ENCROACHMENT THREATENS FORCE READINESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

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GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 16, 2002

Serial No. 107–79

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

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CRITICAL CHALLENGES CONFRONTING NATIONAL SECURITY—CONTINUING

ENCROACHMENT THREATENS FORCE READINESS

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CRITICAL CHALLENGES CONFRONTING

NATIONAL SECURITY—CONTINUING

ENCROACHMENT THREATENS FORCE READINESS

HEARING

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 16, 2002

Serial No. 107–79

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpo.gov/congress/house

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

DAN BURTON, Indiana, Chairman

BENJAMIN A. GILMAN, New York

CONSTANCE A. MORELLA, Maryland

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEPHEN HORN, California

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

THOMAS M. DAVIS, Virginia

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

BOB BARR, Georgia

DAN MILLER, Florida

DOUG OSE, California

RON LEWIS, Kentucky

JO ANN DAVIS, Virginia

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

DAVE WELDON, Florida

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida

C.L. ‘‘BUTCH’’ OTTER, Idaho

EDWARD L. SCHROCK, Virginia

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

JOHN SULLIVAN, Oklahoma

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

PATSY T. MINK, Hawaii

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, Washington,

DC

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

ROD R. BLAGOJEVICH, Illinois

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

JOHN F. TIERNEY, Massachusetts

JIM TURNER, Texas

THOMAS H. ALLEN, Maine

JANICE D. SCHAKOWSKY, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

KEVIN BINGER, Staff Director

DANIEL R. MOLL, Deputy Staff Director

JAMES C. WILSON, Chief Counsel

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Chief Clerk

PHIL SCHILIRO, Minority Staff Director

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 16, 2002 ............................................................................... 1

Statement of:

DuBois, Raymond F., Jr., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment; Paul Mayberry, Deputy Under Secretary of

Defense, Readiness; and Barry W. Holman, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, General Accounting Office ..................................... 131

Miller, Dan, first assistant attorney general, Colorado Department of

Law ................................................................................................................. 218

Tangney, Lieutenant General William P., USA, Deputy Commander in

Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command, Tampa, FL; Colonel Thomas

D. Waldhauser, USMC, Commanding Officer, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable, Camp Pendleton, CA; Captain

Stephen S. Voetsch, USN, Commander, Air Wing One, USS Theodore

Roosevelt, Norfolk, VA; Commander Kerry M. Metz, USNR, Naval Special Warfare Group One, Coronado, CA; and Captain Jason L. Amerine,

USA, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), Fort Campbell, KY ............... 39

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Amerine, Captain Jason L., USA, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne),

Fort Campbell, KY:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 380

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 102

Barr, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia:

Department of Defense Range Organizations ......................................... 135

List of hearings .......................................................................................... 20

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 4

Burton, Hon. Dan, a Representative in Congress from the State of Indiana, prepared statement of .......................................................................... 11

Davis, Hon. Thomas M., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Virginia, prepared statement of .............................................................. 263

DuBois, Raymond F., Jr., Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 389

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 139

Holman, Barry W., Director, Defense Capabilities and Management, General Accounting Office:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 384

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 171

Horn, Hon. Stephen, a Representative in Congress from the State of

California, page H. 2333 of the Congressional Record .............................. 119

Jones, Major General Thomas S., Commanding General, Training and

Education Command, Quantico, VA, prepared statement of .................... 284

Mayberry, Paul, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, Readiness:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 420

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 139

Metz, Commander Kerry M., USNR, Naval Special Warfare Group One,

Coronado, CA:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 371

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 94

Miller, Dan, first assistant attorney general, Colorado Department of

Law, prepared statement of ......................................................................... 221

Moore, Vice Admiral Charles W., Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for

Readiness and Logistics, prepared statement of ........................................ 274

Morella, Hon. Constance A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Maryland, prepared statement of ............................................................ 259

Page

IV

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by—Continued

Ose, Hon. Doug, a Representative in Congress from the State of California, prepared statement of ........................................................................... 261

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut:

Letter dated April 24, 2002 ...................................................................... 191

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 31

Schmidt, Major General Randall M., Deputy Chief of Staff for Air and

Space Operations, Office of the Chief of Staff, prepared statement

of ..................................................................................................................... 305

Tangney, Lieutenant General William P., USA, Deputy Commander in

Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command, Tampa, FL:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 314

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 41

Towns, Hon. Edolphus, a Representative in Congress from the State

of New York, prepared statement of ........................................................... 265

Van Antwerp, Major General Robert L., Assistant Chief of Staff for

Installation Management, Headquarters, Department of the Army, prepared statement of ........................................................................................ 296

Voetsch, Captain Stephen S., USN, Commander, Air Wing One, USS

Theodore Roosevelt, Norfolk, VA:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 351

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 85

Waldhauser, Colonel Thomas D., USMC, Commanding Officer, 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit, Special Operations Capable, Camp Pendleton,

CA:

Followup questions and responses ........................................................... 341

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 70

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, prepared statement of ........................................................... 16

(1)

CRITICAL CHALLENGES CONFRONTING NATIONAL SECURITY—CONTINUING ENCROACHMENT THREATENS FORCE READINESS

THURSDAY, MAY 16, 2002

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Barr (vice chairman of the committee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Barr, Gilman, Morella, Shays, Horn,

Ose, Davis of Virginia, Putnam, Schrock, Waxman, Norton,

Cummings, Kucinich, Tierney, Allen, Watson and Lynch.

Staff present: Grace Washbourne, Gil Macklin, and Susan

Mosychuk, professional staff members; Daniel R. Moll, deputy staff

director; David A. Kass, deputy chief counsel; Allyson Blandford

and Susie Schulte, staff assistants; Robert A. Briggs, chief clerk;

Robin Butler, office manager; Elizabeth Crane, deputy communications director; Joshua E. Gillespie, deputy chief clerk; Michael Layman, legislative assistant; Nicholis Mutton, assistant to chief counsel; Leneal Scott, computer systems manager; Corinne Zaccagnini,

systems administrator; Uyen Dinh, subcommittee counsel; Jonathan Tolman, subcommittee professional staff member; David

Rapallo, minority counsel; Karen Lightfoot, minority senior policy

advisor; Ellen Rayner, minority chief clerk; and Jean Gosa and

Earley Green, minority assistant clerks.

Mr. BARR [presiding]. Good morning. A quorum being present,

the Committee on Government Reform will now come to order. I

ask unanimous consent that all Members and witnesses’ written

and opening statements be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent to include in the record statements by

Vice Admiral Charles Moore, Major General Thomas S. Jones,

Major General Robert L. Van Antwerp and Major General Randall

M. Schmidt. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all written questions submitted to

witnesses and answers provided by witnesses after the conclusion

of this hearing be included in the record. Without objection, so ordered.

I ask unanimous consent that all articles, exhibits and extraneous or tabular material referred to be included in the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

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I ask unanimous consent that Chairman Hansen be permitted to

participate in today’s hearing. Without objection, so ordered.

I recognize myself for purposes of an opening statement.

Some people may not like to be reminded of the fact that the

United States of America is at war, but we are. And so far we are

doing very well in this war against terrorism. We are reminded of

the need for military benefits for our soldiers, sailors, airmen and

marines when they are at greatest risk. However, we need to examine the very most important military benefit that our men and

women in uniform require and need to be successful on the battlefield now and in the future, and that is tough, realistic, missionoriented training.

It is the judgment of this Chair, based on first-hand observation,

that our fighting forces are getting the short end of the stick when

it comes to the subject of the encroachment on and loss of U.S.

military training ranges. All military career fields require training,

be it the Army artillery forward observer calling in fire missions

to support the maneuver of an infantry battalion or a Navy carrier

pilot delivering bombs in a close air support mission. These exercises are critical to the synergistic effect of combined arms training.

This type of training keep our soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines

alive on the battlefield, successful in combat, and proficient in their

use of ever more complex military technology. This is the only way

we can give our armed forces the highest likelihood of success.

The Department of Defense currently has four different task

forces and study groups involved in examining training encroachment issues. There is a current General Accounting Office study of

Department of Defense management and reporting of encroachment concerns. All of these activities examine the training requirements for our combat units, yet the bureaucracy in these efforts by

the Department of Defense appears to have become a career field

in itself. We need to interject some common sense answers to our

questions and demand leadership to put our troops first, not some

plant life or bird egg or the sex life of some turtle.

From what I’ve seen personally, the encroachment issue is a serious readiness problem. If readiness is a problem, we will get people

killed needlessly in combat. There can be no argument about that.

The young soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who spoke with

me and who continue to speak with us have all told us they need

more live fire training and that requires firing ranges and maneuver areas, and they need more and more realistic training. I know.

I’ve seen it for myself.

Last summer, for example, I visited the previously live fire training ranges at Vieques, Puerto Rico. These ranges are absolutely

critical to training our artillery crews, our naval gunfire crews and

aircraft crews and our forward air controllers in order to form a

well functioning combined arms team.

This past March, the House Armed Services Subcommittee on

Readiness held a hearing on the issue of encroachment. The political appointees in the current administration admitted that encroachment does in fact impact readiness. That was 14 months

after the Bush administration came into office. Now we are at war.

We need to speed things up a bit.

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We need some tough leadership from the Department of Defense.

We need hard decisions that, while perhaps not politically correct,

are correct when it comes to doing what is right for our men and

women in combat. What is right is what will better prepare our

warriors to win and survive on the battlefield, not limiting training

so we don’t run a risk of trampling blades of grass or upsetting the

nesting habits of a cockamamie warbler. When things go wrong on

the battlefield, people, and the importance of the Marine Mammal

Protection Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act or the Noise Control

Act pale in comparison.

I have yet to a speak to a soldier, sailor, airman or Marine who

would prefer a migratory bird or marine mammal merit badge to

coming home in one piece from the battlefield. The United States

is at war and we need to proceed with that in mind.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bob Barr follows:]

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Mr. BARR. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished witnesses today and expect to hear about the efforts to reform some

rather silly acts that serve as impediments to preparing our warriors for what they face on the battlefield. We owe it to them.

I ask unanimous consent to read into the record the statement

of Chairman Dan Burton who, because of a death in his family,

was unable to be here today. The following is the statement of

Chairman Burton.

The Committee on Government Reform has conducted a 2-year long investigation

of encroachment on military training ranges and the critical importance of training

for the safety of the men and women in the armed forces. This investigation has

uncovered a growing number of restrictions placed on training at military training

ranges by environmental regulations, urban sprawl, international treaties and competition of limited airspace and frequency spectrum.

Last year we held 3 hearings on this issue. We learned that the unbalanced implementation of environmental regulations, urban expansion and commercial interest in frequency spectrum have endangered and degraded the training of our military.

At our first hearing last year we heard senior military officers detail the critical

challenges they face in sustaining realistic and comprehensive training in this country. On August 4, 2001, the Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs

and International Relations at the urging of Mr. Putnam held a hearing in Avon

Park, Florida to focus on the importance of sustaining critical military training facilities. On April 23 this year, Mr. Shays’ subcommittee held another hearing on the

importance of radio frequency spectrum in securing military readiness and national

security.

Today we are pleased to bring to the encroachment debate the unique perspective

and opinions of experienced special operations personnel and leaders. For the first

time the deputy commander in chief of U.S. Special Operations Command will discuss the preliminary results of an ongoing SOCOM range encroachment study.

We are also honored to include other distinguished members of the military services who have recently served in Operation Enduring Freedom. Their ability to comment on the critical importance of realistic training for continued success on the battlefields of tomorrow should be of great interest to all Americans.

The committee is also very concerned about the government reforms needed by

the these departments and agencies responsible for managing the use of military

lands. The committee requested the U.S. General Accounting Office look into limitations on military training in this country and to look at the encroachment and management practices of the Department of Defense. We look forward to hearing the

progress made by the Department of Defense over the last 2 years and to the recommendations of GAO.

The purpose of our investigation and of our hearing today is rather simple. National security is of utmost importance to our country. Our freedom and our safety

depend on a strong and proficient military. Our war on terrorism will require many

different kinds of military training and levels of military training and skills, not

only abroad, but also at home in our own Nation.

As a government, we have a duty similar to the men and women of the armed

forces. We need to go no further than the preamble of our Constitution to know of

our responsibility to provide for the common defense. As a Nation we are confronted

with the uncertainty of terrorism and war, coupled with technological advances that

will change the battlefield and change the fortunes of war. We must decide that our

military has the right to train in this country. We must set aside places in which

they can train for the proficiency and skills they know are best needed.

Secretary Rumsfeld and all the men and women in uniform that he represents

have asked Congress for help. Every executive branch department and agency with

responsibilities for Federal range management has been called to consider the proposals for the administration’s readiness and range preservation initiative. There

are no exemptions or sweeping rollbacks of environmental laws in this legislation.

The $48 billion the Department of Defense invested in environmental programs

from 1991 to 2001 does not represent an exemption. There are no soldiers or sailors,

airmen or marines who want to permanently damage the environment. The very important National Environment Policy Act, NEPA, process that requires State, local

and public comment at every step is still in effect. These proposals are aimed at

creating better regulatory management that will allow the Department of Defense,

Interior and Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency to act with an eye

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on the future instead of reacting to problems when it is too late to compromise. It

is in the best interest of the people we all represent to balance the policies and procedures of our executive branch missions. It is also our solemn responsibility.

I want today to take this opportunity to thank all the many thousands of Federal

and military personnel across the departments and services that have contributed

to this committee’s knowledge of these important concerns. Solutions to encroachment are not out of our reach.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dan Burton follows:]

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Mr. BARR. The Chair is pleased to recognize the distinguished

ranking member, Mr. Waxman of California, for any opening statement he might provide.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The hearing

today is about whether the Defense Department needs special exemptions from a host of environmental laws enacted by Congress

to protect public health and safety. This issue raises serious questions that need careful examination. But, unfortunately, this committee and the House are not acting in a careful or deliberate manner. Last month the Pentagon delivered to Congress a package of

amendments that would exempt them from compliance with numerous Federal environmental statutes, including the laws governing clean air, endangered species, solid waste disposal, and Superfund provisions. Today is our opportunity to finally discuss these

exemptions and already several of them have been pushed through

on the House floor.

To make matters worse, Republican leadership prohibited any

debate on them.

The Pentagon defines encroachment very broadly to include a

wide variety of limitations on training. These include competition

for airspace, commercial and residential development, restrictions

on noise, and competition for frequency spectrum. Despite these

very varied constraints, however, the Pentagon aimed its legislative guns exclusively and squarely at the environment. They submitted no proposals to address the many other forms of encroachment.

The Pentagon seeks these environmental exemptions despite the

fact that it has not made a solid case for why it needs them. A recent General Accounting Office report made four findings that undermine the department’s claims.

First, the department has not even completed an inventory of its

own training facilities. According to GAO, commanders sometimes

find out about other training facilities by chance.

Second, GAO found that the department does not know what its

training requirements are. GAO found that no military service has,

‘‘comprehensively reviewed available range resources to determine

whether assets are adequate to meet needs.’’

Third, GAO concluded that the Pentagon has no data showing

that the encroachment has increased cost. No installation GAO visited could provide data on costs incurred as a result of encroachment. Instead, GAO found that the Pentagon’s overall cost for environmental obligations have decreased over the past 3 years. Most

importantly, GAO reported that the services demonstrated no significant reduction in readiness as a result of encroachment.

GAO analyzed the Pentagon’s readiness reporting system as well

as the quarterly readiness reports the Pentagon sends to Congress.

Although these reports are intended to identify units that cannot

meet standards, they rarely if ever mention encroachment.

For these reasons, the Pentagon’s legislative proposals are premature at best. The Pentagon’s claims of urgency are also undermined by the fact that many of our environmental laws already

contain exemptions that the Defense Department has chosen not to

utilize. Section 7(j) of the Endangered Species Act, for example,

provides an exemption for any agency action, including action that

15

would impact critical habitat, if the Secretary of Defense finds it

necessary for national security. So much for the Endangered Species Act. This can be dealt with under section 7(j).

The Pentagon has never sought such an exemption. Perhaps they

hope to avoid the scrutiny that would be brought to bear by the

local communities affected.

There are important reasons why our environmental laws must

apply to the Defense Department. Consider what happened at the

Massachusetts Military Reservation in Cape Cod. Their munitions

training contaminated a sole source aquifer that supplies drinking

water to nearly 150,000 permanent residents and over 400,000 seasonal residents of Cape Cod. This threat was averted only after

EPA intervention under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

In their briefing last week with committee staff, Pentagon officials stated that if some of these exemptions are not passed quickly, they fear various constituencies could grow up around them and

prevent their passage. Today one of these constituencies, the

States, will finally have the opportunity to present their views to

Congress. What will we learn? What we will learn is that State officials do not support this reckless attempt to allow Defense Department to despoil our environment.

Mr. Chairman, our Federal environmental statutes were not

passed with the intention of creating a burden for military commanders. They were designed to protect the health and safety of

our population. While I recognize the department has a responsibility to train, they have not made a sufficient case for special exemptions to these universal protections.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Henry A. Waxman follows:]

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Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, and I yield back my time.

Mr. BARR. Are there other Members that wish to—— Mr. WAXMAN. I ask unanimous consent, because we had two Republicans statements in a row, that we have two Democrat.

Mr. BARR. That’s fine. The gentleman from Maine, Mr. Allen, is

recognized for an opening statement.

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I welcome this opportunity to debate the relationship between environmental protection

and military training. The title of this hearing refers to encroachment, a term designed to imply that environmental regulation is

encroaching on military land, restricting the space available for the

military to train. I serve on the Armed Services Committee. As we

modernize the military, the ranges of aircraft and artillery get

longer. New technologies are fielded, such as naval sonar systems

that may have new impacts on the environment that weren’t a

problem before. As we use the term encroachment, fairness demands that we recognize that the impact can be felt in both directions and in particular, that new military technologies can represent encroachment on the environment.

Setting aside policy for a moment, the process by which the Department of Defense environmental exemptions are being moved

through Congress is highly objectionable. First, DOD submitted its

readiness and range preservation initiative to the Armed Services

Committee on April 19th, a Friday evening, and only 4 working

days before the markup of the defense bill by the Readiness Subcommittee. This constricted timeframe prevented a full review of

the package by the Armed Services Committee and committees

with actual jurisdiction over environmental laws.

Second, the two provisions included in the defense authorization

bill modifying the Endangered Species Act and the Migratory Bird

Treaty Act were added without any hearings on the legislation and

without any involvement of the Resources Committee. It was just

too convenient that the chairman of Resources happened to serve

on Armed Services and was able to waive Resources’ jurisdiction,

denying his committee’s ability to debate these changes to laws

under its jurisdiction.

Third, while the military has been given every forum to express

its views on this issue, the other stakeholders in our Nation’s environmental laws have not. In the only hearing the Armed Services

Committee held this year on the environment, only Bush administration officials were allowed to testify. The majority refused requests to allow State and local governments, environmental or conservation groups, or community representatives to present their

views. Today, the Government Reform Committee is following suit

with a one-sided approach.

While I appreciate hearing from the Colorado Attorney General’s

office, there is no one here to represent communities, nongovernmental organizations or citizens groups. These stakeholders have

asked to testify on environmental exemptions before this committee

and before Armed Services, but have been shut out by the majority.

Taken together, these efforts give the appearance of a stealth attempt by the most anti-environmental administration in generations and its Republican allies in Congress to use the popularity of

the military to carve loopholes in our Nation’s landmark environVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00026 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mental laws; laws they have been unable to repeal directly. And today’s witness list is stacked to present a one-sided, anti-environmental view.

Getting back to policy, I dispute the contention that current environmental laws are incompatible with military readiness. If they

were ever allowed to testify, State and local officials, and even the

career people at the Environmental Protection Agency would tell

you that today’s laws give DOD ample flexibility to conduct appropriate training. They would tell you that changes in regulatory

policies can meet DOD’s concerns and that wholesale statutory

changes are unnecessary.

I look forward to hearing from the GAO witness whose new report reportedly will find that DOD has little documentation or hard

evidence that environmental ‘‘encroachment’’ is harming readiness.

If accurate, it suggests that DOD and the Armed Services Committee are engineering a predetermined result.

The first panel of commanders will offer appealing anecdotes

about environmental ‘‘encroachment,’’ but we do not, at least at our

best, govern by anecdote. The administration has yet to make a

balanced, coherent, well-defended case that environmental laws

that DOD finds inconvenient should be changed. It may be that

some laws should be modified, but until this Congress has the opportunity to hear from all sides, and have enough time to make

well-informed decisions, we should not accede to DOD’s last-minute

request.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I hope that we can follow this hearing

with another that includes testimony from the rest of the stakeholders in our Nation’s environmental laws.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. In order to set the record straight after

the distortions of the previous speaker, I’d like to ask unanimous

consent that the following document be submitted for the record,

the History of Congressional Hearings on Military Training Encroachments, prepared by the House Committee on Government

Reform, May 3, 2002. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BARR. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman

from Connecticut, Chairman Shays, for any opening statement he

might care to provide.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Barr. There is a dangerous arrogance

in the conclusion that a victory in Afghanistan proves there are no

problems in sustaining military readiness. Ignoring long evident

constraints and pressures on the fragile infrastructure of military

training and testing facilities puts lives at risk, perhaps not today

but certainly in dispersed asymmetric battles we know we will

have to fight tomorrow.

The training platforms from which we launched our forces to victories in the Gulf war in Afghanistan is shrinking just as the strategic landscape of future conflicts expands. The land, sea lanes, airspace and radio frequencies once used for indispensable training

exercises are being put to other uses.

In a recent hearing before the National Security Subcommittee

which I chair, we learned just one Global Hawk unmanned aerial

vehicle [UAV], consumes 5 times the total electromagnetic band

width consumed by the entire U.S. military during the Gulf war.

Five times.

But here at home, military requirements far exceed the available

range of electromagnetic band width needed to train and fight an

ever eccentric battlefield of the future. Some ask if training range

constrictions and encroachments are so serious why isn’t readiness

ratings degraded as a result. One part of the answer lies, I believe,

in the very personal aspects of what we call readiness. If the readiness ratings are flawed, it’s that they measure too accurately the

willingness of the men and women in uniform to fight. They’re

ready and willing, out of patriotism and personal pride, they’re always ready to fight. That’s their job. It’s our job to see they never

go into a fight unprepared and that they are truly ready to win,

and that because of their exceptional training and equipment, the

fight is never fair.

The lack of data quantifying the extent of range encroachments,

the cost of work-arounds and the effect on readiness proves only

that DOD has not been asking the right questions. In the Pentagon, range sustainment questions were consigned to a maze of committees, task forces, working groups and the Tiger Teams where

they fell prey to budget pressures, interservice rivalries and bureaucratic inertia. But waiting for more data before addressing

training range sustainment issues is not the answer. Unless training needs are addressed now, the hard data we get on the degraded

training will be in the form of mortalities statistics.

As we will hear in testimony today, the General Accounting Office [GAO], says there is a problem, the full dimensions of which

are simply not fully known. They found each installation they visited has lost some capacity in terms of, 1, the time training ranges

were available or, 2, the types of activities that can be conducted.

They found these limitations and impediments often prevented

training to doctrinal standards.

An immutable equation applies in war. The more that has to be

learned in the heat of battle, the higher the casualties. On-the-job

training costs lives. Only realistic exercises before deployment conquers the steep cruel learning curve.

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Our first panel of witnesses today knows that equation well.

Their testimony will help us understand the life and the death link

between realistic training and prevailing in combat.

I am in awe of their service to our Nation. I am grateful they

are here today and I look forward to their testimony and that of

all our witnesses.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I would particularly say that as a Peace Corps volunteer who was in the Peace Corps where my generation, many of

them, was in Vietnam, and I would just like to conclude I don’t

know the protocol, General Tangney, but I’ve been looking forward

to this day. Three years ago you gave me a coin in Fort Bragg at

the U.S. Army Special Operations Command. I know I’m not in a

bar and I’m not prepared to risk the fact you may have this coin

in your pocket and treat everyone here to a drink, but one on one,

I challenge you, here’s my coin, General. Do you have a coin?

General TANGEY. I’m sure my XO has but I have to buy you a

beer.

Mr. SHAYS. Did I cheat? Am I only allowed to have them in the

bar? Was I unfair?

General TANGEY. No, you were not.

Mr. SHAYS. I won’t feel guilty.

Mr. BARR. I thank the distinguished subcommittee chairman for

his comments.

Do any other Members wish to make opening statements?

Mr. CUMMINGS. I do.

Mr. BARR. The gentleman from Maryland is recognized for an

opening statement.

Mr. CUMMINGS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Today our

committee meets to discuss the issue known as encroachment. The

term encroachment refers to the impairment of training capabilities due to the growth of civilian populations near military installations that were once isolated. In general, encroachment issues fall

into the following categories: Urban growth and development; regulatory compliance, including critical habitat designation and maritime restrictions; air space restrictions; airborne noise abatement;

and radio frequency spectrum limitations.

The Armed Services conduct a wide variety of activities on their

training ranges which include areas of land, water and airspace in

or around military installations. Mr. Chairman, an argument is

made that the ability of the military to execute air, ground and

naval training across the country is eroding. I’m sure that we all

can agree that given the war on terrorism in Afghanistan and

around the world, our servicemen and women must have realistic

training if this military campaign is to be successful. But we must

find a balance between adequate training and military training

within the environment and population perimeters.

The General Accounting Office recently completed a draft report

regarding encroachment issues. GAO proposed several recommendations to address this issue. While GAO found some specific instances in which training had to be altered to ensure compliance with Federal law at the these installations, GAO made several

other findings that question the rationale for immediate exemptions from a host of environmental laws.

GAO’s findings suggest that the Defense Department has failed

to make a solid indication for special treatment under the laws protecting public health and safety. Despite GAO’s findings, the Pentagon came forward last month with an entire package of legislative

proposals to exempt the Pentagon from full compliance with a host

of environmental laws.

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Representative Hansen of Utah introduced portions of these recommendations as an amendment during the House Armed Services

Subcommittee on Readiness hearing on April 25th. H.R. 4546, the

National Defense Authorization Act of fiscal year 2003, passed on

the floor of the House on May 9, 2002. The fate of the House legislation will be decided in a Senate-House conference in June.

Mr. Chairman, I want the record to reflect that the National Association of Attorneys General have joined the National Governors

Association and the National Conference of State Legislatures in

expressing a, ‘‘significant concern,’’ with recent congressional efforts to push through the Pentagon’s legislative package.

I look forward to hearing from the GAO officials and our military

officers about encroachment and the challenges we face. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman from Maryland. Any other

members? The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Putnam, is recognized

for an opening statement.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, for the

past year the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security and International Relations has investigated the growing number of restrictions or encroachments placed on training at military

training ranges, including one which I represent in Avon Park. Our

hearings have substantially demonstrated that environmental regulations are among the most pervasive and burdensome constraints

on military training.

At a hearing last spring, for example, the committee learned that

16 of 17 miles of coastline at Camp Pendleton, CA are off limits

for amphibious training due to a growing list of wildlife protections.

Witnesses testified that soldiers are not allowed to dig foxholes on

some ranges and instead must practice jumping into circles marked

with tape.

Our experience in Afghanistan has demonstrated that our success on the battlefield is directly related to the quality of our military training. We have a commitment to all military men and

women and their families. They have volunteered to go into harm’s

way. We owe it to them to send them there trained to win. Training saves lives.

Only 1.2 percent of the land in the United States is owned by the

military, while the Federal Government owns over 20 percent. Perhaps it’s just my Florida way of thinking, Mr. Chairman, but it’s

not a lot to ask that we dedicate 1 percent of this great Nation to

training men and women to fight to protect the freedoms and liberties that we all take for granted. I think it’s interesting that the

other side has chosen, rather than coming in here armed with facts

and records from their own investigations, have accused the men

and women in uniform in this room of engineering a result, armed

only with appealing anecdotes of the troubles that they face in preparing to defend this country.

Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, we should conduct environmental impact statements on Tora Bora in conjunction with NGO’s and other

respective groups. Perhaps we should abide by village noise restrictions before we drop daisy cutters onto al Qaeda training cells. Perhaps we should engage in more consultation with interested parties. But that’s not what these men and women are here to discuss.

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They’re here to discuss what it takes for our training forces to be

the best trained, best equipped, and most prepared for any spot in

the world. And I look forward to their testimony, Mr. Chairman,

and I’m proud to have them here.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman from Florida. Any other Members over here wish to make opening statements? The gentleman

from Virginia, Mr. Schrock, is recognized for an opening statement.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn’t going to say

anything because I knew if I did, my blood pressure would probably

go through the roof by some of the stuff I have heard earlier this

morning. I cannot let it go unchallenged.

Mr. Chairman, you’re absolutely right. This is about training.

This is about saving lives. If we’re going to put these men and

women in uniform and task them to do the missions we task them

to do, we darn well better provide them the territory to do that

training so when they go over there, they’re going to come home

safely. This is about common sense. Common sense sometimes

doesn’t reign supreme up here. And some of the laws and regulations that have been put in place do not provide common sense for

the men and women we’re putting in harm’s way.

Speaking to the troops, I was privileged, and I mean privileged,

to wear the Navy uniform for 24 years. I think I have an understanding of what some of this stuff is all about. And for people to

sit up here and say these men are going to come here and that

we’re going to govern by anecdote, they’ve been there, they’ve been

in the harm’s way. You have a commander of an air group here

whose airplanes flew longer than any other air group in the history

of our country. They set a record unlike anything on the TR battle

group. You have SEALs who are out there giving their all every

day.

Last Monday a dream of mine came true. Since I was in Vietnam

when I lived with the SEALs, I wanted to spend a day with the

SEALs and do everything they did. Well, I spent a day with the

SEALs. I’m not sure I was able to do everything they did, but at

least I got a taste of what they do and what it takes to be a SEAL

and go in and do those sort of things.

We have to provide them with the land and the space to make

sure they get done what they need to get done. I heard a statement, political correctness is getting in the way of the servicemen’s

life. You bet it is. I was privileged to take a 4-day trip around this

country in 12 States, visit 25 military bases, Army, Navy, Air

Force, Marine Corps. I saw what some of the problems are. I heard

the commanders, I heard the troops complain about the restrictions

they have put on them.

For instance, at Camp Pendleton in California they have a wonderful ocean and beachfront there where they’re able to train, do

realistic training, but there are certain times of the year when

there are certain creatures mating on that beach, and when that

happens the exercises have to be closed. What kind of nonsense is

that? Do you suppose when we go into some of these countries

overseas if there are birds doing that same sort of activity on the

beaches we’re going to say the war is over until they’re finished?

We have to let these people do what they’re supposed to do.

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I don’t know how many of you have read this GAO report. I don’t

usually read this kind of stuff but I did the last 2 days. I highlighted everything that bothered me and when I ran out of ink in

two pens, I stopped. Of the land mass at Camp Pendleton 57 percent is for endangered species now. What kind of nonsense is that?

How can these troops train out there to get ready for the battles

we’re going to put them into if they have those sort of restrictions?

Yes, they do need special exemptions. We’re in a different kind

of war. Our country, our Nation has been attacked on our soil, and

if we don’t do something about it, then we’re going to have this the

rest of our lives.

By training these kids, we’re going to provide them with the

training to maybe not have that happen again. I don’t want any

more 9/11s to come down our street.

So I heard somebody say the Pentagon proposal will harm the

environment. Give me a break. Every single base that I’ve ever

seen or ever served on, they’re probably better stewards of the environment than most people in the civilian sector. So to say they

aren’t doing that is totally unfair. I think they need to be given the

credit for what they’re doing.

Let me see. I made so many notes here. I shouldn’t have made

this many notes.

The popularity of the military. Somebody complained about the

popularity of the military. That probably irritated me more than

anything else. Sure they’re popular because they’re doing what

we’ve asked them to do. They’re going to protect our country. If the

defense of our country is at risk and we’re going to have people

coming in here blowing the daylights out of us, the snail darter

isn’t going to make a difference because they’re not going to be

around, anyhow. So we have to make sure that doesn’t happen. We

have to keep these bases open as long as we can. And the more restrictions we put on them, the more harm we’re going to bring to

our people.

I heard Mr. Shays say I think people perceive that we’ve had victory in Afghanistan. We have not. I spent 8 days there in April.

We are nowhere near completed with that country. And once we

get done with them, we’ve got to go over in other countries as well.

So we’re going to be in this a long time. And kids that aren’t even

born yet are going to be involved in these wars. We better make

sure we provide the wherewithal, we provide the equipment and

the training and the land to train these people on. And if a snail

darter gets killed in the process, folks, I’m sorry. I’d rather have

an airman, a sailor, a soldier, Marine come home alive rather than

worry about whether a snail darter is going to survive some training.

I’m very anxious to hear what these distinguished gentleman

say. I hope we listen carefully. They’re the ones on the front lines.

They’re the ones that know what needs to be done. We need to pay

attention to them and heed what they say and get off their backs.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank the gentleman from Virginia. Any other opening statements? Gentlelady from California wish to make an opening statement?

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Ms. WATSON. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and the former

speakers. What I will be looking for in listening to the representatives at the table there is how we provide balance as we prepare

for the challenges that we have had and will have in the future.

As we have a mind-set to look at our Nation differently than we

did prior to 9/11, how do we do what we need to do? How do we

train your people? How do we train your people in areas that are

similar to the areas that we will be fighting in, possibly? And how

do we take in the concerns that citizens have about the environment that they live in every single hour of the day?

What I want to see is the balance—how much consideration

there is for the issues that were brought up. I don’t think anyone

that I have heard prior is antimilitary. I don’t think anyone that

I have heard prior does not want a well-trained force. We would

be foolhardy if we did not have that. But what I will be listening

for is how do we balance it with the needs of all those citizens out

there. And I think we ought to take time to listen. We ought to

take time to look. We ought to take time to see what the needs are,

and we ought to take into consideration the environment in which

we reach these goals.

So I would be very, very pleased to hear, as you make your presentations, how we have balance. I think if we get that, the criticisms that you hear will vanish because they will be addressed.

Thank you very much. I am very, very interested in hearing from

you.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentlelady. There being no other opening

statements, we will proceed to the heart of the matter here with

the introduction of the witnesses on our first panel, their testimony, and then questions and answers.

For those witnesses and Members and folks in the audience who

haven’t been at one of these hearings before, members will come

and go depending on other meetings, other hearings, and markups

that may be going on in other committees or subcommittees. Also,

there may be other meetings from time to time. Many of the Members on our side of the aisle are currently at a caucus meeting, a

conference meeting that hopefully will be ending shortly, so there

will be several more Members here and same on the other side. So

Members will come and go, but don’t let that bother you all. And

if I have to leave—we have a markup in the Judiciary, a series of

bills, just down the hall, and I will ask Mr. Shays to take over the

chair from time to time.

We appreciate very much the witnesses being with us today. Like

all of the witnesses, please stand at this time to be sworn in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BARR. Thank you, gentlemen. Let the record reflect that all

five witnesses answered in the affirmative. You may be seated,

gentlemen. I ask unanimous consent that full biographic information on these five distinguished military leaders be included in the

record. Without objection, so ordered.

Rather than take time to introduce at length—and it would really would be at length—the relevant biographical information on

each one of these gentlemen here today that brings them to the

point of being a witness before this committee, we will submit that

for the record. I will introduce each one of them very briefly by

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title, and each one of them, I believe, may insert in the record or

may refer to other specific background that they have that might

be relevant to their testimony today.

But I would at this time turn to the gentleman from Florida, Mr.

Putnam, to make a special recognition of our first witness, General

Tangney. Gentleman from Florida.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a special honor to

welcome someone from my part of the world, Lieutenant General

William P. Tangney, Deputy Commander in Chief of U.S. Special

Operations Command, tip of the spear. Based at MacDill Air Force

Base in Tampa, FL, Pentagon South. He served in Vietnam with

the U.S. Army Second Battalion, Ninth Artillery, Fourth Infantry

Division after graduating from the Citadel. He returned to Vietnam

after graduation from Special Forces Officer Course to serve as an

operations officer and senior launch site commander. He has a

master’s degree in anthropology from Syracuse University and is a

graduate of the Naval Command and Staff College and the Army

War College.

His awards and decorations include the Defense Superior Service

Medal, with one oak leaf cluster; the Distinguished Service Medal;

Legion of Merit, with one oak leaf cluster; Bronze Star, with V device and two oak leaf clusters; Defense Meritorious Service Medal,

Meritorious Service Medal with two oak leaf clusters; Combat Infantryman Badge; Master Parachutist Badge; Ranger tab and the

Special Forces tab.

General Tangney, we look forward to your appealing anecdotes.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman from Florida. There was reference made earlier to this being part of some stealth operation. I

think one can tell by the size of the audience here today, the number of witnesses, and the number of TV cameras and other media

folks here, this is anything but a stealth proceeding.

We do welcome all of the witnesses here, in addition to hearing

from General Tangney who has already been very eloquently introduced by the gentleman from Florida.

We will hear from Colonel Thomas D. Waldhauser, U.S. Marine

Corps, Commanding Officer 15th EMU Special Operations Capable,

Camp Pendleton, CA.

We will be hearing Captain Steve Voetsch, U.S. Navy Commander, Carrier Group Air Wing One, USS Theodore Roosevelt.

Commander Voetsch, welcome. It’s good to see you here. I had the

honor of being aboard the carrier a little less than a year ago and

met you then, and I know you have logged a lot of miles, nautical

and air miles, between now and then, and we appreciate your service. Good to see you again.

We’ll also be hearing from Lieutenant Commander Kerry Metz,

SEAL, Naval Special Warfare Group One.

And finally on this first panel, anchoring it from the Army is

Captain Jason Amerine, U.S. Army, Fifth Special Forces Group,

Airborne, Fort Campbell, KY.

Gentlemen, we welcome you all very much here today. As I indicated earlier, your full statements will be inserted into the record,

and the way we will proceed is to recognize each one of you, starting with General Tangney and working our way down. Each of you,

we would appreciate it if you try and limit your opening remarks

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to about 5 minutes. If it goes over to some extent that’s fine, but

try to limit it to about 5 minutes. And once all of your opening

statements have been made, we will turn to Members on both sides

of the aisle up here for questions.

At this time, I am happy to recognize General Tangney for his

opening statement.

STATEMENTS OF LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILLIAM P.

TANGNEY, USA, DEPUTY COMMANDER IN CHIEF, U.S. SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND, TAMPA, FL; COLONEL THOMAS D. WALDHAUSER, USMC, COMMANDING OFFICER, 15TH

MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNIT, SPECIAL OPERATIONS CAPABLE, CAMP PENDLETON, CA; CAPTAIN STEPHEN S.

VOETSCH, USN, COMMANDER, AIR WING ONE, USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT, NORFOLK, VA; COMMANDER KERRY M.

METZ, USNR, NAVAL SPECIAL WARFARE GROUP ONE, CORONADO, CA; AND CAPTAIN JASON L. AMERINE, USA, 5TH SPECIAL FORCES GROUP (AIRBORNE), FORT CAMPBELL, KY

General TANGNEY. Thank you, sir. Mr. Chairman and members

of the committee, as previously indicated I am Lieutenant General

Bill Tangney, and I’m the Deputy Commander in Chief of U.S. Special Operations Command.

Mr. BARR. All the witnesses pull the mic’s pretty close, just to

make sure that it picks up both for the purposes of the audience,

us hearing, as well the court reporter.

General TANGNEY. OK, Mr. Chairman, we will try this again.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, as previously noted,

I am Lieutenant General Bill Tangney. I’m the Deputy Commander

in Chief, U.S. Special Operations Command, Mac Dill AFB Tampa,

FL. I am privileged today to report to the Congress on critical challenges confronting national security, with particular emphasis on

how continuing encroachment threatens force readiness as it pertains to USSOCOM forces.

We are a fully integrated joint force of soldiers, sailors, airmen

and marines, and must train together on a routine basis. Our goal

with regard to range use is to be prepared and ready for every contingency. Because we are a fully integrated joint force, we rely

heavily on the Services for training ranges and access. Throughout

the years, the Services have provided excellent support to this command. However, resources spent on environmental studies and assessments take valuable assets from the command that could be

used for training.

Additionally, formal training areas now set aside or restricted as

habitat for endangered species, such as the northern spotted owl at

Fort Lewis, WA; the Red Cockaded Woodpecker at Eglin Air Force

Base, FL; at Fort Bragg, NC, the Loggerhead Shrike; and the Sage

Sparrow on San Clemente Island, CA; along with the loss of other

former live-fire ranges now restricted from use, all create increased

demand and competition for shrinking ranges and training areas.

Live-fire training is an essential part of combat readiness. Military training is inherently dangerous, and the United States has

set aside areas to use specifically for this purpose as DOD operational ranges. Although crucial to maintaining national security,

these ranges comprise, as previously noted by one of the members

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of the panel, just over 1 percent of the U.S. land mass. Because

there is so little land set aside for operational training, we coordinate closely with the Services to get access that we need to train

our Special Operations forces.

You have heard the concerns and challenges encroachment has

had in previous testimony on the U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force, and

Marine Corps. Their problems and concerns are also our problems

and concerns, for we are truly a joint team. In addition to what you

have heard from them, I will offer what Special Operations’ unique

concerns are in the area of encroachment.

There are inherent risks we must accept if we are not able to exercise the full range of activities demanded of our forces in combat.

Restrictions on training equal consequences on the modern battlefield. For example, in Afghanistan, U.S. Special Operations Command, Air Force Special Tactics Teams, Navy SEALS, Army and

Air Force PSYOP units, Army and Air Force aviation assets, Army

Special Forces, Rangers and Civil Affairs units are all executing

complex operations and missions during periods of extremely limited visibility. They face climatic extremes and must operate over

rough and unfamiliar terrain in support of U.S. Central Command.

Many of these soldiers, sailors, and airmen were able to hone their

combat skills on adequate ranges just prior to deployment. However, many did not get this opportunity.

A large part of the reason that we can support our global commitment is that the Special Operations troops are embedded with

our philosophy of how to train and deploy. These troops are the humans and are more important than hardware; that quality is better

than quantity. That special operations forces cannot be mass produced; and that competent special operations forces cannot be created after emergencies occur.

In closing, I would like to reiterate two key points. First, we provide the Armed Forces of our Nation with unique, one-of-a-kind capabilities. We have been available to develop these assets because

of the foresight of the U.S. Congress in creating this command and

providing it with the tools to get the job done.

Second, we must protect our people, provide for their professional

development, give them the tools that they need to do their job,

and remember those and their families who have given the last full

measure of dedication and devotion. With continued support from

the Congress and key investments in quality people, readiness, and

training, we will continue to have the best Special Operations

forces in the world, a force that is ready, responsive, and relevant

to the challenges of the 21st century. I believe that the Special Operations soldiers, sailors, and airmen represent one of our Nation’s

greatest assets, superbly trained, physically tough, culturally

aware, independent thinkers, quiet professionals, all.

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you very much

for the opportunity to testify on this critical issue of national importance.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, General.

[The prepared statement of General Tangney follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Colonel Waldhauser.

Colonel WALDHAUSER. Mr. Barr, members of the minority, and

distinguished members of the committee, before I proceed with my

remarks this morning, I would like to express sincere condolences

of the Commandant of the Marine Corps and all Marines on the

passing of Chairman Burton’s wife Barbara. Our thoughts and

prayers are with the chairman at this time, and his family, in this

very difficult period. Thank you.

Mr. BARR. Thank you for those sentiments reflecting, I’m sure,

all of the panelists and all of the members of this committee.

Colonel WALDHAUSER. It is currently my privilege to serve as the

commanding officer of the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit [MEU],

from Camp Pendleton, CA. Three expeditionary units from Pendleton routinely rotate and forward deploy for approximately 6

months to the western Pacific and Arabian Gulf region. Although

the MEU is generally the smallest Marine Air/Ground Task Force,

it serves as the Nation’s forward-deployed quick response force, capable of accomplishing a wide variety of missions around the globe

on short notice.

The MEU consists of approximately 2,200 marines. In addition to

the command element, the MEU is made up of a ground combat

element based around an infantry battalion, an aviation combat

element consisting of a composite helicopter squadron and a detachment of AV–8 Harrier jets, and finally a combat service support element to provide that function. Together with the ships from

the Navy’s Amphibious Ready Group, this forward-deployed Navy/

Marine team provides an extremely flexible and responsive force to

our Nation.

The 15th MEU arrived in the northern Arabian Sea in late September 2001 and continued to support Operation Enduring Freedom until January 2002. We recently returned to Camp Pendleton

in early March. Several of our significant taskings during Operation Enduring Freedom were to seize from the sea an air strip 350

nautical miles inland in southern Afghanistan called Rhino; conduct offensive operations to destroy Taliban and al Qaeda forces attempting to escape from Kandahar; and to secure the Kandahar

airfield for turnover to the 26th MEU. Obviously, our

predeployment training program, most of which was conducted in

southern California, was vital to our ability to handle the variety

of missions and tasks that came our way.

Effective training is the price of success in combat. Consequently,

I as a commander, and marines of the MEU, share the concern

that encroachment is limiting our training opportunities with potentially negative consequences for our readiness. Wildlife and

habitat regulations, airspace and target engagement restrictions,

and the proximity of civilian homes to our bases cause our training

to be sometimes fragmented, segmented, and in many cases not in

accordance with sound military doctrine. We must be able to hone

our skills, from the individual marine up to the Marine Air/Ground

Task Force level. This means we must be able to dig in, move cross

country, off roads with our vehicles, fly our aircraft on different

routes and tactical altitudes, and conduct combined arms live-fire

exercises, especially at night. Presently on board Camp Pendleton,

we are limited in being able to accomplish all of these tasks.

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Another area of concern to the MEU is access to the beaches

along Camp Pendleton’s coast line, as has been alluded to here this

morning. Because the MEU primarily comes from the sea, we need

beach access. Although Camp Pendleton has 17 miles of coastline

and four landing beaches for training, we were only allowed to use

one of these beaches during our work-up period, primarily due to

wildlife restrictions during that time of the year at Camp Pendleton. This makes amphibious training for the marines and sailors

very frustrating and somewhat unrealistic.

Finally, I am concerned about the impact multiple encroachments are having on our junior leaders and their ability to develop

sound tactical judgment and keen time sense and awareness on the

battlefield. Over time, bad habits caused by encroachment may become the accepted way of doing business. From my own experience

at Camp Pendleton, amphibious exercises conducted in the mideighties to test at that time new equipment and evolving doctrine

are simply not possible today as a result of these encroachment restrictions.

In sum, encroachment is pushing us in the wrong direction. As

we modernize our weapons systems in order to be able to engage

the enemy at extended ranges and maneuver our forces over great

distances to place that enemy in a dilemma, we will need all of our

range and training area space in order to be properly trained and

prepared for future combat operations.

I thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and look forward to your

questions.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, Colonel.

[The prepared statement of Colonel Waldhauser follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Captain Voetsch.

Captain VOETSCH. Good morning, Mr. Barr and members of the

committee. I was asked after my recent return from deployment on

board the Theodore Roosevelt to testify about my personal involvement with my air wing’s combat performance during Operation Enduring Freedom. I accepted it because I believe it is important

enough to explain in person the process my air wing went through

in preparation for the war.

My name is Captain Steve Voetsch, and with me today is my

wife Libby, behind me. And before I begin, sir, I would like to point

out it was also a pleasure for me to be here today and meet these

two gentlemen in person sitting next to me. They were both on the

ground in Afghanistan when we were dropping our bombs, and it

is an honor for me to actually meet them face to face.

I am a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and proudly served

24 years of active duty. I have flown in five different squadrons of

both the F–4 Phantom and F–14 Tomcat. I have 4,800 flight hours

and 1,100 carrier landings and 350 combat hours in Operation

Desert Storm, Bosnia, Operation Southern Watch, and Operation

Enduring Freedom. I am a graduate of Top Gun, the Armed Forces

Staff College, and a fellow at the Hoover Institute, Stanford University.

My responsibilities as the air wing commander include being in

direct charge of eight squadrons and over 1,500 personnel. This air

wing is unique, given the fact of the geographic locations of the

squadrons. The number of aircraft that Air Wing One brings to the

battle group is 68. We joined the Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group

over a year ago, and we previously deployed with the John F. Kennedy Battle Group prior to that.

CVW–1, a short name for our air wing, uses a stair-step approach to training. It begins with unit level training where individual squadrons train in section and division tactics. All eight of my

air wing’s squadrons trained at various locations throughout the

United States completing their syllabus.

Once a squadron completes their ULT requirements at the varied

locations, the entire air wing deploys to Fallon, NV, home of the

Naval Strike Air Warfare Center. This is the first time all eight

squadrons get together as a unit to prepare and train at the ranges

in Fallon for combat. In Fallon, the squadrons integrate together

as an air wing, practicing air wing tactics and working to get together to conduct coordinated strikes. That range in Fallon provides outstanding over-land training to an air wing prior to deployment, due to the fact its ranges provide a unique blend of mountains and desert targets much like we experienced in Afghanistan.

Air Wing One then integrates with the aircraft carrier in the battle group during our interdeployment training cycle. This encompasses three at sea periods: tailored ship training availability; composite training unit exercise; and joint task force exercise.

Theodore Roosevelt Battle Group with Air Wing One deployed on

September 19, 2001, only 8 days after the attacks on New York and

the Pentagon. The battle group crossed the Atlantic as the air

wings sharpened their skills as much as possible, dropping practice

25-pound bombs on Larne targets, basically a sled that floats,

towed behind two of our battle group ships, USS Vella Gulf and

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USS Leyte Gulf. As the battle group sailed through the Mediterranean waters, we received an Execute order to continue through the

Suez Canal and to the Arabian Sea to start operations upon arrival. As we arrived on station, we were assigned the night flying window, and we would begin at 2230 at night and finish at 1330 the

next day, flying an average 15 hours, 7 days a week. For the first

3 months, from October through December, all sorties flown by Air

Wing One were in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. The

missions included coordinated strikes deep in Afghanistan, delivering laser-guided GPS and MK–80 series iron bombs. Additionally,

aircraft flew off the coast of Iran and Pakistan in defense of the

coalition forces, and provided support to maritime interdiction and

leadership interdiction operations.

It wasn’t until January, when the Taliban and al Qaeda defenses

crumbled, that our tasking was reduced and the air wing began to

fly unit level training flights to stay proficient in other warfare

areas. The preponderance of our flying was at night, wearing night

vision goggles, dropping our ordnance under the cover of darkness.

Air Wing One performed well and set numerous squadron flight

records due to long flights in Afghanistan. We did it safely, without

losing any aircraft.

Our lessons learned are many, and mostly classified. However,

Operation Enduring Freedom continues to stress the importance of

training and flying in the carrier environment. Afghanistan and

the war on terrorism was unique, and the training we received

prior to deployment prepared us for those challenges. Afghanistan

presented a fluid battlefield in an unconventional war where Air

Wing One’s capability and flexibility proved to be successful and lethal. Training and readiness must remain a top priority in future

operations throughout the globe. Thank you.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, Captain.

[The prepared statement of Captain Voetsch follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Commander Metz.

Commander METZ. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you. My name is

Kerry Metz, I am from Colorado and currently stationed at Naval

Special Warfare Group in Coronado, CA. In support of our Navy,

Navy Special Warfare and the entire Special Operations community has been vital to our Nation’s ongoing war effort. As you know,

Operation Enduring Freedom is challenging our forces to conduct

the full spectrum of Special Operations. We are asking the operators to use every tool in the kit bag in an effort to accomplish the

mission while mitigating the risk to civilian populations, our coalition partners, and ourselves.

Just over a month ago, I returned from Afghanistan where I

served as the director for operations for the Special Operation Task

Force charged with the conduct of special reconnaissance and direct

action missions. We were fortunate to have the finest special operators from a coalition of seven nations. We challenged our operators

to conduct missions in some of the most hostile environments ever

operated in. For example, we had special reconnaissance teams operating in the mountains of Afghanistan at altitudes above 10,000

feet for extended periods without resupply.

I am a SEAL officer and therefore most familiar with the somewhat unique challenges of training SEALs and special boat operators for combat operations around the world. In addition to my

service in Afghanistan, I have served as an instructor for our basic

underwater demolitions/SEAL or BUD/s training course in Coronado, CA, and as a training officer at one of our Naval Special

Warfare units. SEAL is an acronym for Sea, Air, and Land. These

are environments in which we are trained to operate. In order to

win in combat, special operators must have the opportunity to train

in environments that simulate as closely as possible the environments in which they are expected to fight. The Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, CA led by Rear Admiral Eric Olson,

has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that every SEAL and special boat operator is fully trained to the highest level of readiness

prior to deployment.

The encroachment areas that are of most concern and pose significant negative impact on Naval Special Warfare training are endangered species and critical habitat, unexploded ordnance, maritime sustainability, and urban growth. We are asking our special

operators to go into harm’s way. We demand a lot from them. We

need to ensure they are as ready as possible when we deploy. The

increasing toll from encroachment is felt in many forms and workarounds are used to compensate for the limitations encountered.

These work-arounds impact the realism of the training, the amount

of time spent away from home, and the quality of life for our operators and their families. Additional costs are also incurred.

Special operators focus on one goal: to win in combat. I strongly

believe you must train like you fight, and to do this you must have

adequate ranges. It has always been our intent to be good stewards

of the environment and a reasonable balanced approach to range

management should be achievable.

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I would like to thank the Members of the committee and Congress for their continued support of Naval Special Warfare and

Special Operations. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, Commander.

[The prepared statement of Commander Metz follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Captain Amerine.

Captain AMERINE. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee,

I am captain Jason Amerine. Over the past 14 years I have served

in various infantry and Special Forces units, in Hawaii, Panama,

Honduras, Venezuela, Korea, Kuwait, Kazakhstan and Germany.

Most recently I commanded a Special Forces team in central Asia,

deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom from October

20 to December 5, 2001.

In November 2001, my team, Operational Detachment Alpha

574, infiltrated Afghanistan in a 4-hour low-level insertion deep

into enemy territory. Our mission was to assist antiTaliban forces

and replace the Taliban regime with a legitimate government to

ensure that Afghanistan would never again be a safe haven for terrorism. Once on the ground, we engaged the enemy in several

pitched battles and we won all of them.

My team advised and assisted antiTaliban fighters through military training and by providing humanitarian aid and weapons. We

directed air strikes against Taliban targets in southern Afghanistan by using laser designation equipment and pilot ‘‘talk-on’’ for

nearly a month. My team traveled across southern Afghanistan in

pickup trucks with antiTaliban forces conducting unconventional

warfare.

From an operational perspective, my team’s ability to train for

this war was far from ideal. Range encroachment issues affected

nearly every aspect of this mission’s profile. Ranges and impact

areas in some of our military installations were designed for military equipment dating back to the 1950’s, at a time when military

posts were located well away from the civilian population. The increase in urbanization around our military bases will make it even

more difficult to train effectively with our most lethal weapons on

the space available.

On some installations we cannot train adequately for close air

support, a critical aspect of our success in Afghanistan. Such training opportunities are limited because impact areas do not support

parameters needed for realistic effective training. The usable area

for such training is very small and we have limited locations from

which to direct air strikes. Noise concerns constrain fighter aircraft

conducting attack runs, day or night. We must limit the approaches

of our attack runs based upon civilian airspace restrictions. These

measures reduce the effectiveness of the training.

Laser designation equipment, our most critical tool in executing

close air support, cannot be used in some training areas. Lasers

can only be used in training areas to the extent of the maximum

range of the equipment itself or which have well-developed backstops. This impedes our ability to train with and test our equipment in a realistic environment.

Long-range movements are a core task of 5th Special Forces

Group. In the last decade, this group exercised this skill extensively in Southwest Asia. My team applied the skills in the deserts

of Afghanistan. We are severely limited in our ability to realistically practice these skills due to limited training areas. Operating

outside installation boundaries requires extensive and time-consuming coordination with outside agencies, the local government,

and private landowners. My team’s readiness enabled us to execute

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the classic warfare mission in Afghanistan. Our training, however,

could have been better. Some of the best training my men received

for this war came from within the war zone itself, where we could

completely exercise our combat systems without facing the many

training restrictions and work-arounds that have become a normal

part of life for the military due to encroachment.

We must continue to fulfill our responsibilities as good neighbors,

but in order to save lives we must provide realistic training opportunities for those who serve our country. Thank you.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, Captain.

[The prepared statement of Captain Amerine follows:]

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Mr. BARR. As I indicated earlier, all of your complete statements

will be included as part of the record. We appreciate very much

your condensing them for purposes of opening statements on the

record here today.

At this time we’ll proceed with questions from committee members. We’ll be going in 5-minute increments. And I recognize myself

for 5 minutes.

Colonel Waldhauser, one of the gentlemen who is a true American hero, a Medal of Honor winner, General Ray Davis, who lives

in Georgia, and I know him very well, and I am honored to consider him a friend—and I think you are familiar with him, as all

Marines are. And he won his Medal of Honor for his service to this

Nation and in the cause of freedom in Korea at the Chosin Reservoir. And I know in your prepared statement, you talk a little bit

about that.

Without necessarily going into the entire detail, tell the panel,

the committee if you would, please, why something so seemingly insignificant as developing—almost an instinct to dig a foxhole when

you go into an area, why that is so important?

Colonel WALDHAUSER. Thank you, sir.

Mr. BARR. And with that, why, with the way the encroachment

issue—and we’ve heard in earlier hearings that, for example, when

the Marines or the troops go ashore in a training exercise, they

have roped-off areas that are pretend foxholes, because they can’t

actually dig a foxhole because they might disturb something.

Colonel WALDHAUSER. There is a well-worn phrase that has been

with me my entire time in the Marine Corps, that says you don’t

have to dig a foxhole, because the first time you have to do one,

it doesn’t take a lot of practice and you’ll know how to do it. But

that really is an overstatement and it really does not delve into the

whole issue of what it means to entrench or field fortify your position.

When we flew in 350 nautical miles from the ship, we were pretty much at risk, although we had most of that mitigated through

other means. But the ability to dig in, construct offensive positions,

integrate fields of fire, construct obstacles, is something we were

never able to do at Camp Pendleton. It’s just too hard, and can’t

do it all in one place; and as previously indicated, this is what we

would call our practice, perhaps, under fire.

Now, it doesn’t take a lot for a Marine to dig. He has to work

to do it, and he understands how to do that. But in order, as I indicated, to coordinate, synchronize, and orchestrate the defensive position or defense of an airfield in the middle of southern Afghanistan, is something you don’t want to do for the first time when you

actually have to do it. In essence, that’s what we did.

Mr. BARR. Thank you.

General Tangney, as the most senior officer on this panel, I will

direct this question to you, but other members of the panel feel free

to offer any insights you might have or particularized knowledge.

We are all familiar with the various Federal laws that relate to

the encroachment issue, the Endangered Species Act, perhaps most

notably among them the Marine Mammal Protection Act, and so

forth. Yet there is a particular provision, section 7(j), I believe, of

the Endangered Species Act, that contains a very broad national

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security exemption. And as a matter of fact, that’s what it is called, ‘‘exemption for national security reasons.’’ And it provides that if

the Secretary of Defense finds that such an exemption is necessary

for reasons of national security, that the particular committee to

which that exemption request would be directed must—it isn’t discretionary; they must grant the exemption. In other words, if the

Secretary of Defense goes to this endangered species committee

and says we need an exemption from these laws, these restrictions,

for national security, they have to grant it.

Have there been any instances in which such an exemption has

been sought or requested?

General TANGNEY. Mr. Chairman, to the best of my knowledge,

I have no specific insights into this particular issue. I was unaware

of the particular exemption which you reference. I would assume

that if that is on the books as it is, it has certainly been considered,

and I know we have subsequent speakers who are better qualified

than I to address that particular issue.

Mr. BARR. Is there any member on this first panel that believes

that such an exemption would not be fully justified in the current

wartime situation?

Let the record reflect that none of the witnesses so believed that

there would not be full justification for such an exemption being

sought.

Captain Voetsch, when you flew in the missions in the Afghanistan theater, did the accuracy or the success rate of your missions,

your bombs, improve over time?

Captain VOETSCH. That is correct, sir.

Mr. BARR. Did it improve significantly over time?

Captain VOETSCH. The first 2 weeks, sir—after the first 2 weeks

when we got our systems groomed and got used to flying in that

area, things did improve to the point that we were about 73 percent accurate.

Mr. BARR. And was such training available prior to your entry

into the theatre?

Captain VOETSCH. Yes, sir. We received all the proper training

prior to Operation Enduring Freedom. There were some restrictions placed that did hamper some of the end-to-end—one of the

important things for our training is not just dropping that weapon,

it is the whole process of bringing the weapon up and having the

magazine on the ship, having a young 20-year-old load it on an aircraft, and then the systems and aircraft have to work. And dropping live ordnance is an issue that I don’t think we trained enough

doing that prior to Operation Enduring Freedom. And I caveat that

because most of our live weapons training dropping was out in

Fallon, NV and on the East Coast, which drives us away from family and ITEMPO and other issues like that, sir.

Mr. BARR. Chair recognizes the gentlelady from California for 5

minutes.

Ms. WATSON. I want to commend all the military personnel for

their courage, their training, and being able to execute and have

our side accomplish its goals. I just have a couple of issues that

anyone on the panel might address. And the first is, I heard you

say very clearly that most of your training was done very hurriedly

on the ground in Afghanistan.

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Is there an assessment of ranges that you could train on that are

similar to that territory? Would they be better suited than the locations that you already have, say, in California? I do represent Los

Angeles, CA. And what are your training needs in terms of ranges?

Do we have an assessment, an inventory? Do we have like-kind environmental conditions throughout our own country that would be

similar? I understand that places in Afghanistan look like the surface of the Moon. So can we find ranges—have you sent in a request at all for what you’re going to need to continue the war in

Afghanistan, or wherever in the surrounding countries? And my

main question is the ranges and how can we duplicate the conditions that you face when you go out to combat in those theaters?

General TANGNEY. Well, ma’am that is a multipart question, but

I will certainly endeavor to at least answer part of that from a

USSOCOM perspective. Last year, we initiated a study team to do

a comprehensive worldwide look at the range issue, based on the

issues of availability for our formations, looking at what the Services have, the procurement of the services, the joint ranges that

exist for a variety of reasons, one of which was to ensure that we

had a full, common, relevant picture of the ranges that were available and that we had some insights in the ranges that we might

have to actually spend our own dollars to create sought unique

ranges for specific mission type purposes. We should have the results of that study out, hopefully, sometime by the end of the summer. That, of course, is the Tiger Team referred to by the chairman

at the beginning of this testimony.

Our concern is, just as you pointed out in your comments, to

identify range complexes where we can get a more comprehensive

full-mission profile train-up for our joint formations prior to deployment, minimizing individual operations tempo and minimizing

costs at the same time, while at the same time attempting to

achieve the tradeoffs that you mentioned between training for combat readiness and legitimate environmental considerations.

Colonel WALDHAUSER. Ma’am as far as the Marine Expeditionary

Unit is concerned, we are heavily integrated and depend quite extensively on our Navy counterparts. Consequently, any type of

training or ranges that would be ideal from the MEU perspective

would have to start from the sea, with the Navy. We need to be

able to use sea space and use our beaches in order to be able to

accomplish our training in a realistic manner.

Additionally, we have to be able to maneuver over the ground.

We have to be able to drive off road, we have to be able to go across

the country. This is one of the operations we had in Afghanistan

where really for the first time we maneuvered over 90 miles from

Rhino, up in the vicinity of Kandahar, to be in a position to take

on forces that were escaping out of that city. And it was one of the

first times that our light armored vehicle unit had the opportunity

to maneuver with all the weight that combat brings with it, the

food, the ammunition, the fuel and whatnot, over different types of

terrain. And consequently, that skill of the driver needs to be

honed back in CONUS and not in the country of Afghanistan.

Finally, we also are dependent on our aviation support and we

need to have ranges to drop bombs for our aircraft that are not repetitive. In other words, at Camp Pendleton, for example, the airVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00118 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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space is so tight that the aircraft are constantly in a turn in order

to make a drop on targets. The targets are always the same. The

ingress and egress routes out of the targets are always the same

so, quite frankly, there isn’t a lot of thinking that has to go into

the planning. There isn’t a lot of thinking that has to go into the

execution on the part of the operators.

So from the MEU perspective, because of the way we are and

how we are integrating with the Navy, we have to start from the

sea. We have to have access to beaches. We have to have off-road,

cross-country movement. And, additionally, we need airspace that

will allow us to train like we fight.

Ms. WATSON. Let me just respond and see if I heard you correctly.

Mr. BARR. Without objection, the gentlelady is granted 1 additional minute.

Ms. WATSON. Thank you. I think I heard you say, General, that

there is a comprehensive, well-thought-through report, or proposals

I should say, for what is needed. Is the Navy also going to be

part—or do you do it in your separate military units? Is there a

comprehensive report that will come in as to the needs to continue

on with the current war, or will it be a separate report coming in

from the different branches? And is that the one we can expect to

see—did you say July?

General TANGNEY. This is an internal report which we have done

within U.S. Special Operations Command and full collaboration

with all the Services and the Office of the Secretary of Defense. We

hope to finalize that some time by the end of the summer, and we

certainly could make that available to the committee upon request.

Ms. WATSON. And just to followup, I think that’s what the GAO

was getting toward, that they wanted to see your proposals, the

costs and the breadth of what your needs are, an assessment.

General TANGNEY. Ma’am, I haven’t seen the GAO report. But

from what I understand, I think it’s a little bit more comprehensive

than U.S. Special Operations Command and looks at the entire—— Ms. WATSON. I think that’s what this committee was concerned

about, too, was the report from the GAO; and I hope it will be addressed when we see your proposals.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentlelady. The Chair recognizes the distinguished gentleman from New York, Congressman Gilman.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I want to commend

you for conducting this hearing on what has become a growing

problem for our military: the issue of encroachment.

It is obvious to everyone on our committee that our military

forces, especially since 9/11, need to have access to the best training possible. I realize that deploying military forces have limited

experience in live-fire training. It’s not only foolhardy, it’s laying

the groundwork for future problems. The primary goal of our government is to make certain that we protect the lives of all of our

citizens and everything else is secondary.

Today we find ourselves engaged in an open-ended conflict with

an enemy that has pledged to the destruction of our way of life and

our political system. I just attended a hearing this morning where

we were trying to find what would happen if the Congress suddenly

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was devastated by an attack. The issues of military training and

encroachment are no longer academic exercises, and we recognize

they all have serious consequences, and it is hoped that some practical compromises can be worked out with regard to a number of

these encroachment issues.

General Tangney the GAO study that we are hearing about indicates the Secretary of Defense needs to require the services to develop and maintain inventories of all of the training ranges’ capacities and capabilities and fully quantify their training requirements.

Is there any work being done in that direction, General?

General TANGNEY. Sir, I could only speak to what we were doing

internally, as I mentioned earlier, and I am sure there is probably

something going on, but I would defer to subsequent witnesses

from the Office of the Secretary of Defense who will testify later

on, who will probably have more knowledge than I do.

Mr. GILMAN. As far as you know, you are not aware of any study

right now of what training facilities are available, training ranges?

General TANGNEY. I am aware of what we have going internally

to our command. I am not aware personally of other ongoing activities within the Department, and therefore, I would defer to a more

knowledgeable person in that area.

Mr. GILMAN. The GAO notes that the Department of Defense

needs to create a data base that identifies all ranges available to

the Department and what they can offer, regardless of service ownership, so that the commanders can schedule the best available resources to provide required training.

Are you aware of any activity of that nature, of providing that

kind of a data base?

General TANGNEY. Sir, as I mentioned in earlier testimony, that

is what we are attempting to do with our own internal study for

our own training purposes. And again from the Department perspective, I would defer to subsequent witnesses who might have

more in-depth information because, quite frankly, I am not up to

speed on that particular topic.

Mr. GILMAN. Do you have a list of all of the training facilities?

General TANGNEY. We are developing a list, yes, sir. We have a

Tiger Team which we stood up last summer to address the issue

of ranges, range availability, range commonality within all of the

services and across the Department to facilitate the training of our

joint formations. That study is ongoing and we hope to be through

with that by the end of the summer and produce a report which

we can use for our own purposes and which we can certainly make

available to the committee upon request.

Mr. GILMAN. And GAO is also referring to the need for the Department of Defense to finalize a comprehensive plan for administration actions that includes goals, timeliness, projected costs. And

a clear assignment of responsibilities for managing and coordinating the Department’s efforts to address encroachment issues.

Are you aware of any study of that nature underway?

General TANGNEY. Sir, once again, I would have to go back to my

earlier comment. That is not something that I am personally familiar with, because I don’t deal with that on a daily basis.

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Mr. GILMAN. Thank you. Just one or two other questions. What

training encroachment issues are of most concern to SOCOM?

General TANGNEY. Certainly we have a number of concerns, and

I will highlight two installations, one Air Force and one Navy, just

to show how joint I am. We have severe problems on San Clemente

Island, CA, which is a habitual training ground for our Navy

SEALS, our West Coast SEALS in Coronado, CA. San Clemente

has become severely restricted over the years, primarily because of

the existence of 13 separate protected species which exist on that

island, which has significantly reduced the amount of training

space and forced our Navy SEAL formations on the West Coast to

use training areas at far greater distances, which results in greater

expenditures in terms of training dollars and also results in a

greater amount of time which is spent away from home, which gets

to individual OPTEMPO.

Second example I would use is in the State of Florida, specifically

Eglin Air Force Base, FL, which is the home of our Air Force Special Operations Command, where ranges have become greatly curtailed over the years due to increased competition and where a significant impact on training and readiness for us has been the Marine Mammal Act, which precludes the firing of weapons into the

Gulf of Mexico, which we could do prior to the passage of that act.

So that is two installations that we use on a regular basis where

training has been degraded because of environmental encroachment.

Mr. GILMAN. Are you having any problem in conducting night

training?

General TANGNEY. Sir, I think night training is a problem across

the entire Department of Defense. It was certainly mentioned on

my left, very eloquently, by the Commander of the 15th MEU. It’s

a problem for our formations as well. A lot of that has to do with

increased urbanization.

For us to get effective training for our joint formations, we really

require the ability to fly extended distances, low level, at night,

with our fixed wing and rotary wing penetrators both from the

Army and the Air Force, to be able to refuel, to do a full mission

profile workup, so we get the full training value not only for the

ground operator or maritime operator, whether it be a Navy SEAL,

Army Ranger, or Special Forces soldier, but also for the flight crew

which is delivering that formation.

Mr. GILMAN. Are you limited by any encroachment issue in performing that kind of a mission at night?

General TANGNEY. Sir, it’s primarily not so much environmental,

but it can be environmental because you are restricted in terms of

your flight corridors and your ability to fly over areas where you

have some endangered species. Primarily you are limited by increased urbanization encroachment.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Connecticut

for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. I welcome all of you to this hearing and I thank you

for your service to our country. We have had opportunities as Members of Congress, particularly in our committee’s jurisdiction, national security and government reform, to go to so many different

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bases, to see our men train, to be onboard planes when they have

been refueled, to stand on the deck of the Theodore Roosevelt as

plane after plane comes in. And one of the things I was struck

when I saw a plane refueling was the absolute tension on board,

the real live tension as we were doing what they do quite often.

And I was struck at the fact that you have to be at an extraordinary high level of performance and you’re allowed very little

error.

I was struck by the fact that when you land at night, with all

due respect to all the pilots, they were grateful as hell to be onboard that ship, it made me realize that this isn’t routine. Every

time you land at night, it’s a small, little space. And I was thinking

if you had to practice landing on a ship at night by just having to

be on land, it still wouldn’t be the same thing. And I just use that

as an illustration of all the other things that I imagine.

Tell me, each of you, why live ammunition makes it a different

operation than not using a dummy weapon. I would like to go

down—whoever wants to jump in. We will start with you, Captain

Voetsch. Tell me what the difference of live versus nonlive, and describe to me the people having to load the plane up and what the

people feel onboard who make sure you take off safely and land

safely.

Captain VOETSCH. I mentioned briefly earlier, the entire process

is what—of actually bringing a weapon out of a magazine onboard

a ship, which is way below the decks almost to the waterline. It

is extremely hard to move—the numbers of weapons we were dropping over in Afghanistan per day for these guys, the average age

of a sailor onboard the Theodore Roosevelt is 19 years old, and they

have to bring it up about five or six stories high. They have elevators and things like that to bring them up to the flight deck. And

we do what we call cyclic ops, and that means every hour and 30

minutes we launch and recover aircraft. And during that period,

because we only have so many airplanes on the flight deck, about

42 at any given time, they will land. As soon as they land, we park

them, they chain them down and bring the ordnance out while

other aircraft are still turning with their jet engine exhaust and everything else. They refuel the aircraft, load new weapons on there,

and another crew will man that jet up, and an hour 30 later they

will launch it again.

Mr. SHAYS. I saw hundreds of men and women onboard that

deck. They had different colored jerseys and different tasks. There

were no fences along the side. Someone could literally back off the

back and fall right off. It’s clearly a different environment.

Captain VOETSCH. It’s like a three-ring circus. The colored jerseys as a matter of point, that’s how everyone knows what responsibility that person has on the deck, and also serves as a safety device in case they fall over. It inflates. Red jerseys, for instance, are

ordnance; and those are the guys that load the weapons.

There’s a lot more to it than just the live weapons. It’s the systems that become so complex, the systems like the flares. And what

a flare is, it’s the device that actually puts a laser spot on the

ground that the bomb sees when you drop it. And those systems

are very sensitive. And when you take an aircraft and shoot them

off the catapult from zero to 150 miles an hour in 2 seconds, and

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then when you trap the aircraft, it puts a lot of stress on the airframe in these systems. We constantly have to wring the systems

out and groom them, so to speak, to make sure they work.

In fact at the beginning of Operation Enduring Freedom, that

first week, our systems, even though we used them, we didn’t get

enough opportunity to drop—my personal opinion—some of the

laser-guided munitions to practice with. And the results, we got a

lot better as the war went on.

Mr. SHAYS. I realize 5 minutes is almost silly here, not to be able

to get to others as well, but did you get to train in Vieques?

Captain VOETSCH. We did get to train in Vieques during our at

sea periods which I call JTFX.

Mr. SHAYS. Did you get to do a coordinated type—because I am

told Vieques, in the three times I have been there, I’m told that

you need to challenge your land, sea, and air. Were you in that

kind of coordinated practice?

Captain VOETSCH. Yes, sir, the whole battle group exercised, and

there’s a lot of moving parts to it to coordinate all that.

Mr. SHAYS. And the possibility is that if you don’t practice it

right, you could have your explosive land on your own troops.

Captain VOETSCH. Yes, sir. That’s a true statement.

Mr. SHAYS. Could I have 1 additional minute just to ask—— Mr. BARR. Without objection, the gentleman is recognized for 1

additional minute.

Mr. SHAYS. Why is it important to experience live ammunition

while planes are doing their tasks and so on and ships are potentially launching artillery? Can someone on land tell me the value

of that?

Captain AMERINE. Just to clarify your question, you’re asking

about just the combined arms team?

Mr. SHAYS. Absolutely. And why does it help you to have practice

with live ammunition where planes are dropping bombs, artillery,

from the ship. Why is that all important?

Captain AMERINE. Sir, I will explain it this way. When we are

directing air strikes while dealing with ground forces, I mean it’s

a three-ring circus for us, too. I’ll be dealing with a couple different

radios, different frequencies. I will be talking to headquarters and

ground units, directing their movements. We’ll be talking to aircraft, directing them to targets. We will be deconflicting aircraft

from the ground crews that are moving out. You can’t simulate

that without actually having aircraft overhead and troops on the

ground.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there more of a tension when it’s live?

Captain AMERINE. Oh, definitely, sir, very perceptively.

Mr. SHAYS. I am asking the obvious, but I need to put it on the

record.

Captain AMERINE. Yes, sir. When you have live ammunition in

your weapon and you have aircraft overhead, there’s just no other

real feeling like it. We become accustomed to slightly lighter magazines with blank ammunition or we become accustomed to one or

two aircraft overhead dropping dumb bombs. But you put everything together, and it’s all live, you have things blowing up all

around you, I mean, that is where you really learn your lessons.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the extension.

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Mr. BARR. The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Putnam, is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This has been referred

to somewhat, but I would like to elaborate on it further. What East

Coast ranges are currently available for joint force combined arms

realistic training? General.

General TANGNEY. Sir, I will take a stab at that. With significant

limitations, I would say that Eglin Air Force Base certainly has

some ability, although the problem there is congestion with regard

to airspace and lack of availability, really, for ground formations to

maneuver. So that while you can do some combined live fire, there

are significant restrictions.

Beyond that, with the nonavailability of Vieques which, of

course, was a combined live fire range which is traditionally used

by the carrier battle groups and the fleet in their workups, I am

not aware of any facilities on the East Coast where you could do

a comprehensive live fire that involved all of the formations in a

joint task force. I mean, you can do that to a certain extent at

Camp Lejeune, NC, you can do that a little bit at Fort Bragg, NC.

But you really don’t have the full access in terrain to pull it all together with the airspace to make it happen.

Mr. PUTNAM. Captain, did your air wing have to go west before

you could deploy from the East Coast to train?

Captain VOETSCH. They sure did. One of the problems that we

see is the competition for ranges. What few we do have, everyone

needs to go to use them. With the carriers, the carrier schedules,

it adds a lot of competition. We almost do all our training outside

from the Oceania area which is where we’re from. We spent a lot

of time out in Farallon or down in Key West using the airspace to

fight the airplanes. We do a lot more than just drop bombs. In Afghanistan, for instance, we didn’t have an air threat, but the next

country might. But, yes, we do deploy a lot outside our hometowns.

Mr. PUTNAM. So is it fair to say that because of eastern U.S. encroachments, you have been forced to move more and more of your

training to the West to an already crowded scheduling situation?

Captain VOETSCH. In most cases that’s a correct statement.

Mr. PUTNAM. General Holland, the commander-in-chief of

SOCOM, has requested a commandwide review of ranges. Did you

participate in the setting up of that study? Could you elaborate on

the need for the range as a Tiger Team?

General TANGNEY. I have not participated as a direct participant.

We have a number of very, very talented officers, colonel and

below, who participate in that on a daily basis, some of whom are

represented here today. That’s the study that I was referring to

earlier that we hope to get published by the end of the summer.

And, of course, the genesis of that or the rationale for commissioning that study was to ensure that in an era of declining availability

of critical range assets throughout all the services and DOD that

we had a better picture of what was available in the joint community, and also we had better insights on areas where we needed to

spend our own limited dollars on a major force program 11 to make

selective investments for SOF-unique ranges. I hope that answers

your question, sir.

Mr. PUTNAM. It does. Thank you.

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Colonel Waldhauser, the issues that you face on the West Coast

are similar to those on the East Coast in terms of population encroachment and urban growth and noise restrictions and competition for commercial airspace. If you had to rank the threats to

readiness, the threats to training, the encroachments that are out

there, what would be at the top? Would it be the tightened airspace, would it be the marine mammal protections that impact

your ability to practice amphibious assaults? Could you attempt to

rank the greatest threats that you face on the West Coast where

you are, and then I’ll allow the others to do the same, particularly

the captain.

Colonel WALDHAUSER. In addition to obviously the use of our sea

space and beaches, I would rank 2. The first would be night operations and the second would be live fire. It’s been discussed here

quite extensively this morning about the use of the night. And an

interesting side note is during our time in the northern Arabian

Sea we had detainees from the Taliban onboard of the USS

Pellalou. During their interviews, when asked why the Taliban collapsed rather rapidly once the momentum went against them in

late November, early December, one of the main reasons was that

not only the Marine Corps but all forces fought at night. That’s one

of the main reasons, according to a Taliban detainee, that they decided to pack it in. So I think consequently we have a very big combat multiplier net operations, and anything that would restrict

that, to include noise abatement, what-have-you, we have got to

find ways to work around that. So my first priority would be at

night.

The second would be live fire. We had talked earlier today what

the requirements are for live fire and why it is so important to be

on the mark when you’re delivering live ordnance. The only thing

I would add is that in many cases the ability to drop bombs, for

example, in Afghanistan for sure would require positive identification of the target.

Now when you’re on the ground, what that translates into is the

enemy is in closer proximity to you in order for you to get that

positive ID. So when the enemy is approaching and it’s closer and

it’s time for you to drop live ordnance, there is no margin for error.

You have to have the confidence to be able to press the button, pull

the trigger, call for whatever you need in order to make it happen

in close proximity.

So, consequently, the ability to conduct live fire training at night

in the walking stage of your training to graduate to nighttime operations at close ranges is something that is very, very critical. And

in order to exploit some of the capabilities of our systems, laser

designators, flares have been mentioned, you have to be able to do

it at night.

So the ability to fight at night, drop bombs on different ranges,

different target sets, those to me are the two most important things

that I would rate at the top of my list.

Mr. PUTNAM. Is what you just described what might colloquially

be described as the ‘‘pucker factor’’?

Colonel WALDHAUSER. It’s been called that and much worse, I

must say.

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Mr. BARR. The gentleman from—does the gentleman from California, Mr. Horn, need to go first? Would that be OK, Mr. Schrock?

The gentleman from California is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. HORN. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is indeed a very important issue and I’d like to put in the hearing at this point what

I had to say on the defense authorization bill on May 9th. And it’s

H. 2333 in the Congressional Record. I’m not going to go into all

the detail we did there, but I’m going to just use one example.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. HORN. There’s been considerable concern, as we know, with

this legislation and authorization as well as appropriations. It gives

the Department of Defense some limited exemptions from current

environmental laws, and I’ve talked to a number of the generals involved that have to deal with that issue at Camp Pendleton on the

way between Long Beach where my district is and San Diego. I

was particularly pleased with the attitude of the officer corps there

that they were doing the best they could to merge environmental

interests along with training interests.

I had a particular issue in terms of training and that is helicopters. I’ve been very disappointed in what is going on in part of

Afghanistan when we’ve lost a number of people. And I asked the

question like at—Camp Pendleton can help a lot because they have

a topography there where you’d have to move back and forth with

different wind matters and so forth. So I just want to deal with one

issue now and that’s fact No. 1.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act does not interfere with military

training in past wars for a simple reason: The courts never applied

the act in this way until March 2002, when the U.S. District Court

for the District of Columbia interpreted the Migratory Bird Treaty

Act to apply to military readiness activities. This is an important

and real change in application of the Migratory Board Act and we

must address it.

Navy carrier battle groups, as we’ve listened, in deploying Marine Corps and Air Force squadrons have been blocked by court

order from using the only U.S. bombing range available to them in

the Western Pacific. And we need to be clear that our forces deploying to Afghanistan cannot now use the only range suitable for

training with smart laser-guided weapons as a result of unprecedented judicial interference with military readiness activities.

Fact No. 2. There’s no Presidential exemption available under

the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Under the current district court interpretation, any military training can be enjoined and, except

through legal appeals, there is no way to continue that vital military training.

I go on with fact No. 3, Mr. Chairman, and I’ll let it stand for

itself. The legislation that we should have and that we certainly

think we did have in the defense authorization bill, that the legislation could set the necessary balance, and I urge my colleagues

here and there to support that.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank the gentleman from California. The gentleman

from Virginia, Mr. Schrock, is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. First of all,

let me thank you all for coming. I really admire what you do, what

you continue to do, and the service you give to our country. Thank

you for coming here to tolerate us for a morning.

Before I begin, I want to make one thing clear. I hope you’ll notice that the two members in this committee that were the most

critical of what you did, did not see fit to stick around. I think if

they had they would have a better understanding of what you all

do and would maybe change their mind on that. But I want people

to notice that.

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Let me comment on one thing the colonel said: We own the night.

You’re absolutely right. I flew in the AC–130 gunships, which was

a hoot, boy. They really own the night. That’s something the Russians could not do when they were in this war and that’s the reason they weren’t successful and that’s the reason we are and will

continue to be successful.

There’s one question I’m going to ask of Commander Metz and

Captain Amerine, but I want to make a comment about something

that the captain said. He said the best training we got was in Afghanistan, which is a sad commentary. We’re to blame for that. It’s

a shame you had to go there to get the best training. You should

have had it before you went over there. Fortunately you’ve had

good results, but that should not have been the case.

Captain, in your written statement, you said, ‘‘From an operational perspective our team’s ability to train for this war was far

from ideal. Range encroachment issues affected nearly every aspect

of the missions—of our mission’s profile.’’ Could you go into detail, give me a description of where the most

critical limits on your training, and if the commander could do the

same thing because you’re in similar functions, I’d appreciate that.

Captain AMERINE. Yes, sir. I’ll kind of go by the numbers on this.

We infiltrated by helicopter. There was a long low level flight in

Afghanistan. Prior to infiltration, prior to the war, we had never

done a practice mission to the parameters that we executed in the

war. Where we train at Fort Campbell, for example, we could do

low level operations within Fort Campbell itself, but the entire perimeter of the base is about 100 kilometers. So if we want to do

anything long range, we have to go off post where we need to go

up to elevations of about 500 feet, which is not low level flying really by helicopter standards in terms of what we did in Afghanistan.

Once we got on the ground, we engaged in long range vehicle

movements. We’re driving all over the desert out there attacking

the Taliban. We, prior to going in, we couldn’t do any of that from

our post because it was just very difficult to do the coordinations

at the last minute. It would have been very difficult even with

more time to do the sort of coordinations necessary to do any long

range movement in a realistic environment. We would have been

forced essentially to do laps around the post which soldiers on my

team know really well since they’ve been in 5th Group for decades,

in some cases.

Laser designation equipment, again we face restrictions in terms

of where we could use it. A big problem is we have to train on the

same ranges all the time for the same pieces of equipment. So you

can get there and turn it on and you go OK, I’m going to be under

that tree, the one I was at last time and we’ll be working under

there. You’re not getting the realism out of this training.

In terms of close air support, the best training that we get for

close air support in my experience has been in Kuwait at the

Udairi training area. And again, as we were gearing up to go to

war, we just didn’t have the time to go to better facilities and we

just couldn’t do it. We had to practice just talking on the radio back

and forth and we did what we could with the time available.

Finally, although fortunately we didn’t have to execute this aspect of it, the NBC threats, chemical weapons, we’re very restricted

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on where we can actually use tear gas, which to me is about the

best thing you could use because you know your mask is sealed or

not if your eyes are burning. And we have great restrictions on

where we could use that, too. So again that wasn’t something really

afforded us.

So all of these things contributed to diminish our ability to train

for this war, sir.

Mr. SCHROCK. Kerry.

Commander METZ. Sir, as you know but perhaps some of the

other distinguished members of the committee might not know, we

routinely deploy SEAL platoons year round all the time 6 months

at a pop. So therefore we have to strike a delicate balance before

we send these guys out to ensure that they have the best training

possible and minimize as much as possible the impact on their family. It doesn’t make any sense to have these guys be deployed away

for a year to do training to get ready to go do a 6-month deployment overseas.

So what has happened over the time as we’ve identified ranges

near where the—either on the East Coast near Dam Neck and Little Creek in Virginia or on the West Coast near Coronado, CA or

for the SEAL delivery vehicle teams out in Hawaii, ranges close to

minimize as much as possible the impact.

With the restrictions and reductions in our ability to train at

some of our nearby ranges, what has happened in certain cases is

we’ve had to chop up the training, if you will. For example, they’ll

do their range live fire at one range. They’ll have to do, as the captain mentioned, movement at another one. They’ll have to do long

range air infiltration, the halo or static line parachuting at another

location. What happens is that the guys very rarely get the opportunity to put it all together because of the restrictions, as we mentioned earlier, at San Clemente Island or out at the Chocolate

Mountain aerial gunnery range near Niland, CA.

Therefore, at times either you send these guys away for a while

where they can do it all together, that may be overseas, as Jason

mentioned, or the first time they have to do it, meaning when they

go into combat, is the first time they can put all the pieces together

and do the entire full mission profile. What we want to look to the

future for is somewhere where we will have assurance that we can

continue to train in a full mission profile nearby so that our SEALs

and special boat operators, when they go out the door they are fully

combat-ready and, as Colonel Waldhauser mentioned, we don’t

want anything they do in combat to be the first time they’ve ever

done it. Thank you, sir.

Mr. SCHROCK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, my time has expired.

Let me finish by saying as much as I appreciate these hearings and

value them for the knowledge we gain from them, I hope when this

is over this committee and this Congress will do something and do

it swiftly to ease some of the regulations that have been forced on

these folks. Because we’re just entering the beginning phases of

this war, I believe, it’s going to be a long haul. The best training

they can get, I think it’s incumbent upon us to give them the best

training they can get, and these regulations are obviously hampering that, and we need to put a stop to some of that right away.

Thank you very much.

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Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman. The Chair notes the presence

of the distinguished gentlelady from the District of Columbia, Ms.

Eleanor Holmes Norton. Welcome to this very important hearing.

We’ll have a few more questions and then we’ll move on to the

second panel, but there have been so many issues that have been

raised I’d like to have a second round for those members that

might have additional questions. Recognize myself for 5 minutes.

General Tangney, in your written testimony and I think perhaps

in some of your oral testimony you refer to close air support training with live ordnance. And you mention in particular an incident

at the Udairi range in Kuwait. What did the official investigation

reveal with regard to any role the lack of proper and comprehensive training might have played in that incident?

General TANGNEY. Well, sir, as I recall the results of the accident

investigation which I was briefed on quite some time ago, the situation in that particular case involved soldiers from the 3rd Special

Forces Group, based out of Fort Bragg, NC, some of their Kuwaiti

allies, who were injured, through the erroneous drop of a 500-

pound bomb, actually three 500-pounders, in a vicinity of their observation post on the Udairi range.

In that incident, as I said, we had several soldiers from Kuwait

army seriously injured. We had a couple of soldiers in the 3rd Special Forces Group critically injured and we had a major from New

Zealand who was killed.

The accident investigation in that particular case pointed out

that the proximate cause of the accident was pilot error. And, in

fact, on that particular iteration, it was the first time that team

had trained with that pilot who is flying off of a carrier which had

recently deployed into the Persian Gulf to assume operations in

support of U.S. Central Command.

In that particular case, the carrier battle group was not afforded,

as I recall, an opportunity to do a full mission workup prior to deployment at Vieques as normally would have been the case. So, in

essence, they were completing the final leg of their training at

Udairi range, and our personnel, of course, were exercising their

Mission Essential Task List [METL] task for close air support

which, as Captain Amerine pointed out, unfortunately cannot be

conducted many places in CONUS, and one of the premier training

areas is, in fact, Udairi range. So we have a situation where our

people who were training up engaged a target with a pilot who in

fact was training up and we had a tragic accident because, as I

said, of pilot error.

Mr. BARR. I know that none of us can say with any degree of certainty—actually I guess there aren’t degrees of certainty—whether

something is certain or not, none of us can say with certainty that

had a certain type of training been available, an accident would not

have happened or lives may not have been lost. But is it fair to say

that the type of training that is being curtailed with regard to in

particular the close air support and coordinating missions is the

type that is designed specifically to avoid the problem that occurred

and the casualties that occurred at the Udari range?

General TANGNEY. Yes, sir, that’s correct.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Captain Amerine, if you would, please, tell

this panel just very briefly, because I know you don’t want to go

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into this in great detail, but I think it’s important for the panel to

go into this, how you earned the Bronze Star for valor and the Purple Heart.

Captain AMERINE. Sir, my detachment was assigned to operate

with Hamed Karzai and his Pashtu and anti-Taliban forces in Afghanistan as he attempted to operate within Oruzgon province and

ultimately take control of Khandahar. On my detachment, two

members of my team were awarded Silver Stars, in their cases

posthumously, and eight members of my team were awarded

Bronze Stars for valorous action engaged in the battles we took

part in that campaign.

Mr. BARR. Were you involved in the incident at Khandahar in

which there were casualties occasioned by friendly fire?

Captain AMERINE. Yes, that was my team. Every member of my

detachment including myself was medically evacuated after the

bombing.

Mr. BARR. You state in your written testimony, I think—and I

apologize if you went into this in your oral testimony, but I know

in your written testimony you state from an operational perspective

your team’s ability to train for this war was far from ideal. Range

encroachment issues affected nearly every aspect of your mission’s

profile.

Were you thinking of or would that comment be directly applicable to the incident that you just indicated occurred?

Captain AMERINE. Sir, I want to be careful how I answer this because there’s an ongoing investigation which, as I understand it, is

not yet complete. The thing that I’ll say, though, is in my experience with accidents of this nature normally there are skills that

are identified which could have been better trained on, things that

we could have done more of in order to mitigate the chances of

these accidents.

So I anticipate that there will be lessons that will come out

where they’ll say these are some things that we need to focus on

in the future to keep this from happening, things that we need to

train on. But that’s about as far as I really could comment on it,

sir.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent for 1 additional

minute. Without objection.

Would any of the 5 of you gentlemen disagree with the following

statement: That the type of exercises that are available for our

troops in training that are being limited by the legal restrictions

that we’re talking about here and the judicial restrictions that the

gentleman from California indicated, that when those are cut back,

when those are curtailed, when those are not available in the duration and quantity that we have had in the past, that real things

happen with real consequences, sometimes very tragic? Is that an

accurate statement? Thank you. All gentlemen are indicating

agreement with that. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Any further questions?

Mr. GILMAN. Just one question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. The gentleman from New York is recognized for 2

minutes.

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Mr. GILMAN. With regard to broadband restrictions, is the Defense Department trying to do anything to launch some military

satellite so that we can increase the band use?

General TANGNEY. Sir, I guess I’m stuck with that as the senior

oldest man present at the table.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you, General.

General TANGNEY. It certainly goes beyond my level of expertise.

I know enough about satellites to be minimally conversant and

dangerous on that topic. I would defer to anyone else who might

have more expertise.

Sir, I don’t think we’re able to answer that question.

Mr. GILMAN. Is there a need for greater band usage by the—— General TANGNEY. Band width is a problem within the Defense

Department and across the Services. And the lack of band width,

the increasing scarcity of band width, coupled with the development of systems like Global Hawk, which was mentioned earlier,

and Predator, which use up a great deal of band width, coupled

with the network centric or net centric technologies which are out

there now which commanders can avail themselves of, make band

width an increasingly scarce commodity within the department, an

increasingly sought-after commodity.

Mr. GILMAN. Anyone else want to comment on band width problems?

Commander METZ. Yes, sir. To amplify some of the general’s

comments, let me give you a real world example. In naval special

warfare we have a mission support center located in Coronado, CA.

And what this mission support center allows us to do is deploy far

fewer people forward into a hostile territory and still conduct the

same level of mission, the same types of missions with the same

or greater effectiveness.

In order to use this reach-back capability to the mission support

center, we require a great deal of band width. There are a number

of systems, most of them classified, that enable us to reach back

and get intelligence data from the entire intelligence community, to

get operational maps, charts, weather data. And without the increase in band width that needs to become available, one of our

concerns is in the future we may not be able to do that and leverage the technology and the capabilities of the mission support center and other new emerging technologies in order to minimize the

amount of people that we have to expose to the very riskiest part

of warfare. So that’s always—it’s a concern now and it’s going to

be a greater concern in the future, sir.

Mr. GILMAN. Just to the entire panel, has the band width problem restricted any of your current operations in any manner? Anyone want to comment?

General TANGNEY. I’ll comment in general terms, sir. As I indicated, there’s only so much band width available. To give you a

concrete example, in the ongoing war in Afghanistan, particularly

with our formations and Special Forces, Air Force Special Tactics,

Navy SEALs, the primary means of communication was by satellite

communications. There are only so many frequencies available. So

while frequencies were certainly made available, I think the Captain Amerine and probably Commander Metz would certainly verify the fact that band width was a major concern for operators on

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the ground in terms of having access. And it’s certainly not enough

to go around for everybody in the quantities that they would like

to have it.

Mr. GILMAN. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Are there other members who have additional questions? The gentleman from Florida, Mr. Putnam, is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. PUTNAM. I want to pick up where I left off on the last round.

Captain Voetsch, Dr. Mayberry, the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Readiness who will join us on our second panel has stated, ‘‘To maintain the dominance of our armed forces on the battlefield, they must train as they fight. That means practicing and conducting exercises that closely replicate the realities of the battlefield. If we fail to do that, we put lives at risk.’’

Do you agree with that statement, and could you, in following up

to my earlier round, prioritize the critical degradations or encroachments that you as a naval aviator have faced?

Captain VOETSCH. Yes, sir. Some of them have been covered.

What concerns naval aviation in general and particularly due to

lessons learned from Afghanistan, altitude. And we weren’t allowed

to go below 20,000 feet mainly because that kept us out of surface

to air threat. It wasn’t until several months into the Operation Enduring Freedom that we were allowed to go below that altitude.

But the point to be made is the ranges, especially on the East

Coast, it’s tough to be able to operate above 20,000 feet to replicate

the profiles we use when we are either dropping GPS-guided weapons or laser-guided weapons. So that’s a concern as far as the

ranges.

Also we need to practice putting out expendables. It’s not just all

air-to-ground ordnance, flares, chaff. There’s restrictions on when

and where we can do that. And obviously, as was pointed out earlier, it’s a challenge to land the aircraft on board the carrier, especially at night. And we constantly, any time we land anywhere, will

do several landings to practice to simulate what we go through at

sea. So there’s another issue there also.

One thing I will point out, we practice—it’s called collateral damage. We work extremely hard to pinpoint the target when we drop

on it. In fact, it’s so critical over in Afghanistan, that’s something

that has now developed into a term called time-sensitive strike.

And that’s where you do an entire process again of finding a target

and effectively hitting it right away. And that’s another issue that

we’re training toward that requires ranges, and not just what we

think of land ranges like Eglin or Vieques, but battle—you need

water space to do a coordinated strike, at least from the Navy side,

but even in the joint arena when you have carrier battle group or

several battle groups operating in the ocean.

Mr. PUTNAM. Colonel Waldhauser, could you also elaborate on

the issue of collateral damage and how limited or bad or improper

training contributes or does not contribute to collateral damage in

friendly fire accidents and other related factors like that?

Colonel WALDHAUSER. Well, I must say that I did find out this

morning that on December 5th when Captain Amerine was in fact

wounded, Marines from the MEU flew up into Khandahar and

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evacuated Afghani nationals and some of our U.S. servicemen as

well. It was very interesting to find that out.

Collateral damage is one of the things that goes back to quality

training. In order to be confident to hit your target, especially at

night, you have to be able to train properly to do that. In order to

have the forward air controllers on the ground, to have the expertise to call in the target, to have the expertise to work with the sophisticated equipment that’s required in order to drop a precisionguided munition, again goes back to training.

And the ranges, for example, are somewhat limited to do that.

We talked about San Clemente Island today. San Clemente Island

on the southern tip, in a very small area you’re allowed to drop

bombs, laser-guided munitions. It’s very, very restricted. Laserguided munitions are also very restricted in terms of where and

when you can drop them even at the other ranges throughout

southern California. So collateral damage will always be with us,

it seems to me. You have to identify the target, you want to limit

the collateral damage, that’s why we have precision munitions. And

in order to be able to do that properly, you simply have to train

to do that.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you. Captain Amerine, you’ve heard your

colleagues’ testimony on the subject and you have elaborated very

eloquently on the situation that you called being less than ideal.

What are your concerns for the future as these encroachments continue to grow, as urban encroachments, particularly in areas

around Fort Bragg or Fort Campbell, continue to grow? What are

your concerns for the future and the future readiness of Green Berets unless congressional action mitigates this?

Captain AMERINE. Sir, the one area that I would focus on, being

a captain with the amount of experience I have—there are others

obviously a bit more qualified to speak on the broader implications

of this—but from what I’ve seen, urbanization has generally led to

second and third order effects.

For example, the towns will extend near the ranges so the wildlife will move on to the base’s military ranges. And then from there

you end up with a whole bunch of other problems that develop. So

from my point of view, I think urbanization itself is something that

we need to focus on to some degree to mitigate the future impacts

on our bases and on our readiness.

Mr. PUTNAM. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BARR. Thank the gentleman from Florida. The gentleman

from Connecticut will close out this round of questioning and he’s

recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for recognizing me. The

cold war is over and I think we all agree the world is a more dangerous place. And based on the hearings our committee has had,

our subcommittee and the full committee, I don’t think it’s a question of if, I think it’s a question of when, where, and of what magnitude we’ll face weapons of mass destruction in this country, attempts. And given that, I understand why we are doing all the

things with wiretapping and arrests and so on. But what I’m curious to think about is that it seems to me the whole strategy of warfare certainly changes when we’re talking about terrorist activities.

And one of the strategies in response to the threat is going to be

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preemptive rather than responding. I mean, that’s one of the outcomes.

I’m also going to say publicly that when I first went out as the

chairman of the National Security Subcommittee with some of our

members and the military gave us the opportunity to experience

firsthand how you train, to be on a helicopter at night, to see the

watch that was at the front and on the side and the back, to feel

the extraordinary heat of this helicopter in a summer day, to wear

night goggles and realize I couldn’t look to my left or right and

then to realize that I had to respond to an attack, you all make

it look so easy that I think that’s probably one of the challenges

you’re faced with. We see a film, we see this, and it looks so easy

we don’t feel the tension and see the incredible adrenaline that has

to be, you know, involved in this amazing effort that you all make.

I guess what I would like to ask each of you, and maybe this is

a question that doesn’t have an answer—I’d like to know if any of

you were in battle when you thought it would have been nice to

have had a little more training on a particular aspect of what you

were doing? And that doesn’t mean you went unprepared. So this

is not an indictment against the military, but where there are some

things where you said, boy, I just wish I had more hours or few

more days or few more weeks before today to do this particular

thing. And I open it up to any of you.

Captain AMERINE. Sir, I guess I’ll open with this one. As a team

leader on the ground with 10 men, I’ll be honest, every aspect of

my training, I wished I could have had more time to prepare for

anywhere from the vehicle movements to the infiltration by helicopter, use of laser designation equipment. These were all things

which weren’t a surprise to us. I mean, as I said in my testimony,

I consider this a classic unconventional war. These were all things

that, you know, in our dreams these were all things that we anticipated doing some day if we were allowed to perform a mission such

as this. But still when I was on the ground, every aspect we could

have done more of and it would have benefited us, I believe.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s quite an answer. Thank you. Anyone else?

Colonel WALDHAUSER. I would just add that while at Camp

Rhino in the southern Afghanistan desert, helicopter operations at

night in the most extreme or severe conditions I have ever seen

were very, very dangerous. We have a process of operational risk

management that we brief all our missions. And we try to mitigate

them for various means. Green, of course, means good to go, yellow

would be medium, and red would be severe problems. At Rhino we

had severe problems when we started and we couldn’t—through all

the efforts to mitigate them, they were still red or severe when we

took off.

So, consequently, there was not a very large margin for error in

helicopter operations in that environment. There were times when

I wished we had more nighttime helicopter operation training in

order to mitigate that, even though we did everything we could to

do that. We had crashes at Rhino, but fortunately no one was

killed. Later on there were a few helicopters that did crash and

marines died. Fortunately we did not have that experience, but, as

I said, we did have crashes. So there were times again when I wish

we had some more night vision goggle, low level training for pilots,

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although they were extremely proficient, did a superb job under the

most extreme conditions that I’ve ever witnessed.

Mr. SHAYS. It seems to me what you’re saying, that someone has

to decide not whether to send troops into battle but to send troops

into training; that you want them to have a level of training that

potentially could risk their lives even in training, but if you don’t

do that, they’re not going to be in a position to carry out their mission in battle.

And so is that basically a statement to us that once in a while

if we see men and women who have lost their lives in training that

may unfortunately be the necessary outcome of trying to prepare

for war?

Colonel WALDHAUSER. Well, unfortunately loss of life in training

is not routine, but it does happen. We do everything we can to mitigate that. There is not a life lost in training that is worth that particular effort. But again the conditions in Afghanistan were such

and missions were such that they had to be flown. Doing everything you can to mitigate the risk that is humanly possible is

what’s required. But the level of skill required when have you such

a small margin for error has to be there. And that goes back to

training. When a Marine Expeditionary Unit leaves southern California, in my particular case, you essentially are trained. You have

to be prepared at a moment’s notice to do many, many missions

and tasks. We’re certified to conduct 23 missions and tasks when

we leave the West Coast. So essentially the bulk of your training

is over.

Now we have the opportunity to train at various locations in the

Western Pacific and in the Gulf to maintain that level of proficiency. But one of the challenges that we have operating from the

sea is when we go on station and are essentially cutting circles in

the ocean to maintain that proficiency for our pilots is very difficult.

As an aside, what we tried to do before we went into Afghanistan

is we conducted low level night operations in an adjacent country

in order to get that proficiency back up to speed, primarily as a result of the amount of time that we were at sea for the extended

period.

Mr. SHAYS. My red light is on. The chairman said I could close

here. Is there any question that you need to put on the record that

we should have asked that you’re prepared to answer that we

should have put on the record? If not, General, I’ll look forward to

that drink.

General TANGNEY. I knew I shouldn’t have handed that many

coins out.

Mr. SHAYS. It’s got your name on it.

General TANGNEY. Sir, that will earn you another one.

Mr. BARR. I thank the gentleman from Connecticut. Words really

cannot express the esteem that this entire panel on both sides of

the aisle has for you gentlemen here today and the men and

women that perform so admirably on behalf of our Nation for the

cause of freedom around the world under the most trying circumstances imaginable. We all know that we barely scratched the

surface of the operational needs and the training problems and soVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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lutions that you see based not on theory and conjecture but the

real world out there.

If there are any additional materials that any of you all would

like to submit or deem appropriate to submit for the record in addition to what you’ve already submitted, please do. So our record will

remain open for 7 days to include additional materials in the

record.

And there may be additional questions that Members might submit to you all afterwards. We would appreciate your expeditious response to those.

As you leave here today, do so with the thanks of a very grateful

Congress, a very grateful Nation, and we hope that the Lord will

continue to watch over you and those who serve under you. Thank

you, gentlemen.

We will take a 10-minute break before we welcome and swear in

our second panel.

[Recess.]

Mr. BARR. I’d like to reconvene this hearing of the Committee on

Government Reform entitled Critical Challenges Confronting National Security: Continuing Encroachment Threatens Force Readiness, and to welcome our second panel.

What I’ll do is just introduce our very, very distinguished second

panel here very briefly, and without—we will also introduce into

the record all of your bios which are very distinguished and that

will provide more than adequate background information in support of your appearing here as expert witnesses, for which we appreciate.

Our second panel, following our first panel of military witnesses,

includes three very distinguished leaders of the civilian side of defense. The Honorable Raymond DuBois, Deputy Under Secretary of

Defense for Installations and Environment; the Honorable Paul

Mayberry, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Readiness; and

Mr. Barry Holman, Director, Defense Capabilities and Management of the U.S. General Accounting Office [GAO]. I’d like to welcome the panel today. And I would ask the three panelists, if they

would, to stand and raise their right hands to be sworn in.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. BARR. Thank you. Let the record reflect that all three witnesses answered in the affirmative. As I know you gentlemen all

know, both from your experience as well as the experience of the

prior panel how we proceed, we will ask each one of you to provide

an opening statement limited to approximately 5 minutes. Your full

written statement and any additional material that you brought

with you here today will be inserted into the record, without objection. The record will remain open for 7 days so that if there’s any

additional material that you believe would be relevant for this committee’s consideration and appropriate for submission in the record,

that will be gladly received by the committee.

There may be additional questions that any committee member

or Member wish to pose to you after the hearing today and we will

submit those to you and would very much appreciate your quick responses thereto.

Again, thank you all for appearing with us today. We appreciate

your patience also in the length of the prior panel, but I know you

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can understand just how important it was to get full questions and

answers background on the record from that panel. We appreciate

your patience.

At this time I’d like to recognize the Honorable Raymond DuBois,

who is our first witness, for an opening statement. If you all would

please remember to make sure you pull the microphones very close.

They’re high tech, but you still have to get them pretty close.

Thank you.

STATEMENTS OF RAYMOND F. DuBOIS, JR., DEPUTY UNDER

SECRETARY OF DEFENSE FOR INSTALLATIONS AND ENVIRONMENT; PAUL MAYBERRY, DEPUTY UNDER SECRETARY

OF DEFENSE, READINESS; AND BARRY W. HOLMAN, DIRECTOR, DEFENSE CAPABILITIES AND MANAGEMENT, GENERAL

ACCOUNTING OFFICE

Mr. DUBOIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The prior panel was indeed impressive and deserved every minute that you gave it. We

appreciate this opportunity, Dr. Mayberry and myself. As you indicated, we have a joint statement that will be entered into the

record. I want to, however, address in my oral remarks some of the

themes that came up this morning, some of the questions, some of

the concerns from both sides of the aisle.

Last month after careful interagency deliberations, led by the

Council of Environmental Quality, including the Departments of

Interior and Commerce, the Environmental Protection—I don’t

think any of them are working.

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we start over.

Mr. DUBOIS. As I indicated, the prior panel deserves every moment that you gave it, and I appreciate the fact that they got their

opportunity to relay, shall we say, their ground truths, some would

call them anecdotes. I think if you string enough anecdotes such as

the ones that they testified to, you end up with empirical evidence.

Last month, as you all know, after careful interagency deliberations led by the Council of Environmental Quality to include the

staff and senior leadership of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Departments of Interior and Commerce and OMB, President Bush and Secretary Rumsfeld submitted to Congress the legislative component of our readiness and range preservation initiative as part of the annual defense authorization bill.

Now these provisions are designed first and foremost to save

lives, save the lives of America’s young men and women, by preparing them and their equipment for combat on the first day of battle.

These provisions are narrow in scope, addressing only military

readiness activities, that is to say, the training, testing, and operations that relate purely to combat. And we believe they need to

be retained. The provisions are necessary to safeguard existing

practices against litigation seeking to overturn them. There is no

better example than the proposed Migratory Bird Treaty Act provision, as was related to earlier. This provision would merely restore

the legal and regulatory status quo as it has existed for over 80

years. But a Federal District Court, as Mr. Horn referred to, in

April of this year enjoined all military live fire training at the

Farallon de Medinilla range, the island range in the Western Pacific.

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Now this island range is an uninhabited 206-acre hunk of volcanic rock that was leased in 1976 by the Navy for the sole purpose

of live fire training with the sea-based population, sea-based bird

population, which I would submit is smart enough to leave when

the range is hot.

But we are now prevented from training there for lack, as the

judge has indicated, of an incidental take permit from the Fish and

Wildlife Service which, I might add, has never issued such a permit

in the past.

General Myers, our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, in

a letter to Congress, ‘‘This ruling halts vital training for pilots and

shipboard crews deploying in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and threatens military training and testing nationwide. These

decisions are steadily eroding our ability to train as we fight.’’ I would also like to suggest that if the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

had the flexibility that Representative Allen implied, and there is

no Presidential waiver, I might add, in that statute, then why did

the court enjoin the Navy?

Now, our critics have been vocal in their opposition to what this

administration considers vital, fair, and balanced. As Mr.

Cummings and Ms. Watson referred, balance is indeed one of our

objectives. We have been pleased to find that the vast majority of

those who actually take the time to read and understand our proposals, friends as well as critics, leave our discussions with at least

a much better appreciation of our issues, if not support for them.

But the initial skepticism, if not opposition, is because much of

what has been written and some of what has been reported has not

been factual. For example, our proposals are limited to military

readiness activities. Our initiatives have been portrayed, however,

by some as attempting to, ‘‘exempt and grant special reprieve,’’ to

DOD from environmental statutes. To, ‘‘give the DOD a blanket exemption to ignore our laws,’’ and violate the principle that no government agency should be above the law.

In reality, and in truth, our initiatives would apply only to military readiness activities, not to closed ranges or ranges that close

in the future, and not to the routine and normal operation of installation support functions. Our initiative thus excludes the Defense Department activities that have traditionally been of greatest

concern to State and Federal regulators and only includes uniquely

military activities. That is to say, what the Department does that

is unlike any other governmental or private activities.

We cannot simply train somewhere else. As you heard in the

prior panel, there were many remote locations to site training

ranges in the 1940’s. This is no longer true. Our existing ranges

are national assets with an infrastructure of testing and training

areas targets, instrumentation, and other enormous sunk investments in place. They are typically closely associated with nearby

installations and bases that use those facilities on a regular basis

to train.

The costs involved in relocating major existing ranges would be

enormous, not just to the government but to the community economies surrounding the existing facilities.

Similarly, models and simulations cannot replace live training

and maneuver operations because they cannot replicate the stress,

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the discomfort, the other physical conditions of combat. Troop performance under live fire conditions, a series of questions that you

quite correctly posed to the prior uniformed panels, those live fire

conditions are but one aspect of training that cannot be adequately

accommodated through simulation. The stresses of handling and

releasing live ordnance, as Mr. Shays pursued that line of questioning, that important line of questioning, the ability to coordinate

supporting fire conditions or the experience to guide troop deployments and maneuver under live fire conditions, cannot be replicated on a computer. Our troops’ first exposure to live fire cannot

come as they land on a hostile beach or landing zone in combat.

I am reminded of a comment that Winston Churchill once made

when he commented on his experiences in the Boer War. He said

the most exhilarating thing in his life was to have been shot at and

missed. Live ammunition, whether you’re handling it or whether

it’s coming at you, focuses your attention, it forces discipline, it instills care, and, yes, it saves lives.

Now with respect to environmental compliance, it is absolutely

necessary that the American people understand that the Department of Defense remains committed to that high level and high degree of compliance. There has been concern expressed that the proposed legislation foreshadowed a DOD retreat from its environmental responsibilities, for example, our cleanup responsibilities at

the Massachusetts Military Reservation, which I visited, and elsewhere. The Department has no intentions of backing away from

our environmental cleanup programs. We remain fully committed

at our obligations under existing law for environmental remediation. In fact, President Bush has requested in the fiscal year 2003

budget request an increase of over $150 million from last year’s request to a total of over $4.1 billion for Department of Defense’s environmental programs.

The Department is not trying to roll back environmental oversight. We will continue to be committed environmental stewards of

our natural resources.

We submit also that these goals do not have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, as was referred to earlier, some ranges are and will

continue to be the last viable habitat for some threatened and endangered species.

Mr. Chairman, we believe that military readiness can go handin-hand with environmental stewardship. Now our challenge is to

apply this principle to some of the unique problems associated with

military munitions. The entire defense leadership of this country

take very seriously their responsibility and obligation to sustain

and manage effectively the lands which the Nation has set aside

for this training and testing purpose and to sustain those lands in

such a way as to have them available for generations of soldiers

to come.

Now, as a personal aside, not unlike the young warriors who you

heard from earlier, all of who have served in combat in prior wars

are witness to the direct correlation between success on the battlefield and realistic combat training with live ammunition on unrestricted ranges in combined arms scenarios. If anything, the complexity of today’s weapons systems, the reach of our C4/ISR capabilities and the intricacy of air, land, sea joint warfighting doctrine

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only argues more compellingly for places to train with fidelity. As

we who were once soldiers and young, our sons and daughters in

uniform today are grateful to their fellow citizens in Congress who

have set aside these places for this crucial purpose.

Last night I flew back from 3 days in Europe to appear at this

important hearing. I addressed a NATO conference on this very encroachment issue. I also conferred extensively with our NATO allies, with the Partnership for Peace countries, with the European

Director General for Environment and the chairman of the European Union Military Community Finnish 4-star general, Gustav

Haglund. And based on those conversations, it occurred to me as

I was flying back last night that few other countries, few other

countries approach military training with quite the same intensity

nor believe it quite as fervently as we do. For it is only through

this combination of talented and skilled and resourceful and wellled and well-equipped soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who

have had the advantage, the advantage to train as they will fight,

individually and in cohesive formations, that we win, and we win,

and we continue to win on the battlefield. Anything less, I would

think, should and would draw condemnation from the American

people.

And, finally, Mr. Chairman, in the absence of the statutory clarifications and revisions which the administration has recommended,

we have concluded and I believe the GAO’s recent report has substantiated, notwithstanding Mr. Waxman’s comments, that the

military services will experience ever increasing loss of training

and test range capabilities. The outcome, Secretary Rumsfeld and

the Joint Chiefs of Staff, they believe that the Congress and the executive branch would find wholly inconsistent with our obligations

to the military and ultimately to our citizens.

Thank you very much Mr. Chairman. I turn the mic over to my

good friend, Dr. Paul Mayberry.

Mr. BARR. Thank you very much, Mr. DuBois. I would ask unanimous consent that the document that all of you see displayed on

the TV screens entitled Department of Defense Range Organizations, which is the offices involved in encroachment issues and

range sustainability, be introduced, be made a part of the record.

Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. BARR. So if any of you all want to refer to this Rube-Goldberg-appearing document, please feel free to.

Mr. Mayberry, you’re recognized for 5 minutes, sir.

Mr. MAYBERRY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It certainly is a privilege to follow the previous panel, as they are the individuals that

we collectively serve, as they serve us. And we must put them only

in a position to be successful.

Our existing ranges, the land, the sea and the airspaces, are critical to ensuring the continued readiness of our forces. Central to

successful training is our ability to practice for a wide variety of

operations and to conduct complex mission rehearsals under realistic combat conditions.

The testing of our equipment and the training of our forces is a

very complex undertaking, as was well described in the previous

panel. But their proper execution raises considerable challenge. As

we train and test our forces and our equipment, we must not only

ensure the readiness of our forces, but preserve public safety, community welfare, and the natural heritage of our ranges. Foremost

in the mind of all military manners is the ultimate readiness of our

force. It is such readiness that saves lives in combat and ultimately

wins battles.

There’s a growing realization that our ability to train and test is

being compromised by a variety of encroachment factors. Though

the exact cause of encroachment may vary from range to range and

from one part of the globe to another, the effects on testing and

training both at home and abroad pose increasing challenges to our

readiness. Although the services have found work-arounds to some

training requirements, the viability and the fidelity of that training

has suffered. Even when work-arounds do not increase and advance realism, a huge price is often paid in terms of direct dollar

expenditures, resources to replan an event, to transport troops and

equipment to other locations, or fly aircraft further.

We now confront a national problem and these specific individual

accommodations cumulatively become the de facto standard for regulating all of our DOD ranges. And while sometimes necessary in

specific instances, work-arounds impose great strains and are unacceptable as the status quo.

The Department of Defense takes its environmental stewardship

responsibility seriously as part and parcel of our mission. We do

not view realistic combat training and testing as incompatible with

our environmental responsibilities.

The General Accounting Office, acting upon this committee’s

question, has recently completed an analysis of encroachment on

training ranges within the United States. While we’re currently in

the process of reviewing and commenting on those findings, we are

familiar with their methodology, have worked closely with their investigative team, and are in general agreement with their findings.

Their conclusions substantiate that the Department of Defense and

the military services have lost training range capabilities and can

be expected to experience increased losses in the future, absent any

efforts to mitigate encroachment. We believe that the GAO report

is timely and we will use it as the basis for developing comprehensive responses to our overall encroachment challenges.

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The services have ongoing programs to better inventory their

training ranges and to document the encroachment effects. The Department has initiated efforts to incorporate encroachment into our

readiness reporting processes to better quantify these encroachment effects and to improve the data management to better oversee

the progress being made.

Let me just focus on a few of these efforts quickly. In terms of

readiness reporting, we undertook a project last year at the direction of the Secretary of Defense to improve both the way that we

assess and report our unit readiness. Our study suggests that the

department should implement a new capabilities-based readiness

system to provide timely and accurate information on the readiness

of our forces and their supporting infrastructure. Such a system

will provide information that reveals broad readiness trend information.

However, as of today, the readiness reporting systems of the

services and the department are not sufficiently refined nor are

they detailed enough to capture the cumulative effects of degradations to realistic training or to acknowledge the compounded cost

of work-arounds and alternative training means.

The department is also actively investigating measures to identify and report readiness of our installations affected by encroachment that will in turn provide the necessary test and training resources to achieve unit readiness. Such reporting, tailored to installation readiness, provides encroachment information with sufficient

fidelity to identify where and how these limitations are affecting an

installation’s ability to meet its training mission.

Reliable readiness reporting data must also include accurate information. The quantification of encroachment impacts readiness

has really been a weakness to our reporting systems, but we are

seeking to change that. The Marine Corps has taken the lead in

developing methodologies for grading the ability of an installation

to support documented training requirements for the forces stationed at its base. And as part of our readiness and range preservation initiative, the department is working with all services to better

identify encroachment quantification measures that will satisfy

common informational needs as well as suit each of the services’

unique testing and training requirements.

Also, Section 1041 of the National Defense Authorization fiscal

year 2002 directed the Secretary of Defense to submit to the President a recommendation concerning whether defense impact reviews

should be established within the executive branch. The recommendation that is due to the President later this spring is currently being developed. The Department is quite concerned that

military readiness is not always given the appropriate consideration during the regulatory and administrative processions that

other agencies follow.

While our specific recommendations are not yet complete, it will

embrace four key principles. First, the Department of Defense must

receive advance notice of any proposed action that may have a potential to affect military training, testing or its operations.

Second, the Department must be given a reasonable opportunity

to review and comment in writing on those proposed actions.

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Third, the action agency must consider DOD’s comments and respond in writing if the agency elects not to accommodate our concerns.

And, finally, in the event that the agency decides to pursue a

course of action that does not accommodate our concerns, DOD

must be given a reasonable period of time to appeal the decision

within the executive office of the President.

Military commanders have done an exceptionally exemplary job

of protecting and restoring natural resources, often surpassing regulatory guidelines in areas that we use to train and test our military. But it is also clear that urbanization, competition for spectrum, and airspace, as well as the present application of some environmental requirements threaten our ability to test and train as

necessary to answer the call for combat when needed.

We owe our servicemen and women the best training and the

most effective weapons the country can provide to ensure that they

are ready to fight, win, and survive. The Department is committed

to a comprehensive approach of addressing encroachment and ensuring sustainable ranges.

We look forward to working with this committee and the Congress as we seek to balance the competing but not mutually exclusive national objectives of national defense and environmental responsibilities to address this complex issue.

Thank you, and I look forward to addressing your specific questions.

Mr. BARR. Thank you, Mr. Mayberry.

[The prepared statement of Mr. DuBois and Mr. Mayberry follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Mr. Holman, before you begin your statement, I want

to take the opportunity to thank you and the U.S. General Accounting Office for all the work you and your team have done with our

members and staff in preparation to their study.

I would also like to recognize for the record Mr. Glenn Furbish,

Mr. Mark Little, Mr. James Reid, Mr. John Lee, Mr. Jason

McMahon, Mr. John Van Schaik and Mr. Stefano Petrucci for their

contributions. Thank you very much, and we look forward to continuing to work with you.

And at this time I’d like to recognize Mr. Holman for your opening statement.

Mr. HOLMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for those kind remarks.

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Shays, I’m very pleased to be here to participate in this very important hearing on looking at the impact of encroachment on training readiness. As you acknowledged, my testimony is based on work that we have recently carried out at your

committee’s request, at Mr. Shays’s request, to study the effects of

encroachment on military training ranges, and we are looking specifically at the United States.

I should also note, however, that we have recently completed a

separate report looking at encroachment in training impacts overseas, and the findings of the two reports are very similar in many

respects.

In the response to the questions you have asked me to look at,

I will address briefly what we have found regarding the impact of

encroachment on training ranges, the effects of encroachment on

readiness and cost, and DOD’s progress in developing a comprehensive plan to address encroachment.

Concerning the impact of encroachment on training ranges, officials at the installations we visited gave us comments that sounded

very much like what we heard on the very first panel this morning

in terms of the impact of encroachment: lost capabilities for training and work-arounds that need to be undertaken to complete the

required training.

Available data indicate that encroachment problems are indeed

exacerbated by population growth and urbanization. DOD is particularly affected because of urban growth; around 80 percent of its

installations exceed the national average. Again, each of the installations we visited indicated they had lost capabilities in terms of

times ranges were available, the types of training that can be conducted. They noted, as Commander Metz did this morning, that encroachment results in work-arounds or adjustments to training.

Again, the potential problem with work-arounds is that they can

lack realism, can lead to the use of practice and tactics that are

contrary to what will be employed in combat.

But population growth and urbanization being a key factor affecting encroachment, service officials—and I would say we do it

too—believe that the effects of encroachment will continue to increase over time.

Concerning the impact of encroachment on training readiness

and cost, we found that despite the concerns voiced repeatedly by

Defense officials about the effects of encroachment on training,

operational readiness reports that we looked at largely do not indicate the extent to which encroachment is adversely affecting readiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00176 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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ness. In fact, most of the reports show that units have a high state

of readiness and these reports are largely silent on the issue of encroachment.

Now, we have reported repeatedly over the years of limitations

and problems in DOD’s operational readiness reports, so it is really

not that new an issue to us. We have seen it in the past with other

issues, but it’s true here today. And while improvements in readiness reporting can and should be made to show any shortfalls in

training, we believe that DOD’s ability to fully assess training limitations and their impact over time on training capabilities and

readiness will also be limited without more complete baseline data

on all training range capabilities and limitations and the services’ training range requirements and full consideration of how live

training capabilities may be complemented by other forms of training.

While these other forms of training cannot replace live training,

they cannot eliminate encroachment, they may help to mitigate the

effects of some training range limitations. Stated another way,

these objections are not meant to take the place of other actions to

deal with encroachment, but they are key to better depicting the

effects of encroachment now and particularly in the future.

While service officials have noted increasing costs because of

work-arounds related to encroachment, the services’ data systems

do not capture these costs. Now, I would not want anyone to infer

from this that there are not costs; there certainly are costs. There

are increased costs associated with working around, and as we visited many installations, we heard good examples of those. The difficulty, though, is that data systems are not established to capture

those data in a comprehensive fashion, to give you full accounting

for those costs. But those costs are real and they’re there.

At the same time, we also noted that DOD’s overall environmental conservation funding has fluctuated with only a modest

gain over the past few years.

Now, concerning the development of a comprehensive plan for

addressing encroachment, DOD certainly has recognized the need

for such a plan in the year 2000 to task subject matter experts to

begin working on that issue to develop a comprehensive plan. Now,

at the time we completed our review, the draft action plans had not

been finalized. DOD officials told us that they consider the plans

to be working documents, stressed that many of the concepts remain under review, some may be dropped, altered, modified, others

added.

Although DOD has not finalized a comprehensive plan of action

for addressing encroachment, it has made progress in several

areas. Dr. Mayberry outlined a number of steps this afternoon that

are being taken, and I think those are key steps that are needed.

Of course, as everyone is aware, DOD is also seeking legislative

action to deal with encroachment issues. Consideration of these legislative proposals affecting existing environmental legislation will

require the Congress to consider potential tradeoffs on multiple policy objectives and issues.

In conclusion, let me note that, as already alluded to, GAO has

recommended that DOD develop and maintain inventories of their

training ranges, capacities, capabilities; finalize a comprehensive

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plan of action that would include goals, timelines, projected costs

and clear assignment of responsibilities; and perhaps equally important, periodically report on progress and continuing problems

dealing with encroachment. Our recently issued report on overseas

training also recommended that DOD develop reports that actually—accurately capture the causes of training shortfalls, because

they may be many, and objectively report units’ ability to meet

their training requirements.

Mr. Chairman, this concludes my prepared statement. I will be

glad to answer any questions that you or Mr. Shays may have at

this time.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Holman follows:]

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Mr. BARR. Thank you very much. I’d like to begin with myself

for 5 minutes of questioning, and depending on when other Members show up—Mr. Shays, OK, we’ll do 10 minutes. Thank you.

With regard to the issue of national security exemption—which,

as you all know, is provided and contemplated would be used. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have been put in the legislation of Endangered

Species Act. Section 7(j) provides for a very, very broad, very clear

national security exemption saying simply that notwithstanding

any other provision of this chapter, the committee shall grant an

exemption for any agency action where the Secretary of Defense

finds such exemption is necessary for reasons of national security.

Of course, that refers to the committee comprised of various Cabinet and sub-Cabinet-level officials, including an additional Presidential appointee who will determine whether or not to grant an

exemption from the requirements of section A(2) of section 1536,

which otherwise would require that any action to be carried out by

the agency must not be carried out in such a way as to jeopardize

endangered species or threatened species, etc.

I haven’t been able to find any instance, despite the many years

that this exemption has been on the books, that, one, it’s either

been utilized or even been a request having gone up to the Secretary of Defense for its utilization.

Are you all aware of any requests or submissions for the national

security exemption under the Endangered Species Act?

Mr. DUBOIS. Mr. Chairman, my understanding is, as you indicated, there have been no requests or issuances of exemptions

under the Endangered Species Act. Let me, though, address your

question in two ways.

One, I wanted to also point out that the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act have no exemptions in

the statute, but I think it’s important to recognize that emergency

exemptions are typically limited in scope and duration and are declared only in instances of critical threats to human safety. They

have been used very rarely—and I’m speaking beyond just the Endangered Species Act. They have been used very rarely by the Department and usually as an option of last resort.

Reliance, it seems to us, on emergency declarations really fails

to address the fundamental readiness requirement that we’re trying to deal with. Environmental regulations should be addressed,

it seems to me, by establishing the appropriate legal and administrative framework, allowing the Department to fulfill its commitment to environmental protection and the readiness of the Armed

Forces.

Our concern in terms of the readiness and range preservation

initiative that we have suggested is not with emergency examinations. It’s really, as both this panel and the prior panel suggested,

it’s really with the cumulative effect on training and testing activities that must be undertaken on hundreds of military installations

every day to ensure readiness.

Now, to be sure, there are specific instances wherein such exemptions would be or could be valuable, but they will not go far

in solving the broad encroachment problems that we are faced

with, the day-to-day issues, the notion that if you are going to wait

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to exercise the national security exemption when faced with sending troops into battle, it’s too late. They are—— Mr. BARR. Not necessarily, it wouldn’t be. For example, I’ve been

looking as you’ve been speaking, and the exemption doesn’t say

anything about an emergency. It says exemption for national security reasons.

I just don’t understand, particularly with the current administration that clearly has, demonstrably has a much more appropriate

feel for national security and national defense needs than the prior

administration, and given the fact that all of the witnesses, the

military witnesses, that we have had in this whole series of hearings all indicate that the current restrictions are harming the ability of our Navy personnel, Army personnel, Marines and Air Force

personnel to prepare themselves adequately in advance of being

put into a hostile environment, as opposed to using that hostile environment for on-the-job training.

Given the fact that is well known—and let’s assume it wasn’t

well known before September 11; certainly it is now—the importance of that live fire training, comprehensive training, different

scenarios and so forth, all of which are closed off in large part

under current restrictions because of the Endangered Species Act,

in addition to the other acts; we all know that—what I fail to understand is, yes, the better approach would be to change the laws

or to pass, as we are trying to do in the Defense authorization bill,

a very limited provision.

But you all know as well as we do what happens when you have

an amendment or a proposal up here in the Congress that relates

in any way, shape or form to the Endangered Species Act, the environmental wackos come out, the media comes out, and they all say,

oh, those Republicans are going to gut the Endangered Species Act

and so forth; and the Members get very weak-kneed, and we lose

the votes. We know that happens.

One, we have not seen any firm move by the administration to

support us in trying to effectuate these changes, but in the meantime, given the emergency situation really that is facing us in

fighting the war against terrorism, why not even ask? Why not at

least ask for this exemption? And if, in fact, somebody is going to

make a claim, well, this isn’t a true emergency, heck, let them

make the claim. Put the environmentalists on the defensive for

once, not us.

I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t we take advantage of this clear

provision of the law that I think—clearly, I think, contemplated the

sort of situation that we have?

Mr. DUBOIS. I think, Mr. Chairman, as I tried to indicate, that

our understanding of the national security exemption is that it is

focused on a certain time and place.

Mr. BARR. No, it’s not, and there’s obviously no case law that established that, because nobody has ever even tried it.

What I read before was the full language of it. It says, ‘‘Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, the committee shall

grant an exemption for any agency action if the Secretary of Defense finds that such exemption is necessary for reasons of national

security.’’ It doesn’t mention emergency at all; it doesn’t mention

any time duration.

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All I’m saying is, let’s be bold. If somebody wants to claim, oh,

that’s not a true emergency, or it’s only for a short period of time,

let them make that argument and try to prove it. I don’t think they

are going to be able to because the language of this provision is

pretty clear; but even if they win, at least we’ve tried something.

Mr. MAYBERRY. I believe, as you’ve mentioned, the Department

does perceive it has been bold in terms of even coming forth with

its overall readiness and range preservation initiative. That certainly is the first focused attempt to try to address on a broader

scope the types of systematic, systemic problems that are at many

locations, particularly with respect to the Endangered Species Act.

But I think that we, as the Department, have also been criticized

that we have not been allowing for full and open debate in this

process and that any request for such a Presidential waiver would

certainly circumvent that process as well.

Mr. BARR. Good. I say good.

Mr. MAYBERRY. And I think that may be—— Mr. BARR. National security is at stake here. We’re fighting a

war.

Can you imagine if we had to fight World War II under these circumstances, saying, oh, my goodness, we can’t do something because it hasn’t been put out for full comment from all of the stakeholders? People would have laughed at us.

If one of these stakeholders doesn’t like what we’re proposing, if

they want to come forward and say, this exemption, national security should in fact take a second seat—and this will tee up the

issue quite clearly—to some clover or some tortoise—you know, the

sex acts of some tortoise or something at nighttime, so that it interferes with nighttime sea training operations, I say, let them make

that argument, see if they can make it with a straight face.

Why not put them on the defensive? Why do those of us who believe in national security and who believe it is more important than

some of this stuff—why do we have to feel we’re on the defensive?

Why proceed so cautiously that nothing gets done?

Mr. DUBOIS. Mr. Chairman, if I could just add here, I can assure

you that the administration will not hesitate to evoke section 7(j)

where appropriate, but I think, as you pointed out, that we ought

not emphasize that such an exemption—that exemption ought to

supplement our critical habitat reform that we’ve suggested—— Mr. BARR. I agree. I’m not saying, do this instead of it; but I’m

saying, at least let’s try this if, in fact, we believe that there is an

immediate need to beef up our training and get back to where we

used to be, where our forces didn’t have to tiptoe around a markedoff area when making an assault on a beach, or you couldn’t use

an armed vehicle in an area because you might go over some yellow

cockeyed grass or whatnot.

If that is the case, which we’ve heard testimony it is, let’s use

this as a tool, as part of our arsenal to try to get some changes,

because none of this other stuff is going to happen real quickly, unfortunately.

Hopefully, the best shot that we have is through the efforts of

Chairman Hansen and many others in the Defense authorization

bill; and I do appreciate the fact that you all support that. I mean,

it is important to finally have an administration that will do that;

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but I continue to be mystified and somewhat distressed that we

don’t use—that, one, we’ve never used this exemption, and we’re

not even using it right now when our Nation is at war. I think it

would be an important tool to use, not in lieu of, but in addition

to these others; and I would hope you all take that message back,

because there are certainly a lot of us here that will support you

in that interpretation.

Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Chairman, if I might add——

Mr. BARR. Yes, sir.

Mr. HOLMAN. I’m not aware of any exemptions under the Endangered Species Act, but I believe there have been two other exemptions in the past pertaining to other legislation.

I think there was one in the early 1980’s, perhaps an Executive

order issued by the President, allowing some waivers of the Clean

Water Act, Clean Air Act, pertaining to resettlement or housing of

Haitian immigrants. I believe it was in Puerto Rico.

And I think there was another one in about 1995, an exemption

dealing with RCRA, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.

That dealt with classified Air Force activity out West.

But those are the only two I’m aware of.

Mr. BARR. Were they sustained? Were they challenged at all, do

you know?

Mr. HOLMAN. I do not know.

Mr. DUBOIS. The last item that Mr. Holman was referring to is

a year—an exemption that’s granted annually. It’s with respect to

a classified situation.

Mr. BARR. OK. Thank you all.

Mr. Shays, would you take over the chair, please?

Mr. SHAYS. Certainly.

Mr. BARR. I apologize, gentlemen. I have another hearing that I

have to chair just down the hall. So I will ask Mr. Shays to take

over the chair here, but I would say now what I would say at the

conclusion of this panel.

Thank you all very much for your work in this area. It’s extremely important to our Nation’s defense and our fighting ability;

and we appreciate your continuing work, and look forward to continuing to work with you to solve these problems we’ve identified.

Thank you.

Mr. DUBOIS. Thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS [presiding]. Sorry to keep you gentlemen waiting. I

first want to put on the record, and I just want to tell the minority

as well, I’m going to allow professional staff on the majority and

minority to ask questions. So if there are any questions you want

to ask, I just want you to know you have that right and opportunity.

I would like to put on the record a letter we sent on April 24 to

Jim Hansen. It was from Chairman Burton, and I’m going to read

it.

As you know, the Committee on Government Reform is still investigating military

training range sustainability.

In March of last year, I authorized a GAO study of military training range encroachment in the continental United States and Department of Defense management of encroachment. This study will be completed tomorrow, and delivered to the

Department of Defense for comment.

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The results of the study will indicate that although the military services have

proven that environmental regulations have resulted in the degradation of training

and the loss of training ranges, the Department of Defense and the Office of the

Secretary of Defense are lacking in long-term encroachment management structures

and policies, training range inventory data or readiness reporting that reflects training encroachments. There is also no reporting requirement to Congress and its committees of jurisdiction on the loss of ranges and threatened training. I feel that

these administrative requirements are of critical importance to protecting military

training now in the future.

I gladly share the findings and recommendations of this study with you because

of your long-term commitment to protecting military training. The language in the

Hansen-Weldon amendment has my support and the support of many interested

members on the Government Reform Committee. Please let me know what I can do

to ensure its inclusion in this year’s Defense Reauthorization bill.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. And basically the inclusion was offered by Mr. Hansen in the Subcommittee on Readiness on April 25, and it passed

the full committee on May 1 and the House on May 9; and what

it requires is the Secretary of Defense to develop a comprehensive

plan for addressing problems created by limitations on the use of

military lands, marine areas and the air space reserve withdrawal

or designation for training and testing activities by, for or upon behalf of the Armed Forces.

‘‘The plan shall include’’—and it talks about the number of points

it shall include; and it says, ‘‘Not later than June 30, 2003, the Secretary of Defense shall submit to Congress a report on plans for the

Department of Defense to improve the global status of resources

and training systems,’’ and it does more.

So that will be submitted for the record.

And also Mr. Hansen briefly stopped by the committee, and we

just want to thank him for what he did. As chairman of the Resource Committee and a member of the Armed Services Committee,

he has worked very closely with this committee on training range

sustainment issues.

Based on prelimary findings by the General Accounting Office

study under discussion here today, he introduced language in the

Defense authorization bill to make sure this legislation passed, and

so we’re just very grateful to him.

And it’s an example, I think, of what this committee does. More

often than I think people realize, we take advantage of the reports

that are submitted, and we try to work with the other committees

of cognizance.

I’d like to know, Mr. DuBois, why there couldn’t have been an

attempt on the part of the administration to develop a plan without

legislation needed.

Mr. DUBOIS. The plan, Mr. Chairman, is——

Mr. SHAYS. Just a plan of taking all these various, this incredible

resource we have available of training facilities and to understand

how they all fit in, what is needed and what is not needed and so

on.

Let me ask you, how long have you been in this capacity that

you’re in right now?

Mr. DUBOIS. Slightly over 1 year.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Mayberry.

Mr. MAYBERRY. August of last year.

Mr. SHAYS. Maybe both of you could share with us why we aren’t

seeing a plan exist today, even under a previous administration.

Mr. MAYBERRY. Well, I believe that each of the Services have had

ongoing efforts in terms of trying to identify their training requirements, but there was really not an effort to integrate and bring all

of these issues to the forefront.

I think, as your graphic here illustrates, this truly is a multifunctional problem. It involves the operators, the soldiers, the sailors,

airmen and Marines, as we saw as part of the first panel. It involves the readiness advocates, myself included. It involves the environmentalists, represented by Mr. DuBois; and it also gets at

someone who is not represented here, and that is our training—excuse me, our testing and evaluation director.

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There are so many players here involved, and I don’t think it was

really—the press of really bringing this to the forefront within previous administrations.

This is not the result of the September 11th event. The Senior

Readiness Oversight Council had been addressed, for which I

served as the Executive Secretary of that body also in the previous

administration. We have—myself, as well as my boss, Dr. Chu,

Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness—have

really tried to push these issues forward because we realize the

true readiness impacts on our forces and their ability to operate.

Mr. DUBOIS. Let me, if I might, add a comment to that.

When I took this job and began to talk to Paul after he came on

board, it was clear—and the Services actually demonstrated to us—

the need for this kind of reporting. Mr. Holman has talked about

the DOD reports of the past being, ‘‘largely silent,’’ on encroachment issues as they pertain to readiness.

Readiness reporting focuses on a unit’s readiness, not on a training range’s readiness or the basis of what encroachment may or

may not have impacted the range’s readiness. As you can imagine,

a unit commander—unit commanders will do whatever is necessary

to receive at least an adequate readiness rating, but we—in line

with the chairman’s letter, I think we agreed that the range itself

needed to be graded with respect to its ability to deliver to a unit

cohesive and live fire training readiness.

To that extent, the Marines developed a readiness reporting procedure—plan, if you will—for Camp Pendleton, and we are now addressing and assessing that methodology to see how it’s applicable

to all of our ranges.

So I hope that perhaps next year when we testify on this issue

before you that there will be, in anticipation of that 2003 summer

report, a greater level of detail and fidelity as to these issues.

Mr. SHAYS. What brought this issue to my forefront, frankly, was

Vieques and my absolute amazement that the politics seemed to

supersede—and I’m going to say, in both administrations—the

readiness of our troops to one to visit that island and to realize

that one-third of that island was so pristine because of what the

Navy did. It was kept in absolutely perfect condition, with no degradation except for places to store munitions; and so it will now be

turned back to the people of Puerto Rico in better condition than

probably anyplace else in the Territory of Puerto Rico.

Then the center part, where the village is, and then the other

part, the 9 miles where there was live, at the tip of that 9 miles,

training for land, sea and air coordinated. And to think that the

previous administration and this administration would somehow

say that we don’t need it blows my mind. And when you meet with

any military personnel privately, no one privately would tell me

that we don’t need it.

Now, the only thing I can think of is, one, politics came into play;

and two, we didn’t know how it fit into the rest of the program.

But the one thing that’s pretty clear is—and I would like to ask

all three of you, how many places on the East Coast do we have

to train in a simulated way, in a coordinated way, land, air and

sea?

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And, Mr. Holman, maybe I will start out with you. Tell me

where.

Mr. HOLMAN. Chairman Shays, we haven’t made a comprehensive assessment of that. The ones I’m certainly aware of mentioned

this morning, perhaps Eglin. But Puerto Rico is probably the preeminent place to do that; the loss of that is significant.

In Eglin, you can do some, but perhaps not all, the training. But

there are quite—the number of places are very few on the East

Coast.

Mr. SHAYS. This involves utilizing submarines as well?

Mr. HOLMAN. Yes, sir.

Mr. SHAYS. So you’ve got to do it all.

Mr. Mayberry.

Mr. MAYBERRY. Yes, sir, the quality of Vieques training cannot

be questioned. I, as a readiness advocate in the Department, certainly press for live fire training and integrated operations. The

task is to the Secretary of the Navy at this point in his Title X responsibilities to address alternative sites at this point. I know that

the Center for Naval Analysis is conducting a variety of—— Mr. SHAYS. But to interrupt you, if you don’t mind, the craziness

of that is, we have no plan. We don’t know how it fits in with all

the other things we’re doing. We’re looking at it, frankly, somewhat

in isolation; though I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist, frankly,

to understand that there aren’t many places where you can do all

three at once.

And to suggest somehow we can do them in separate sections,

some by sea, some by land, but it wouldn’t be coordinated—Mr.

Mayberry.

Mr. MAYBERRY. The previous panel used some very good words

of ‘‘chopped-up training.’’ There are locations that probably could be

used to do the respective pieces—parts here, but the notion of being

chopped up is—and how integrated, combined and joint operations

will be tested, evaluated and trained is truly a critical piece.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Mr. DuBois.

Mr. DUBOIS. I think that notwithstanding Vieques—and I too

have visited Vieques—to replicate the capabilities of that particular

range will be extremely difficult. But prior to this administration,

the Joint Chiefs did commission action plans a couple of years ago

to—and directed Services, each military service, to look at their

training requirements and their training range availability. Those

plans were submitted last spring when we—after we came into office.

Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, on the basis of those plans, directed preparation of a legislative and administrative set of measures to develop those measures to address the known problems.

The planning continues, as I indicated. Perhaps a year from now

we will be able to give you more definitive answers.

But the bulk of our efforts, the bulk of our efforts are not legislative. But for issues such as the Endangered Species Act in terms

of critical habitat and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, we do not

think any alternative legislation exists.

But back to your question in terms of planning and preparation,

when we came into office, it had been set into motion in the sumVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00210 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mer of 2000; reports were—preliminary reports were made in the

spring of 2001 and, as I said, Dr. Wolfowitz then directed more indepth and detailed studies.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask Mr. Allen a question. I’ve probably

gone on for about—I’ve gone on for 13 minutes and I’m happy to

give the gentleman time. Would you like a little more time before

starting, or—— Mr. ALLEN. I’m ready whenever.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to take 2 more minutes and then give you

15.

I want to say for the record that I did not agree with the characterizations of our acting chairman as it related to the environmental issues. I’m somewhere between where the chairman is,

probably, and Mr. Allen is; and I did mention to him when he was

leaving that I just wanted to say to you, and for the record, I believe that we won’t have a world to live in if we continue our neglectful ways with our environment.

And we could make a joke about bees, but if we had no bees, we

would have no growth in 4 years. So I believe the military has a

moral duty to—where it can, to protect the environment. But if it

is an environmental issue and training that can’t be done elsewhere and can’t simply be done, then I believe that training

trumps the environment in those instances; and that’s kind of

where I would disagree with my colleague.

And I would say to Mr. Allen, it is important to have you back

because you did raise important questions; and I didn’t comment

on the points you made while you were away, but I think it will

make for a better hearing to have you voice your concerns and to

give the gentlemen an opportunity to respond to them and give me

an opportunity to react as well.

So I welcome you, and you have 15 minutes.

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I gather people noted that I had to leave and some took objection to that after

my opening statement. There is nothing I wanted to do more than

stay here, but we have so many conflicting obligations. I had questions for that first panel that I never got to ask, and it’s a little

bit frustrating.

Let me say a couple things. First of all, I am completely committed to making sure that our troops are ready for the conflicts that

they are likely to participate in. Readiness is not a minor issue to

me. It’s a fundamentally important issue. I don’t want to lose a single member of our Armed Forces because they weren’t properly

trained.

On the other hand, the President said when he campaigned for

office that he felt that Federal agencies should comply with our environmental laws, and that’s a position that I still have. There was

a radio report, and I believe it was the commander of Fort Bragg,

talking very positively about how they’d been able to conduct their

training, in spite of certain environmental constraints by working

with the local community and environmental organizations, and I

believe that this is the proper model.

I would only say with respect to the military and I’m not trying

to cast blame on anyone, but when you come to Congress and you

want to change laws that are of fundamental importance to the enVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00211 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tire society, and you try to do it at the last minute with no substantive hearings on the proposals that are being raised—I mean,

you can look back and somewhere find a hearing on an environmental issue.

But if you’re not having a hearing on the legislative proposals

that are being raised, and there are 4 days before the markup of

the Readiness Committee, you are going to get a negative response

from some of us because while we might be willing to accept

changes in the laws after full consideration and debate and the

participation of those who object, we are not likely to say, oh, fine,

go ahead on 4 days notice.

And one other sort of general comment: If I had been here to ask

questions of the first panel, there was a GAO report in October

2001 which said that the Defense Department has nearly 28,000

potentially contaminated sites. The Defense Department can’t have

broad exemptions, we can discuss narrow exemptions, but it can’t

have broad exemptions from our environmental laws because it is

the Federal agency with the greatest responsibility for pollution in

this country—the Federal agency that has the most problems, I

guess I would say.

And another way of saying it is that DOD has easily the world’s

largest environmental clean-up problem.

That’s not to say, that’s DOD’s fault. There’s a lot we’ve learned

about how pollutants move underground than we knew when bases

in my district and elsewhere were first created; but the GAO report

concluded that the cost recovery data in the Department’s annual

environmental clean-up report is not useful to the Congress or the

Department for management or oversight because it is inaccurate,

inconsistent and incomplete. That’s a statement that DOD needs to

do a better job of looking at and figuring out its own costs for environmental cleanups.

That’s not the issue of the moment, but it is just a point I raise

because when you talk about exempting DOD, we’re not talking

about exempting some agency that has only a minor impact on the

environment of this country.

Mr. Holman, I want to turn to you. I apologize for not being here

during your direct presentation, but I want to ask you about several coments and several findings in your report. Those findings

seem to me to cast doubt upon the Department’s claims that they

urgently need special exemptions from our environmental laws;

and I want to ask you briefly about these.

You concluded in your report that the Department has not even

completed an inventory of its own training facilities. In your report,

you said commanders sometimes find out about other training facilities by chance. Is that correct?

Mr. HOLMAN. Yes, that is correct. As we were talking with the

Navy component of the Special Operations Command, we did find

that while they use—they own no facilities of their own, but they

use each of the Services’ facilities as they know of them; and they

told us that they had recently become aware of the ability to do

training at—Aberdeen Proving Ground had water access, something they very much needed.

And they pointed out to us the fact they did not have available

to themselves an inventory of training facilities; and I think that’s

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something that’s probably important to have. Particularly as we

look more toward an increasingly joint training environment, it becomes good to have that.

Dr. Mayberry said the Department and the services are in the

process of trying to put together some inventories of their facilities.

I think they have some, but they need to be more complete. There

probably needs to be consistency of data that’s gathered on each

one of them in terms of their size, capability, limitations particularly with encroachment and so forth.

Mr. ALLEN. In the October 2001, report that I mentioned earlier, ‘‘Improved Guidance Needed for Reporting on Recovered Cleanup

Costs,’’ the GAO recommended in that report that the Pentagon do

an inventory of its ranges. That request was over 8 months ago.

You’re making it again now.

Do you have any sense of whether progress has been made by

the Department in doing that kind of inventory of ranges?

Mr. HOLMAN. I’m not quite sure where they are at this point, Mr.

Allen.

I should point out also that report referred to closed ranges, as

well as—probably more so closed ranges than it did open ranges,

but it’s a combination. And when you look at the two together,

there are a sizable number of sites—and perhaps Mr. DuBois can

indicate where they are in terms of the inventory now.

Mr. ALLEN. What I’d like to do is finish my questions with you

and then come back to the rest of the panel.

You also found that the Department does not know what its

training requirements are. You stated that no military service has,

‘‘comprehensively reviewed available range resources to determine

whether assets are adequate to meet needs.’’ Is that a fair statement?

Mr. HOLMAN. What we were trying to say with that statement

is, it’s a combination of things. One, you need to identify what your

training requirements are, what ranges do you have that can satisfy those capabilities, what are the limitations; and then once

you’ve done that, what options do you have for any other forms of

training that might be complementary.

We have heard comments about simulation training this morning, and we certainly are not here to say that simulation is the answer to encroachment and certainly simulation cannot take the

place of live training. However, significant advances have been

made in simulation, simulator technology, in recent years as an increasingly ever-important, complementary form of training. You

put all those facets together, and then you start to have a more

complete picture of just what are the limitations that you face

today.

And, again, that’s not going to do away with the encroachment

issue. That’s not going to do away with needing to take other steps

to mitigate and safeguard training ranges for the future, but it

tends to give you a more complete picture of what your deficiencies

are and what are the things you really need to work on.

Mr. ALLEN. And I certainly would agree with you that simulation

is not a complete answer to training either. Clearly, our troops

need to have the most realistic training possible in a number of different circumstances.

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The report also concluded that the Pentagon has no data showing

that encroachment has increased costs. Now, we can assume that

there are some increased costs, and I would be perfectly willing to

make those assumptions; but you indicated that no installation you

visited could provide data on costs incurred as a result of encroachment. Is that fair or not?

Mr. HOLMAN. What we said is that there’s no system in place

that will give you a comprehensive picture of the costs, added costs,

that occur because of work-arounds associated with encroachment.

Now, we can go to individual installations and we can get esti- mates here and there of $50,000, $100,000, whatever, that may be

needed to move a unit from Camp Pendleton to Yuma to TwentyNine Palms, whatever, to train. You can talk to Navy officials, and

you can get estimates of what it requires to hire biologists, operate

planes to fly over the ocean for a couple of hours before and during

exercises to watch for marine mammals; you know, there’s costs associated with that.

But what we’re saying is, just the nature of the way the accounting systems are, it’s not easily done to develop a comprehensive

picture of those additional costs; but they are there and they are

real.

Mr. ALLEN. I think it would be worthwhile making a distinction

myself.

There is no question that protecting the environment around

DOD’s bases is going to cost money. That is obviously going to cost

money. It’s obviously going to cost a lot of money. The question in

my mind is whether these particular environmental laws that we

are being asked to change, by themselves, involve such significant

additional costs that costs should even be considered.

I mean, clearly the quality of the training, that is a high priority;

we’ve got to consider that. But since we inevitably are going to

spend some money to protect the environment anyway, the question is whether the costs of what is been called here ‘‘encroachment’’ is really a factor that we should be considering.

You found, I believe, that the Pentagon’s overall costs for environmental obligations have decreased over the past 3 years. Is that

true, so far as you can tell?

Mr. HOLMAN. They went up slightly over a period of about 6

years. The past 3 years, they have come down just a little bit, so

with a net increase over the past 6 or 7 years, but not a significant

increase. And I think a lot of that has to do with the Department’s

budget constraints and maintaining a fairly level standard of funding.

I think where we did see some significant increases or some increases, more had to do with the Army, and they associated those

costs with developing the integrated resource plans they were developing.

Mr. ALLEN. To my mind, your most important finding was that

these services demonstrated no significant reduction in readiness

as a result of encroachment.

Can you tell me what readiness reporting systems you examined

when making this conclusion?

Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Allen, we looked at the operational readiness

reports for fiscal year 2000. I might also add, in the recent report

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that we did, looking at training overseas, we looked at operational

readiness reports over a 2-year period, and those are the particular

reports that are prepared by units on a monthly basis, or as readiness changes; and not surprising, those reports show the majority

of units reporting a high-level standard of readiness both here in

the States as well as overseas.

Overseas training constraints are even greater, and you would

expect, perhaps, the readiness rates to be lower.

I have to say from a historical perspective, because I’ve looked

at that type of data for many years and I’ve seen that same situation over the years, that’s why GAO has consistently, repeatedly

over the years recommended that DOD develop and improve readiness reporting systems.

Now, having said that, I need to say at the same time you will

see some conflicting data. Mr. DuBois referred earlier to facilities

readiness reports. In the past 3 years, the Department’s been submitting facilities readiness reports to the Congress; and the most

recent one—a lot of information has come out about it recently, and

they’re unclassified—I think it was 69 percent of DOD’s facilities,

and that includes operations and training facilities, were rated C–

3 and C–4, which would suggest by the readiness system that the

organizations reporting would have significant problems in accomplishing their mission.

I compare that data against the operational readiness reports

that say the majority of units are rated C–1 or C–2, high state of

readiness; and you see data there that conflicts.

Mr. ALLEN. If I could add there, I set off a response on the other

side of the aisle with my comments about governing by anecdote

this morning, but this is what I mean.

I would say the fundamental point is that if we are saying that

readiness is being affected, there has got to be some way of showing that readiness is actually being affected. I would grant the Department that in specific instances it is complicated to work around

environmental laws, just as it’s complicated to work around civilian

homes. The comment was made in the first panel that sometimes,

as civilian homes are built closer and closer to bases, that creates

problems.

Homes create problems for civilian airports as well as military

bases; the overflight rules create problems. The question really is

whether the Department of Defense is going to be able to figure out

how to accommodate all these other different interests in society,

or whether it’s going to be exempted from accomodating these other

interests.

I have just a little bit more.

To summarize, Mr. Holman, you said that DOD doesn’t have an

inventory of its ranges, they have not comprehensively assessed

their range needs, they can’t tell us which encroachment issues are

the most challenging, they haven’t documented any increase in

costs, and most importantly, they don’t show any effect on readiness from the data that you’re referring to.

In your opinion, do the Pentagon’s legislative proposals which

focus on exemptions to these environmental laws seem premature

to you?

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Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Allen, I’m really not in a position to make that

call. I think what you’re looking at there—I mean, certainly we say

DOD needs a comprehensive plan. The study groups have looked

at it, have suggested they needed some clarification of legislation

dealing with dangerous species, Marine Mammal Act and others.

So I think they were looking at a combination of administrative actions, as well as legislation.

And we certainly say they need a comprehensive plan, but when

it comes to the legislative proposals, we’re talking about some significant tradeoffs, policy objectives. I think those are decisions best

left to the Congress. We just really haven’t made a call on that.

Mr. ALLEN. I just hope that the Congress will be able to consider

them after a full-blown hearing with people on both sides of the

aisle, because it’s my experience we make better decisions when

they do that.

Mr. HOLMAN. Mr. Allen, if I might make one additional comment

in terms of your summary remarks about our report.

One thing I want to make clear, I would not want anyone to conclude from looking at that report that GAO is saying no data, no

problem. We’re not saying that.

I think it’s very clear from listening to the first panel this morning—again, it sounded like going to many of the bases that we

went to, the comments we heard in terms of impacts on training.

You can’t help but know from that there are limitations on training.

Our difficulty, given the longstanding problem with DOD’s readiness reporting system, is that we cannot tell you the magnitude of

that problem. I know from looking at this issue for many years— I think we first reported on encroachment issues on training back

in 1991. We know the problem, particularly with urban growth and

development; it’s one that’s increasing over time. So while we may

not be able to tell you the precise impact on readiness and training

today, we do know it’s an issue that is important, that does require

dealing with, because it probably will continue to get worse over

time.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me claim back time and give the gentleman another 10 minutes. I’m going to go 10 and then give you 10 more

afterwards, because frankly I think it’s important that he ask every

one of these questions.

The only problem is your disclaimer at the end, in some cases,

to me negates a heck of a lot of what you said for the first 15 minutes of your report. And you are basically saying there isn’t the

data to show it, but it doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem; and then

you almost have to be an idiot if you go to these places and not

see there’s a problem.

So I’d love to know your definition of ‘‘data’’ if they can’t use a

facility for 6 months, then they can’t use it; and that’s data to me,

for 6 months.

So are you saying you want to know what that means? They

can’t use the facility for 6 months, so it means they aren’t training

there for 6 months. So then are we to make the assumption, since

they aren’t able to explain to you where else to go or they don’t

know where else they can go, that therefore there isn’t data?

Explain to me what ‘‘data’’ means.

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Mr. HOLMAN. We know that from the testimony this morning.

We know that from the bases we visited over time there are limitations. Unit commanders are constantly engaging in work-arounds

to accomplish their training.

If you are referring to requirements, we are talking about overall

requirements and what are the limitations. We’re looking at a

major issue called ‘‘encroachment,’’ and we are trying to get our

hands around it and say, what is the magnitude of this problem

and how does it affect readiness today? Again, our difficulty when

we look at readiness data is, commanders aren’t reporting negative

impacts; and when they do that readiness report, one of the elements they’re supposed to rate is training readiness.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Holman, you’re doing your job, but the problem

is, I just want to understand ultimately what your report means.

I mean, I have almost contempt for the fact that we can’t audit the

Department of Defense. We have over a trillion transactions that

can’t be audited, and there’s no question—as Mr. Allen says, you

go to certain bases, and we haven’t closed certain bases because

they’re so contaminated. If we close them down, we’d have to spend

a fortune to clean them up right now; so we haven’t done it.

And so Mr. Allen, in my judgment, is right on target in wanting

a process and wanting to hold people accountable. The problem is,

at the same time, we are at war. We do know that our troops are

not getting the opportunities they need, and yet we also know that

they have said that everybody’s ready. So you are saying, OK, I

don’t see the data that shows to me the connection between you

can’t do this, but we say we’re ready.

And it seems to me, Mr. DuBois and Mr. Mayberry, you’re, 1, by

something that’s not too comfortable because you don’t want to

send our troops out into the battlefield and say they’re not ready;

and so we have a level that we have decided is ‘‘ready.’’ But a question to anyone is, could they be better trained? And

then the other question is, if they had more training, would they

be better trained? And the answer is clearly, yes; and we don’t

need a lot of data to show us that.

But my problem with DOD is that I don’t want them to overreach to get around environmental rules, and then I just get kind

of nervous that we end up in the old ways. We can’t audit you, so

we forget about it.

So there’s a part of me that has tremendous sympathy. Having

seen these places first hand, I am just appalled that we would not

be more protective of these facilities in making sure that we’re able

to use them more often.

I would like to have you both, Mr. DuBois and Mr. Mayberry, respond to any question that was asked among the very fine questions that were asked by Mr. Allen; and I know he would like that.

I happen to know Mr. Allen to be a very fair man. He wants the

truth to come out, wherever it is; and frankly, we need him to ask

these questions.

Mr. MAYBERRY. I think Mr. Holman is right on the mark, that

you can put a lot of onus of this on the Department’s readiness assessment systems, that it is not of the quality in terms of the specific accuracy of information that we’re wanting to see here. It’s

truly more of a snapshot in time of a particular unit’s status, typiVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00217 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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cally documenting their immediate problems; but it does also get

at the issue of the can-do attitude that we saw here this morning.

I don’t think there’s any question that unit commanders are on

the spot to have their forces trained and ready—that is their primary responsibility—and that there have been a variety of workarounds for which there is no centralized process to capture that

type of information—to understand the magnitude of the cost of

work-arounds, the magnitude of the degradation in terms of training within the readiness reporting process.

My analogy is, it’s sort of like a physician trying to diagnose a

patient with a high fever. Anyone can sort of put their hand on the

head and feel the hot temperature, but we don’t have a thermometer right now that we can make accurate assessments of the degree to which that individual is above normal.

What we do have to work with is the issue of quantification, and

that truly has been one of the weaknesses of our readiness reporting process. Certainly not refined or detailed enough to capture the

cumulative effects that we’ve heard talked about here over time to

the realistic training, nor to acknowledge the compounded cost, but

that is where the Secretary has asked us to go not only in terms

of the service’s readiness systems, but also how do we go about assessing our joint capabilities as well.

Mr. DUBOIS. Mr. Chairman and Mr. Allen, I think it’s important

to recognize that you use the term ‘‘broad exceptions.’’ I don’t think

the Department in any way shape or form is asking—— Mr. SHAYS. Mr. DuBois, I’m going to interrupt and I apologize.

I just need to make sure before we lose the thought of Mr.

Mayberry, we need to know is there any timetable in your attempt

to get this to happen?

Mr. MAYBERRY. Let me say that the Marine Corps has really sort

of taken the lead here in terms of developing a methodology.

Mr. SHAYS. Don’t say that. They’ll get more arrogant than they

already are.

Mr. MAYBERRY. God bless the Marine Corps.

Mr. SHAYS. I mean that gently.

Mr. MAYBERRY. They truly are trying to assess the ability of an

installation to support its training mission by looking at the units

that are located there, their training requirements in terms of individuals, in terms of small units, in terms of small teams and how

the encroachment factors really get at the inability of that unit to

provide that type of training.

For example, again, the Marine Corps—— Mr. SHAYS. I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just wondering about the

timetable. You’re telling me kind of what they’re doing. I want to

know are you going to give them money to do this? Are you getting

more money to have them do this? Do they have more money and

what kind of time line are we working on?

Mr. MAYBERRY. What we’re looking at here is incorporation of

this type of installation information into our installation readiness

reports. That is part of a directive, a readiness directive that the

Secretary of Defense is to sign out here within the next few

months—that is something that is not a requirement now—and to

make it explicit in terms of encroachment factors. There are overall

operations and training sea ratings, readiness rates as part of that.

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But again, it goes down to the comments. What we want to do

within the next several months, provide the overall type for the encroachment information as well as a quantification of the workarounds.

Mr. SHAYS. You really don’t have a time line yet. There’s nothing

that says we’re going to have this done by a particular time.

Mr. MAYBERRY. Sir, it will be part of the next year’s readiness

report. That will be due in December.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. December of this year.

Mr. MAYBERRY. That’s correct. We publish that on an annual

basis and give it to Congress.

Mr. SHAYS. Sorry, I missed the first part. I understand now. Do

you have anything else to say. I’m sorry to interrupt you.

Mr. DUBOIS. I want to address three issues that I think Congressman Allen correctly raised: One, was the broad exception

issue, and part of that is the notion of the President’s commitments, or are we inconsistent or our initiatives inconsistent with

the President’s commitments about Federal facilities compliance;

two, I want to talk about the nexus between what we are facing

and detail empirical data; and three, I want to talk about the costs

issue.

So first broad exceptions. I don’t believe nor have I seen anywhere anyone saying that we are asking for very broad exceptions.

Our initiative is very narrowly focused, focused on only, repeat,

only those activities which are unique to the military.

Now, this is connected and I appreciate you bringing this up, because we believe that our initiative and our legislative proposals

are fully consistent with the President’s commitments about Federal facilities compliance. We are not talking about activities, the

kind of which we perform every day that are comparable to the private sector. DOD wastewater treatment plants, DOD dry cleaners,

paint booths, power generation lands, construction, all of these remain, all of these activities remain subject to existing environmental requirements.

Our initiative largely affects environmental regulations that do

not apply to the private sector or what we believe disproportionately impact defense and defense unique activities. For instance,

critical habitat designation has no legal consequence on private

lands but has crippling, sometimes crippling legal consequences for

military bases. The private sector’s ‘‘incidental take reduction

plans’’ give commercial fisheries the flexibility to kill or injure over

4,800 marine mammals a year, but they are unavailable to the Department of Defense whose critical defense activities are being

halted or postponed despite fewer than 10 marine mammal deaths

or injuries a year.

Environmental groups are not legally, not legally permitted to

enforce the Migratory Bird Treaty Act against private parties, but

are now, with the recent court decision, are now able to enforce

against government agencies including, in particular, the Department of Defense.

And last, I think another good example is the Clean Air Act’s

conformity requirement applies only to Federal agencies; it does

not apply to the private sector.

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So again, sir, I’d like to just point out that we are carefully crafted, and to be sure there might be some improvements in the legislative language, and we certainly want to work with the Members

of Congress to achieve that, if that’s the consensus and that’s the

consideration here. But we made it very clear in the beginning of

our study of this issue, in our deliberations with our sister Federal

agencies and in our testimony before the House Armed Services

Committee Readiness Subcommittee, on these very issues, that our

approach was narrowly focused.

The issue about detailed empirical data, I think the two provisions that are now moving through Congress and have been adopted by the full House in our Defense Authorization Act for fiscal

year 2003 that address impending readiness effects that are direct—we believe they are direct and provable without recourse to

detail data, after all, the shut down at Farallon de Medinilla range

that I referred to in my opening remarks, under the Migratory Bird

Treaty Act judgment injunction and the shutdown of Pendleton and

Marimar, two marine bases by the critical habitat designation

under the Endangered Species Act, these precedents, of course,

have implications nationwide.

Now, as you may know, while the provisions that we sought are

not included in the House Defense Authorization Act as passed by

the full House, the issues pertaining to Fort Richardson in Alaska,

that particular litigation, which I have here the summons for the

Secretary of Defense, this litigation—and by the way, not by the

States, but by private citizens—claims that the firing of a gun is

a circular release, and therefore, a creation of a hazardous waste

as a matter of law. Now, if that’s true at Fort Richardson and we

lose that case, why isn’t it true for every other base in the country?

So, I kind of wanted to connect those two thoughts, narrowness

and then the implications of the court cases that we face. Yes, I

don’t have a litany or statistics in every single range that we have

on the United States and on our territories on the one hand. On

the other hand, it’s clear that there are present dangers to accessibility.

The last issue is costs. I just want to end with the thought that

I hope no one thinks that what the Secretary of Defense is suggesting here is to save money. We are not proposing these legislative

clarifications to save money. However, I think that you are correct

that it is legitimate to ask, what kinds of costs have been incurred?

And we are going to attempt to quantify that. But that is not the

motivation behind these requests.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say I will give Mr. Allen 10 minutes here.

In fact, I went 13, 14 by the time, so he can have more than 10.

You did I think both of you—first, I appreciate your candor, Mr.

Mayberry, about the readiness issue because we have to be honest

with each other. You know the bottom line is readiness, is a subjective judgment, ultimately. We try to quantify it, but it’s subjective.

And clearly, the men and women would like to be more ready. And

you know what? If I’m going to send them to war I want them to

be more ready, because our job is to make sure it truly isn’t a fair

fight. That’s what Mr. Allen wants.

Your response, Mr. DuBois, was an excellent case for the military

that Mr. Allen would like you to make before not just the Defense

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Committee, but other committees. And my feeling is that Members

of Congress are pretty reasonable folks if they can hear the story.

You have a story to tell. You shouldn’t just be confined to your

friends on the Armed Services Committee. And frankly, we might

not see the kind of concern as great as it is. But given past history,

the pollution on our military bases, given that we don’t have a true

audit of our military, there are times that some people and, rightfully so, say what’s going on here, and others say we’re at war, let’s

get on with it.

Mr. Holman, I think it would be a misuse of your report if people

say because the data isn’t there, therefore all these valid arguments don’t exist. Because frankly, the readiness is a subjective

matter. And we don’t want to send anyone who we don’t think is

ready, and should they be more ready and should we require readiness—one of the requirements may be that if you’re involved in

this kind of operation you can’t be ready unless you have actually

done all three at the same time: land, sea and air. If we don’t have

that requirement, then we can say somebody is ready just by the

fact that we didn’t require it. And so there’s a lot in play here. And

I’ve been fascinated to see the dynamics of all three as it comes to

play.

Mr. Allen, you had very fine questions, which helped me understand this issue better.

I will just conclude by saying that I do think that the effort before the committee in the Defense Authorization was reasonable,

though I originally didn’t. And I would disagree with my environmentalists who I tend to be aligned with most 99 percent of the

time. But I wish you had made the case to them in a way that they

could hear it. And I don’t blame them for being concerned and opposing it because the case wasn’t made to them.

Mr. Allen you’ve got 15 minutes.

Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll try not to take it all.

This is very, very helpful, and like the chairman, I want our troops

to be ready. I want the military to be able to do its job. It’s vitally

important to me. But I want to reframe this issue and take another

stab at it.

Mr. Holman was making the case that we don’t have the data

we need, and both of you secretaries were saying we have to get

better quantification in the readiness report so we really understand more effectively the impact of these so-called environmental

encroachments on our training and readiness. There’s a part of me

that wants to say when the military says we need more data,

there’s a part of me that says good, we need that and there’s a part

of me that says oops, watch out. Because we might get data of a

kind which is problematic, because when you get lots of data, sometimes you don’t get to a conclusion.

And I want to try to reframe this a little bit and ask really all

of you if this works. It seems to me that the question is not whether or not there is absolutely comprehensive data—let me say this.

I believe you need to do a comprehensive study of readiness and

the effects of encroachment. On the other hand, I would suggest

that at least part of that not be just the compilation of data. I believe the fundamental issue here is not whether or not there is encroachment, not whether or not there is some infringement on the

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ability to train our troops the way we want to, but whether or not

that infringement, that encroachment is hard to work around.

To me, in many ways, this seems as if, for example, let me take

Chairman Shays’ suggestion. You’ve got two bases, and I missed

the discussion because I wasn’t here during that part, but you’ve

got a base that you can’t use for 6 months of the year. That is

something that affects training. But if there’s another base nearby

where you could go and do the same training, then it would not

have a significant impact on readiness. By the same token, whether

we’re talking about the Endangered Species Act or any of the other

environmental legislation we’re talking about, the fundamental policy question I think is the obstacle to readiness, is the obstacle to

training so severe that we can’t work around it.

So I would urge the Department to not simply compile data but

also look at and give us some case studies on both sides of the

issue. Perhaps from Fort Bragg, where they’ve been able to work

with both the community and outside groups, according to that

radio report, to both protect the environment and train our troops.

Perhaps other areas where it’s a serious problem because the

training can’t be done anywhere else and it’s a real obstacle to

move forward. That kind of take on the problem would be helpful

to me.

And what I’d like to ask you, all three of you, is if you have a

reaction to that or thoughts about that or how you think you could

go about getting that kind of analysis into a comprehensive report.

Mr. MAYBERRY. I think that you make an outstanding point. Because there are a full continuum of work-arounds. These can be

very minor from something as insignificant as moving down that

beach some number of yards to, you know, get away from the critical habitat area for that particular nesting time of year. That’s

fine. It doesn’t necessarily impact the quality of the training. And

then there’s another side of the continuum, which gets at the notion of complete cancellation of an exercise. For example Luke Air

Force Base, which trains F–16 pilots, when endangered antelope

are on their ranges, that completely shuts down the range. What

they have tried to do is to identify alternative target sets that could

be diverted to.

Now, again, much of what they’re training is target acquisition

and identification. There may be some loss there. In terms of major

battle group exercises, when whales or marine mammals are observed, that too can put a stop to the entire exercise. Now, that is

in the extreme category.

Mr. ALLEN. If I could just interrupt you on that particular point,

the Marine Mammal Protection Act is of particular concern to me

because I’m not satisfied the science is good enough, that we know

the impact and that we’ve done enough science to figure out what

the impact is on marine mammals. I know some have been tested.

That’s a whole other hearing really, and I probably shouldn’t have

made that comment. So let’s go back to what you are saying.

Mr. MAYBERRY. The issue you characterize very well is one of,

again, some notion of balance to be able to understand what the

training degradations are for these work-arounds. Much of that

comes down to the commander’s intent, the commander’s assessment of was this training of sufficient quality to allow me to check

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the block for having my unit certified as capable in this particular

area.

As I said, the Marine Corps has done some good work of trying

to, I think, explicitly link their training requirements, their documented training requirements for an MEU to deploy special operations capable certified, they have to be able to perform specific

tasks to specific standards under specific conditions. And it’s that

type of quantification process that is lacking now that we need to

institute on a department-wide basis, and not get into the problem

that you mentioned of being completely swamped in terms of data

and information. But I think that we’ve got a continuum—as a

matter of fact, I was down at the Joint Readiness Training Center

at Fort Polk. They actually tried to incorporate some of the protected areas as part of their actual scenarios. Jeez, we can’t go in

this particular area for reasons that it may be a church or religious

facility. Actually use it as part of a real world scenario.

So there is a full spectrum here in terms of what these workarounds range from in terms of their impact on the training.

Mr. ALLEN. Good. I would ask Secretary DuBois a question.

You’re not going to be here or you won’t be at the desk during the

next panel. I understand that Dan Miller, the next panel from the

National Association of Attorneys General is going to speak, I don’t

know if this is exactly from his statement, but it’s pretty close, on

the question of whether these are broad exemptions or narrow exemptions that you raised earlier. My understanding is that he will

say that residual and unexploded ordnance and explosives contamination is precisely the problem at closed and transferred ranges.

And the DOD amendment would preempt States and EPA’s interest in regulating the cleanup of unexploded ordnance and related materials at hundreds of transferred ranges. You’ve got explosive hazards, potential toxic or carcinogenic effects, and possible

groundwater contamination as a list of problems that might arise.

I want to give you the chance, while you’re here, before he comes

up to respond to that, in light of your comment about the fact

you’ve tried to make these exemptions—tried to tailor them narrowly.

Mr. DUBOIS. Yes, sir. We have had a number of meetings with

the sponsorship of the National Governors Association with State

regulators, State representatives from the States Attorneys General Office, State Governor’s office.

And Mr. Miller and I have had a colloquy on this particular

issue. It is the opinion of our counsel that the way we have written

it does not, repeat, not apply as Mr. Miller believes it does. In point

of fact, just the opposite. Closed, transferring and transferred

ranges are fully exposed, if you will, to environmental regulations

laws statutes, etc. Now, I did, as I think I mentioned, if there are

language changes which Dan Miller and others would suggest to

make it absolutely crystal clear, then we’re certainly amenable to

entertaining these changes.

And as I hope the States, and I use that in the broadest sense,

understand, we welcome the opportunity to work with them to ensure that we have every opportunity to train to the rigorous standards necessary, but we believe we can achieve this objective in

ways that are compatible. We believe that the proposals are modVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00223 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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est, narrowly tailored to address discreet concern. Mr. Miller has

interpreted it otherwise, contrary to our interpretation.

What—and I will conclude with this comment—we are attempting it seems to me, we are attempting through our proposals to

codify existing regulatory policy and practice of EPA and the States

where it might have been certain—certain vagaries may have been

attached to these situations we’re trying to codify what exists

today. So I’m interested in a continuing dialog with Mr. Miller and

all the Governors and States’ attorneys general in this regard.

Mr. ALLEN. I want to thank all three of you for your testimony

today. This has been a very helpful discussion for me and I yield

back my time that I still have.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I thank the gentleman for coming back.

Is there any question that you all may have stayed up late into the

night preparing to answer that you want to put on the record? Is

there any question that you want to ask yourself that you think

needs to be put on the record?

Mr. DUBOIS. I wanted to make one comment about the notion

that if training range A for 6 months is unavailable to us, but

training range B or C might be, and this does go back to the issue

of cost, how many ranges do we keep operational, and how do you

just tie that to the taxpayer when this point of fact with adoption

of some narrow provisions we may be able to avail ourselves of a

single range 365 days of the year?

There also is a calculus of encroachment, it seems to me, which

27 years ago when I worked at the Pentagon under Secretary

Rumsfeld, and in the 25 years that we were in the private sector,

the term ‘‘encroachment’’ 27 years ago was not in a military lexicon. Perhaps it should have been. Now this issue I think has a calculus. Over the last 10 to 15 years we’ve seen, as my graduate

mathematics instructor would say, the rate of increase has increased. And therefore not to address it now would be incorrect.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to put on the record, and if Mr. Allen wants

to change it or anybody else wants to qualify anything I’ve said,

I’m happy to have them do it, but I’m going to say that my sense

is that we clearly know encroachment is a problem in a local host

of different ways. We know that we’re not able to use some of our

training facilities the way we would like to use them. We I think

realize that our readiness standards need to be reevaluated so that

we’re not saying someone’s ready when they should perhaps be

more ready.

I’m going to say to you that the GAO has clearly stated that they

want more data, and based on the data that’s available, they can’t

come to conclusions to justify certain needs and desires of the Department of Defense. But that does not mean that they don’t exist.

And then I’m going to end up by saying that we clearly need a plan

for all our facilities. That was the motivation, that’s of the good

things that I think make sense about the report and we’ve already

really started to act on that. The Department of Defense needs a

plan for all of their training facilities.

And then I’m just going to inject my bias once again that when

I say Vieques being pulled out of our training facilities, I said we

got one hell of a mess at DOD that we would be doing that.

And so is there any qualification you want to make on that?

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Mr. ALLEN. Just in addition, Mr. Chairman. I would only add

that our environmental laws are supported by so many, such a

large percentage of the American public that the issue of exemptions or waivers or whatever you would call the process by which

the DOD doesn’t comply as fully or is allowed not to comply as fully

as other entities needs to be carefully examined. The fundamental

issue is can you work around some of the problems caused by environmental restrictions in a way that makes sense, in order to protect the integrity of the environmental laws we have.

Mr. SHAYS. And I’m going to just add that in some cases we may

be asking the Department of Defense to do certain things that we

aren’t asking the private sector. And that I would encourage the

Department of Defense to make their case before other committees

besides those who would tend to be most friendly to them because

I think you can make a case. But I think Mr. Allen feels that you

could make a case maybe to a varying degree than I can but you

shouldn’t be afraid to make that case and treat all the Members

of Congress that they deserve to hear your case and then make the

decision.

Do you mind me getting the last word?

Mr. ALLEN. You’ve got the last word Mr. Chairman. That’s it.

Mr. SHAYS. Gentlemen, appreciate you being here a great deal.

Thank you for all of your work. Thank you for your love of your

country. Now, we have a recess so we may be able to finish this

hearing before we have a vote and that would be lovely. That

would be lovely.

We have, our next witness is Mr. Dan Miller. He’s the first assistant attorney general of the Colorado department of defense.

And I would welcome Mr. Miller to stay standing.

And take your time gentlemen. I don’t mean to be rushing you.

We’re not in a rush.

Mr. Miller I want to say while you are standing—where is Mr.

Miller? Thank you. Thank you for your patience. That’s the first

thing I want to say to you. Hopefully we paid your way out. Don’t

sit down. I do want to thank you. You probably wanted to jump in

umpteen number of times but we’re going to allow you to say what

you need to say and request some questions. Raise your right hand,

please.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Miller for being here. I

think you have some important things to say and though you are

third, you are definitely as much a part of the record as everyone

else, and we welcome you being here. And we give a little dispensation to the third speaker if he wants to talk a little longer. So if

you want to make even your statement—give us your statement,

but even address some of the other things you heard before we ask

them, you know that may be good it may even save us some time.

But I want you to do whatever you want out of courtesy to you.

So you have the floor.

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m going to tell you what we’re doing, we’re going

to put the clock on. Every 5 minutes it will go red but you turn

it green again. If you get close to 10 minutes I’ll let you know.

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STATEMENT OF DAN MILLER, FIRST ASSISTANT ATTORNEY

GENERAL, COLORADO DEPARTMENT OF LAW

Mr. MILLER. OK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Allen, members

of the committee. I’m here today to testify on behalf of Colorado Attorney General Ken Salazar and Washington Attorney General

Christine Gregoire. However, as my written materials indicate, I

think it’s fair to say that the general tenor of my remarks reflect

the views of most of the States.

I’m only going to address those parts of the Department of Defense’s legislative proposals that would amend the Clean Air Act,

RCRA and CERCLA. RCRA is the Federal law that regulates hazardous waste management and cleanup. CERCLA, also known as

Superfund regulates the cleanup of toxic waste sites. So I’m not

going to talk about the Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird

Treaty Act, or Marine Mammal Protection Act.

The reason I’m focusing on these three laws is that the States

are the primary implementors of the Clean Air Act and RCRA and

they’re major partners with EPA under CERCLA. First I’d like to

say that the States absolutely support the goal of maintaining the

readiness of our Nation’s military. The men and women of the

Armed Forces must have all appropriate realistic training. At the

same time we strongly support the need to protect human health

and the environment and we recognize that military activities can

adversely impact human health in the environment. In our view,

further military readiness and ensuring environmental protection

are compatible goals not mutually exclusive. The question is how

do we balance military readiness concerns with environmental concerns.

We believe that RCRA, CERCLA and the Clean Air Act already

provide sufficient flexibility to accommodate potential conflicts between these goals. Furthermore, as far as we are aware, the Department of Defense is not identified a single instance in which

RCRA, CERCLA or the Clean Air Act has actually adversely impacted readiness. We also think that the Department of Defense’s

amendments go far beyond its stated concerns with maintaining

military readiness and would likely provide a very broad exemption

from RCRA and CERCLA for explosives ammunitions.

RCRA, CERCLA and the Clean Air Act all allow the President

to exempt the Department of Defense from their requirements on

a case-by-case basis simply by finding that the exemption is necessary for national security, or is in the paramount interest of the

United States, depending on which statute we’re talking about.

The Federal Government has never invoked these exemptions for

military readiness purposes. The exemption provides flexibility coupled with accountability. Accountability is important because the

Department of Defense has a history of seeking to avoid compliance

with environmental requirements. Even where Congress has commanded that the Department of Defense comply with environmental laws, DOD has a worse compliance record than private industry with one exception.

Accountability is also important because of the environmental

impact of military activities. Of the 1,221 sites currently listed on

the Superfund national priorities list 129 are Department of Defense facilities. Considering the lack of any documented, or even alVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00226 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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leged impacts from RCRA, CERCLA or the Clean Air Act on military readiness, the Department of Defense’s legislative proposals to

amend these laws are quite broad. Let’s take the amendment to

RCRA as an example. Proposed section 2019 that would be added

to Title X would define munitions, explosives, unexploded ordnance

and constituents thereof for solid wastes. That’s the touchstone for

regulation under RCRA. Nothing is hazardous waste unless it is

first solid waste.

The definition of solid waste is also very important because

RCRA’s waiver of sovereign immunity only applies to State requirements respecting the control and abatement of solid waste or hazardous waste disposal and management. Waivers of immunity are

construed very narrowly as well established Supreme Court doctrine. A close reading of the Department of Defense’s proposed

amendments shows that they will preempt State authority over

munitions explosives and the like not only at operational ranges,

but also at closed and transferred ranges, at Department of Defense sites other than ranges, and even in private defense contractor sites.

To paraphrase section 2019, the only time munitions and explosives are a solid waste is if they are or have been deposited incident to their normal and expected use on an operational range and

one of three things happens. Either they’re removed from the

range, they are recovered and then buried or landfilled on the

range, or they migrate off range and are not addressed under

CERCLA.

In addition, the proposal provides that munitions and explosives

may be a solid waste if they are deposited incident to their normal

and expected use off an operational range and are not promptly addressed. So this definition excludes munitions that were deposited

on an operational range and remain there after the range is transferred out of Federal ownership. Such residual munitions which include unexploded ordnance, explosives, explosive constituents, and

other sorts of contamination that’s precisely the problem at these

closed and transferred ranges. DOD’s amendment would preempt

States and EPA from regulating the cleanup of unexploded ordnance and related terms at hundreds of transferred ranges. In addition to the obvious explosive hazards by the unexplosive ordnance, many of these materials have toxic or potential carcinogenic

effects and may cause groundwater contamination.

Proposed section 2019(a)(2) also exempts explosive ammunitions

that are used in training or in research development testing and

evaluation of military munitions, weapons, or weapons systems. My

question is what explosives and munitions are not? This provision

appears to create a wholesale exemption for explosives and munitions under RCRA and CERCLA. It would apply to any facility

with such wastes, including private contractor sites.

In closing, we do not believe that the Department of Defense’s far

reaching amendments to RCRA CERCLA or the Clean Air Act are

warranted. We would be glad to work with the Department to develop ways to address its readiness concerns with these laws within the context of the existing environmental laws. And we would

urge that any proposed legislation on this issue go through a norVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00227 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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mal legislative process with public hearings before the committees

with jurisdiction over the environmental laws.

That’s the end of my prepared statement. I’d be glad to answer

any questions you have.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Miller, maybe what we could do, is there any

other comment would you make, then I will recognize Mr. Allen.

Is there any other comment, or should we go right to the questions.

Mr. MILLER. I think we can go to the questions.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. It was a very nice statement. I appreciate

your statement.

Mr. Allen.

Mr. ALLEN. My first question is real simple. You’ve been here

and I just wondered if you wanted to comment about anything that

you heard from the witnesses during the second panel.

Mr. MILLER. I think the main observation I would have as I understood the testimony is that a lot of the concern with encroachment relates—— Mr. ALLEN. Ignore that buzzer.

Mr. SHAYS. I think we’re recessed until 3:30. I think the Gold

Medal Award is for Mr. or Mrs. Reagan in the Rotunda as we

speak. But that seems like two votes. Tell me that isn’t so. Go for

it.

Mr. MILLER. I think the main comment—— Mr. SHAYS. Excuse me, no, we are in recess. We’re fine. Sorry.

I overreacted.

Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Miller.

Mr. MILLER. As I understood the testimony, a lot of the concern

with encroachment relates to issues that arise because of increasing urbanization near military ranges. And the main comment I

would have is that as I understood it, the proposals that DOD is

advancing to address issues related to the Clean Air Act, RCRA

and CERCLA have kind of gotten lumped in with a number of

other issues where impacts on military readiness are much more

apparent.

Again, as I stated earlier, I’m not aware of any examples that

DOD has identified where any regulation under the Clean Air Act,

RCRA or CERCLA has resulted in any impact on readiness whatsoever. Yet, as I described with respect to the amendments to RCRA,

they’re pretty far reaching, and the same is true of the amendment

under the CERCLA.

So, it’s as though these pollution control laws are kind of getting

swept along with a series of other concerns that are unrelated. And

I want to make clear that the committee understands that the vast

bulk of the testimony today as I heard it related to the animal protection laws and to issues that aren’t even—don’t even really rise

under environmental laws at all, but simply have to do with the

neighboring incompatible land uses of military facilities on the one

hand, and increasing urbanization and suburbanization on the

other.

Mr. ALLEN. You do make an interesting point there. There were

six different environmental statutes for which DOD was planning

to ask exemptions. As it turned out, the House dealt with only two

of them in the Defense authorization bill, Migratory Bird and the

Endangered Species. I may be wrong, but it sounded today as

though the Endangered Species Act and the habitat requirements

that go along with it was a major factor being discussed, even the

Marine Mammal Protection Act has less to do with training our

troops and much more to do with the use of low frequency longVerDate 11-MAY-2000 08:37 Jul 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00262 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\80496.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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range sonar that the Navy has been developing on marine mammals and less on readiness, at least in terms of training our troops.

I have just a couple things, Mr. Miller. Can you tell us, as much

as you can, about your efforts to express before Congress the opinion of the States and whether or not you were denied opportunities

to make your views known before this hearing today.

Mr. MILLER. Earlier this spring, the National Association of Attorneys General, National Governors Association and National

Conference of State Legislatures wrote a letter to the House Armed

Services, I believe it was the Subcommittee on Readiness, requesting an opportunity to appear on that subcommittee’s hearing on

readiness. And that request was denied, although we were allowed

an opportunity to submit written materials for the record.

We have been somewhat frustrated in our ability to address

these issues because of the extremely short timeframe for analyzing the legislation, which I believe was provided 4 days before the

first committee mark-up. And so there have been no hearings, legislative hearings on the precise language that DOD has put forth.

Mr. ALLEN. My final question, the Department of Defense, as I

heard Mr. DuBois, was saying essentially that if you have some

suggestions for language, he would be willing to entertain them.

With respect to the statutes you’ve discussed, is it that simple? Is

this a matter, in your opinion, of cleaning up language in the legislative proposals, or is there something more fundamental that isn’t

so much a drafting issue?

Mr. MILLER. I do not think it is a drafting issue. I think the fundamental issue is that as far as I’m aware, the Department of Defense has not demonstrated any impact, any actual impact that

those three laws have had on military readiness. The only example

that they brought up with respect to RCRA and CERCLA that I’m

aware of is the citizen suit that has been filed in the State of Alaska with respect to Fort Richardson.

Now it seems to me it’s kind of a slender reed upon which to base

a proposal to amend two environmental laws. I understand Mr.

DuBois stated that he’s concerned that if the court upholds the

plaintiff’s theory in that case, that every firing range in the country

would be subject to RCRA and CERCLA. I guess I would make a

couple comments about that. First of all, the suit is likely to be dismissed on procedural grounds, for Richardson is a national priority

list site. It’s very likely the Department of Defense will be able to

get this lawsuit dismissed because it would be viewed as a challenge to a remedy and the remedy hasn’t been complete at that

site.

Second, with respect to the RCRA claims, as I understand them,

the plaintiffs are alleging that the disposal of ordnance into the

wetlands up there constitutes disposal of hazardous waste. If that

were true, I think the consequence would be that the Department

of Defense would have to get a permit for its military ranges. And

I believe that actually would be a positive consequence that we

could have appropriate preventative regulation under RCRA that

would not be burdensome on the military, would not impair readiness activities, would certainly allow continued live fire training,

but at the same time, would protect groundwater resources from

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potential contamination as happened at the Massachusetts military

reservation.

Mr. ALLEN. Just a final comment then I want to thank you. I

practiced law for 19 years. And even then I wouldn’t put a whole

lot of stock in allegations in a plaintiff’s complaint that had not

gone to trial and been tested. But, Mr. Miller, I thank you very

much for being here today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman. I thank him for returning. I

would like to know, Mr. Miller, you started by saying that you

speak for other States. Are you saying that in a formal way or informally?

Mr. MILLER. I would say in an informal way with respect to specific comments on the proposed legislation, because frankly there

hasn’t been a lot of time for the States to look at it. But as the

written materials I submitted indicate, there are letters from the

Association of State and Territorial Solid Waste Management officials, which is the Association of State regulators for hazardous

waste. They expressed, I think in a general sense, the same concerns I did with the potential breadth of these amendments.

There’s a letter from the Environmental Council of the States,

which represents the State Environmental Commissioners expressing similar concerns. And then there are past letters signed by a

number of attorneys general related to encroachment and a related

rulemaking that the Department of Defense had proposed a couple

of years ago to govern the cleanup of closed transferred and transferring ranges. But obviously nobody has had the opportunity to review my specific testimony.

Mr. SHAYS. Fair enough, but it puts it in context.

The administration’s readiness and range preservation range initiative does not include the Clean Air or the Resource Conservation

and Recovery Act and the comprehensive Environmental Response

Compensation Liability Act. I mean, it’s not going to—we did not

include it in the Defense authorization bill, I’m sorry.

Mr. MILLER. That’s correct.

Mr. SHAYS. But it was thought that it might be there. But it’s

not—it was not included. And you obviously have raised some very

real concerns about these three legislations, three actions being included. Have you had conversations directly with DOD about this

legislation?

Mr. MILLER. The only conversation I’ve had with DOD regarding

these proposals and the only conversations I’m aware of between

DOD and the various State organizations have occurred over the

last couple of weeks. DOD arranged with the National Governors

Association to provide two briefings on this legislative package and

I was able to participate in those briefings by conference call. But

as you’re aware, DOD testified on this issue last year and between

last year and the time DOD came forward with its legislative proposals, I’m not aware of any efforts on their part to engage us in

a dialog on this issue to talk about their specific concern with readiness and impacts that RCRA or CERCLA have had on military

readiness activities.

Mr. SHAYS. What I would want you to—encourage to do is

through the committee or the subcommittee, whichever the committee may want to do, if they want to help do this or just delegate

257

it to us, we would be happy to try to facilitate and encourage dialog

and conversation on this issue. Dialogue doesn’t commit other side

to take a position, but it would inform both sides better. And I happen to have the bias that there may need to be some changes

made, but that they should be able to argue their case in a persuasive way, and that maybe there could be consensus.

Tell me why Colorado is showing up on our radar screen instead

of some of other States. I realize Colorado has a number of bases

and training facilities and so on, but is it a particularly acute issue

in Colorado as it relates to, say, California or Utah or anywhere

else? Is there anything that tells you that you have a particular

focus that the other States don’t, or a particular concentration of

certain—— Mr. MILLER. Well, I can tell you about some concerns that we do

have in our State. I know that several other States share these

concerns. One of the materials I submitted was a statement or letter from the Attorneys General of Washington, California, Massachusetts and Colorado to the Senate on this issue. I think it’s fair

to say that Colorado may have been leading the charge on this

issue.

Mr. SHAYS. Tell me your biggest concern. What is the biggest

thing that you’re afraid of or concerned about?

Mr. MILLER. We are particularly concerned with our ability to

regulate the cleanup of the closed transferred and transferring

ranges. We have the former Lowry Bombing and Gunnery Range,

it’s a former 60,000 acre range. It’s on the eastern edge of the Denver metropolitan area. There’s quite a buildup of unexploded ordnance out there.

Mr. SHAYS. That’s been returned to the State. I don’t mean returned, because it was never the State’s, but it’s been given to the

State.

Mr. MILLER. Yes. Actually the State Board of Land Commissioners owns about 27,000 or 30,000 acres of the total 60,000. Most

of the rest of it is in private hands. Some portion of it is owned

by the city of Aurora and is owned for a reservoir. There’s a high

school being constructed on the western edge of it now that’s due

to open in the fall of 2003. That high school is located within a mile

of an ordnance burial area where we recently discovered some practice serin bomblets, nerve gas bomblets. Now they weren’t filled

with real nerve gas, but there’s no real way to know that in advance.

We’ve also discovered quite a bit of other ordnance in that particular area. We’re very concerned with the adequacy of funding for

that cleanup. We’re concerned that the State be able to maintain

adequate oversight of it. We had to file a lawsuit against the

United States too before we could get them to come to the table

and agree to what we thought was an adequate investigation and

adequate cleanup of that site.

We’re also concerned with the cleanup of a plume of contaminated groundwater at the Pueblo Chemical Depo that originates

from ammunition washout activities under the proposed legislation.

This plume of ground water which is contaminated with TNT and

has traveled 2 miles offsite and has impacted drinking water in

wells, I believe, would no longer be subject to the State’s hazardous

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waste authority because this legislation proposed legislation would

define it not to be a solid waste.

Mr. SHAYS. Were you concerned that these three acts were going

to be in the Defense authorization bill?

Mr. MILLER. Yes.

Mr. SHAYS. And it may have been your concern, certainly had an

impact and their not being—who knows. But what it says to me is

that you’ve had some impact here. It wasn’t included. And I’d like

to think that if the DOD believes it’s important to deal with some

aspects of these of these acts, that they work with various States.

You’ve obviously shown an interest.

So my point to you is I’m happy to lend our committee’s offices

to try to encourage there to be some dialog, a good faith dialog on

both parts. Because I think both Mr. Allen and I believe very

strongly that we need to make sure that training happens, and it

needs to happen within reasonable restraints.

Mr. MILLER. Absolutely. There’s no question about our support

for training.

Mr. SHAYS. Is there any question that you wish we had asked

that we should have asked or any point that you want to put on

the record? Let me just say if Mr. Barr was here, he might have— it might have been more of an interesting dialog. And I mean that

respectfully. I have my bias in this issue, and I had said when he

was leaving that my perspective is a little different, so it was just

the luck of the Chair that you got me.

Mr. MILLER. I appreciate that.

Mr. SHAYS. Either that or you may have preferred to have him

and have an interesting dialog. We’ll put some things on the

record. Maybe could you look at that record and make some comments on that as well.

I thank our recorder. You can put that on the record. You’ve done

a wonderful job.

I thank our guests and I thank all of the witnesses. Thank you,

Mr. Miller for being here. This hearing is closed.

[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]

[The prepared statements of Hon. Constance A. Morella, Hon.

Doug Ose, Hon. Thomas M. Davis, Hon. Edolphus Towns, Vice Admiral Charles W. Moore, Major General Thomas S. Jones, Major

General Robert L. Van Antwerp, and Major General Randall M.

Schmidt, and additional information submitted for the hearing

record follow:]

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Æ