Yet the military remains largely exempt from compliance with most federal and state environmental laws. And in 1998 Congress shielded the Pentagon from having to pay out environmental fines and penalties when it gets caught violating the few laws that do govern the military's conduct, such as the Superfund Act. The Clinton administration didn't spend nearly enough to begin cleaning up these sites and didn't keep a very close eye on how the Pentagon spent the money it got. In 1998, the Defense Science Review Board, a federal advisory committee set up to provide independent advice to the secretary of defense, looked at the problem and concluded that the Pentagon had no clear environmental cleanup policy, goals or program. If the Clinton program was chintzy, the Bush plan is downright penurious.
Efficiency is usually a code word for sidestepping environmental rules.
The problem is that most of the sites the Bush crowd is anxious to transfer into private or state hands are old bombing and training grounds. These sites, which total more than 50 million acres, are among the most insidious and dangerous legacies left by the military. They are strewn with toxic bomb fragments, unexploded munitions, buried hazardous waste, fuel dumps, open pits filled with debris, and burn piles. But the Pentagon dragged its feet, earning a stern rebuke in 1999 from the EPA's assistant administrator, Tim Fields. A new report released on April 9 by the Government Accounting Office exposes the problem in stark terms.