[Peace-discuss] NYTimes.com Article: Invoking War to Ease Rules

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Invoking War to Ease Rules

March 22, 2003



 

Invoking War to Ease Rules 

The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee has begun
a campaign it calls, portentously, "Operation End
Extremism." The purpose is to expose "the increasing burden
U.S. soldiers face on military training bases because of
irrational enforcement of environmental laws." The whole
thing might be dismissed as another ideological stunt from
the committee's reactionary chairman, James Inhofe of
Oklahoma, were it not for the fact that the Pentagon is
trying to do the same thing. With White House backing, the
Defense Department has asked Congress to approve a program
it calls the "Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative,"
which would broadly exempt military bases and some
operations from environmental regulation. 

The Pentagon's basic complaint, echoed by Mr. Inhofe, is
that the laws governing air pollution, toxic waste dumps,
endangered species and even marine mammals - most of which
have been on the books for decades - interfere with
training and readiness exercises necessary for national
security. The Pentagon thus seeks a host of exemptions. For
instance, it would ease the hazardous waste laws to exclude
explosives and other potentially toxic material on firing
ranges. It seeks exemptions from the Endangered Species Act
whenever its duty under that law to protect animals
interferes with training operations. And, environmentalists
say, the proposed law could transfer to state governments
the enormous costs of cleaning up thousands of contaminated
sites on military property. 

Of particular interest is the Marine Mammals Protection
Act, which is also the first target on Mr. Inhofe's hit
list. The act is the nation's one legal instrument for
protecting whales, dolphins, sea otters, manatees and the
like. But the Navy claims that protecting these creatures
restricts its ability to test sonar and other underwater
detection devices. A recent court-ordered settlement makes
about one million square miles of ocean available for such
testing but that, apparently, is insufficient. 

Mr. Inhofe and the Pentagon are operating from slightly
different motives here. The armed services have always
found environmental laws inconvenient. Mr. Inhofe plainly
does not like these laws. Yet both invoke patriotism to
further their ambitions. John Dingell, a senior Democrat in
the House but hardly an environmental absolutist, put the
matter as well as anyone. "I have dealt with the military
for years," he said, "and they constantly seek to get out
from under environmental laws. But using the threat of 9/11
and Al Qaeda to get unprecedented immunity is despicable." 

Not only despicable but, as it turns out, largely
unnecessary. A General Accounting Office report last year
found that environmental regulations had not damaged
military readiness. Christie Whitman, administrator of the
Environmental Protection Agency, said much the same thing
in recent Congressional testimony. Finally, as even the
Pentagon concedes, most environmental rules can be
temporarily suspended in the interests of national
security; indeed, Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defense
secretary, has asked his commanders to provide specific
cases that might justify emergency exemptions from
environmental laws. 

But that approach could be cumbersome because it would
presumably require a case-by-case demonstration of need. A
blanket exemption would be easier and quicker, and the
administration is using the climate of war and the
ideological fantasies of conservative members of Congress
to get it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/22/opinion/22SAT2.html?ex=1049374855&ei=1&en=7ac2cd5df446ac21



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