Provisions in the House version of the 2004 Defense Authorization Bill would exempt not only the military but all federal departments from many of the requirements of the Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act, which, according to critics, would virtually gut both laws.
"It has turned into industry gang warfare on the nation's two leading conservation laws under the guise of military readiness exploiting the afterglow of the war in Iraq," accused Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust.
According to the participants in a conference call Tuesday, political appointees at the Pentagon basically hijacked the defense bill and, with the help of House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, inserted provisions that go far beyond the needs of the military.
The proposal, which should make its way to the House floor later this week, appears innocuous in the context of military readiness. Backers say large military installations -- primarily in the West -- have become vital habitat for several endangered species. The concern is that military units will have to tailor vital training maneuvers to tiptoe around birds, mountain sheep and other critters listed as endangered species.
The House Armed Services Committee said in its description of the Defense Authorization Bill that military brass fresh from the incursion into Afghanistan "reported their ability to train for operations was far from ideal due to environmental issues affecting their mission profile."
"Our nation is more secure when our military is able to train as it fights and fight as it trains," the committee declared. "The committee recommends a responsible set of initiatives intended to restore a balance between protecting the environment and military readiness."
The Endangered Species Act, the committee said, "frequently restricts access to training areas" while the Marine Mammal Protection Act was seen as preventing the development of sonar to protect against super-quiet diesel submarines that could attack the Navy --"including aircraft carriers and their crews of thousands."
The environmentalists and their congressional allies said Tuesday they had no quarrel with military preparedness and certainly didn't want to see thousands of sailors bailing out of a torpedoed carriers; however they contended that the military leadership hadn't requested the changes and rarely, if ever, sought national security waivers to environmental laws provided for under current law.
Federal lands other than military installations, however, have come under steady pressure from developers seeking to extract minerals, lumber and petroleum or to build housing.
The greens' argument is that the Bush administration and its allies on the Hill weren't even thinking about the military's needs when they moved to extend the Defense Department's proposed exemptions to all federal lands and open the door to virtually unrestricted energy and real estate development.
"It not only exempts the DoD from the provisions, but it fundamentally rewrites both of those laws in ways that...developers have sought for years," said Clapp. "We've gone well beyond anything the DoD sought."
Bill Snape, chairman of the Endangered Species Coalition, said it appeared that the bill's aim was to enhance the power of Interior Secretary Gale Norton to make arbitrary decisions about federal land use that, presumably, would be accommodating to development interests, given Norton's long support of western property rights.
"This has been on the 'wish list' of Secretary Norton for several years, but that isn't how they are playing it," said Snape. "They aren't playing it as a reform of the Endangered Species Act but rather as an important national security device. The plain language of the bill indicates it is far broader than that."
Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., told reporters that consolidating decision-making in Washington would knock local communities "completely out of the loop" in land-use decisions.
Tauscher predicted the bill would pass in the House, and that the more-moderate Senate would follow up with a measure that limits environmental exemptions to the Defense Department. The differences would be hashed out in conference negotiations between the two houses where the offending provisions would become extinct long before any of the rare creatures would become extinct that now call U.S. military bases home.
Copyright 2003 by United Press International.
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