The nation's worst polluter, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), is refusing to sign enforcement agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that require DOD to clean up polluted sites nationwide. The military bases covered by EPA's enforcement orders may endanger public drinking water supplies as a result of the military dumping toxic pollutants at the sites.

Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), EPA can order polluted facilities to be cleaned up and may back up the orders with court actions and daily fines. Both private and government property are subject to the act. When directed at government agencies, EPA's orders cannot become final until it confers with the targeted agencies to discuss timetables and plans for remedying the polluted facilities. These meetings generally lead to enforcement agreements under which sites are remediated.

According to a June 30 Washington Post article, DOD has refused to sign 12 required agreements that would cover facilities listed under the National Priorities List, better known as the Superfund list. Some of the chemicals dumped at the sites may cause cancer and can seep into drinking water supplies and aquifers, one of EPA's major concerns.

On June 25, the leaders of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce and its Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials sent a letter to EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson investigating EPA's actions in support of final RCRA orders issued for three DOD facilities. The orders were for Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey, Fort Meade in Maryland, and Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Although some cleanup efforts have begun at the sites, DOD is in violation of the final orders and has sought the intervention of both the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).

On May 14, DOD sent a letter to OMB asking it to resolve the dispute between DOD and EPA. DOD argued that EPA does not have the authority to impose what it refers to as "additional provisions" to the model enforcement agreements that have been the bases for these interagency agreements. EPA argued in a Nov. 13, 2007, letter to DOD that the changes DOD is calling for in these agreements do not meet the standards set out in the model agreements.

The Energy and Commerce Committee is asking EPA to provide the committee with information about DOD's failure to comply with the orders. Specifically, the committee wants EPA to provide information about conversations with, and additional information provided to, either OMB or DOJ in the course of resolving the conflict. It also asks EPA to answer seven questions related to the three facilities at the heart of the conflict and DOD's compliance with EPA orders generally. The letter notes that one of President Bush's promises when he ran for president in 2000 was to require federal facilities to meet environmental protection laws and to hold government agencies accountable for their actions. "It is long past time for this pledge to be honored," the letter states. The committee requested EPA to respond by July 7.

DOD has recently fought EPA on other environmental fronts. In April, the process for assessing the toxicity of chemicals to be added to EPA's Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS) was changed to allow OMB, DOD, and other agencies to have more influence over the assessment process. (See the April 15 Watcher article on IRIS.)

In 2005, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) conducted an investigation that showed DOD, with the support of the White House, pressured the National Academies of Science to downplay the adverse health effects of the chemical perchlorate. Perchlorate is an ingredient in rocket fuel. The Pentagon and defense contractors use rocket fuel for a variety of purposes. Perchlorate has been shown to cause brain damage in fetuses and infants, according to NRDC. EPA has not begun to regulate perchlorate, citing the need for more research.

Although the conflict over EPA's enforcement powers could be resolved quickly by OMB, at this late date in the Bush administration, it is unlikely that anything more than the voluntary cleanup efforts DOD has started at the sites will occur before a new presidential administration is in place.