DC Bureau - Investigative Journalism, Environmental News, and National Security Stories That Matter

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Poisoned Patriots: Running the Gauntlet

Written by Adam Sarvana Friday, 03 July 2009

The military is not the only hurdle in the path of families poisoned at Camp Lejuene. ATSDR faces its own accusations of mishandling and misrepresenting information. When Townsend filed a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request to view some of the supporting documents referenced in ATSDR’s 1997 report, he was told by a Health and Human Services Department official that the files “are no longer in CDC’s possession.

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Toxic Bureaucracy: The Balance of Power

Written by Adam Sarvana Monday, 06 July 2009

Last month, the Pentagon and several of its top contractors found an open door in President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to discuss potential new health standards for perchlorate. Perchlorate is one of a number of controversial substances used by Pentagon contractors that are known to adversely affect human health. The meeting was the latest maneuver in a long-running campaign — aimed at influencing environmental standards that could mean major new cleanups and liability costs for the military and its subsidiaries — that began in an obscure but powerful office established by the Bush-era Department of Defense (DOD). For the first time, the man responsible for starting this campaign to save contractors and the military from having to face the environmental consequences of their actions has spoken to DCBureau.org.

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Toxic Bureaucracy: Confronting the EPA

Written by Adam Sarvana Tuesday, 07 July 2009

Perhaps because of his near-unconditional job security, Ray DuBois, the Bush era’s first Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, felt free to question the good faith of EPA scientists when he disagreed with their work. The Pentagon chemicals office was formed in large measure because of the furor that arose when EPA issued a January 2002 draft assessment of perchlorate, the rocket fuel stabilizer, suggesting a drinking water limit of 1 part per billion (ppb) — an infinitesimal amount that can be expensive to achieve — might be needed to protect the health of fetuses of pregnant women who drank water contaminated with the substance, based on thyroid impairment in lab animals. The Public Education Center, DCBureau.org’s parent organization, worked closely with
the Wall Street Journal on a 2003 series examining the issue.

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Toxic Bureaucracy: Accusations of Bias

Written by Adam Sarvana Wednesday, 08 July 2009

The result of the perchlorate battle was a win for the Pentagon, and Ray DuBois, the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, found the process useful for downplaying the dangers of other potentially problematic chemicals. NAS’ stamp of approval was again sought after a draft EPA assessment was released on trichloroethylene (TCE), a degreasing solvent used for decades to clean military vehicles. The 2001 draft deemed TCE “highly likely to produce cancer in humans,” a ruling that would have had tremendous liability consequences for DOD.

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Toxic Bureaucracy: The Rollback

Written by Adam Sarvana Thursday, 09 July 2009

Ray DuBois, the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, argued that environmental laws had been hampering realistic training long before President George W. Bush was elected. “It was not something that emerged full flower in my mind or after Jan. 20, 2001, in the Bush administration’s mind. This had been percolating for years. This doesn’t happen overnight. Encroachment doesn’t happen overnight.” Beginning with the fiscal year 2003 defense authorization bill, DuBois pressed Congress in each year of his tenure for exemptions and amendments for the military to just such environmental  laws. In April 2002, the Pentagon, calling its effort the Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative, argued that the upcoming defense bill should ease the definition of whale and dolphin “harassment” in the MMPA, exempt military facilities from state Clean Air Act compliance for five years, reduce munitions cleanup standards under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), and preclude the listing of any military land as “critical habitat” under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as long as a site had in place a so-called Integrated Natural Resource Management Plan (INRMP), essentially a broad environmental usage strategy document.

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The Pentagon’s War on America: Toxic Bureaucracy: Burned in Effigy

Written by Adam Sarvana Friday, 10 July 2009

The buffer zone program around military installations to protect endangered species was never part of the Pentagon’s environmental law exemption efforts, which were essentially dead once Ray DuBois, the former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Installations and Environment, left office. (Even one-time House Armed Services Military Readiness Subcommittee Chairman Joel Hefley, a Colorado Republican, voiced opposition to any further legal revisions before leaving Congress in 2006.) As recently as March 2008, Congress’ investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), found, “DOD has not provided any specific examples showing that training and readiness have been hampered by” RCRA, CERCLA and the Clean Air Act, which the Pentagon consistently failed to amend. Nevertheless, when it comes to the laws he did amend, DuBois said the record vindicates his efforts. “I would submit that any analysis of where we have exercised our authority under those amendments [will show we] have yielded an improvement in the critical habitat and breeding pairs, et cetera. I believe that the results speak for themselves. The military should be proud of what we were able to do and in the process provide realistic training opportunities, which, if you ask Mr. and Mrs. America, they’ll say is priority number one.”

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