REPORT FROM DC TRIP

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

DC REPORT
I just returned from four busy days of meetings in Washington, DC, and 
I'd like to pass on some unofficial bulletins:
1) FFERDC. The forty or so members of the Federal Facilities 
Environmental Restoration Dialogue Committee that attended its final 
plenary meeting reached consensus on the language of a final report. 
Within the next two weeks, the final draft will go out to members for 
approval and signature. Printed copies should be available by the end 
of March, if not sooner.
2) BRAC '95. The final language of the fiscal year 1995 Defense 
Authorization Bill did not solve the transition problem for funding 
cleanup at bases included in the 1995 round of Base Realignment and 
Closures. The armed services were left without the $100 million or so 
that they planned to spend on BRAC '95 cleanups, because the 
prohibition on spending Defense Environmental Restoration Account funds 
for BRAC facilities was not modified by Congress. Still, since many 
environmental programs on those bases are in high gear, the armed 
services are scrambling to indentify pots of money, such as unspent 
BRAC funds from previous years, that they can reprogram to meet the 
BRAC shortfall.
3) DSMOA. The final Defense Authorization Act language cuts the amount 
of money that can be transferred to the states for overseeing military 
cleanup, under the Defense State Memoranda of Agreement, by 50%, to $10 
million. However, the law allows the Environmental Security office to 
request more money, and all indications are that it will.
4) RABs. The Cleanup office continues to move ahead slowly in its 
efforts to promulgate regulations governing RABs. It is expected that 
the form of technical assistance offered will be based upon small 
($25,000) purchase orders, available at each base. It is not clear that 
the Cleanup office will beat the Congressional deadline, the end of the 
fiscal year, for action.
5) MUNITIONS RULE. The Department of Defense is preparing to gear up 
for the preparation of its own rule on the remediation of former, and 
closing munitions impact ranges. Of note, DOD will begin by reviewing 
the entire universe of such bases. A notice on the DOD effort should 
appear in the Federal Register soon.
Lenny Siegel