ADMINISTRATIVE ACTION

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

RESPONSE TO POSTING ON SECTION 363

Sec 363 is a two edged sword. The level of
concern gets elevated
to SecDEf and JCS, as well as the President. There are examples where a
local engineer has not told the deputy service secretary for environment
that a RCRA 7003 order is imminent.This statute forces a high level
of concern and there is a reluctance in the military to go to your boss
and report that you have a problem that you failed to solve. The issues
associated with the threat to shut down an activity usually stem from a
long period of neglect or lack of good faith negotiations. The most
frequent excuse is the lack of funds, which usually arises because the
organization never requested funds to address the problem raised by
regulators. The requirement to tell the Congress that, in spite of years
of effort on the part of regulators
and billions in appropriations, the service was unable to respond to the
problem effectively and it now poses the risk of having a significant
adverse effect on readiness will not be easy for any of the Executive
branch players. On the other hand, if there is a genuine risk to the
environment from an important military activity, Congress should know
about it.
It is difficult to believe that the Cape Cod scenario would qualify as
significant. It may be inconvenient, but there are other training sites.
It will be more expensive to train elsewhere, but cost is not the
statutory criterion for the report.

Barry Steinberg