STATUS OF DEFENSE CLEANUP BUDGET

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@igc.org>]

STATUS OF DEFENSE CLEANUP BUDGET

When Congress returns from its recess, it will be resolving key issues
about cleanup funding as part of the much larger Defense budget, in the
conferences on both the Defense Authorization Act and Defense
Appropriations Act. The amounts on money in play are smaller than in
previous years, but if certain cuts hold they could have a significant
impact. As far as we know, members of Congress have not heard much this
year on the cleanup budget from states, local governments, or public
stakeholders.

The following applies to the accounts formerly known as the Defense
Environmental Restoration Account, covering cleanup at active and former
defense sites, but not those facilities covered by the Base Realignment
and Closure accounts. For fiscal year 1998, the President (Pentagon)
requested a total of $1,263.9 million. We posted details on the entire
Environmental Security budget earlier this year, and we published the
table in our February-March "Military and the Environment."

Authorization:

The House National Security Committee, venue for the debate on the
"Defense Reform Act," left the proposed budget untouched.

The Senate Armed Services committee cut the budget by $90 million,
targeting $60 million against "administration." As I pointed out in an
earlier posting, this not only would gut the management of the cleanup
program, but it would dramatically reduce funding for states (Defense
State Memoranda of Agreement) and restoration advisory boards. Intended
to penalize the Defense Department for its management of certain aspects
of the program, it could only make things worse.

Appropriations:

The House Appropriators cut $73 million from funding for cleanup at the
Rocky Mountain Arsenal, saying that those funds could be drawn from a
trust fund set up with Shell Oil, a responsible party at the Colorado
installation. While I like the idea of making Shell pay its fare share,
this is not what the trust fund was established to do.

The Senate Appropriators increased the line item for formerly used
defense sites by $40 million, while cutting the other programs by a
total of $7 million, ending up in a net increase of $33 million.

In addition to resolving the differences between each set of bills, it's
always possible that the Appropriations conferees will raid the cleanup
funds, as well as other activities, when they realize at the last minute
that there's not enough money for other favored projects.

Remember, the final action of Congress on cleanup budgets not only
directly affects the funds available for allocation the following year,
it sets a tone that is usually reflected by government personnel all the
way down to the base level.

Lenny Siegel
Director, SFSU CAREER/PRO (and Pacific Studies Center)
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/968-1126
lsiegel@igc.org