TAPP Background

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

TAPP Background

The publication of the final rule for "Technical Assistance for Public
Participation (TAPP) in Defense Environmental Restoration Activities" is
a significant milestone in a long process. Community-based members of
what became the Federal Facilities Environmental Restoration Dialogue
Committee (FFERDC) first proposed the idea in October, 1991. After many
meetings and much refinement of the proposal, we won consensus support
for independent technical assistance, with one exception. Over the
recommendations of his staff, Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary Tom
Baca rejected the idea, which nevertheless appeared in the February,
1993 FFERDC Interim Report.

When, after the change in administrations, Sherri Wasserman Goodman took
the helm at a reorganized Pentagon environmental office, there was new
hope for technical assistance, particularly as more and more restoration
advisory boards (RABs) were formed across the country. Still, the Navy
and Army, which were not directly represented in FFERDC's pre-1993
deliberations, were reluctant at first to embrace the Committee's
recommendations. (The Air Force was more favorable because FFERDC chair
Tad McCall became Deputy Assistant Air Force Secretary.)

In 1994, Rep. Robert Underwood (D-Guam) and Sen. Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin)
proposed legislation directly authorizing technical assistance to RABs.
Backed by Pat Rivers, the new head of the Defense Department cleanup
office, the provision was included in the fiscal year 1995 Defense
Authorization Act. Rivers' staff, in cooperation with the three armed
services and U.S. EPA, began to devise the TAPP program.

In 1995, however, the new Republican staff majority of the Senate Armed
Services Committee expressed concern that the Underwood-Kohl legislation
was too much of a blank check. In the Committee's version of the fiscal
year 1996 Defense Authorization bill, technical assistance was to be
limited to situations where the responsible agencies could not provide
the required services. When the bill came to the Senate floor, Senator
Kohl and his allies were able to add new conditions to the legislation,
requiring that the assistance also improve the effectiveness of the
cleanup program and contribute to public acceptance. In the Senate-House
conference committee, however, the "AND" linking the new conditions to
the first one was changed to an "OR." Thus, in the final 1996 Defense
bill, the TAPP program remained alive, but the Cleanup office staff had
to restart its program development to meet the requirements of the new
law.

The rulemaking process has been slow primarily because there is a
fundamental tension between the desires of many community RAB members
for independent help and the accountability of government employees
built into the federal acquisition regulations. That is, community
volunteers want independence, but they can't let government contracts.
The final rule is a good effort to finesse that tension, but it will be
some time before anyone knows how well it works.

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@cpeo.org