Re: [CPEO-MEF] Pentagon Environmental Proposals

[rst195005@aol.com]

Thank you for your thoughtful response.  I believe that the best way to 
avoid "big changes" is to make the small changes necessary to keep the 
system working well.  The environmental laws, like other laws, are the 
handiwork of ordinary men and women; they are not gifts from on high.  
[The same is true, by the way, of the proposed legislative changes 
proposed by DoD.]  Occasionally,  the environmental laws need to be 
adjusted to ensure that they remain both workable and protective.  

None of the environmental provisions proposed by DoD would affect closed 
or closing military installations.  There would be zero effect on Camp 
Bonneville.  The only exception to my blanket statement is that property 
made surplus by a base closure could be conveyed for natural resource 
conservation purposes under section 2021, but even there the provision 
goes on to provide that the military department "may not dispose of any 
real property declared 
surplus as a result of a base closure law under this section in a manner 
inconsistent with the requirements and preferences established under a 
base closure law."  In other words, the authority to convey under 2021 
must take a back seat to the ordinary base closure property conveyance 
process, which gives a very very substantial role to community 
involvement and preferences.

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