Blumenauer wins promise for wide-area assessment pilot

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

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Today (June 22, 2004), on the floor of the House of Representatives,
Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) won a promise of support for a $5
million pilot project to demonstrate wide-area assessment technology for
munitions response. In the debate on the Defense Appropriations bill for
fiscal year 2005, Blumenauer withdrew his proposed amendment (to
establish such a project) after Reps. Jerry Lewis (R-California) and
John Murtha (D-Pennsylvania) - chair and ranking members of the Defense
Appropriations Subcommittee, respectively - promised to help fund the
proposed project.

Wide-area assessment uses airborne sensors to survey former munitions
ranges to define areas unlikely to contain unexploded ordnance or
discarded munitions. The Defense Science Board and others have
recommended this approach, arguing that it is likely to reduce the
footprint of the munitions response inventory by as much as eight
million acres.

Blumenauer sees the pilot project as a first step in implementing the
Defense Science Board recommendation for a $200 million per year
production-scale wide-area assessment program. Presumably the pilot
project will be funded through the Environmental Security Technology
Certification Program, which leads much of the Defense Department's
technology development and validation efforts in the area of munitions response.

The floor colloquy did not say where the money will come from.
Blumenauer proposed that it not come from the already underfunded
Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) munitions response program, but the
size of that program in fiscal year won't be known until after the
Senate weighs in. In most years, the Senate increases the FUDS budget
above the President's request. Blumenauer's office is reportedly hoping
to get members of the Senate Appropriations Committee to champion this
small, but important project.

Lenny Siegel
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org

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