Ozone-Depleting Chemicals

Increased Priority Needed If DOD Is to Eliminate Their Use Gao ID: NSIAD-92-21 November 13, 1991

The Defense Department (DOD) has taken some steps over the last 4 years to reduce its use and emissions of ozone-depleting chemicals. It has not, however, taken other initiatives to eliminate its use of ozone-depleting chemicals. Specifically, DOD has not sufficiently (1) clarified mission critical use; (2) identified specific chemical uses and quantities; (3) given priority to research, development, and testing activities required to implement successful alternatives; (4) justified the need to install equipment that uses regulated chemicals in new and existing systems; and (5) revised or changed its military specifications and standards to facilitate the use of substitutes or alternative technologies. Unless DOD acts now in several key areas, it will likely have to continue using ozone-depleting chemicals for many years after the scheduled production phase-out.

GAO found that: (1) DOD has established internal programs and joint efforts with industry and federal agencies to identify and develop alternatives to using ozone-depleting chemicals; (2) DOD is evaluating, purchasing, and using refrigerant and halon recovery and recycling equipment and has reduced its halon emissions during training and testing activities; (3) the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) has defined mission-critical uses so broadly that the military departments have significant latitude in identifying uses that can continue beyond the planned phase-out; (4) since DOD has neither identified or tracked all of its ozone-depleting chemical usage quantities, specific uses, and emissions, the services are not fully aware of where and in what quantities all the regulated chemicals are used; (5) although DOD estimates that it will cost about $250 million to test, evaluate, and qualify new materials for mission-critical applications, OSD and the services are slow in providing the resources to ensure that safe and acceptable alternatives will be available to support DOD phase-out of those regulated chemicals; (6) DOD is continuing to install equipment that uses ozone-depleting chemicals in existing and new aircraft and ships; (7) over 9,600 military specifications and standards currently require contractors to use ozone-depleting chemicals; and (8) although, in many cases, DOD could opt for using nonmilitary specifications and standards to promote the use of safe and acceptable alternatives, as of September 1, 1991, it had revised only one standard to allow the use of alternatives.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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