Environmental Protection

The Defense Department (DOD) manages thousands of military installations throughout the United States and overseas. Its operations are subject to the same environmental, safety, and health laws as is private industry, as well as additional regulations governing federal facilities. The day-to-day operations of a typical military installation mirror those of a small city. As a result, these installations face many of the same environmental problems confronting the industrial and commercial sectors. DOD has organized its $5 billion environmental program into five areas: cleanup, compliance, conservation, pollution prevention, and technology. This report discusses three of these areas: (1) cleanup (remediation), which involves investigating and cleaning up contamination from hazardous substances and waste on land used by DOD; (2) compliance with federal, state, and local environmental laws and regulations; and (3) technology research and development.

GAO found that: (1) recent DOD initiatives affecting environmental cleanup include efforts to focus funding on actual cleanup, instead of study and oversight, better target funds through the use of risk determination, and devolve the budget process to the military services; (2) DOD lacks the data it needs to manage its environmental compliance program; (3) although DOD has required the services to use an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) classification system, DOD was unable to provide data on spending by EPA classification; and (4) DOD plans to implement an online strategic environmental technology plan that will show specific service requirements and match ongoing and planned initiatives.