A Force to Be Requisitioned With

States say Pentagon bullies them into not enforcing toxic cleanups 3

Environmental regulators from more than a dozen states have accused the U.S. Department of Defense of retaliating against them for attempting to enforce cleanup of contaminated military-owned sites. "In the worst-case scenarios, the Department of Defense is intimidating a state environmental agency into not pursing enforcement," said Steve Brown of the Environmental Council of States at a congressional hearing on Thursday. The DoD is in charge of dispensing $30 million each year to states to help with the costs of cleaning up contaminated military bases, but in 2006, the DoD allegedly started playing politics with the purse strings, withholding cash from states that pursued enforcement actions and only paying up if they dropped such actions. While a DoD spokesperson denied knowledge of bullying, the alleged misdeeds are in line with other environmental battles the department has fought recently, including refusing to cooperate with the EPA on cleanup of many Superfund sites.

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  1. archigeek Posted 12:59 am
    20 Sep 2008

    Well...So much for the vaunted "honor" supposedly present in the military. Seems to be a bunch of BS. If this behavior is so unacceptable to service members who have "honor", why don't they stick their necks out in an effort to stanch this corruption? Not wanting to put the pension at risk, perhaps?  
  2. Wolverine Posted 2:52 am
    20 Sep 2008

    Not A SurpriseThe type of people attracted to militaries are aggressive, such as bullies.  And the U.S. military has long been the biggest polluter in the U.S., including the biggest toxic polluter.
  3. Tasermons Partner Posted 5:53 am
    20 Sep 2008

    Not to say it's insignificant......but $30 million, divided by all the toxic sites related to military use, over the course of an entire year...isn't very much at stake to begin with.
    It's basically chump change considerin' that a single toxic site typyically takes tens of millions, and sometimes hundreds of millions or even billions to clean up.
    That's the true tradegy here.
    Not that they play purse strings with the money.  But that the money is hardly worth of a purse to begin with.

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