Book Description

DOD and other federal facilities are subject to the same environmental, safety, and health laws and regulations as private industry. To fulfill its environmental mission, DOD organized its program into five elements: compliance, cleanup, conservation, pollution prevention, and technology. This report covers three elements that use about $4.2 billion (90 percent) of DOD'S approximately $4.6 billion funding for environmental protection for fiscal year 1997. They are cleanup ($2 billion), which includes identification, investigation, and cleanup of contamination from hazardous substances and waste on active, closing, and formerly used DOD sites; technology ($0.2 billion), under which DOD invests in research, development, demonstration, and validation of new technologies to support the other elements of its environmental program; and compliance ($2 billion), which ensures adherence to environmental laws and regulations of federal, state, and local jurisdictions. DOD funds domestic cleanup primarily from the Defense Environmental Restoration Account (DERA).' Other environmental activities such as overseas cleanup, technology certification, and environmental compliance, are funded directly from several appropriation accounts, primarily operations and maintenance. In August 1996, we reported on the status of major defense initiatives for cleanup, technology, and compliance.