In 1968, Apollo 8 transmitted the first images of earth. As Americans viewed their planet from space, and saw its swirling, blue-colored atmosphere in the otherwise dark photographs, many realized for the first time that earth’s environment was fragile and thus demanded protection. As such, Congress got serious about environmental reforms: 1972 brought passage of the Marine Mammal Protection Act, 1973 the Endangered Species Act, 1976 the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 1980 the Superfund Act (prompted by the “Love Canal” tragedy), and 1990 the Clean Air Act. These pieces of largely sensible environmental legislation have assured that American growth can coexist with environmental responsibility.
Until recently, the United States Department of Defense was required to abide by the vast majority of provisions outlined in the laws cited above. As well it should: the DOD oversees 25 million acres-much of it in rural areas that, naturally, serve as important habitats for over 300 endangered species-and is responsible for 131 hazardous waste cleanup sites on the Superfund priority list. Because of the force of such legislation, the Department of Defense has actually been praised by environmentalists: John Kostyack, senior counsel of the National Wildlife Federation, said in the Christian Science Monitor that, “To its credit, the Defense Department has a leadership record in several areas of endangered-species conservation.” Indeed, the DOD has spent billions cleaning up its sites and seemed to be operating under what the Monitor called a “new environmental ethic.”
On Monday, November 24, 2003, that all changed. In one of the most destructive alterations of environmental policy ever, President Bush signed a $401.3 billion authorization bill that exempts the DOD from most of the regulations outlined in the five major pieces of environmental legislation discussed above. Since Bush hid the policy changes in a package ostensibly for his administration’s ubiquitous “war on terror,” the changes went unnoticed and unprotested by the vast majority of Americans.
The move was carefully calculated by the Bush administration, whose right-wing allies have gotten used to shrewdly forwarding their agenda as buried in such “war on terror” appropriations. In congressional hearings, civilian Pentagon officials claimed that the environmental laws were preventing American troops from achieving readiness. New weapons require more space for simulation, they argued, and even warrant the reducation of pollution standards. Donald Rumsfeld took it further, exploiting American fear when he claimed that without environmental standard exemptions, “We’re going to end up sending men and women into battle without the training they need”-this despite the military seeming to have been “ready” for every battle since the 1970s, when many of the protections were passed. In its own study, the General Accounting Office, Congress’ investigational unit, concluded, “very few [military] units reported being unable to achieve combat-ready status due to inadequate training areas.” So, it would seem that actual military leaders provided proof that Rumsfeld’s “readiness” argument was but a thin veil for the administration’s distinctly political motivations-the erosion of environmental legislation detested by many of Bush’s largest campaign donors. The slippery slope is obvious-soon, large corporations may fairly ask the question: if the government does not have to abide by its own environmental legislation, why should we?
Even sadder than what DOD exemption from environmental standards means for American politics is what it means for the environment. Lest one think that such environmental legislation is only meant to protect obscure species that would die out naturally, the Navy, for example, can now redefine environmental “harassment.” Environmentalists predict that harassment will no longer include the usage of sonar that hurts dolphins’ and whales’ means of communication and navigation. Past usage of sonar by the US Navy in the Bahamas led to 16 whales beaching themselves and seven dying from cranial hemorrhaging caused by the sound pressure. Such evidence shows that this DOD exemption from environmental laws has serious consequences. And, for pacifists, the overtones are obvious: there is a certain irony in animals dying so the United States can achieve the ever-nebulous state of “combat readiness.”
If Americans are as concerned about the environment as polls say they are, then this easing of environmental restrictions for the DOD should enrage us. As college students, surely we would take more comfort in inheriting a world where sensible environmental laws have been universally applied than one where our nation’s military has been allowed to destruct the environment for no other reason than the political aspirations of Bush and his “war on terror.”