Environmental retreat.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Over the past two years, the Pentagon has bullied Congress into granting it exemptions from environmental laws under the patently false pretext that what it calls the "national defense mission" is incompatible with sound environmental practices.

Now, the Defense Department wants to go even further by revising an internal policy that commits it to "displaying environmental security leadership" both at home and abroad. The change has potentially devastating implications for millions of Americans who live on or near the many contaminated military sites in this country.

The Defense Department has a lousy environmental record. According to a recent USA Today analysis, one in 10 Americans lives within 10 miles of a military facility that already is listed as a hazardous waste site under the federal Superfund program. The same study shows the agency is responsible for a full 10 percent of the 1,240 sites listed for priority cleanup under the program.

Instead of meeting its responsibility to clean up these sites, Pentagon officials have stalled while they conduct a search and destroy mission to kill the last remaining rules that make them accountable for polluting the nation's soil, water and air. Since 2001, the Pentagon has delayed more than 70 federally ordered cleanups, protesting, among other things, potential restrictions on future activities on those sites.

The rollbacks of environmental regulations already are breathtaking in scope. In recent years, the military has won exemptions from the Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Migratory Treaty Act. It is currently seeking exemption from the Clean Air Act and at least two toxic waste laws.

Meanwhile, the Bush administration's EPA hasn't exactly been gung-ho in requiring the military to live up to even its currently meager obligations. Since Bush took office, EPA inspections at such installations have dropped by more than a fourth, as have the number of fines, cleanup orders and other enforcement actions.

Despite such lax enforcement, Pentagon officials now want to eliminate a list of uncomfortably specific requirements contained in a 1996 policy. Among other things, they make the Defense Department responsible for protecting, restoring and enhancing the environment at military sites, for reducing the risk to human health and the environment created by past military activities, and for complying with federal laws, executive orders and other legal requirements. In their place, the Pentagon proposes vague language that offers nonbinding guidance to the military on how to prevent pollution and comply with federal and international laws.

The Pentagon's motives aren't hard to discern. It wants to reduce its $4 billion a year in environmental costs, an amount that equals less than 1 percent of overall military spending. Military officials also appear driven by a desire to shed any and all accountability to the federal government - to become an agency that is responsible to nothing more than itself.

Defense officials are misleading when they cite "national security" as a justification for these changes. Existing federal law allows the president and defense secretary to circumvent environmental rules when national security is at stake. The military already has more than sufficient flexibility to ensure that training, testing and deployment are not hindered in times of war.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should sound the retreat on the military's latest effort to avoid its environmental responsibilities.