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Correspondence: Urging the rejection of adding anti-environmental provisions to the Administration’s Department of Defense Authorization proposal
January 31, 2003
Mr. Mitchell E. Daniels, Sr.
Office of Management and Budget Director
The Office of Management and Budget
725 17th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20503
Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., U.S. Navy (Ret.)
Undersecretary of Commerce for Oceans and Atmosphere
NOAA Administrator
Department of Commerce
14th Street and Constitution Avenue, N.W. #5128
Washington, D.C. 20230
Dr. Steven A. Williams
Director
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Department of Interior
1849 C Street, NW
Washington, DC 20240
Dear Gentlemen:
On behalf of our conservation organizations and the millions of members we represent, we strongly urge you to reject adding anti-environmental provisions to the Administration’s Department of Defense Authorization proposal for FY 2004. National security and environmental protection are not only compatible, they are inextricably linked.
The Department of Defense (DoD) is preparing to resubmit a proposal to exempt itself from complying with key provisions in many of the nation’s most significant public health and wildlife conservation laws. Similar to an effort by DoD that was largely rejected by Congress last year, the Department seeks legislative and administrative waivers from the Clean Air Act, Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (Superfund), Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, Clean Water Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Endangered Species Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act. The American people have long supported our nation’s environmental and public health laws and believe government agencies such as the DoD should not be exempt from complying with laws intended to apply equally to all Americans.
We understand that the DoD may expand its proposal on the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). This would require consultation with and approval of your agencies. We urge you to reject proposed changes that seek to weaken the MMPA, including a new definition of “harassment” that introduces ambiguity into a cornerstone provision of the act; blanket exemptions from the permitting process; proposals that would hamper permitting agencies from undertaking a thorough review of a “take” application; and elimination of existing restrictions that would allow military activities to take more than “small numbers” of marine mammals in a “specified geographic region.”
By allowing many more military activities to escape vital reviews, monitoring requirements and mitigation measures, these changes would undermine 30 years of progress our nation has made in protecting whales, dolphins, seals, and other marine mammals. The changes would add substantial uncertainty to the MMPA, impede the enforcement efforts of the wildlife agencies, increase the risk of harm to marine mammals, and only raise the level of public controversy and concern. Strandings of marine mammals, similar to the 2000 event in the Bahamas and the 2002 event in the Canary Islands, could become more frequent.
The DoD has not made a case for such dramatic changes to the law. In fact, last March, NOAA’s Assistant Administrator William Hogarth stated before the House Armed Services Committee that no small take or incidental harassment application submitted by the DoD has ever been denied. Moreover, provisions to accommodate Defense Department activities already exist within federal law, i.e. the Armed Services Code (10 U.S.C. §2014).
Existing laws provide for case-by-case determinations to ensure that both military readiness and environmental protection are achieved. Rather than pursue broad legislative or administrative changes, we would encourage the agencies to examine ways to make the existing structure even more effective, such as increasing staffing levels and funding at the permitting agencies and improving inter-agency consultations.
We appreciate your attention to these concerns.
Sincerely,
Dawn M. Martin
Chief Operating Officer
Oceana |
Roger Rufe
President
The Ocean Conservancy
Vice Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard (ret.)
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Phil Clapp
President
National Environmental Trust |
Vawter Parker
Executive Director
Earthjustice
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John H. Adams
President
Natural Resources Defense Council |
Patricia A. Forkan
Executive Vice President
The Humane Society of the United States |
Carl Pope
Executive Director
Sierra Club
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Rodger Schlickeisen
President
Defenders of Wildlife |
John Passacantando
Executive Director
Greenpeace |
Fred Krupp
President
Environmental Defense |
William W. Rossiter
President
Cetacean Society International |
Brock Evans
Executive Director
Endangered Species Coalition |
Jeff Ruch
Executive Director
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility |
Christine Wolf
Director of Government and International Affairs
The Fund for Animals |
Alan Berger
Executive Director
Animal Protection Institute |
Elliot M. Katz, DVM
President
In Defense of Animals
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David Phillips
Director, International Marine Mammal Project
Earth Island Institute |
Donald Ingraham
Executive Director
Friends of the Sea Otter
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Allan Thornton
President
Environmental Investigation Agency |
Chris Butler-Stroud
Chief Executive Officer
Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society
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Daniel B. Magraw, Jr.
Executive Director
Center for International Environmental Law |
Mary Jo Rice
Executive Director
Seaflow
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Tara Thornton
Executive Director
Military Toxics Project |
John Kullberg
President
Society for Animal Protective Legislation
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Mason Weinrich
Executive Director
The Whale Center of New England |
Brooks Yeager
Vice President of Global Threats
World Wildlife Fund
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