assignment 6

HR 672 Military Environmental Responsibility Act

To understand this bill, a good example is the case of water in Wisconsin. As reported by Elizabeth DiNovella, on her local news blog, rural Wisconsin has been impacted by over fifty years of water pollution from the local Badger Army Ammunitions Plant (Dinovella, 2009). According to citizens in the area, they know first hand that federal agencies have not lived up to environmental standards as they should have along this time frame, it is evident in their drinking waters, and groundwaters, which have shown high levels of carcinogenics and pollutants (Dinovella, 2009). The bill would aid the effort to enforce the local plant to reach compliance and maintain it. Local residents,in a letter to government, have research and Dinovella quotes them, "Unregulated military projects have placed countless communities, workers, soldiers, and families at increased risk for cancer and other deadly disease from exposure to military toxins–the hidden casualties here at home," (Dinovella, 2009). Furthermore, evidence shows, as Dinovella quotes local residents, "Independent reviews by the Government Accountability Office have shown that environmental compliance does NOT interfere with the military’s ability to do its job," (Dinovella, 2009). Thus, it seems like th epassage of this bill would aid the community, and help the plant reach compliance, while not creating an impact in their regular duties, a win-win situation.

1. H.R. 672 definitely has the potetial to set off a firestorm of value based
issues. It seems that a mjor economic investment the U.S makes year after year is in military funding. H.R. 672 may impact the way and or where financial resources are used, even how, because it focuses on making agencies in military roles cooperate with environmental guidelines. These agancies will have to decide critically on using their funding to clean up their programs, and reduce costs for their projects, and or continue to impact the environment while pursuing those projects as they are. If increased funds would be appropriated within this bill, it may aid the persuasion to comply, as the case in Wisconsin, since it would not impact the regular infrastructure or duties there within.

2. Currently H.R. 672 has not action pending. The political climate surrounding it is minimal. It is sponsored by Bob Filner from California. The bill is curerently within the committee for readiness, which has had it since February of 2009. Raul Grijalva from Arizona is one co-sponsor.

3. Within the scientific aspects of the bill,it only calls for the agencies to comply with the standards set in the environmental protection act of 1969. Thus it may seem a bit outdated with regards to curent technology and curent standards set for other environmental cocnerns such as emmission, energy, water,etc. I guess the central theme would address whether these agancies can at least meet some minimal environmnatal requirement, and continue their projects with an environmental mindset.

4. Policy design is not a major component of this bill, as it is only a requirement for agncies to meet compliance. The policy design was established in 1969 and any new policy measres would have to be introduced accordingly and through the appropriate measures. I guess within the defense agencies' projects only engineers and scientists could gauge the efficiency of the policy design and attest to its feasibility with any project. If it is a measure for the agency to produce decreasing pollutant levels, it may just be a case of design of the infrastructure and reporting compliance?

5. Management is key within this bill because you are dealing with major government agancies that have protocols of leadership and security measures that are highly complex and tightly monitored. It seems this will be a difficult realm to maneveur within and may be a major point of challenges to regulation of the proposed measures.

References

Dinovella, Elizabeth. (2009, June 5th). Fighting Militarism’s Toxic Legacy. Retreived from http://www.lizdinovella.com/?tag=hr-672