STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID
Hearing on the Defense
Department Proposal for Environmental Law Exemptions
Mr. Chairman,
thank you for holding this hearing here today.
I know that you have served as
the Chair of the Subcommittee on Readiness of the Armed Services Committee for
some time. My colleague from
Nevada, Senator Ensign, now holds that post and has ably chaired two hearings
on this subject since he took the gavel. And my colleague Senator Warner serves as the Chair of Armed
Services.
I’d like to say
that - with all due respect to the fine work of my colleagues on that Committee
-- this is the right venue for consideration of the Defense Department’s
proposal. It proposes far-reaching and permanent exemptions to four laws within
this Committee’s jurisdiction.
I have served on
this committee since 1986, as chair and ranking member of the full committee
and subcommittees. I would ask the Chairman and Senator Warner to ensure that
this committee consider and markup any proposal to amend these laws. The expertise . . . the jurisdiction over
this matter . . . resides here.
The central
question of this hearing is whether our environmental laws hinder our ability
to train our troops, to prepare and execute a war. Always important, this question takes on special meaning with our young
men and women engaged in war. No one in this room stands for impeding our
ability to ensure that they have received the best training.
Nevada has always
been at the forefront of providing for the nation’s defense – providing for
some of the more dangerous exercises and training performed by our military. When I was growing
up, we used to watch nuclear testing conducted in the desert at the Nevada Test
Site. Bleachers were erected so people
could watch the explosions.
We didn’t think a
lot about the health and environmental consequences of that testing at the
time. It was a spectacle to watch. Today, we are in
the process expanding the site and making it the Nation’s premier counter
terrorism training center. I have been a staunch supporter of those
efforts.
Proponents of the plan to exempt the military from several
environmental laws have few concrete examples showing that those laws impede
military readiness or that a blanket exclusion would improve readiness.
In fact, those
laws already provide for case-by-case exclusions where national security
dictates. There is one broad, overarching exclusion that allows for the
suspension of any administrative action - environmental or otherwise - in the
name of national defense.
There are many
good reasons to favor case-by-case exclusions over the broad exemptions the
Department seeks. I want to talk about just one. We train our top pilots at the
Naval Air Station just outside of the small rural community of Fallon,
Nevada. In the course of just a few years, 16 children have been diagnosed with
leukemia in Fallon. Three of those
children have died. The CDC, the Agency for Toxic Substances
Disease Registry (ATSDR) and the State of Nevada have been searching for environmental
clues to the leukemia problem in Fallon.
At a hearing I
held there now almost two years ago to the day, I heard the parents of those
children and others ask me to find an answer.
One area of concern was the Naval Air
Station. Were there leaks of JP-8 fuel
from the pipeline supplying the base? Could those leaks have had an impact? What
is the impact of air emissions from over-flights? We don’t conclusively know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that the Commanders there
can show that they’ve followed our environmental laws.
I also know that
if JP-8 or some other chemical leaked at the site, federal and state
environmental officials would have the authority to get it cleaned up. I know that the
Clean Air Act applies to the base and that the people of Fallon enjoy the same
clean air protections as people in Reno, Sparks and the rest of the Nation.
That is as it should be.
But it wouldn’t be the case if the Department’s proposal were
enacted. And I think that would cast a
cloud over places like the Fallon Naval Air Station. The people of Fallon would no longer have the assurance of these
protections.
In the end, that
would be both a disservice to them and to the Commanders at the Naval Air
Station who strive to be good environmental stewards.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.