DC Bureau

Such hints can be found in how the Obama White House has treated chemical companies that have endangered the health of millions of Americans with toxins and chemicals left behind by military contractors—including service members and their spouses and children.

Over the past decade, DCBureau.org reporters have exposed the contamination of areas across the United States with TCE, a widely used military solvent, and perchlorate, the solid rocket fuel stabilizer.

In the case of perchlorate, our work with Peter Waldman and the Wall Street Journal led the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to prepare proposed guidelines in January 2002 for perchlorate, found at military and defense contractor sites around the country and in about 25 percent of America’s drinking water supply.

In its draft assessment, the EPA recommended 1 part per billion—an infinitesimal amount—to protect pregnant women and the health of their fetuses from drinking water contaminated with this chemical. If implemented, the cost of the cleanup of military installations would be substantial.

In response, the Pentagon, as it was preparing for two wars, created a new bureaucracy—not to help its soldiers and their families—but to protect its contractors’ interests.

Ray DuBois, the Bush Administration’s top Pentagon environmental official for more than three years, created the Emerging Contaminants Directorate (ECD) that greatly expanded the military’s role in national- and state-level environmental regulation. He established the polluters—the military and its contractors—as major “stakeholders” in federal efforts to study and potentially restrict emerging contaminants, substances that environmental officials fear could be harmful but have not yet been regulated.

EPA guidelines for perchlorate have been delayed as the Pentagon and other related agencies further study this and other “emerging” military toxins.

When the Obama Administration came to office, they promised stronger environmental protections and the elimination of unnecessary bureaucracy. In this instance, neither has happened. Recently renamed the Chemical and Material Risk Management Directorate, this office—set up to assert the Pentagon’s political interests in environmental debates—remains active, with the Bush Administration’s last political appointee to oversee the office remains in place today.

When told about this, one reporter at a major national newspaper suggested giving the Obama Administration more time. It would get around to it. That reporter was wrong.

In fact, the Obama Administration has invited into the White House the very chemical companies that have been exposing Americans, including the military and their families, to toxins and chemicals that kill and destroy lives. These chemicals seep into water supplies in and around military bases. TCE and perchlorate are just two. There are many more.

By delaying the EPA’s establishment of interim public health standards, the Pentagon ensures that local governments have no way of setting a safety standard to protect the air, water, and health of those who live in communities that are affected.

Adam Sarvana’s stories on “Poisoned Patriots” and Ray DuBois on DCBureau.org are the tip of a worldwide scandal of Pentagon pollution and a corporate/government partnership to delay and confuse the public while their health suffers and the pollution is not cleaned up.

The Obama White House should shut down the Pentagon’s Chemical and Material Risk Management Directorate and give that budget to the EPA so they can independently supervise the cleanup of the Pentagon’s toxic legacy. Further, President Obama would be wise to reveal who is secretly meeting at the White House with chemical company lobbyists, instead of keeping secret White House visitor logs. Americans are entitled to know which chemical company representatives have lobbied OMB and the Administration as well as the identity of the other “stakeholders” on the White House invitation list. That is change we can believe in.

What is at stake? Further delays prevent local authorities from protecting their citizens and the EPA from dealing with one of the biggest polluters in the world—the United States Department of Defense.