Special Treatment for the Military?

The Defense Department is seeking dangerous, sweeping legislative changes to exempt military activities from key provisions of vital laws protecting animals and the environment. If the bill becomes law, the US could not place "the conservation of public lands, or the preservation or recovery of endangered, threatened, or other protected species found on military lands," above the need to instruct soldiers "through realistic training on military lands and in military airspace." The Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and Marine Mammal Protection Act could be undermined, while the Navy could flood the oceans with potentially deadly sonar more expeditiously.

The armed forces refer to the restriction of military land use by environmental and other regulations as "encroachment." For example, as urban sprawl expands, cities displace lands otherwise inhabited by wildlife; when available habitat is marginalized in this way, lands used by the military may contain the critical habitat necessary for some threatened and endangered species' recovery.

However, conservation and military training clearly are compatible. According to Congressional testimony, military land in the Southeast US is managed to protect the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker by restricting - not eliminating - training exercises in the area. A bombing range in Arizona employs biologists who monitor the presence of endangered Sonoran pronghorn antelope. The Air Force admits that between 1999 and 2001 only three percent of live bomb dropping missions were cancelled "because of the proximity of pronghorn antelope." In Fort Hood, Texas, heavy artillery training is conducted in essential nesting habitat for two endangered songbirds, the golden-cheeked warbler and black-capped vireo - 25 percent of the land is managed for the species' recovery, while 75 percent is used for unfettered live weapons fire.

Most of the laws circumvented by the draft bill already contain provisions to exempt Defense activities when such an exemption is vital to national security. The national security exemption in the Endangered Species Act, for one, has never been invoked. So after years of working cooperatively with the government agencies charged with enforcing America's wildlife and environmental protection laws, it is fairly obvious that the military really doesn't need any new special treatment.