[CPEO-MEF] DOD Promises RAB Rule

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Defense Environmental Alert (December 18, 2001) reports that the Defense
Department [DOD] has agreed to promulgate a rule governing the operation
of Restoration Advisory Boards [RABs] within 18 months. It says, "At a
Dec. 10 hearing on the case 'Curt Gandy et al v. U.S. Department of the
Army et al,' U.S. attorneys representing the Pentagon said the Secretary
of Defense acknowledged that DOD had not developed a so-called RAB rule,
despite Congressional direction to do so ..." Gandy, leader of the Fort
Ord Toxics Project, brought the lawsuit to challenge the Army's
dissolution of the Fort Ord RAB.

The Fiscal Year 1996 Defense Authorization Act required the Department
to develop the rule, and it published a proposed rule in the Federal
Register on August 6, 1996 (pp. 40764-40772). Groups such as CPEO
(CAREER/PRO at the time) and ARC Ecology commented on the proposed rule,
but it was never finalized.

The new effort is likely to take up where the old proposal left off, but
- given the controversies over RAB dissolution at Ford Ord and McClellan
Air Force Base, both in California - one can expect new language
codifying criteria for abandoning RABs.

Lenny Siegel
-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org