WASHINGTON — For years, environmental restrictions have limited the military's use of low-altitude training flights over certain lands that harbor endangered species.
And just recently, the Interior Department told the Army that it could use the California desert to prepare its troops for Afghanistan only if exercises were conducted during daylight and on roads.
The Pentagon had hoped that in George W. Bush, it had found a president who would lift these kinds of environmental restrictions in the name of national security.
But now it could find itself locked in a bureaucratic battle with the Environmental Protection Agency, whose career staff has prepared for trench warfare against what it views as the Defense Department's assault on long-standing environmental rules and laws.
In recent weeks, the Defense Department has circulated to other federal agencies a draft of legislation that would waive provisions of a host of environmental laws for training exercises and other so-called readiness activities.
But career specialists at the EPA, in a briefing paper for Administrator Christie Whitman, criticized each Pentagon waiver request related to pollution laws.
For instance, one Pentagon suggestion would exclude munitions, explosives and other weapons from the list of pollutants governed by the Clean Water Act.
"The change to the definition of 'pollutant' under the draft bill is a broad change that could affect many sites and have far-reaching effects," the EPA staff said in the briefing paper, a copy of which was obtained by The Times.
The EPA staff stressed that environmental laws already provide mechanisms to exempt the military for reasons of national security or emergency.
EPA spokesman Joe Martyak confirmed that the agency had been exchanging views with the Pentagon over the issue, but he would not give details about the EPA's comments. He stressed that the EPA had not finalized its responses to the Defense Department's proposals.
In a hearing before the House Armed Services Committee last month, one top military official after another complained about the threat to military readiness caused by environmental regulations.
That committee plans to move legislation addressing the problems this spring, according to Sarah Shelden, spokeswoman for the committee's chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.). It is waiting for suggestions from the military services before drafting its legislation.
