Skip to main content

Environmental Compliance: Better DOD Guidance Needed to Ensure That the Most Important Activities Are Funded

GAO-03-639 Published: Jun 17, 2003. Publicly Released: Jun 17, 2003.
Jump To:
Skip to Highlights

Highlights

The Department of Defense (DOD) and its military services are responsible for complying with a broad range of environmental laws and other requirements that apply to the lands they manage, including more than 425 major military installations covering about 25 million acres across the United States. Through its environmental quality program, DOD spends about $2 billion per year to comply with these requirements. Although the services have made significant improvements in environmental management in recent years, DOD has not reached full environmental compliance. In response to the Senate Armed Services Committee's report on the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2002, we assessed how DOD and the services identify, prioritize, and fund their environmental quality activities to determine whether the most important and appropriate activities are funded.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Department of Defense To ensure that DOD can better target environmental quality program funds to the most important and most appropriate activities, the Secretary of Defense should establish a more specific policy on which activities should be eligible for funding through the services' environmental quality programs and how such activities should be prioritized and funded. The military services should subsequently conform their policies and processes to the revised DOD policy.
Closed – Implemented
DOD updated its policy in March 2005.

Full Report

Office of Public Affairs

Topics

Defense cost controlEnvironmental monitoringEnvironmental policiesMilitary cost controlMilitary policiesPolicy evaluationEnvironmental lawU.S. ArmyU.S. Air ForceU.S. Navy