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This doesn't surprise me in the least. The DoD and all of its sub-departments, is exempt from EPA regulations. There is no driving force to make more efficien

This doesn't surprise me in the least. The DoD and all of its sub-departments, is exempt from EPA regulations. There is no driving force to make more efficient and less polluting military equipment other than the desire to improve logistics or reduce costs. Considering that the military gets preferential pricing on its fuel purchases compared to typical civilian markets, it doesn't have any of the standard market or regulatory pressures to contend with which motivate innovations focused on energy efficiency. When a contractor is designing a new weapons platform, they focus exclusively on other factors of design, energy efficiency essentially isn't even a consideration as long as it can be refueled mid-mission. But really, if we want to discuss the US military and the environment, their carbon footprint is the least of my concerns. A bigger concern for me is how they've improperly handled and disposed of MASSIVE quantities of toxic waste over the years and continue to do so. One report I read concluded that nearly half of all PFOAs and PFOSs in the water systems in the continental US originated from military base runoff from them simply dumping expired/excess firefighting chemicals on the ground into open trenches. Basically every US military base inside the US is a superfund site the moment it is fully decommissioned and turned over to non-DoD control. That should tell you something. Carbon footprints aren't meaningless, but they're nearly so, compared to the far worse forms of pollution the US military does routinely that directly impacts everyone that lives nearby (I live in "Military City, USA", ask me about water quality here...).

mandmandam 5y ago
> The DoD and all of its sub-departments, is exempt from EPA regulations Ho-ly shit. I mean I know blatant corruption is basically under ever political rock ever everywhere, but that is... wow.
- abduhl 5y ago
  This is not corruption, this is as designed. The DoD's mission is national security and Congress has determined that national security trumps environmental protections which, to be quite honest, are mostly procedural hurdles put in place to slow down innovation and progress. The question is whether or not we should hinder our ability to protect ourselves from external (and internal at this point) enemies in order to (possibly) protect the environment. Congress has decided that we shouldn't. You can, of course, come to a different conclusion, but I doubt Congress ever will.
  - zdragnar 5y ago
    I will concede that incorrectly handling waste is bad, and shouldn't be tolerated. On thr other hand, I am amused some people seem to think armored tanks should be getting 35mpg...
    - abduhl 5y ago
      It's a bit hard to follow environmental standards when you're designing/testing/shooting depleted uranium.
    - tristor 5y ago
      > On thr other hand, I am amused some people seem to think armored tanks should be getting 35mpg... Distance, a need for speed, and difficulty of logistical support for mid-air refueling has resulted in massive advancement in airframe design and energy efficiency in the military compared to earlier designs. Had the energy efficiency requirements been mandated it would simply have acted as a forcing function. The same is true for armored vehicles. Yes, carrying around a lot of dense steel plating is a problem, but we don't really do that as much anymore because we've found better ways to armor vehicles as steel plating has been defeated by ultra-dense metallic penetrators (DU/TC) and complex projectiles like HEIAP rounds. Ablative armoring combined with ceramic plating (which achieves better results than hardened steel at lower weights) HAS actually created an environment where fuel efficiency for vehicles like tanks has increased (or more accurately in most cases, their top speed has increased given a set engine performance when not gearing limited). Do I think that Congress was wrong to carve out this exemption? Maybe, maybe not. The one thing I think they definitely should NOT have been exempted from is the safe handling and disposal requirements for toxic waste. Personally, I'm not super concerned if a fighter jet or tank is fuel efficient, I am concerned about us utterly decimating the ground water and ecology of our own country by haphazardly dumping toxic substances.
    - dekhn 5y ago
      well, if you want to win wars, you make tanks that drive fast. This is a well understood concept.
- tristor 5y ago
  Honestly, I thought this was common knowledge. I don't see it as a form of corruption, it was encoded into law primarily because most environmental regulations were passed in the midst of the Cold War. As a country, at that time, we didn't want to do anything which might impede the progress of military advancement and force superiority, which meant that national security concerns utterly trumped newly formulated (and somewhat hotly contested) environmental regulations. I don't think there were any backroom deals involved, I believe all parties, including the staunchest supporters of these regulations at the time, were in support of military exemption.
  - mandmandam 5y ago
    The Cold War which ended 3 decades ago yes? There wasn't some other Cold War necessitating wanton environmental destruction that I missed? ... As a country, at this time, there is no excuse for this exemption remaining on the books, none, none at all.
    - tristor 5y ago
      To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm more just trying to provide context for how it came to be. The environmental regulations the US operates under were mostly passed during the Cold War. We've had no significant environmental regulation since. Maybe we should have some... but we haven't.
dekhn 5y ago
Are you referring to this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/89.908 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/89.908 or is there another law which regulates DOD/EPA? The reason I ask is that the EPA does regulate DOD's cleanup activities (https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/environmental-challenge-military-munitions-and-federal-facilities https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/environmental-challenge-mili...)
- tristor 5y ago
  CERCLA, DERP, FUDS, and other programs all relate to clean-up after the fact, they don't control how the military handles hazardous waste while a base is active or under activated conditions. As I pointed out, nearly all the closed military bases that were shut down through BRAC (around 350) after the Cold War ended are now on the SuperFund list (which is administered under CERCLA). All the older FUDS sites were converted to SuperFund sites if they hadn't finished cleanup (most hadn't). One specific example that's local and relevant to me was the shut down of Kelly Air Force Base as part of BRAC, and the dumping of firefighting chemicals for aviation fires that contained PFOAs and PFOSs that contaminated local groundwater: https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2019/09/26/lasting-harm-the-contamination-around-the-south-sides-air-force-facilities-remains-and-residents-say-its-still-taking-a-toll https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2019/09/26/last... Kelly was closed under BRAC in 1995, and then partially re-opened in 2001 through BRAC as a re-alignment to become Kelly Field, part of JBSA Lackland (previously Lackland AFB). During the closure in 1995, firefighting chemicals which contain toxic PCBs, including PFOA and PFOS, were dumped directly onto the ground where they ran off into the Leon Creek watershed, and still cause the waters to be toxic for swimming, fishing, or drinking today... that watershed feeds drinking water supplies for a significant portion of the city, a portion that happens to be one of the poorest areas of the city. Most of the firefighting chemicals dumped were from the 1970s but were still stored "just in case" until the base got BRACed and then they dumped them... in the 90s, well after PFOA and PFOS were established to be toxic (although the case against Dupont surrounding them was still ongoing and undecided until 2005). So yeah, the Air Force and EPA have committed to a clean-up. Fantastic. No ETA, and the reality is that it's /extremely/ difficult to filter PFOA and PFOS out of water, even reverse osmosis isn't 100% effective. Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of people who are drinking contaminated water, swimming in contaminated streams, ponds, and lakes, and being exposed to contaminated fish. Being obligated to do a clean-up "eventually" is not the same thing as being regulated from doing the dumping of toxic waste in the first place. That's my point.

mandmandam 5y ago

> The DoD and all of its sub-departments, is exempt from EPA regulations Ho-ly shit. I mean I know blatant corruption is basically under ever political rock ever everywhere, but that is... wow.

abduhl 5y ago
This is not corruption, this is as designed. The DoD's mission is national security and Congress has determined that national security trumps environmental protections which, to be quite honest, are mostly procedural hurdles put in place to slow down innovation and progress. The question is whether or not we should hinder our ability to protect ourselves from external (and internal at this point) enemies in order to (possibly) protect the environment. Congress has decided that we shouldn't. You can, of course, come to a different conclusion, but I doubt Congress ever will.
- zdragnar 5y ago
  I will concede that incorrectly handling waste is bad, and shouldn't be tolerated. On thr other hand, I am amused some people seem to think armored tanks should be getting 35mpg...
  - abduhl 5y ago
    It's a bit hard to follow environmental standards when you're designing/testing/shooting depleted uranium.
  - tristor 5y ago
    > On thr other hand, I am amused some people seem to think armored tanks should be getting 35mpg... Distance, a need for speed, and difficulty of logistical support for mid-air refueling has resulted in massive advancement in airframe design and energy efficiency in the military compared to earlier designs. Had the energy efficiency requirements been mandated it would simply have acted as a forcing function. The same is true for armored vehicles. Yes, carrying around a lot of dense steel plating is a problem, but we don't really do that as much anymore because we've found better ways to armor vehicles as steel plating has been defeated by ultra-dense metallic penetrators (DU/TC) and complex projectiles like HEIAP rounds. Ablative armoring combined with ceramic plating (which achieves better results than hardened steel at lower weights) HAS actually created an environment where fuel efficiency for vehicles like tanks has increased (or more accurately in most cases, their top speed has increased given a set engine performance when not gearing limited). Do I think that Congress was wrong to carve out this exemption? Maybe, maybe not. The one thing I think they definitely should NOT have been exempted from is the safe handling and disposal requirements for toxic waste. Personally, I'm not super concerned if a fighter jet or tank is fuel efficient, I am concerned about us utterly decimating the ground water and ecology of our own country by haphazardly dumping toxic substances.
  - dekhn 5y ago
    well, if you want to win wars, you make tanks that drive fast. This is a well understood concept.
tristor 5y ago
Honestly, I thought this was common knowledge. I don't see it as a form of corruption, it was encoded into law primarily because most environmental regulations were passed in the midst of the Cold War. As a country, at that time, we didn't want to do anything which might impede the progress of military advancement and force superiority, which meant that national security concerns utterly trumped newly formulated (and somewhat hotly contested) environmental regulations. I don't think there were any backroom deals involved, I believe all parties, including the staunchest supporters of these regulations at the time, were in support of military exemption.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  The Cold War which ended 3 decades ago yes? There wasn't some other Cold War necessitating wanton environmental destruction that I missed? ... As a country, at this time, there is no excuse for this exemption remaining on the books, none, none at all.
  - tristor 5y ago
    To be clear, I'm not disagreeing with you. I'm more just trying to provide context for how it came to be. The environmental regulations the US operates under were mostly passed during the Cold War. We've had no significant environmental regulation since. Maybe we should have some... but we haven't.

dekhn 5y ago

Are you referring to this: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/89.908 https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/40/89.908 or is there another law which regulates DOD/EPA? The reason I ask is that the EPA does regulate DOD's cleanup activities (https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/environmental-challenge-military-munitions-and-federal-facilities https://www.epa.gov/enforcement/environmental-challenge-mili...)

tristor 5y ago
CERCLA, DERP, FUDS, and other programs all relate to clean-up after the fact, they don't control how the military handles hazardous waste while a base is active or under activated conditions. As I pointed out, nearly all the closed military bases that were shut down through BRAC (around 350) after the Cold War ended are now on the SuperFund list (which is administered under CERCLA). All the older FUDS sites were converted to SuperFund sites if they hadn't finished cleanup (most hadn't). One specific example that's local and relevant to me was the shut down of Kelly Air Force Base as part of BRAC, and the dumping of firefighting chemicals for aviation fires that contained PFOAs and PFOSs that contaminated local groundwater: https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2019/09/26/lasting-harm-the-contamination-around-the-south-sides-air-force-facilities-remains-and-residents-say-its-still-taking-a-toll https://www.sacurrent.com/the-daily/archives/2019/09/26/last... Kelly was closed under BRAC in 1995, and then partially re-opened in 2001 through BRAC as a re-alignment to become Kelly Field, part of JBSA Lackland (previously Lackland AFB). During the closure in 1995, firefighting chemicals which contain toxic PCBs, including PFOA and PFOS, were dumped directly onto the ground where they ran off into the Leon Creek watershed, and still cause the waters to be toxic for swimming, fishing, or drinking today... that watershed feeds drinking water supplies for a significant portion of the city, a portion that happens to be one of the poorest areas of the city. Most of the firefighting chemicals dumped were from the 1970s but were still stored "just in case" until the base got BRACed and then they dumped them... in the 90s, well after PFOA and PFOS were established to be toxic (although the case against Dupont surrounding them was still ongoing and undecided until 2005). So yeah, the Air Force and EPA have committed to a clean-up. Fantastic. No ETA, and the reality is that it's /extremely/ difficult to filter PFOA and PFOS out of water, even reverse osmosis isn't 100% effective. Meanwhile there are hundreds of thousands of people who are drinking contaminated water, swimming in contaminated streams, ponds, and lakes, and being exposed to contaminated fish. Being obligated to do a clean-up "eventually" is not the same thing as being regulated from doing the dumping of toxic waste in the first place. That's my point.