A Military Program with Environmental Benefits
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A Win-Win-- A Military Program With Environmental Benefits: A Look at Encroachment and the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative By Marla Gillman B.S., December 1996, Florida State University J.D., April 2000, Florida State University College of Law A Thesis submitted to The Faculty of The George Washington University Law School in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws August 31, 2011 Thesis directed by Dean Lee Paddock Associate Dean for Environmental Studies and Professorial Lecturer of Law Acknowledgements The author wishes to thank Ms. Nancy Natoli, Coordinator of the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense (Installations and Environment), BG (ret) Bob Barnes, DOD Liaison, The Nature Conservancy, and Mr. Girair Simon and Mr. Jonathan Weiss, ManTech International Corporation, Office of the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Installation & Environment) for their time and knowledge. ii Disclaimer Major Gillman serves in the U.S. Air Force Judge Advocate General’s Corps. This paper was submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Laws in Environmental Law at The George Washington University Law School. The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or U.S. Government. iii Abstract A Win-Win-- A Military Program With Environmental Benefits: A Look at Encroachment and the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative Encroachment is an ongoing problem for the Department of Defense (DOD). DOD developed strategies to deal with this issue, including the Readiness and Environmental Protection Initiative (REPI). REPI projects balance mission readiness and conservation by creating buffer zones around military installations with encroachment problems. It does this by entering into cooperative agreements with eligible partners to purchase fee simple or some lesser interest in land in the vicinity of a military installation that has a dual benefit, limiting incompatible development and conservation. While REPI has become an important tool for DOD, there are shortcomings in the program inhibiting its effectiveness. DOD needs not only to provide better guidance to the services on REPI, but how to better incorporate Sikes Act cooperative agreements into range sustainment and leveraging other federal programs that have similar goals. Other legislative changes are needed for the program to continue its success, such as creation of a fund to hold the annual appropriations and authorization to use funds outside the fiscal year they were appropriated for. With changes such as these, REPI can continue to build on its current successes. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS I. Introduction .....................................................................................................................1 A. Urban Sprawl .............................................................................................................4 B. Endangered Species....................................................................................................7 C. Progression of the Paper .............................................................................................9 II. DOD’s Approaches to Encroachment ............................................................................9 A. Readiness and Range Preservation Initiative ............................................................9 B. Land Use Planning ..................................................................................................11 C. Sustainable Range Initiative ....................................................................................13 D. REPI ........................................................................................................................14 E. Sikes Act ..................................................................................................................19 III. Background on Statutory Tools ...................................................................................21 A. 10 U.S.C. §2684a ...................................................................................................21 B. 16 U.S.C. §670c-1 ..................................................................................................24 C. REPI funding ..........................................................................................................26 IV. Assessing REPI’s Effectiveness and Current Service Implementation .......................29 A. Reporting................................................................................................................30 1. Congressional Annual Reports ........................................................................30 2. RAND Corporation Study................................................................................31 B. Current Service Implementation ............................................................................32 1. Department of the Army ..................................................................................32 2. Department of the Navy ...................................................................................34 3. Marine Corps ...................................................................................................36 4. Department of the Air Force ............................................................................37 V. Partner Involvement and Program Benefits .................................................................39 A. NGO Involvement .................................................................................................39 B. State Programs ......................................................................................................40 1. Florida ..............................................................................................................40 2. Texas ................................................................................................................42 3. Arizona .............................................................................................................43 4. Georgia .............................................................................................................43 C. Environmental Benefits .........................................................................................44 D. Other Partnership Benefits ....................................................................................46 E. REPI Success Stories to Date ...............................................................................46 VI. Challenges for the Future of REPI...............................................................................48 A. Buy-In From Outside DOD ...................................................................................49 B. Identification of Available Projects .......................................................................51 C. Partnerships With Other Federal Agencies ............................................................52 v D. Should DOD Use Centralized Directives or Instructions to Implement REPI .......................................................................................................................54 E. Increasing Effectiveness of REPI ..........................................................................58 1. Moving REPI Away From Its Current Use By Some Services as a Real Estate Program ............................................................................................................58 2. Establishing An Appropriations Fund or Endowment for REPI as Opposed to Treating It As An Annual Appropriation for Fiscal Year Expenditure ...........61 3. Funding Levels.................................................................................................64 4. How to Leverage Outside Funding Opportunities? .........................................70 5. Better Incorporation of Sikes Act Authority into Sustainable Range Solutions ..........................................................................................................75 F. Summary of Recommendations .............................................................................78 VII. Conclusion ..................................................................................................................79 vi I. Introduction As this nation’s population continues to grow, there are always the questions of where do we build next and how do we preserve the environment. These issues become particularly difficult when the growth and environmental issues impinge upon the need to protect our national security, including military operations and training at domestic installations. These two interests collide when incompatible development, the preservation of endangered species, and other outside factors encroach on military installations’ abilities to operate. 1 Despite the need to accommodate the nation’s growth, there is no doubt that national security is of utmost importance to the United States, a sentiment with which Congress agrees. 2 DOD has an ongoing and continuous battle with encroachment at a number of military installations in the United States. DOD owns and/or manages approximately 29 million acres of land in the United States. 3 One of the major issues impacting military training and readiness is encroachment that has the potential to limit the use of