In About-Face, Army Scraps Plans for Environmental Cutbacks

[papau]

Flickering flame - a comment on Amnesty's annual report on the global state of human rights.


http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBUNABCRUD.html

In About-Face, Army Scraps Plans for Environmental Cutbacks
By John Heilprin Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Army on Thursday scrapped plans to curtail some environmental protections and contracts after learning from Pentagon budget officials it could make do with cuts elsewhere.
The about-face came after The Associated Press reported earlier Thursday about an Army memorandum directing base commanders to shift money out of environmental programs. The Army later said it would carry out other measures - such as a hiring freeze and lower spending for travel and conferences - to help pay for costly military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. Anders Aadland, in a May 11 e-mail obtained by the AP, had ordered garrison commanders worldwide to "take additional risk in environmental programs." He told them to "terminate environmental contracts and delay all non-statutory enforcement actions" until the beginning of the government's next fiscal year in October.

Aadland's four-page message also said "all reprogramming fences are lifted" to allow shifting money from "force protection, environmental and other accounts" toward other needs. Force protection involves keeping personnel safe from terrorist and other unconventional attacks.

But on Thursday the Army changed course. "We will be able to continue all the environmental programs, the summer hires and particularly the force protection ... that we previously thought we would have to defer," Phil Sakowitz, deputy director for the Army's new Installation Management Activity command headed by Aadland, told the AP in an interview. "All those things we said in the (e-mail message) concerning environment are off the table. All of them," Sakowitz said. <snip>