Howard P. "Buck" McKeon National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2015

Floor Speech

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Mr. YOUNG of Indiana. Madam Chair, I rise today in support of my simple amendment to ensure fairness in how we treat military installations after they are closed.

Most military installations are closed through the BRAC process. As such, they are granted certain legal protections, including indemnification from claims arising from environmental hazards created by previous DOD operations. However, some installations can be closed unilaterally by the Defense Secretary outside of the normal BRAC process. In these instances, the facilities are not granted the same protections. As it turns out, many former Army ammunition plants were closed outside the normal procedure. As you might imagine, facilities where chemicals for ammunition production were once mixed and discarded tend to pose some risk to the environment, and yet, merely because of the way they were closed down, cities and towns which later try to redevelop that property must assume the risk for any lingering environmental hazards.

My amendment would simply extend the same protection enjoyed by most closed installations to all closed installations.

Two years ago, I offered a similar amendment that was added to the House-passed NDAA, but it was not included in the Senate-passed version nor was it included in the conference report. That version would have retroactively applied this protection to properties which have already been transferred.

I have heard the concerns from the DOD and from others about adding this benefit on top of previously negotiated contracts. I am sensitive to those concerns, so this updated language only applies to those properties which are still under DOD's control today. I think this adequately addresses those concerns, and it still ensures that there is equity in how we handle these properties in the future.

I would like to thank the gentleman from California, Chairman McKeon, for his work once again in putting together this NDAA. I would also like to thank him and his staff for working with our office to draft this amendment and include it as part of this amendment package.

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