Protecting Whales

Calling it “one for our soldiers” the House Friday gave its approval to a much-debated Defense Authorization bill that includes, among other things, small increases in military pay and benefits. The Senate is expected to pass the bill early next week, giving President Bush a nice Veterans Day gift. Among the many items in the bill are what House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is calling “Freedom to Train” provisions.

Although Mr. DeLay calls the changes “common-sense environmental reforms allowing our troops to properly train for operations in the ongoing war on terror,” they actually allow the Department of Defense to exempt itself from two major environmental laws, the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. This was necessary, the department argued, because such laws are harming its troop readiness, never mind that the General Accounting Office and Environmental Protection Agency found that such laws did not hamper troop training.

Never mind that, with regard to the Marine Mammal Protection Act, a federal court in California issued a permanent injunction last month restricting the use of a controversial low-frequency sonar that is suspected of causing whales, dolphins and other marine mammals of beaching themselves. Immediately after accepting the injunction that restricts the sonar use to an area of about 1.5 million square miles off the east coast of Asia, the Navy said it would press for modifications to the MMPA so it could use the system more widely.

Never mind a study recently published in the journal Nature by British and Spanish researchers that found that 10 of 14 dead beaked whales found in the Canary Islands soon after an international naval exercise last year had suffered from the bends, perhaps from rising too quickly. The study’s findings were questionable, said a Navy spokesman, because it was not asked to participate in the study.

Given the House vote and likely Senate approval, much of the responsibility for minimizing the damage done by this rush to give the military wide latitude to ignore environmental laws will fall to Sen. Olympia Snowe, chair of the Commerce Subcommittee on Oceans, Fisheries and Coast Guard.

Sen. Snowe, joined by subcommittee colleague John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, tried vainly to have revisions to the MMPA slowed down, if not stopped. As they pointed out, the Commerce Committee plans to soon take up reauthorization of the entire MMPA. It has already held public hearings and briefings on the act.

It is true that there may be problems with the MMPA. The National Science Foundation recently joined federal judges in criticizing its definition of harassment of marine mammals as “the potential to disturb” is too broad. This should be addressed by the Commerce Committee. Naval officials have also expressed concerns that there may be specific areas of the ocean where they are hampered in detecting quiet submarines without the use of sonar.

With thorough discussion, a plan could be put in place to allow sonar use on a limited basis with minimal disruption to marine life. This kind of discussion didn’t happen in the Armed Services Committee’s rushed, closed-door consideration of the larger defense bill. Sen. Susan Collins, it should be noted, was the only Republican member of Armed Services to oppose the blanket exemptions, originally rejected by the Senate, and support the idea that the Commerce Committee was better suited to handle the matter.

Sen. Collins was also successful in reinstating critical habitat protections under the ESA in the Senate version of the bill. They too fell victim in the conference committee, leaving the Defense Department free to harm essential habitat for endangered species.

Although the department has been given what it wanted, but did not prove it needed, the damage does not have to be permanent.