While expected environmental cleanup costs for unneeded property arising from the 2005 BRAC round are not yet fully known, Department of Defense (DOD) data indicate that about $950 million will be needed to clean up these bases, adding to the estimated $13.2 billion total cleanup cost for the prior rounds. Although DOD's cleanup program has matured compared to prior BRAC rounds, there are still many unknowns and the cleanup estimate for the 2005 round should be considered preliminary. In fact, environmental cleanup costs are likely to increase as more intensive environmental investigations are undertaken, additional hazardous conditions are discovered, and future reuse plans are finalized. Furthermore, Congress does not have full visibility over the total cost of DOD's BRAC cleanup efforts because none of the four reports DOD prepares on various aspects of environmental cleanup present all types of costs past and future to complete cleanup at each base. Compiling a complete picture of all costs requires extracting information from multiple reports, as GAO has done to estimate the total cleanup cost for the four prior BRAC rounds. More complete and transparent cost information would assist Congress in conducting its oversight responsibilities for this multibillion dollar effort.

DoD¿s cost estimates to implement recommendations from the most recent Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) round have steadily increased each budget year since 2005. This BRAC round is the fifth such round undertaken by DoD since 1988 and, it is the biggest, most complex, and costliest BRAC round ever. To implement BRAC 2005, DoD plans to spend nearly $35 billion. This review of DoD's FY 2010 BRAC budget indicates that DoD plans to spend more to implement BRAC 2005 recommendations compared to last year's BRAC budget. DoD's estimated one-time costs to implement this BRAC round increased by almost $2.5 billion from FY 2009 to FY 2010, bringing the total implementation cost estimate for this BRAC round to $34.9 billion. Illustrations.

This is a print on demand edition of a hard to find publication. Under the Defense Environ. Restoration Program (DERP), DoD is responsible for cleaning up 5,400 sites on military bases that have been closed, as well as 21,500 sites on active bases, and over 4,700 formerly used defense sites, properties that DoD owned or controlled and transferred to other parties prior to Oct. 1986. The goals of DERP include: (1) reducing risk to human health and the environ.; (2) preparing properties to be environ. suitable for transfer; (3) having final remedies in place and completing response actions; and (4) demonstrating progress toward meeting program performance goals. This testimony discusses information on: (1) how DoD allocates cleanup funding at all sites with defense waste; and (2) cleanup status.

Military Base Closures: Opportunities Exist to Improve Environmental Cleanup Cost Reporting and to Expedite Transfer of Unneeded Property