10 U.S.C. § 2902 — Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Council

(a) There is a Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Council, referred to in this chapter as the “Council”. (b) The Council has 12 members: (1) The official in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering who is responsible for science and technology. (2) The Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (3) The official in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment who is responsible for environmental security. (4) The Assistant Secretary of Energy for Defense programs. (5) The Assistant Secretary of Energy responsible for environmental restoration and waste management. (6) The Director of the Department of Energy Office of Science. (7) The Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency. (8) One representative from each of the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard. (9) The Executive Director of the Council, appointed under section 2903 of this title. The Executive Director is a nonvoting member. (c) For each odd-numbered fiscal year, the Secretary of Defense must designate a Council member as chairman. For each even-numbered fiscal year, the Secretary of Energy must designate a Council member as chairman. (d) The Council has these responsibilities: (1) It must set policies and procedures to carry out the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. (2) It may enter into contracts, grants, and other financial arrangements, as allowed by other applicable law, to carry out the purposes of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program. (3) It must prepare an annual report containing: (A) A description of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program’s activities during the fiscal year before the fiscal year in which the report is prepared. (B) A general outline of the program’s planned activities during the fiscal year in which the report is prepared. (C) A summary of projects continued from the previous fiscal year, projects expected to start during the fiscal year in which the report is prepared, and projects expected to start during the following fiscal year. (D) A summary of the actions of the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program Scientific Advisory Board during the year before the report is submitted. It must also include any recommendations that the Advisory Board considers appropriate about the program, including recommendations about the program’s direction and legislation. (4) It must promote the greatest possible exchange of information and reduce duplication about environmentally related research, development, and demonstration activities. It must do this through close coordination with the military departments and Defense Agencies; the Department of Energy; the Environmental Protection Agency; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; the National Aeronautics and Space Administration; other Federal departments and agencies or any State and local governments, including the National Science and Technology Council; and other organizations involved in those activities. (5) It must ensure that research and development activities under the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program do not duplicate other ongoing activities sponsored by the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or any other Federal department or agency. (6) It must ensure that research and development programs selected for support under the Council’s policies and procedures use, as much as possible, the talents, skills, and abilities at Federal laboratories. These laboratories include the Department of Energy multiprogram and defense laboratories, the Department of Defense laboratories, and Federal contract research centers. To the extent practicable, the Council must use the research abilities of colleges and universities and private industry. (e) To carry out subsection (d)(1), the Council must set policies and procedures that: (1) Provide appropriate access to data relevant to environmental matters that is under the Department of Defense’s control or otherwise available to the Department. Access must be available to Federal Government personnel, State and local government personnel, college and university personnel, industry personnel, and the general public. The policies and procedures must do this by: (A) identifying the sources of the data; (B) publicizing that the data is available and identifying its sources. This must be done by distributing information in a way appropriately targeted to those personnel and the general public, and by other means; and (C) providing for review of classified data relevant to environmental matters, with the goal of declassifying the data or preparing unclassified summaries of it. (2) Provide government and nongovernment entities with analytical assistance, consistent with national defense missions. This includes access to military platforms for deploying sensors and access to computer capabilities, to help environmental research. (3) Provide for identifying energy technologies developed for national defense purposes that might have environmentally sound and energy-efficient uses in other Department of Defense programs and Department of Energy national security programs. These technologies include electricity generation systems, energy storage systems, alternative fuels, biomass energy technology, and applied materials technology. (4) Provide for identifying and supporting basic and applied research, development, and demonstration programs involving technologies useful: (A) to help the Department of Defense and Department of Energy defense facilities comply with environmental requirements and carry out remediation and restoration activities; (B) to reduce waste generation by those departments, including by reducing waste at its source; or (C) to replace hazardous, toxic, and polluting materials and substances used by those departments with nonhazardous, nontoxic, nonpolluting, and other environmentally sound materials and substances. (5) Provide for identifying and supporting research, development, and use of other technologies developed for national defense purposes. Those technologies must be directly useful for the departments’ programs, projects, and activities and also have useful applications for solving national and international environmental problems such as climate change and ozone depletion. (6) Provide for the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, and the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, working with other Federal and State agencies when appropriate, to conduct joint research, development, and demonstration projects involving innovative technologies, management practices, and other approaches. The projects must address: (A) preventing pollution from all sources; (B) minimizing hazardous and solid waste, including through recycling; and (C) treating hazardous and solid waste, including by using thermal, chemical, and biological treatment technologies. (7) Encourage the transfer of the technologies described in clauses (2) through (6) to the private sector under the Stevenson-Wydler Technology Innovation Act of 1980 (15 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.) and other applicable laws. (8) Provide for identifying and planning for the demonstration and use of existing environmentally sound and energy-efficient technologies developed by the private sector that the Department of Defense could use directly. (9) Provide for identifying military specifications that prevent or limit the use of environmentally beneficial technologies, materials, and substances in Department of Defense contracts, and recommend changes to those specifications. (10) Ensure that research and development programs selected for support under the Council’s policies and procedures are closely coordinated with ongoing activities sponsored by the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or other Federal agencies, and do not duplicate those activities. (f) When the Council sets policies and procedures under subsection (d)(1), it is subject to the authority, direction, and control of the Secretary of Defense. (g) By February 1 of each year, the Council must submit to the Secretary of Defense the annual report prepared under subsection (d)(3).