WASHINGTON – The Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2025 budget request, released today, includes $1.6 billion in funding for DOD cleanup of contaminated sites. The sites include current and former military installations contaminated by the toxic “forever chemicals” known as PFAS.
The Department’s request for cleanup is $100 million more than what they requested for FY 2024 but $600 million less than Congress has provided in the past. Much more funding will be needed to tackle the sheer scale of the PFAS contamination problem.
The following is a statement from John Reeder, the Environmental Working Group’s vice president for federal affairs:
While we recognize the DOD has requested additional funding over previous budget requests, we’re disappointed that the funding falls far short of addressing the soaring costs of cleaning up PFAS. The cost of cleaning up the backlog of contaminated sites continues to grow and now exceeds $38 billion, per estimates provided by the Pentagon in 2022.
It’s clear that incremental increases in funding cannot possibly catch up to DOD’s rising cleanup obligations. Service members, military communities and farmers need the cleanup of toxic PFAS pollution to move much more quickly – they have waited far too long.
EWG recommends that Congress provide at least $2.75 billion in total PFAS cleanup funding in FY 2025.
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