The Justice Department has sided with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on an intra-governmental dispute between EPA and the Department of Defense over toxic cleanup. For more than a year the Pentagon has ignored the instructions of EPA to clean up toxic sites at military bases. EPA issued final orders demanding the sites be cleaned up. EPA says the three most controversial clean-up sites (Maguire Air Force Base in New Jersey, Fort Meade in Maryland, and Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida) may present "an imminent and substantial threat" to public health and the environment. DOD then ran to the White House and tattled on EPA for bothering the Pentagon with environmental concerns. (DOD and its contractors are the nation's biggest polluters.) Although the White House never made its views known publicly, DOD still hasn't agreed to EPA's orders. This week, the Justice Department weighed in: "In a Dec. 1 letter obtained by The Washington Post, Steven G. Bradbury, principal deputy assistant attorney general at Justice, said that the Pentagon had no legal grounds to resist the cleanup orders from the EPA." Under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), EPA can order polluted facilities to be cleaned up and may back up the orders with court actions and daily fines. Both private and government property are subject to the act. When directed at government agencies, EPA's orders cannot become final until it confers with the targeted agencies. But if the Pentagon has ignored the orders of EPA, why would it listen to the Justice Department? Maryland state officials don't feel too good about the answer to that question. From the Post: But some are skeptical that the Pentagon will sign the agreements with the EPA and comply anytime soon. Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler announced plans in August to sue the Army to enforce the EPA cleanup order at Fort Meade… Shari Wilson, Maryland's environment secretary, said yesterday that the state intends to ahead with its legal action despite the findings of the Justice Department. "We're hoping this will make the difference, but we are very intent on using whatever tools are available to us to get this resolved," Wilson said. Back in September, the Post reported that DOD officials had been bullying state environmental agencies to back off clean-up efforts by threatening to withhold federal funding.