The about-face came after The Associated Press reported earlier Thursday about an Army memorandum directing base commanders to shift money out of environmental programs. The Army later said it would carry out other measures -- such as a hiring freeze and lower spending for travel and conferences -- to help pay for costly military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Maj. Gen. Anders Aadland, in a May 11 e-mail obtained by the AP, had ordered garrison commanders worldwide to "take additional risk in environmental programs." He told them to "terminate environmental contracts and delay all non-statutory enforcement actions" until the beginning of the government's next fiscal year in October.
Aadland's four-page message also said "all reprogramming fences are lifted" to allow shifting money from "force protection, environmental and other accounts" toward other needs. Force protection involves keeping personnel safe from terrorist and other unconventional attacks.
But on Thursday the Army changed course.
"We will be able to continue all the environmental programs, the summer hires and particularly the force protection ... that we previously thought we would have to defer," Phil Sakowitz, deputy director for the Army's new Installation Management Activity command headed by Aadland, told the AP in an interview.
"All those things we said in the (e-mail message) concerning environment are off the table. All of them," Sakowitz said.
After being contacted by the AP, Army spokespeople reached Sakowitz. He said he had just learned Thursday from Pentagon budget officials that the installations command, with a budget of $7 billion to $8 billion, could retain the environmental programs.
He said he did not have figures for how much more money the Defense Department had promised, or how much the environmental programs are costing.
"We had hit a point in time where we had to send out this memo, to try to defer some things to make it through the year," he said. "It's a day-to-day kind of action."
Affected environmental programs would have included reducing aircraft collisions with birds, controlling nonnative species and handling hazardous waste. Other programs designated for cuts included protecting endangered species, disposing of munitions and monitoring groundwater.