I spoke to an Alabama Forestry Commission worker today and to say they are unhappy with the situation is an understatement of epic scale.
In it's misguided effort to appease the forest service and fire departments from all states the EPA has made an exemption that will allow the trucks to be sent to certain agencies but they will not get title to them. At the end of their service life they will have to be returned to their point of origin for disposal (scrapping) at the cost of the owning agency.
I'm going to post the information but I can't post the point of origin of this email.
Hi all - DLA asked that I wait to send anything out until they had officially sent out notice and unfortunately I wasn’t available when they sent the notice to me at 3:30 this afternoon. But many of you have already seen the notice and have sent me emails. I will try to answer all of your questions below, but if I’ve missed something, please let me know. I've also attached the current list of national security exempt (NSE) national stock numbers (NSN’s), I broke them out by description for those of you that are not familiar with what the NSN’s are – these are not all items in these descriptions, they are only those with particular NSNs. According to DLA, in FY13 the FFP program only picked up 142 items on the list of NSNs attached. I will say we had a bad FY 13, but that isn’t the point, the rules of the program have trained…..
1. This is only for the FFP program, at this point there is no decision on the FEPP program – DLA says they will be discussing FEPP soon.
2. Property already issued under FFP, where ownership has already transferred, is not being discussed here. There HAS NOT been any suggestion that you will have to return or track the FFP that you have already gotten ownership of.
3. Ownership will not transfer for the nearly 900 NSN’s on the attached list of items, this list is fluid, TACOM and EPA are still building the list, so expect more NSNs to be added, DLA hopes to have the complete list by early next week. Keep in mind that they have the authority to add or remove NSNs as needed, the original list of NSN has been expanded to include:
a. commercial passenger vehicles
b. all military vehicles
c. assault or tactical vehicles
d. Agricultural and industrial tractors
e. All gasoline and diesel engines that we get as replacement parts
f. Airframe mounted auxiliary power units
g. All heavy equipment – bull dozers, graders, etc.
h. Construction Equipment
i. Fire Truck (there is only one NSN for the fire trucks, it is typical truck from what I can see, but it does have a name of “Tactical Fire Truck” which is probably why it is on the list)
j. Bridges, fixed and floating (I guess some must have engines in them?)
k. Generators
l. All tracked military vehicles
m. Forklifts
n. Compressors and pumps
o. Cranes
p. Any material handling equipment that has an engine
q. Road clearing/cleaning equipment
4. Ownership of these items will remain with DoD.
5. All property will be tracked in FEPMIS with the NSN and VIN or serial number.
6. You will do a Change of Status and create an DD 1348-1a to return the item to the closest DLADS site.
7. States will have to do an inventory of the item each year.
What it means for the FS and the state cooperator prior to getting any of these property items:
1. I need to get an Addendum to the FFP agreement with DLA. I’ve already contacted DLA about this, hopefully it won’t take very long to get it done.
2. I’m not sure if we will need new agreements with each of the states that participate in FFP – hopefully I can just do an Addendum to that as well since it takes months to get something through Directives.
3. I need to get a way to track all of these NSN’s in FEPMIS to ensure that the property is tracked.
4. Once I can show this to DLA in Battle Creek they will start offering the NSN’s for our viewing and screening again.
I expressed my displeasure with what we got, but it is clear that this is the best that TACOM will be offering.
