A number of Federal statutes designate the President as a Trustee on behalf of the public for Federally-owned or -managed natural resources. These statutes include CERCLA (42 USC Sec. 9601), OPA 1990 (33 USC Sec. 2701), and CWA (33 USC Sec. 1251). Subsequently, Presidential Trustee authority has been delegated to specific executive agencies, including the DoD, by Executive Order (EO):
Under these EOs, the Secretary of Defense is the Trustee for all natural resources that occur on DoD-owned or DoD-managed lands.
Within the DoD, DoD Instruction 4715.7 (Environmental Restoration Program) delegates Trustee authority under CERCLA to each Service Secretary. Thus, under CERCLA, the Secretary of the Navy is the designated Trustee for natural resources that occur on Navy-owned or Navy-managed lands. In contrast, the Secretary of Defense has not delegated OPA 1990 Trustee authority to the services.