Defense Environment Alert

an exclusive biweekly report on defense policies for cleanup, compliance and pollution prevention

Vol. 15, No. 15

July 24 , 2007

SENATE MINORITY LEADER PUSHES FOR 2017 CHEMICAL DEMIL DEADLINE

Senate Minority Leader Mitch Mcconnell (R-KY) is pushing to set a legal deadline of 2017 for the United States to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons. signaling frustration with funding limits on the annual billion-dollar-plus chemical demilitarization program and a long-time battle with the military over the funding levels it sets for chemical weapons awaiting destruction in Kentucky. The military has said that budget constraints have forced it to significantly delay meeting a 2012 deadline under an international treaty for chemical weapons destruction.

McConnell, along with Kentucky's other senator, Jim Running (R) and Colorado's two senators - Ken Salazar (D) and Wayne Allard (R) - is supporting an amendment to the fiscal year 2008 defense authorization bill that would require the United States to destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons by 2017 and provide $49.3 million in additional funds for demilitarization activities at the Blue Grass Army Depot, KY, and the Army's Pueblo Depot, CO, two of the last sites at which the military is destroying stockpiled chemical weapons. The amendment would also require DOD to provide Congress with semi-annual updates on compliance with the new deadline.

The senators say further delay in chemical weapons destruction would raise the costs for taxpayers. Setting a deadline earlier than DOD and the Army expect to currently complete destruction of the chemical stockpiles aims to cut long-term costs and lower the risks associated with continued storage of the weapons. according to McConnell.

While an international treaty known as the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) requires the United States to destroy its stockpiled chemical weapons by 2012. the United States gave notice last year that it was not going to be able to meet the deadline. The last site expected to finish chemical weapons destruction is the Blue Grass Army Depot, in 2023. But the military has conceded that immediate funding constraints have led it to stretch out the schedule for destruction at what will be a greater cost in the long term and has taken that action despite the fact that storage facilities for the weapons remain a terrorist "threat target" identified by the U.S. government (Defense Environment Alert, Jan. 23, p14).

"Delaying the disposal of the chemical weapons in Kentucky and Colorado until the 2020s would cost the taxpayers an additional $3.3 billion." McConnell said in a July 11 floor statement on the amendment. "Appropriating $49.3 million and setting a firm deadline in law now will save us that $3.3 billion later."

"The threat of terrorism posed by our failure to dispose of these weapons is not limited to the storage of such materials in the United States. With America soon to he in breach of its treaty obligations under the CWC, it will be all the more difficult for us to prod Russia to dispose of its outstanding chemical weapons." he continued. Relevant documents are available on InsideEPA.com. See page 2, for details.

McConnell filed the amendment for inclusion in the Senate version of the defense authorization bill July 11. The amendment has not yet been considered by the full Senate, according to a McConnell spokesman. Democrats last week pulled the defense bill from the floor following a tumultuous debate over the withdrawal of forces from Iraq according to a fixed timetable.