Senate passes chemical weapons measure
It sets deadline for destroying arms

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- The Senate has approved an amendment that would give the Army 10 years to destroy chemical weapons stored at Richmond, Ky., and Pueblo, Colo.

The measure, part of a Defense Department authorization bill, sets a Dec. 31, 2017, deadline. The full bill is expected to be approved next week. It then would go to a conference committee to reconcile differences from the House version.

The amendment also authorizes the Army to spend an additional $32 million for chemical destruction at the Pueblo Chemical Depot and an additional $17.3 million at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

That spending, if approved by the secretary of defense, would be in addition to any money appropriated by Congress this year.

The amendment was sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo.

A chemical weapons treaty signed by the United States and nearly 180 other countries calls for the chemical weapons to be destroyed by 2012, but the Army has said it will not finish by then.

McConnell has said that without the deadline set in the Senate legislation, the Army wouldn't finish until 2023.

The Pueblo depot stores 2,611 tons of mustard agent in projectiles and cartridges. The Blue Grass depot stores 532 tons of nerve and blister agents in rockets and projectiles.

He has said that a delay to 2023 would expose nearby residents to continued risk from the aging weapons.

Stretching out disposal in Kentucky and at a similar facility in Pueblo, Colo., also would cost taxpayers an additional $3.3 billion, McConnell has said.

The amendment is significant because it "would force the Pentagon to fund the project to achieve that (2017) deadline," said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, based in Berea.

At the moment, a lower level of projected spending at Blue Grass would push the schedule to 2023, he said.

Preliminary work is under way at Blue Grass, where a plant to destroy the weapons is to be built.

Under the accelerated schedule McConnell wants, the cost of disposing of the weapons at Blue Grass would be about $2.3 billion, Williams said.

The slower schedule would cost close to $4 billion, he said.

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (202) 906-8141.