WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Senate on Tuesday passed a spending package that includes provisions blocking the Defense Department from redirecting any money earmarked for chemical weapons disposal at Blue Grass Army Depot in Kentucky.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., tacked on the provision, which is designed to ensure the Pentagon continues destroying chemical weapons stockpiles at Blue Grass in Richmond, Ky., and the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, Colo.

The measure ensures that $813.4 million appropriated to the two sites in previous budgets will not be transferred elsewhere.

It also requires the Defense Department to spend at least $100 million at those sites within four months of the bill's enactment and to provide Congress with a bimonthly accounting of spending at the sites.

"This is great news for the citizens of Madison County, and I am proud to have led the effort to make it happen," McConnell said in a statement.

Under an international treaty ratified by the Senate in 1997, the weapons stockpiled at eight sites across the country must be destroyed by 2012.

The Pentagon had frozen money earmarked for Blue Grass and Pueblo while considering cost-cutting measures and earlier this year said it was studying whether it would be cheaper to move the weapons to other disposal sites.

The provision passed Tuesday also prohibits defense officials from studying transportation options.