Defense Environment Alert

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

Vol. 18, No. 4

February 16, 2010

Activists Praise DOD FY11 Budget For Chemical Weapons Destruction

Citizen activists are praising the Obama administration's decision to meet commitments made by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to next year fully fund the program that oversees destruction of chemical weapons via neutralization methods, signaling a second straight year of funding after years of appropriations that fluctuated up and down.

DOD's fiscal year 2011 budget request of $1.6 billion for chemical weapons destruction programs includes $510.8 million for the department's Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program, which funds destruction at two stockpile sites where neutralization of weapons is being conducted. The sites, in Pueblo, CO and Lexingtion, KY, are the last two U.S. stockpile sites expected to finish chemical munitions destruction. The other stockpile sites are overseen by the Army's Chemical Materials Agency, with assembled weapons at those  sites undergoing destruction throught incineration.

Of the $510.8 million for ACWA, $385.9 million would go to research and development and $125 million for military construction.

"The 2011 request is most welcome and reflects the commitment by Secretary Gates to Senator [Mitch] McConnell [R-KY] to follow throught on his promise to fully-fund the program designed to destroy the stockpiles of chemical weapons in CO and KY," said Craig Williams, director of the citzens coalition Chemical Weapons Working Group, in a Feb. 2 statement. McConnell, the Senate minority leader, has long championed increased dunding for the ACWA program.

Gates in early 2008 wrote to McConnell, backing increased funding toward the ACWA program - at that time supporting a $50 million boost to a $350 million budget (Defense Environment Alert, Feb. 5, 2008). And in 2009, DOD ACWA officials told congressional staff of a plan to increase funding for ACWA by more than $200 million over the next six years in an effort to come closer to meeting a congressional deadline of 2017 for destroying all the country's stock-piled chemical weapons (Defense Environment Alert, April 28).

At the time, observers of the program siad the FY10 funding boost would aid in acceleration the destruction plans by a few years at the two ACWA sites. The existing schedule now has the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Pueblo, CO, finishing destruction in 2017, while the BLue Grass Army Depot in Lexington, KY, is slated to complete destruction in 2021, according to Feb. 1 DOD budget documents.

Congress in the FY08 defense law called for DOD to meet a destruction deadline of 2017. But ACWA program officials had been frustrated over the lack of funding for the program in order to meet that congressional mandate, one informed source has said. Over the history of the ACWA program, DOD had requested a budget for ACWA that drastically dipped and then rebounded somewhat, as its level of priority fluctuated.

Next year's funding request "is the first time ever that two consecutive budget requests have sought the funds necessary to maintain the momentum towards the disposal objective." Williams said in the statement.

Under the FY11 budget request for the entire chemical weapons destruction program, covering all stockpile sites, the president is asking for $1.1 billion for operations and maintenance, $392.8 million for research and development, $7.1 million for procurement, and $125 million for military construction.