Defense Environment Alert 05/30/06

SENATE, HOUSE MEASURES MAY SEND CONFLICTING MESSAGE ON CHEM DEMIL

The Senate Armed Services Committee is calling on DOD to adopt contractor incentives to speed chemical weapons destruction at facilities that are currently not expected to meet an international destruction mandate even as House lawmakers recently cut funding for construction work at two chemical demilitarization facilities that have previously been the target of DOD-pushed cuts.

The Senate version of the fiscal year 2007 defense authorization bill would give the defense secretary the authority to include incentive clauses in chemical demilitarization contracts with private companies. Under the terms of the language, DOD could pay up to $110 million extra to a company for completion of destruction operations and up to $55 million extra for completion of facility closure activities provided they are finished within a target time range. The authority to grant the incentives would be subject to the availability of appropriations for that purpose.

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) included the measure in the bill, which was marked up in committee May 4. The full Senate has not yet voted on the bill.

An Allard spokeswoman says the incentives would help speed up the process of chemical weapons demilitarization, which Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has already acknowledged is far behind schedule (Defense Environment Alert, April 18, p8). The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) - an international treaty to which the United States is a party - sets 2012 as the extended deadline by which stockpiled chemical weapons must be destroyed. Similar incentives helped speed up cleanup at the former Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant in Colorado, the spokeswoman says.

A source with the Citizen Advisory Committee at the Pueblo Chemical Depot in Colorado, one of the eight demilitarization sites nationwide, praises the measure, saying it may allow the United States to "come close to meeting the [CWC] deadlines. I think it's worth giving the contractor and [the military] the opportunity to see if they can do it." Pueblo and a site in Kentucky are not yet fully constructed, and weapons destruction operations at most of the other six sites around the country are not expected to meet the 2012 extended deadline under the treaty.

But a source with Chemical Weapons Working Group (CWWG), a coalition that advocates non-incineration chemical weapons destruction, says "throwing extra money at contractors to get demilitarization done sooner is a dangerous scenario. It's a tenuous balancing act trying to balance [the speed of] performance with compliance" with labor and safety regulations.

And a source with Global Green USA, which advocates threat reduction and the nonproliferation of weapons worldwide, says placing incentives on contracts "is well called for" given cost and schedule overruns "but runs risk of contractors cutting corners. It puts emphasis on schedule and cost where those may not be the right priority. Whether we're two or five years late on the [treaty] deadlines makes no difference if we're safe about it." The
source says Allard and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are "extremely frustrated with cutbacks" that Congress has directed at the chemical demilitarization program "but it's not the contractors' fault. [The program] just needs full funding from Congress."

A spokesman for the Army's Chemical Materials Agency (CMA), which oversees several chem demil facilities nationwide that use incineration, says "the Army salutes whatever [legal language] is issued," adding that no one at CMA was involved in discussions over the language before it was included in the bill.

Meanwhile, House lawmakers have approved a measure that commits $91 million to construction of chem demil facilities at Pueblo and at the Blue Grass Army Depot in Richmond, KY, a $40 million cut from DOD's request for the projects. The move would set back demilitarization plans at both sites by at least a year, if the cuts were evenly divided, and should be rejected, environmentalists say.

"If uncertainty [on funding] persists contractors may have to adjust their plans, change their equipment orders. If they can't buy equipment then they're seriously slowed down," an environmentalist source familiar with Pueblo says.

The House included the provision in the FY07 defense authorization bill, which passed May 11. Both sites, which are part of the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program, will use neutralization to destroy their weapons, and are facing uncertain construction schedules following budget and policy battles over how to prioritize limited funding.

Allard, however, "has made it clear that he'll fight to restore the funding" in conference later this year, the environmental source says.

Allard's office declined comment because the senator has not yet reviewed the language, although he is widely viewed as a supporter of full funding for the program. DOD writes in an e-mail response to questions that it refuses to comment on pending legislation.