Colo. senators seek depot cleanup funds

Colorado's U.S. senators, Republicans Wayne Allard and Ben Nighthorse Campbell, and two other senators sent a letter Thursday to a top Defense Department official urging that funds for cleaning up Pueblo Chemical Depot be restored.

The depot, which stores 2,600 tons of mustard gas, stands to lose nearly $147 million under President Bush's proposed budget, a shortfall that would delay cleanup of mustard-gas weapons for up to a year.

In the letter to acting Undersecretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Michael Wynne, Allard, Campbell and Kentucky Sens. Jim Bunning and Mitch McConnell, both Republicans, asked that the department's funding request be revisited in order to include $272 million for chemical weapons cleanup research and development. They also asked the department to give them a detailed strategy for completing the destruction of chemical weapons at Pueblo and similar facilities by 2012.