U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell has moved to force the Pentagon to spend money on chemical neutralization plants in Kentucky and Colorado.

If he succeeds -- and he expects to -- it could mean an end to delays in design and construction of a plant that will destroy the 523 tons of chemical weapons at Blue Grass Army Depot.

McConnell, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, attached a provision to the supplemental spending bill that contains money to pay for the war in Iraq.

McConnell's measure would forbid the Pentagon from transferring any of the $813.4 million earmarked in past years for Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives, the agency that oversees chemical destruction programs at the depot and in Pueblo, Colo.

The Kentucky Republican and other critics have accused the Pentagon of holding up money meant for Kentucky and Colorado in order to pay for cost overruns at disposal sites where incinerators are used.

The measure also forces the Defense Department to spend at least $100 million at the two ACWA sites within four months of enactment and provide bimonthly updates to Congress about where money is going.

Finally, it prohibits the department from studying the transportation of chemical weapons across state lines.

"They can study it till they're blue in the face, it's not going to happen," McConnell said. "It's a waste of their time and energy to study something that has no possibility of ever occurring."

The Army has been studying transport of weapons and other measures in an effort to comply with an international treaty that calls for the destruction of the U.S. stockpile by April 2012.

That report is expected by the end of the month.

A Defense Department spokesman said it would be premature to comment on McConnell's provision.

Craig Williams, director of the Berea-based Chemical Weapons Work-ing Group, praised McCon-nell's maneuver.

"Passage of this bill will save the ACWA program, eliminate the dangers associated with these weapons years ahead of the current Pentagon schedule, force the Pentagon to live up to the commitments made to communities and fulfill America's international obligations," Williams said.

Under current budget projections, the depot's stockpile of nerve and blister agent would not be destroyed until 2018.

The Senate Appropriations Committee accepted McConnell's provision Wednesday and sent it to the full Senate, which will take up the spending bill next week.

The House also would have to agree for the provision to become law.