138th Year... and still on the job!	Wednesday May 03, 2006

INCENTIVES CAN be powerful motivators. Sen. Wayne Allard understands this and wants to provide incentives to contractors destroying chemical weapons at Pueblo Chemical Depot.

The Colorado Republican has asked Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., to add a provision to the 2007 Defense Authorization bill that will allow the Department of Defense to use incentive mechanisms in contracts to accelerate the destruction of chemical weapons in its chemical demilitarization program. The proposal is meant to speed up the chemical demil work and save taxpayer money at the same time.

Sen. Allard has told Sen. Warner that he does not believe the Department of Defense is using all the mechanisms that might be available to meet the Chemical Weapons Convention's 2012 extended deadline. Sen. Allard has been highly critical of the Pentagon in the past over its delays and what he called poor management of the demil program.

Incentivized contracts have a proven track record. In Colorado, Sen. Allard successfully urged the Department of Energy to negotiate a highly incentivized contract for Rocky Flats near Denver. Rocky Flats is where the government produced plutonium triggers for thermonuclear weapons, and the installation was highly contaminated with radioactive waste.

As a result of incentives, Sen. Allard notes, the shortened schedule resulted in savings of more than $500 million for American taxpayers. He is asking the committee to give the Pentagon the authority to use the same kind of incentives.

This only makes sense. If the contractors know they can make more money by streamlining the work, they will have reason to do so.

We urge the committee to look favorably on Sen. Allard's proposal. The program has gone on far too long already, and still no weapons have been destroyed at the Pueblo depot.