138th Year... and still on the job!	Thursday July 20, 2006

Kentucky senator locks in funds for Pueblo chemical depot

By JOHN NORTON

THE PUEBLO CHIEFTAIN

With fresh memories of Pentagon officials' earlier plans to shuffle chemical demilitarization funds from projects here and at the Blue Grass Army Depot to other projects, a Kentucky senator has locked in money in next year's budget to those two projects.

Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group, said that Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., got provisions accepted requiring the 2007 funding for the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives program not be spent at any other weapons stockpile sites. ACWA is the agency within the Defense Department responsible for chemical demilitarization in Kentucky and Colorado.

"This restriction was necessary because in previous years, funds appropriated for ACWA sites have been used to cover skyrocketing costs at other locations."

On Tuesday, Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., announced that the Senate version of the fiscal 2007 defense appropriations bill provides $140.9 million, $41.8 million for the Pueblo Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant and $99.1 million for the Blue Grass Chemical Agent-Destruction Pilot Plant.

Williams said Wednesday that McConnell, who has worked alongside Allard and Colorado's delegation to protect funding for both sites, got two Senate appropriations subcommittees to approve requests to the tune of $360 million in Fiscal Year 2007. That figure covers construction and research-and-development work being done at other facilities around the country, and represents an increase of $327 million over the amount the Pentagon estimated it would request for 2007 just last year.

In May 2006 the Chemical Weapons Working Group first revealed the House Sub-Committee's $40 million budget cut. Then in June, the CWWG released an internal Pentagon document showing this cut would wind up costing taxpayers an additional $220 million over the long term and, more importantly, add at least an additional year to the disposal schedule in Colorado and Kentucky.

Williams said that McConnell got the Senate Military Construction Subcommittee to not only restore the $40 million, but add an additional $10 million to the construction budget for next year.

The total of $360 Million in construction and research-and-development funding will allow the Army and its contractors to continue ongoing construction activities and continue work on facility design, equipment testing and other activities associated with the chemical weapons disposal project.