Sens. Allard and Salazar Push Funding Boost & Hard Deadline for Weapons Destruction at Pueblo Chemical Depot

PUEBLO, CO – Coloradans living near the Pueblo Chemical Depot could soon have certainty on the progress of weapons destruction at the Depot thanks to a bipartisan amendment to the Fiscal Year 2008 Department of Defense Authorization bill introduced in the Senate today. The amendment, sponsored by Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY), is co-sponsored by United States Senators Wayne Allard and Ken Salazar, along with Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY), and would provide a funding boost and a date-certain deadline for completion of weapons destruction.

“The Defense Department has taken way too much time to complete the tasks it was assigned, and agreed to complete, at the Pueblo Chemical Depot,” said Senator Salazar. “The residents of Pueblo deserve to know that they are safe from the dangerous weapons stored there and that there is a clear and concise plan for completion.”

“The Department of Defense has consistently failed to provide sufficient funding for this program, and thus delayed the destruction of chemical weapons on site,” said Senator Allard. “Only by mandating a legally binding date will the DOD make chemical demilitarization at Pueblo a top priority and finally fulfill their promise to the Pueblo community.”

The McConnell-Salazar-Allard-Bunning amendment would accomplish three important goals for Pueblo Chemical Depot:

Provide a Funding Boost for Pueblo Chemical Depot with an additional $32 million for military construction at Pueblo Chemical Depot. This would allow the depot to build the Agent Processing Building (APB), the Energetics Reconfiguration Building (ERB), and the Control and Support Building (CSB), and allow for completion of construction of a utility building before October, 2008. This would raise the total funding for Pueblo Chemical Depot for Fiscal Year 2008 to $67 million for building construction and $132.4 million for acquiring weapon destruction equipment;

Set a Hard Deadline of 2017 for destroying the weapons stockpile at Pueblo, halting the Pentagon’s practice of permitting the completion date for destruction of the chemical weapons at Pueblo to continue to slip. The hard deadline of December 31, 2017 for the completion of chemical weapons destruction would only be enforced if the Department of Defense fails to meet the Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty deadline of 2012 as currently required; and

Hold DOD’s Feet to the Fire with Public Benchmarks for Progress by requiring the Secretary of Defense to report to Congress every 180 days on the progress of DOD in complying with the 2017 deadline, including updated and projected annual funding levels necessary to complete chemical weapons destruction by 2017. This would prevent DOD from hiding challenges, low-balling funding requests and foot-dragging on the Depot’s mission.

The Senate is expected to continue work on the Fiscal Year 2008 Department of Defense Authorization bill through the end of next week.

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