Statement Of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell On Chemical Demilitarization Program

Statement Of U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell On Chemical Demilitarization Program

from the Office of Senator Mitch McConnell

U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell released the following statement today at a Senate Armed Service Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee hearing on the chemical demilitarization program:

"Mr. Chairman, I thank the committee for holding this hearing on an issue of prime importance to my constituents in Kentucky and me -- the deadly chemical weapons that are currently stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot. In addition, I would like to thank Senator Allard for his leadership on this issue and for submitting this statement to the committee on my behalf. He feels as strongly as I do that the dangerous substances located at the center of our respective states need to be disposed of safely and quickly.

"Imagine how nervous you would be if large quantities of VX gas were stored in the committee room across the hall. Now you see how the residents of Madison County, Kentucky feel.

"VX gas and other dangerous chemical weapons have been stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot for years. Now it is time to destroy such substances. The Administration has asked Congress for the money to do so, and we have more than complied. Congress has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars so the Department of Defense can safely destroy these materials. Yet the Department refuses to do so. The Department has offered all sorts of reasons for why—some of which even contradict each other—but the bottom line is that the Department refuses to spend the money we appropriated to dispose of the chemical weapons.

"This Congress cannot and will not let them get away with it.

"The Department's foot dragging on cleaning up the Assembled Chemical Weapons Alternatives (ACWA) program sites is simply unacceptable. The best they claim they can do is place the Blue Grass and Pueblo sites on "caretaker" status—meaning that no clean-up action will be taken in the foreseeable future. The longer we sit on these dangerous substances, the longer the surrounding communities are at risk. The Department of Defense needs to fulfill its obligations to clean up these sites now.

"The Department claims that the ACWA sites must be downgraded to "caretaker" status because they are over budget due to cost overruns. Yet the Department's own schizophrenic decision making is what has led to these high costs. At Blue Grass, they plan to stop design work and operations and then restart them again later, adding unnecessary start-up and stop work costs. They stingily parcel out appropriated monies in such small quantities that it is impossible to spend funds efficiently.

"Perhaps we should expect no less. Dale Klein, the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs, admitted in Congressional testimony last week that "some of our budgeting processes are accurate but incorrect." Let me repeat that. Mr. Klein, speaking on behalf of the Department of Defense, said on the record, "some of our budgeting processes are accurate but incorrect." I will leave it to someone else to figure out exactly what that means, but it does not fill me with confidence in the Department's ability to resolve this issue.

"Transporting chemical weapons across state lines is illegal. Yet the Department has ordered a study of how to do just that. Kentuckians don't want vials of nerve gas speeding down the interstate, Mr. Chairman. And I suspect neither do the people of other states.

"Most saddening of all is that by placing the ACWA sites on caretaker status, the Department is acknowledging that the weapons will not be disposed of until 2016 at the earliest. Yet the United States has signed the Chemical Weapons Convention, which establishes a deadline for elimination of these substances by 2012. The Department of Defense should be working with all the speed it can muster to meet this deadline, not openly thumbing its nose at it.

"In this age of terrorism, our decision-making processes for handling and disposing of such horrifying weapons must be focused and clear. The Department of Defense's approach to the ACWA sites has been neither.

"I thank this committee for holding this hearing and for holding the Department of Defense up to the strictest standard regarding its cleanup of the ACWA sites at the Blue Grass Army Depot and the Pueblo, Colorado Depot. Lives may depend on it."

http://mcconnell.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=236231&start=1