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Wyden offers resolution calling for comprehensive
schedule to destroy chemical weapons stockpiles
Resolution also calls for annual reports
to Congress
WASHINGTON, D.C.
– Following announcements by the Department of Defense that
the U.S. would not meet its 2007 treaty deadline for the destruction
of its chemical weapons — or the five-year extension provided
under the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty — U.S. Senator
Ron Wyden has cosponsored a resolution urging the Secretary of
Defense to “prepare a comprehensive schedule for safely
destroying the United States chemical weapons stockpiles”;
the resolution also calls for annual reports to Congress on the
progress of that effort.
“We are sending a clear message that the United States Congress
wants the safe destruction of these chemical weapons to be a priority
for the Department of Defense,” Wyden said. “It is
not acceptable for the Defense Department to continually roll
back the deadline for destroying these weapons. The people living
in communities around the Umatilla Depot deserve better.”
The bipartisan sense of the Senate resolution was introduced today
by U.S. Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colorado) and cosponsored by Wyden
and U.S. Senators Wayne Allard (R-Colorado), Evan Bayh (D-Indiana),
Jim Bunning (R-Kentucky) and Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).
Last May, Wyden also joined with Allard and Salazar in passing
legislation to prevent the transportation of chemical weapons
materials across state borders and into Oregon. That law prohibits
the Department of Defense from funding any study on the feasibility
of transporting the chemical munitions at the Pueblo, Colorado
Chemical Depot to out-of-state sites to be destroyed; one possible
incinerator site for transported chemical weapons materials would
have been the Umatilla Chemical Depot.
Wyden has long been an advocate of safety at the Umatilla Chemical
Depot and in the surrounding communities. In 1999, he released
a study from the Government Accountability Office that found that
an emergency preparedness program at the facility lacked sufficient
management; Wyden then worked with the Federal Emergency Management
Agency and Army representatives to ensure the maximum protection
for citizens living and working near the facility. And in 2003,
he worked with U.S. Senator Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) and U.S. Representative
Greg Walden (R-Oregon) to secure $4.1 million for a variety of
safety projects in and around the Umatilla Depot.
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