Lisa Murkowski: “I rise with an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Bill which relates to our chemical weapons…”

“I rise with an amendment to the Department of Defense Authorization Bill which relates to our chemical weapons demilitarization program. I thank the managers of this bill, and the professional staff at the Senate Armed Services Committee for agreeing to adopt this amendment. This is a straightforward amendment, but may be on track to save us a lot of time and money with respect to our chemical weapons stockpile demilitarization program. Over the life of the stockpile demilitarization program which has gone from about $2 billion to $15 billion, to perhaps $16 billion as we speak. The anticipated time it will take to comply with the Chemical Weapons Convention has also been extended, and it is increasingly unlikely that we will make the April 29, 2007 deadline which we agreed to here in the Senate last year. Mr. President, my amendment is intended to help save time and money in this program. It simply requires that the Department of the Army and the EPA be allied instead of adversaries.”