Cleanup provision in Defense bill stumbling block for appropriators

With House and Senate appropriations aides facing unexpected difficulties in reconciling fiscal 2004 Defense and Military Construction spending bills, a $120 million pot of money caught in a tug of war between the two measures could pose the biggest problem.

The Pentagon requested the $120 million to fund the construction portion of the Chemical Demilitarization program, created in 1986 to destroy the nation's stockpile of lethal chemical warfare materials in support of the Chemical Weapons Convention. But for the first time, the administration this year proposed to consolidate the program under the Army's "Chemical Agents and Munitions Destruction" account, shifting the $120 million request out of the Military Construction measure's "Military Construction, Defense-wide" account.

The discrepancy has linked the massive $369 billion fiscal 2004 Defense appropriations bill's fortunes to the relatively small $9.2 billion Military Construction bill, as aides try to figure out just where the $120 million will end up. The problem is disproportionately affecting the smaller measure, since the money is seen as "chump change" for the massive Defense bill, as one aide put it. Senate appropriators went along with the Chemical Demilitarization rearrangement plan while their House counterparts did not, arguing in a committee report that leaving the money in the Military Construction bill "does not impact the program and allows for proper congressional oversight."

However, the administration clearly intended changes to the program when it proposed the funding shift. In its fiscal 2004 budget request, OMB labeled the Chemical Demilitarization program "ineffective," arguing it has been subject to cost overruns and missed deadlines under the chemical weapons treaty. Out of nine destruction sites nationwide, work has only begun at two with a third, at Kentucky's Blue Grass Army Depot, in the planning stages.

Although it does not shift the money out as the administration requested, the House Military Construction bill would fully fund President Bush's request by dividing the $120 million among the Blue Grass facility, a Pueblo, Colo., Army depot and Indiana's Newport Army Ammunition Plant.

While the Senate's Defense bill complies with the funding shift, it is unspecific about where the money would be spent-except for $10 million to fund "Chemical Stockpile Emergency Preparedness Program evacuation route improvements" near the Anniston, Ala., Army Depot weapons incinerator. Aides said the rest of the money had been earmarked for home state projects.

Aside from the problematic linkage between the measures, individually the bills face other problems. Defense appropriators must figure out how much to rescind from the fiscal 2003 Iraq supplemental to pay for decreases from the Pentagon's fiscal 2004 request, while negotiators on the Military Construction bill must reconcile differences over funding for overseas U.S. bases as well as domestic earmarked projects.

And both bills may have to wait for completion of the Defense authorization bill-hung up over whether to allow veterans to collect both retirement pay and disability benefits concurrently, among other issues-which traditionally goes to the president's desk first.