Global Security Newswire

President Obama on Wednesday extended for another year a 1990s-era executive order that established the spread of chemical, nuclear and biological weapons as a national emergency (see GSN, Nov. 8, 2010).

"The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the means of delivering them continues to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States; therefore, the national emergency first declared on November 14, 1994, and extended in each subsequent year, must continue," according to a White House statement.

Executive order 12938 has been amended twice -- once in 1998 and again in 2005 -- with the goal of making it more effective in combating the spread of unconventional weapons (White House release, Nov. 9).