MOSCOW _ Russia’s refusal to allow U.S. inspectors into its biological weapons sites is threatening the funding for the continued destruction of the huge Russian arsenal of chemical weapons, said Sen. Richard Lugar, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Moscow’s evasiveness and denials about its biological programs have led some members of Congress to question $1 billion in new funding for a decade-long effort known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

The program has spent $6.4 billion since 1992 to help Russia safeguard and dismantle its weapons of mass destruction, from rusting nuclear submarines and poorly guarded warheads to deadly vials of anthrax and smallpox. Lugar, R-Ind., said the elimination of Russia’s remaining chemical stockpile was “a monumental task … which Russia cannot afford.”

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“Russia’s denials with regard to the biological situation offer an avenue where opponents of spending (this) money can say, ‘See, we still really don’t know,’ ” Lugar said. “Some members of Congress say, ‘Is Russia complying _ literally, to the dotted line _ with all the arms-control treaties?’

“But it’s not useful to set up conditions in which there has to be 100 percent compliance before we do anything.”

Lugar said he met recently with President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld to seek a presidential waiver that would snip the strings that some in Congress want to attach to the program’s funds in the new U.S. budget. He said Friday he was optimistic that Bush would grant the waiver.

The weapons-elimination program is informally known as Nunn-Lugar after its original co-sponsors _ former Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia and Lugar.

Lugar has been in Russia in recent days to meet with senior military leaders. He also was due to witness the destruction of several Soviet-era intercontinental ballistic missiles at a military facility in the city of Perm.

Since 1992, the Nunn-Lugar program has overseen the destruction of 440 tons of chemical weapons in Russia _ about 1 percent of Russia’s total. More than 43,000 tons of nerve gas and blister agent remain in seven arsenals across the country. Amy Smithson, a biological and chemical weapons expert, has called these sites “the toxic archipelago.”