110 HRES 882 IH: Expressing the sense of the House of U.S. House of Representatives 2007-12-17 text/xml EN Pursuant to Title 17 Section 105 of the United States Code, this file is not subject to copyright protection and is in the public domain.

IV 110th CONGRESS 1st Session H. RES. 882 IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES December 17, 2007 Mrs. Tauscher (for herself, Mr. Skelton, Mr. Lantos, Ms. Sutton, Mr. Rothman, Mr. Loebsack, Mr. Farr, Mr. Shays, Mr. Delahunt, Mr. Crowley, Ms. Matsui, Mr. McGovern, Ms. Lee, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Ackerman, Mr. Markey, Mr. Abercrombie, Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Allen, Mr. Doggett, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Faleomavaega, Mr. Serrano, Ms. Norton, Mr. McDermott, Mr. Fattah, Ms. Watson, Mr. Van Hollen, Mr. Berman, Mr. Wu, Ms. McCollum of Minnesota, Mr. Holt, Mr. Blumenauer, Mr. Grijalva, Mr. Schiff, Mr. Brady of Pennsylvania, Mr. Filner, Mrs. Capps, Ms. Zoe Lofgren of California, and Mr. Frank of Massachusetts) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Senate should initiate a bipartisan process to give its advice and consent to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

Whereas securing a global nuclear test ban has been a central arms control objective for more than 40 years; Whereas on September 10, 1996, the United Nations approved the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty; Whereas on September 24, 1996, the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty at the United Nations; Whereas to date, 176 countries have signed the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, including Russia, the People’s Republic of China, the United Kingdom, France, and Israel; Whereas 135 countries have ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, including all member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization other than the United States; Whereas 10 countries, including the United States, must ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty for it to enter into force; Whereas the United States commitment to conclude the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty was a pivotal factor in gaining international support for the indefinite extension of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, the cornerstone of the nuclear nonproliferation regime; Whereas the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty will strengthen the global norm against nuclear testing, reinforce the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and thereby help efforts by the United States to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries or groups; Whereas by verifiably prohibiting any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion, the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty would help constrain the development of new types of nuclear warheads by existing nuclear-weapon states, including the People’s Republic of China, Russia, India, and Pakistan, and impede the development of smaller, more easily deliverable warheads by would-be nuclear weapon states; Whereas independent nuclear weapons experts, including a National Academy of Sciences panel in 2002, believe that the United States has the technical capabilities to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of its existing nuclear-weapon stockpile under a test ban, if adequate resources are made available to the Department of Energy’s nuclear weapon complex and are properly focused on this task; Whereas the National Academy of Sciences panel, which included three former lab directors, found that age-related defects mainly related to non-nuclear components can be expected, but that nuclear testing is not needed to discover these problems and is not likely to be needed to address them; Whereas since 1992, the United States has observed a moratorium on nuclear testing; Whereas for each of the last 10 years, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of Energy have formally certified to the President that the United States nuclear stockpile continues to be safe and reliable without nuclear testing; Whereas the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty is essential to realizing the full benefits of the Treaty’s extensive international monitoring system and on-site inspection capabilities, which enhance the national security of the United States; and Whereas the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty remains on the executive calendar of the United States Senate: Now, therefore, be it

That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the Senate should initiate a bipartisan process to give its advice and consent to ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.