[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 93 (Thursday, June 8, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1202]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          KEEP ACDA INDEPENDENT

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                          HON. DAVID E. BONIOR

                              of michigan

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 8, 1995
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, now is not the time to be dismantling the 
one agency whose sole mandate is to formulate, negotiate, implement, 
and verify arms control and nonproliferation agreements.
  The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency [ACDA] should remain an 
independent agency with the goal of strengthening U.S. national 
security through effective arms control agreements. President 
Eisenhower, who first proposed the agency, and President Kennedy, who 
founded it, both recognized the need for an independent voice on arms 
control matters within the Federal Government.
  The United States is pursuing the biggest, broadest arms control and 
nonproliferation agenda in history. With the end of the cold war and 
the rising threat of proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we 
need a clear focus on resolving outstanding arms control issues.
  Now is not the time to abolish ACDA. Yet that is exactly what the 
Republicans are doing in H.R. 1561, the American Overseas Interests 
Act.
  The American people want a world that is safer for their children 
than the one in which they grew up. Let us hope we can avoid the days 
when school children learned to duck and cover under their desks at the 
same time they were learning their ABCs. An independent ACDA provides 
an assurance that our Nation will continue to maintain the proper focus 
on arms control and nonproliferation agreements.
  I urge my colleagues to vote against H.R. 1561.
  

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