[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 136 (Friday, October 8, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12257-S12264]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                 COMPREHENSIVE NUCLEAR TEST-BAN TREATY

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution of 
ratification.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       Resolved, (two-thirds of the Senators present concurring 
     therein),
       That the Senate advise and consent to the ratification of 
     the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, opened for 
     signature and signed by the United States at New York on 
     September 24, 1996, including the following annexes and 
     associated documents, all such documents being integral parts 
     of and collectively referred to in this resolution as 
     ``Treaty'', (contained in Senate Treaty Document 105-28):
       (1) Annex 1 to the Treaty entitled ``List of States 
     Pursuant to Article II, Paragraph 28'';
       (2) Annex 2 to the Treaty entitled ``List of States 
     Pursuant to Article XIV''.
       (3) Protocol to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
       (4) Annex 1 to the Protocol.
       (5) Annex 2 to the Protocol.

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, let me just pose one unanimous-consent 
request before we begin. To the extent that it is possible with respect 
to people in the Chamber ready to make statements, I ask unanimous 
consent that the debate on the proposition be divided in a way that 
proponents and opponents speak in opposition to each other, one 
following the other.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. BIDEN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. It has been raised whether or not that is a good idea. As 
I understand the unanimous-consent request, it is to the extent 
possible we will try to alternate between Democrat and Republican, 
opponents and proponents. That is the same as saying, with one 
exception, for and against. I do not expect that to mean that we

[[Page S12258]]

would not engage each other in colloquy and debate so we don't just 
have statement after statement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. That is precisely why I framed it the way I did.
  Mr. DORGAN. Reserving the right to object----
  Mr. KYL. It would not be appropriate to say Republican and Democrat, 
since I know Senator Specter would like to speak not in opposition.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, I hope the 
Senator would not put forth any unanimous-consent request. I hope we 
would simply have an agreement among the two leaders in the Chamber 
that they will alternate back and forth. The difficulty with a 
unanimous-consent agreement is you may get a circumstance where you 
have no one on one side and three or four speakers on the other side.
  I think it is practical to manage it the way the Senator has 
suggested.
  Mr. KYL. With the understanding that Senator Biden and I just 
reached, and the Senator just articulated, I withdraw the request, and 
I assume we can proceed in that fashion.
   Mr. President, I rise today to explain why I strongly oppose the 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty that has been submitted to the Senate for 
its advice and consent.
  I think the words of six distinguished Americans who formerly bore 
the responsibility for safeguarding our nation's security as Secretary 
of Defense frame the issue before the Senate quite well. In a letter to 
the majority leader this week, James Schlesinger, Dick Cheney, Frank 
Carlucci, Caspar Weinberger, Donald Rumsfeld, and Melvin Laird who 
served as Secretaries of Defense in the Reagan, Bush, Ford, and Nixon 
administrations, stated:

       As the Senate weighs whether to approve the Comprehensive 
     Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), we believe Senators will be obliged 
     to focus on one dominant, inescapable result were it to be 
     ratified: over the decades ahead, confidence in the 
     reliability of our nuclear weapons stockpile would inevitably 
     decline, thereby reducing the credibility of America's 
     nuclear deterrent.

  For this reason, these former Secretaries of Defense conclude that 
the CTBT is ``incompatible with the Nation's international commitments 
and vital security interests . . . Accordingly, we respectfully urge 
you and your colleagues to preserve the right of this nation to conduct 
nuclear tests necessary to the future viability of our nuclear 
deterrent by rejecting approval of the present CTBT.''
  I couldn't agree more with the considered judgment of these 
distinguished Americans who have had the awesome responsibility of 
maintaining the U.S. nuclear deterrent throughout the cold war and 
beyond.
  Before discussing some of the flaws of the CTBT and how it will 
undermine the credibility of our nuclear deterrent, a few words on the 
importance of nuclear deterrence, and the limits of arms control I 
think are in order.
  As my colleagues recall, during the cold war, the Soviet Union 
enjoyed a tremendous advantage in conventional military forces in 
Europe. The United States was able to offset this advantage in 
conventional forces, and to guarantee the security of Western Europe 
until the cold war ended peacefully, through the maintenance of a 
credible nuclear deterrent. Our nuclear ``umbrella,'' as it is called, 
was extended to our allies in other parts of the world as well.
  Since the end of the cold war, some have argued that nuclear 
deterrence is an outdated concept, and the U.S. no longer needs to 
retain a substantial nuclear weapons capability. However, deterrence is 
not a product of the cold war and has been around since the beginning 
of diplomacy and war. Over 2,500 years ago, the Chinese philosopher Sun 
Tzu wrote about the value of deterrence stating, ``To win one hundred 
victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue 
the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill.''
  Furthermore, the end of the cold war does not mean national security 
threats to the United States have evaporated. James Woolsey, President 
Clinton's first Director of Central Intelligence, aptly described the 
current security environment when he said, ``We have slain a large 
dragon [the Soviet Union]. But we live now in a jungle filled with a 
bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.''
  Rogue nations like North Korea, Iran, and Iraq have weapons of mass 
destruction programs and are hostile to the United States. China is an 
emerging power whose relationship with the United States has been rocky 
at best. And Russia retains significant military capabilities, 
including over 6,000 strategic nuclear warheads.
  The gulf war is an excellent case study of the continuing importance 
of nuclear deterrence in the post-cold-war world. In that conflict, the 
maintenance of a credible nuclear weapons capability, coupled with the 
understanding that it was possible that the United States would respond 
with nuclear weapons if attacked with other weapons of mass 
destruction, saved lives by deterring such an attack.
  As my colleagues recall, Iraq possessed a large arsenal of chemical 
weapons that it had used against its Kurdish population, and against 
Iranian troops during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. It is widely 
acknowledged that Iraq did not use chemical weapons against the United 
States-led coalition during the gulf war because we possessed a 
credible nuclear deterrent.
  Prior to the start of the gulf war, U.S. leaders practiced the art of 
deterrence by issuing clear warnings to Saddam Hussein. Secretary of 
Defense Dick Cheney stated:

       He [Saddam Hussein] needs to be made aware that the 
     President will have available the full spectrum of 
     capabilities. And were Saddam Hussein foolish enough to use 
     weapons of mass destruction, the U.S. response would be 
     absolutely overwhelming and it would be devastating. He has 
     to take that into consideration, it seems to me, before he 
     embarks upon a course of using those kinds of capabilities.

  President Bush also sent a strongly worded message to Saddam Hussein 
which said:

       Let me state, too, that the United States will not tolerate 
     the use of chemical or biological weapons. . . . The American 
     people would demand the strongest possible response. You and 
     your country will pay a terrible price if you order 
     unconscionable acts of this sort.

  Iraqi officials have confirmed that these statements deterred Baghdad 
from using chemical and biological weapons. In 1995, Foreign Minister 
Tariq Aziz reported to Rolf Ekeus, chairman of the U.N. commission 
charged with inspecting Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities, 
that Iraq was deterred from using its arsenal of chemical and 
biological weapons because the Iraqi leadership had interpreted 
Washington's threats of devastating retaliation as meaning nuclear 
retaliation.
  Aziz's explanation is corroborated by a senior defector, General 
Wafic Al Sammarai, former head of Iraqi military intelligence, who 
stated:

       Some of the Scud missiles were loaded with chemical 
     warheads, but they were not used. We didn't use them because 
     the other side had a deterrent force. I do not think Saddam 
     was capable of taking a decision to use chemical weapons or 
     biological weapons, or any other type of weapons against the 
     allied troops, because the warning was quite severe, and 
     quite effective. The allied troops were certain to use 
     nuclear arms and the price will be too dear and too high.

  Mr. President, as these statements show, a credible nuclear deterrent 
remains vitally important to our nation. I would hope that we could 
begin this debate on the CTBT by agreeing that a strong U.S. nuclear 
deterrent remains essential and that the Senate should reject any 
actions that would undermine the credibility of this deterrent.
  To the second preliminary point, the fallacy of arms control:
  Unfortunately, the CTBT negotiated by the Clinton administration 
would do just that. This is not surprising since the Clinton 
administration has sought to protect our national security with a 
fixation on arms control that columnist Charles Krauthammer aptly calls 
``Peace through Paper.''
  Of course, arms control is not a new idea. After all, in the year 
1139, the Roman Catholic Church tried to ban the crossbow. Like so many 
other well-intentioned arms control measures, this one was doomed to 
failure from the start.
  And who can forget the Kellog-Briand treaty, ratified by the United 
States in 1929, that outlawed war as an instrument of national policy. 
This agreement and others spawned in its wake left the United States 
and Britain unprepared to fight and unable to deter World War II.

[[Page S12259]]

  Yet despite these and many other notable failures, the Clinton 
administration still looks to arms control as the best way to safeguard 
our security. Under Secretary of State John Holum explained this 
philosophy during a speech in 1994, stating.

       The Clinton Administration's policy aims to protect us 
     first and foremost through arms control--by working hard to 
     prevent new threats--and second, by legally pursuing the 
     development of theater defenses for those cases where arms 
     control is not yet successful.

  The administration continues to cling tenaciously to the ABM 
Treaty, which prevents us from defending ourselves against missile 
attack, and numerous other arms control measures have been proposed by 
senior officials like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, such as 
bans of shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, laser weapons, anti-
satellite weapons, landmines, and even a proposal to limit the 
availability of assault rifles.

  As George Will has said of the administration's arms control 
philosophy, ``The designation `superstition' fits because the faith of 
believers in arms control is more than impervious to evidence, their 
faith is strengthened even by evidence that actually refutes it.''
  There is enduring wisdom in President Reagan's statement of ``Peace 
through strength.''
  In 1780, our Nation's first President, George Washington said, 
``There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to 
meet an enemy.'' Two hundred years later another President, Ronald 
Reagan, called this doctrine ``Peace Through Strength.''
  I urge Senators to think about the enduring wisdom of these 
statements in the coming days as we debate the Comprehensive Test Ban 
Treaty and the negative effects its ratification would have on our 
Nation's security.
  Let me turn now to a discussion of the CTBT's many flaws.
  America's nuclear weapons are the most sophisticated in the world. 
This was the point of the letter of the former Secretaries of Defense. 
They pointed out that each one typically has thousands of parts, and 
over time in nuclear materials and high-explosive triggers in our 
weapons deteriorate, and we lack the experience predicting the effect 
of these changes.
  Some of the materials used in our weapons, like plutonium, enriched 
uranium, and tritium, are radioactive materials that decay, and as they 
decay they also change the properties of other materials within the 
weapon. We lack experience predicting the effects of such aging on the 
safety and reliability of our weapons.
  We did not design our weapons to last forever. The shelf life of our 
weapons was expected to be about 20 years. In the past, we did not 
encounter problems with aging weapons, because we were fielding new 
designs and older designs were retired. But under the CTBT, we could 
not field new designs to replace older weapons, because testing would 
be required to develop new designs.
  Remanufacturing components of existing weapons that have deteriorated 
also poses significant problems. Over time, manufacturing processes 
will change, some chemicals previously used in the production of our 
weapons have been banned by environmental regulations, and our 
documentation of the technical characteristics of older weapons, in 
some cases, is incomplete. Furthermore, as James Schlesinger--who 
formerly served as Secretary of defense and Secretary of Energy--has 
testified to the Senate, the plutonium pits in some of our weapons are 
approaching the end of this life-span. According to Dr. Schlesinger, 
one of our national laboratories estimates the pits used in some of our 
weapons will last 35 years. Since many of the pits used in the current 
arsenal are about 30 years old, this means that we will soon need to 
replace these pits. But without testing, we will never know if these 
replacement parts will work as their predecessors did.
  As the former Director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, 
Dr. John Nuckolls said last month in a letter to me:

       Key components of nuclear warheads are ``aging'' by 
     radioactive decay and chemical decomposition and corrosion. 
     Periodic remanufacture is necessary, but may copy existing 
     defects and introduce additional defects. Some of the 
     remanufactured parts may differ significantly from the 
     original parts--due to loss of nuclear test validated 
     personnel who manufactured the original parts, the use of new 
     material and fabrication processes, and inadequate 
     specification of original parts. There are significant risks 
     of reducing stockpile reliability when remanufactured parts 
     are involved in warhead processes where there are major gaps 
     in our scientific understanding.

  The fact is that, despite our technical expertise, there is much we 
still do not understand about our own nuclear weapons. As C. Paul 
Robinson, Director of the Sandia National Laboratory has aid, ``some 
aspects of nuclear explosive design are still not understood at the 
level of physical principles.''
  These gaps in our knowledge do not merely present a theoretical 
problem. As President Bush noted in a report to Congress in January 
1993, ``Of all U.S. nuclear weapons designs fielded since 1958, 
approximately one-third have required nuclear testing to resolve 
problems arising after deployment.''
  Furthermore, in 1987, Lawrence Livermore Lab produced a report titled 
``Report to Congress on Stockpile Reliability, Weapon Remanufacture, 
and the Role of Nuclear Testing'' in which it extolled the importance 
of testing, noting that ``. . . there is no such thing as a `thoroughly 
tested' nuclear weapon.'' The report also goes on to state that of the 
one-third of weapons designs introduced into the stockpile since 1958 
that have required testing to fix, ``In three-fourths of these cases, 
the problems were discovered only because of the ongoing nuclear 
testing.'' This report went on to say that ``Because we frequently have 
difficulty understanding fully the effects of changes particularly 
seemingly small changes on the nuclear performance, nuclear testing has 
been required to maintain the proper functioning of our nation's 
deterrent.''
  Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger summed this point up nicely in 
1986 when he said:

       The irreducible fact is that nuclear testing is essential 
     to providing for the safety and security of our warheads and 
     weapons systems. It also is essential if we are to maintain 
     their reliability. This is not a matter of conjecture, but a 
     lesson learned through hard experience. For example, in the 
     case of one nuclear system--the warhead for the Polaris 
     [SLBM]--testing allowed us to fix defects that were suddenly 
     discovered. Until corrected, these defects could have 
     rendered the vast majority of weapons in our sea-based 
     deterrent completely inoperable.

  The importance of testing to the maintenance of any complex weapon or 
machine cannot be underestimated. As the six former Secretaries of 
Defense noted in this letter opposing the CTBT,

       The history of maintaining complex military hardware 
     without testing demonstrates the pitfalls of such an 
     approach. Prior to World War II, the Navy's torpedoes had not 
     been adequately tested because of insufficient funds. It took 
     nearly two years of war before we fully solved the problems 
     that caused our torpedoes to routinely pass harmlessly under 
     the target or to fail to explode on contact. For example, at 
     the Battle of Midway, the U.S. launched 47 torpedo aircraft, 
     without damaging a single Japanese ship. If not for our dive 
     bombers, the U.S. would have lost the crucial naval battle of 
     the Pacific war.

  The Clinton administration has proposed a program that it hopes will 
replace actual nuclear tests with computer simulations and a much 
greater emphasis on science-based experiments. It is called the 
Stockpile Stewardship Program. According to the Fiscal Year 2000 
Stockpile Stewardship Plan Executive Overview, released by the 
Department of Energy in March this year:

       The overall goal of the Stockpile Stewardship program is to 
     have in place by 2010 . . . the capabilities that are 
     necessary to provide continuing high confidence in the annual 
     certification of the stockpile without the necessity for 
     nuclear testing.

  I support the Stockpile Stewardship Program because it will improve 
our knowledge about our nuclear weapons. But as former Secretary of 
State Henry Kissinger, former National Security Advisor Brent 
Scowcroft, and former CIA Director John Deutch said in a letter this 
week, ``the fact is that the scientific case simply has not been made 
that, over the long term, the United States can ensure the nuclear 
stockpile without nuclear testing.''
  First, the Stockpile Stewardship Program faces tremendous technical 
challenges. As the Director of Sandia National Laboratories, Dr. 
Robinson has said, ``the commercially available and

[[Page S12260]]

laboratory technologies of today are inadequate for the stockpile 
stewardship tasks we will face in the future. Another hundred-to-
thousand-fold increase in capability from hardware and software 
combined will be required.''
  Dr. Victor Reis, the architect of the stewardship program, said this 
about it during a speech in Albuquerque:

       Think about it--we are asked to maintain forever, an 
     incredibly complex device, no larger than this podium, filed 
     with exotic, radioactive materials, that must create, albeit 
     briefly, temperatures and pressures only seen in nature at 
     the center of stars; do it without an integrating nuclear 
     test, and without any reduction in extraordinarily high 
     standards of safety and reliability. And, while you're at it 
     downsize the industrial complex that supports this enterprise 
     by a factor of two, and stand up critical new manufacturing 
     processes.
       This within an industrial system that was structured to 
     turn over new designs every fifteen years, and for which 
     nuclear explosive testing was the major tool for 
     demonstrating success.

  Senior officials at the Department of Energy and our nuclear labs are 
generally careful in how they couch their remarks about the Stockpile 
Stewardship Program. They typically state that the stewardship program 
is the best approach to maintaining our weapons in the absence of 
testing. But they are also careful not to guarantee that, despite the 
unquestioned brilliance of the scientists, the Stockpile Stewardship 
Program will succeed in replacing testing.
  In fact, the Stockpile Stewardship Program has already experienced 
setbacks. For example, the National Ignition Facility, which is the 
linchpin of the program, has recently fallen behind schedule and is 
over budget. It still faces a critical technical uncertainty about a 
major goal of its design: will it be able to achieve thermonuclear 
ignition?
  Another problem with relying on computer simulation to replace 
testing is the increased risk of espionage. Former Lawrence Livermore 
National Lab Director John Nuckolls made this point in his letter to me 
as well: ``Espionage is facilitated when U.S. progress is frozen, and 
classified information is being concentrated and organized in 
electronic systems.'' In short, in order to achieve the vast increases 
in computing power required for the stewardship program, much of the 
computer code required for the program will be written by hundreds of 
people at participating universities and colleges--in many cases by 
people who are not even American citizens.
  Mr. President, the bottom line is that a credible nuclear deterrent 
is just too important to put all our eggs in the stewardship basket.
  In addition to impairing the reliability of our nuclear arsenal, the 
CTBT will prevent us from making our nuclear weapons as safe as they 
can be. This is extraordinarily important.
  Nuclear weapon safety has always been a paramount concern of the 
United States. Throughout the history of our nuclear weapons program, 
we have made every effort to ensure that even in the most violent of 
accidents there would be the minimum chance of a nuclear explosion or 
radioactive contamination. The results of such an accident would be 
catastrophic.
  That's why President Clinton's Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen, 
opposed a test moratorium when he was a Senator. During debate on an 
amendment imposing a moratorium on testing, August 3, 1993, then-
Senator Cohen said,

       A vote to halt nuclear testing today is a vote to condemn 
     the American people to live with unsafe nuclear weapons in 
     their midst for years and years--indeed until nuclear weapons 
     are eliminated. Not just a few unsafe nuclear weapons, but a 
     nuclear stockpile in which most of the weapons do not have 
     critical safety features.

  I digress a moment to note when he was asked about this statement 
this week, now-Secretary Cohen said, we have replaced those weapons 
with weapons in our inventory now that are safe.
  I know defense Secretary Cohen would agree, that is not a correct 
statement. All of the weapons in our current inventory lack one or more 
of the essential safety features that we have been talking about here.
  As the Director of Los Alamos National Lab, Dr. Sig Hecker, indicated 
in a letter to me in 1997, ``with a CTBT it will not be possible to 
make some of the potential safety improvements for greater intrinsic 
warhead safety that we considered during the 1990 time frame.'' The 
reason is that nuclear tests must be done in many cases to confirm that 
once new safety features are incorporated, the weapons are reliable and 
still operate as intended. The CTBT makes it pointless to try to invent 
new, improved safety features because they could not be adopted without 
nuclear testing. Even worse, the CTBT eliminates the possibility of 
improving the safety of current weapons through the incorporation of 
existing, well understood safety features.
  Safety features include items such as insensitive high explosive and 
fire resistant pits. Insensitive high explosive in the primary of a 
nuclear weapon is intended to prevent the premature detonation of the 
high explosive trigger, resulting in a potential nuclear explosion 
should the weapon be subjected to unexpected stress, like being dropped 
or penetrated by shrapnel or a bullet. Fire resistant pits are intended 
to prevent the dispersal of plutonium resulting in radioactive 
contamination of an area should the weapon be exposed to a fire, such 
as an accidental blaze during loading of a weapon on an aircraft.
  Unfortunately, few people know that many of our current weapons do 
not contain all the safety features that already have been invented by 
our National Laboratories. Only one of the nine weapons in the current 
stockpile incorporates all six available safety features. In fact, 
three of the weapons in the stockpile--the W78 warhead, which is used 
on the Minuteman III ICBM, and the W76 and W88 warheads, which sit atop 
missiles carried aboard Trident submarines--incorporate only one of the 
six safety features. Another weapon, the W62 warhead, does not have any 
of the six safety features incorporated into its design.
  The bottom line is that a ban on nuclear testing prevents us from 
making our weapons as safe as we know how to make them and creates a 
disincentive to making such safety improvements.
  Mr. President, another point I think is extraordinarily important as 
we debate this CTBT is that the purpose of the treaty cannot be 
achieved by its ratification. In addition to undermining our nuclear 
deterrent, as I have just spoken to, the treaty will not achieve its 
goal of halting nuclear proliferation.
  Supporters of the treaty say the United States must lead by example, 
and that by halting nuclear tests ourselves, we will persuade others to 
follow our example. Yet the history of the last eight years shows this 
theory is false. Since the United States halted testing in 1992, India, 
Pakistan, Russia, China, and France have all conducted tests.
  Furthermore, the CTBT will not establish a new international norm 
against nuclear weapons testing or possession. The Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty, the NPT ratified by 185 countries has already 
established such a norm. The NPT calls for parties to the treaty, other 
than the five declared nuclear powers--the United States, the United 
Kingdom, Russia, China, and France--to pledge not to pursue nuclear 
weapons programs.
  Yet North Korea and Iraq, to name two who are parties to the NPT, 
have, of course, violated it. They have pursued nuclear weapons 
programs despite their solemn international pledge never to do so. The 
CTBT will not add anything useful to the international nonproliferation 
regime since these nations, in effect, would be pledging not to test 
the nuclear weapons they have already promised never to have under the 
NPT. So much for the international norm.
  Nor will the CTBT pose a significant impediment to the acquisition of 
nuclear weapons by rogue nations since, although nuclear testing is 
essential to maintaining the sophisticated nuclear weapons in the U.S. 
arsenal today, it is not required to develop relatively simple first-
generation nuclear devices, like those needed or being developed by 
Iran and Iraq. For example, the United States bomb dropped on Hiroshima 
was never tested, and the Israeli nuclear arsenal has been constructed 
without testing.
  Incidentally, the Clinton administration does not dispute this point. 
In Senate testimony in 1997, CIA Director George Tenet stated:

       Nuclear testing is not required for the acquisition of a 
     basic nuclear weapons capability (i.e. a bulky, first-
     generation device

[[Page S12261]]

     with high reliability but low efficiency.) Tests using high-
     explosive detonations only ([with] no nuclear yield) would 
     provide reasonable confidence in the performance of a first 
     generation device. Nuclear testing becomes critical only when 
     a program moves beyond basic designs to incorporate more 
     advanced concepts.

  I believe Director Tenet is absolutely correct, based on the letter 
of the Secretary of Defense that I quoted earlier. We can't afford to 
underestimate the weapon described by Director Tenet--a ``bulky, first 
generation device with high reliability but low efficiency'' is a lot 
like the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima to change world history. It is a 
strategic weapon--if North Korea or Iran were able to deploy such a 
weapon, they could--to put it mildly--severely reduce our ability to 
protect our interests in East Asia or the Persian Gulf. These are 
weapons that would be designed to intimidate and kill large numbers of 
people in cities, not destroy purely military targets, as the United 
States weapons are designed to do.
  Another problem with the CTBT is that it is totally unverifiable. It 
cannot be verified despite the vast array of expensive sensors and 
detection technology being established under the treaty, so it will be 
possible for other nations to conduct militarily significant nuclear 
testing with little or no risk of detection. Effective verification 
requires high confidence that militarily significant cheating will be 
detected in a timely manner. The United States cannot now, and will not 
in the near future, be able to confidently detect and identify 
militarily significant nuclear tests of one kiloton or less by the way, 
that is roughly 500 times larger than the blast which destroyed the 
Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. We cannot detect a test of that 
magnitude.
  What is ``militarily significant'' nuclear testing? Definitions of 
the term might vary, but I think we'd all agree that any nuclear test 
that gives a nation information to maintain its weapons or to develop 
newer, more effective weaponry is militarily significant.
  In the course of U.S. weapons development, nuclear tests with yields 
between 1 kiloton and 10 kilotons have generally been large enough to 
provide ``proof'' data on new weapons designs. Other nations might have 
weaponry that could be assessed at even lower yields. As we know, crude 
but strategically significant weapons, like the bomb we dropped on 
Hiroshima, don't need to be tested at all. But for the sake of 
argument, let's be conservative and assume that other nations would 
also need to conduct tests at a level above 1 kiloton to develop a new 
nuclear weapon design.
  The verification system of the CTBT is supposed to detect nuclear 
blasts above 1 kiloton, so it would seem at first glance that it will 
be likely that most cheaters would be caught. But look at the Treaty's 
fine print--the CTBT's International Monitoring System will be able to 
detect tests of 1 kilotons or more if they are nonevasive. This means 
that the cheater will be caught only if he does not try to hide his 
nuclear test.
  But what if he does want to hide it? What if he conducts his test 
evasively?
  It is a very simple task for Russia, China, or others to hide their 
nuclear tests. One of the best known means of evasion is detonating the 
nuclear device in a cavity such as a salt dome or a room mined below 
ground. Because it surrounds the explosion with empty space, this 
technique--called decoupling--reduces the noise, or the seismic signal, 
of the nuclear detonation.
  The signal of a decoupled test is so diminished--by as much as a 
factor of 70--that it will not be possible to reliably detect it. For 
example, a 1,000-ton hidden test would have a signal of a 14-ton open 
test. This puts the signal of the illicit test well below the threshold 
of detection.
  Decoupling is a well-known technique and is technologically simple to 
achieve. In fact, it is quite possible that Russia and China have 
continued to conduct nuclear testing during the past 7 years, while the 
United States has refrained from doing so. They could have done so by 
decoupling.
  There are also other means of cheating that can circumvent 
verification. One is open-ocean testing. A nation could put a device on 
a small boat or barge, tow it into the ocean, and detonate it 
anonymously. It would be virtually impossible to link the test to the 
cheater.
  While evasive techniques are expensive and complex, the costs are 
relatively low compared to the expense of a nuclear weapons program, 
and no more complicated than weapons design. Further, established 
nuclear powers are well positioned to conduct clandestine testing to 
assure the reliability and undertake at least modest upgrades of their 
arsenals. Russia and China do not have good records on compliance with 
arms control and nonproliferation commitments. In addition, according 
to the Washington Times, United States intelligence agencies believe 
China conducted a small underground nuclear test in June and Russia is 
believed to have conducted a nuclear test earlier this month. While 
neither country has ratified the CTBT, both have signed the treaty and 
have promised to adhere to a testing moratorium. Again, so much for the 
norm.
  The bottom line is that a determined country has several means to 
conceal its weapons tests and the CTBT is not effectively verifiable.
  Let me stress here that my assessment is not based on opinions. Our 
inability to verify a whole range of nuclear testing is well-known and 
has been affirmed by the U.S. Intelligence Community. As the Washington 
Post reported earlier this week, our intelligence agencies lack the 
ability to confidently detect low-yield tests. We would be 
irresponsible in the extreme to ratify an unverifiable arms control 
treaty--especially when that treaty will inevitably reduce our 
confidence in our own nuclear deterrent.
  President Clinton's first Director of the Central Intelligence 
Agency, James Woolsey, summed up the problems with verification of the 
treaty stating in Senate testimony that,

       I believe that a zero-yield Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
     is extraordinarily difficult, to the point of near 
     impossibility--and possibly to the point of impossibility--to 
     verify from afar.

  In addition to the negative consequences that would result from 
treaty ratification, I would also point out that this accord is very 
poorly crafted. The CTBT is weakest at its very foundation--it actually 
fails to say what it bans. Nowhere in its 17 articles and 2 annexes are 
the terms ``nuclear weapon test explosion'' or ``nuclear explosion'' 
defined or quantified and these are the terms used in the treaty's 
basic obligations.
  Acting Under Secretary of State John Holum admitted this point in 
responses to questions for the record on June 29 of this year stating:

       The U.S. decided at the outset of negotiations not to seek 
     international agreement on a definition of ``nuclear weapon 
     test explosion'' in the Treaty text. The course of 
     negotiations confirmed our judgment that it would have been 
     extremely difficult, and possibly counterproductive, to 
     specify in technical terms what is prohibited by the Treaty.

  May I read that again:

       The course of negotiations confirmed our judgment that it 
     would have been extremely difficult, and possibly 
     counterproductive, to specify in technical terms what is 
     prohibited by the Treaty.

  But another nation might choose to apply a less restrictive 
definition and conduct very low-yield testing, what we call 
hydronuclear testing. While the United States interprets the treaty to 
ban all nuclear explosives testing--that is why they call it a zero ban 
test--other nations could conduct very low-yield testing, as I said, 
which we could not verify but which they would consider in compliance 
with the treaty. This so-called hydronuclear testing is very useful to 
nuclear weapons programs by helping improve the understanding of 
fundamental nuclear weapons physics, develop new weapons concepts, 
ascertain existing weapons' reliability, and exercise the skills of 
scientists, engineers, and technicians. The nuclear energy released in 
a hydronuclear test can be less than the equivalent released by four 
pounds of conventional high explosives. This is virtually nothing, and 
such a low-yield test would almost certainly escape detection.

  This is where the treaty's vagueness is actually harmful to our 
interests. Even if we were able to detect it, the nation conducting a 
hydronuclear test could simply argue that it was legal under the 
treaty. And they would have the historical CTBT negotiating record on 
their side. Many drafts of the CTBT

[[Page S12262]]

prior to the Clinton administration allowed for low-yield ``permitted 
experiments.''
  The verification regime of the CTBT--centered around the 
International Monitoring System, or IMS--will not be able to detect 
tests with far greater yields than hydronuclear tests. These tests can 
be conducted with virtually no risk of detection by either the IMS 
system or U.S. technical means.
  There is much more to say about this treaty, but I believe I have 
outlined the primary reasons why the only prudent course for the Senate 
is to reject the CTBT. It will jeopardize rather than enhance our 
national security. It will undermine our vital nuclear deterrent by 
jeopardizing the reliability of our nuclear stockpile. It will prevent 
us from making our weapons as safe as they can be. It will not stop 
nuclear proliferation, and it is not verifiable. It is not worthy of 
Senate approval.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Gorton). The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, I am anxious to respond point by point to 
my friend. I suggest, to believe his arguments, as the old saying goes, 
requires the suspension of disbelief. I find them to be well intended 
but half true. I will be very specific about each one of them, 
beginning with this notion of the value of deterrence.
  I find it fascinating, my colleagues talk about these other nations 
can have a Hiroshima-type bomb and build without testing and that would 
radically affect our security; yet we cannot rely in the future on our 
certainty of 6,000 sophisticated nuclear weapons in the stockpile. I 
urge my friends to read today's New York Times and Washington Post 
where our allies are apoplectic about the fact my colleagues are going 
to reject this treaty.
  The absolute notion that this idea is--don't let them kid you about 
this debate, folks, anybody watching this. You do not have to be a 
nuclear scientist to understand. You do not have to be a sophisticated 
foreign policy specialist to grasp what is at stake.
  Think of it this way when they tell you the security of our nuclear 
stockpile is going to become so unreliable over time, that, as Dr. 
Schlesinger has said and my friend from Arizona has alluded, our 
enemies are going to know we do not have confidence in it and that is 
going to embolden them, and our allies such as Germany and Japan are 
going to go nuclear because they cannot count on us.
  That is fascinating. Why did all of our allies sign and ratify this 
treaty? Why are they apoplectic about the prospect that we will not 
sign this treaty? I ask my colleagues when is the last time they can 
remember the Prime Minister of Great Britain or the President of France 
saying publicly: My Lord, I hope the Senate doesn't do that.

  You cannot have it both ways. This is an argument that I find 
absolutely preposterous. Although one can technically make it, it does 
require the suspension of disbelief in order to arrive at that 
conclusion.
  One has to be an incredible pessimist to conclude that the 6,000 
nuclear weapons configured in nine different warheads are going to 
atrophy after spending $45 billion over the next 10 years, and after 
having been able to certify without testing for the last 3 years that 
it is in good shape, that some nation is going to say: We got them now, 
guys; I know they don't believe their system is adequate; maybe one of 
those bombs won't go off, maybe 10 of them, maybe 100 of them, maybe 
1,000 of them, maybe 3,000 of them.
  We still have 3,000 left. Back when the Senator from Nebraska and I 
were kids and Vietnam was kicking up, we used to see bumper stickers: 
One atom bomb can ruin your day.
  I am going to go into great detail on every point my friend raised 
and talk about, for example, the idea we cannot modernize these weapons 
when we find a defect; we cannot deal with them without testing.
  Dr. Garwin yesterday--one of the most brilliant scientists we have 
had, who has been involved in this program since 1950--says, you can 
replace the whole physics package without changing.
  By the way, I am going to yield to my friend from Pennsylvania.
  Names are mentioned here: Dr. Robinson, of Sandia; Victor Reis, the 
architect of the program, whom I spent 2\1/2\ hours with the other day. 
They do not tell you the end of the sentence. The end of the sentence 
is: They both are for this treaty. They both are for this treaty, along 
with 32 Nobel laureates in physics. I ask unanimous consent that the 
list be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 A Letter From Physics Nobel Laureates

     To Senators of the 106th Congress:
       We urge you to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
       The United States signed and ratified the Limited Test Ban 
     Treaty in 1963. In the years since, the nation has played a 
     leadership role in actions to reduce nuclear risks, including 
     the Non-Proliferation Treaty extension, the ABM Treaty, 
     STARTs I and II, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty 
     negotiations. Fully informed technical studies have concluded 
     that continued nuclear testing is not required to retain 
     confidence in the safety, reliability and performance of 
     nuclear weapons in the United States' stockpile, provided 
     science and technology programs necessary for stockpile 
     stewardship are maintained.
       The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is central to future 
     efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. Ratification 
     of the Treaty will mark an important advance in uniting the 
     world in an effort to contain and reduce the dangers of 
     nuclear arms. It is imperative that the CTBT be ratified.

         Philip W. Anderson, Princeton University, 1977 Nobel 
           Prize; Hans A. Bethe, Cornell University, 1967 Nobel 
           Prize; Nicolaas Bloembergen, Harvard University 1981 
           Nobel Prize; Owen Chamberlain, UC, Berkeley, 1959 Nobel 
           Prize; Steven Chu, Stanford University, 1997 Nobel 
           Prize; Leon N. Cooper, Brown University, 1972 Nobel 
           Prize; Hans Dehmelt, University of Washington, 1989 
           Nobel Prize; Bal L. Fitch, Princeton Unversity, 1980 
           Nobel Prize; Jerome Friedman, MIT, 1990 Nobel Prize; 
           Donald A. Glaser, UC, Berkeley, 1960 Nobel Prize; 
           Sheldon Glashow, Harvard University, 1979 Nobel Prize; 
           Henry W. Kendall, MIT, 1990 Nobel Prize; Leon M. 
           Lederman, Illinois Institute of Technology, 1988 Nobel 
           Prize; David M. Lee, Cornell University, 1996 Nobel 
           Prize; T.D. Lee, Columbia University, 1957 Nobel Prize; 
           Douglas D. Osheroff, Stanford University 1996 Nobel 
           Prize;
         Arno Penzias, Bell Labs, 1978 Nobel Prize; Martin L. 
           Perl, Stanford University, 1995 Nobel Prize; William 
           Phillips, Gaithersburg, 1997 Nobel Prize; Norman F. 
           Ramsey, Harvard, 1989 Nobel Prize; Robert C. 
           Richardson, Cornell University, 1996 Nobel Prize; 
           Burton Richter, Stanford University, 1976 Nobel Prize; 
           Arthur L. Schawlow, Stanford University, 1981 Nobel 
           Prize; J. Robert Schrieffer, Florida State University, 
           1972 Nobel Prize; Mel Schwartz, Columbia University, 
           1988 Nobel Prize; Clifford G. Shull, MIT, 1994 Nobel 
           Prize; Joseph H. Taylor, Jr., Princeton University, 
           1993 Nobel Prize; Daniel C. Tsui, Princeton, 1998 Nobel 
           Prize; Charles Townes, UC, Berkeley, 1964 Nobel Prize; 
           Steven Weinberg, Univ. of Texas, Austin, 1979 Nobel 
           Prize; Robert W. Wilson, Harvard-Smithsonian, 1978 
           Nobel Prize; Kenneth G. Wilson, Ohio State University, 
           1982 Nobel Prize.

  Mr. BIDEN. Five of the last six Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
are for this treaty, along with people such as Paul Nitze of the Reagan 
administration, Stansfield Turner, Charles Curtis, and so on. I ask 
unanimous consent that a list of those in support of the treaty be 
printed in the Record
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

    Prominent Individuals and National Groups in Support of the CTBT


   current chairman and former chairmen of the joint chiefs of staff

       General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff.
       General John Shalikashvili, former Chairman of the Joint 
     Chiefs of Staff.
       General Colin Powell, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
     of Staff.
       General David Jones, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of 
     Staff.
       Admiral William Crowe, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs 
     of Staff.


                       former members of congress

       Senator John C. Danforth.
       Senator J. James Exon.
       Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker.
       Senator Mark O. Hatfield.
       Senator John Glenn.
       Representative Bill Green.
       Representative Thomas J. Downey.
       Representative Michael J. Kopetski.
       Representative Anthony C. Beilenson.
       Representative Lee H. Hamilton.


              directors of the three national laboratories

       Dr. John Browne, Director of Los Alamos National 
     Laboratory.
       Dr. Paul Robinson, Director of Sandia National Laboratory.

[[Page S12263]]

       Dr. Bruce Tarter, Director of Lawrence Livermore National 
     Laboratory.


              other prominent national security officials

       Ambassador Paul H. Nitze, arms control negotiator, Reagan 
     Administration.
       Admiral Stansfield Turner, former Director of the Central 
     Intelligence Agency.
       Charles Curtis, former Deputy Secretary of Energy.


                   other prominent military officers

       General Eugene Habiger, former Commander-in-Chief of 
     Strategic Command.
       General John R. Galvin, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe.
       Admiral Noel Gayler, former Commander, Pacific.
       General Charles A. Horner, Commander, Coalition Air Forces, 
     Desert Storm, former Commander, U.S. Space Command.
       General Andrew O'Meara, former Commander U.S. Army Europe.
       General Bernard W. Rogers, former Chief of Staff, U.S. 
     Army; former NATO Supreme Allied Commander.
       General William Y. Smith, former Deputy Commander, U.S. 
     Command, Europe.
       Lt. General Julius Becton.
       Lt. General John H. Cushman, former Commander, I Corps 
     (ROK/US) Group (Korea).
       Lt. General Robert E. Pursley.
       Vice Admiral William L. Read, former Commander, U.S. Navy 
     Surface Force, Atlantic Command.
       Vice Admiral John J. Shanahan, former Director, Center for 
     Defense Information.
       Lt. General George M. Seignious, II, former Director Arms 
     Control and Disarmament Agency.
       Vice Admiral James B. Wilson, former Polaris Submarine 
     Captain.
       Maj. General William F. Burns, JCS Representative, INF 
     Negotiations, Special Envoy to Russia for Nuclear 
     Dismantlement.
       Rear Admiral Eugene J. Carroll, Jr., Deputy Director, 
     Center for Defense Information.
       Rear Admiral Robert G. James.


                        other scientific experts

       Dr. Hans Bethe, Nobel Laureate, Emeritus Professor of 
     Physics, Cornell University; Head of the Manhattan Project's 
     theoretical division.
       Dr. Freeman Dyson, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Institute 
     for Advanced Study, Princeton University.
       Dr. Richard Garwin, Senior Fellow for Science and 
     Technology, Council on Foreign Relations; consultant to 
     Sandia National Laboratory, former consultant to Los Alamos 
     National Laboratory.
       Dr. Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky, Director Emeritus, Stanford 
     Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford University.
       Dr. Jeremiah D. Sullivan, Professor of Physics, University 
     of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
       Dr. Herbert York, Emeritus Professor of Physics, University 
     of California, San Diego; founding director of Lawrence 
     Livermore National Laboratory; former Director of Defense 
     Research and Engineering, Department of Defense.
       Dr. Sidney D. Drell, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 
     Stanford University.


                  Medical and Scientific Organizations

       American Association for the Advancement of Science.
       American Medical Students Association/Foundation.
       American Physical Society.
       American Public Health Association.
       American Medical Association.


                         Public Interest Groups

       20/20 Vision National Project.
       Alliance for Nuclear Accountability.
       Alliance for Survival.
       Americans for Democratic Action
       Arms Control Association.
       British American Security Information Council.
       Busienss Executives for National Security.
       Campaign for America's Future.
       Campaign for U.N. Reform.
       Center for Defense Information.
       Center for War/Peace Studies (New York, NY).
       Council for a Livable World.
       Council for a Livable World Education Fund.
       Council on Economic Priorities.
       Defenders of Wildlife.
       Demilitarization for Democracy.
       Economists Allied for Arms Reduction (ECAAR).
       Environmental Defense Fund.
       Environmental Working Group.
       Federation of American Scientists.
       Fourth Freedom Forum.
       Friends of the Earth.
       Fund for New Priorities in America.
       Fund for Peace.
       Global Greens, USA.
       Global Resource Action Center for the Environment.
       Greenpeace, USA.
       The Henry L. Stimson Center.
       Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies (Saugus, MA).
       Institute for Science and International Security.
       International Association of Educators for World Peace 
     (Huntsville, AL).
       International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
       International center.
       Izaak Walton League of America.
       Lawyers Alliance for World Security.
       League of Women Voters of the United States.
       Manhattan Project II.
       Maryknoll Justice and Peace Office.
       National Environmental Coalition of Native Americans 
     (NECONA).
       National Environmental Trust.
       National Commission for Economic Conversion and 
     Disarmament.
       Natural Resources Defense Council.
       Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
       Nuclear Control Institute.
       Nuclear Information & Resource Service.
       OMB Watch.
       Parliamentarians for Global Action.
       Peace Action.
       Peace Action Education Fund.
       Peace Links.
       PeacePAC.
       Physicians for Social Responsibility.
       Plutonium Challenge.
       Popualtion Action Institute.
       Population action International.
       Psychologists for Social Responsibility.
       Public Citizen.
       Public Education Center.
       Safeworld.
       Sierra Club.
       Union of Concerned Scientists.
       United States Servas, Inc..
       Veterans for Peace.
       Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation.
       Volunteers for Peace, Inc.
       War and Peace Foundation.
       War Resistors League.
       Women Strike for Peace.
       Women's Action for New Directions.
       Women's Legislators Lobby of WAND.
       Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.
       World Federalist Association.
       Zero Population Growth.


                            Religious Groups

       African Methodist Episcopal Church.
       American Baptist Churches, USA.
       American Baptist Churches, USA, National Ministries.
       American Friends Service Committee.
       American Jewish Congress.
       American Muslim Council.
       Associate General Secretary for Public Policy, National 
     Council of Churches.
       Catholic Conference of Major Superiors of Men's Institutes.
       Church Women United.
       Coalition for Peace and Justice.
       Columbian Fathers' Justice and Peace Office.
       Commission for Women, Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
     America.
       Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans.
       Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in the United States 
     and Canada.
       Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
       Church of the Brethren, General Board.
       Division of Church in Society, Evangelical Lutheran Church 
     in America.
       Division for Congressional Ministries, Evangelical Lutheran 
     Church in America.
       Eastern Archdiocese, Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch.
       The Episcopal Church.
       Episcopal Peace Fellowship, National Executive Council.
       Evangelicals for Social Action.
       Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
       Fellowship of Reconciliation.
       Friends Committee on National Legislation.
       Friends United Meeting.
       General Board Members, Church of the Brethren.
       General Board of Church and Society, United Methodist 
     Church.
       General Conference, Mennonite Church.
       General Conference of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
       Jewish Peace Fellowship.
       Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Evangelical 
     Lutheran Church in America.
       Mennonite Central Committee.
       Mennonite Central Committee, U.S.
       Mennonite Church.
       Methodists United for Peace with Justice.
       Missionaries of Africa.
       Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran 
     Church in America.
       Moravian Church, Northern Province.
       National Council of Churches.
       National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA.
        National Council of Catholic Women.
       National Missionary Baptist Convention of America.
       NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.
       New Call to peacemaking.
       Office for Church in Society, United Church of Christ.
       Orthodox Church in America.
       Pax Christi.
       Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
       Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.
       Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
       Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.
       The Shalom Center.
       Sojourners.
       Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
       United Church of Christ.
       United Methodist Church.
       United Methodist Council of Bishops.
       Unitarian Universalist Association.
       Washington Office, Mennonite Central Committee.
       Women of the ELCA, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

       Sources: Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers and Statement 
     by President Clinton, 7/20/99.


[[Page S12264]]


  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, this idea that the stockpile is not going 
to be reliable, that you can't--we have thousands of parts, and the 
Russians have missiles with bombs with only 100 parts, and that has 
some significance. I have said it before.
  I will yield now. I used to practice law with a guy named Sidney 
Balick--a good trial lawyer. Every time he would start a jury trial, he 
would start off by saying: I want you to take a look at my client. I 
want you to look at him. They're going to tell you he's not such a good 
looking guy. He's not. They're going to tell you you would not want to 
invite him home for dinner to meet your daughter. I wouldn't either. 
They're going to tell you--and he would go on like that. But he would 
say: I want you to keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eye on the 
ball. Follow the bouncing ball. Did he kill Cock Robin? That is the 
question.
  The question is, At the end of the day, if we reject this treaty, are 
we better off in terms of our strategic interest and our national 
security or are we better off if we accept and ratify the treaty that 
all our allies have ratified? Which is better? Keep your eye on the 
ball.
  I will respond, as I said, in due time to every argument my friend 
has made, from ``the safety features argument'' to ``the purpose can't 
be achieved'' to ``nations that don't have sophisticated weapons are 
going to be able to cheat,'' and so on and so forth. But in the 
meantime, out of a matter of comity, which is highly unusual, because I 
should do a full-blown opening statement, I will yield to my friend 
from Pennsylvania because he has other commitments. Then I will come 
back to a point-by-point rebuttal of the statement by my friend from 
Arizona.
  How much time is the Senator seeking?
  Mr. SPECTER. I think I can do it in 20 minutes. It might take a 
little longer.
  Mr. BIDEN. It can't take any longer. I will yield 20 minutes to the 
Senator.