[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 72 (Thursday, May 20, 2004)]
[House]
[Page H3493]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       NONPROLIFERATION AMENDMENT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Schiff) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. SCHIFF. Mr. Speaker, in January 2001, a well-respected and 
bipartisan task force looked at the threats facing the United States 
and recommended increasing nonproliferation funding under the 
Department of Energy to $3 billion per year for the next 10 years. As 
they stated in their report, the most urgent unmet national security 
threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass 
destruction or weapons-usable materiel in Russia could be stolen and 
sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American 
troops abroad or citizens at home.
  This year, now, 3 years after that report, the Department of Energy 
and Department of Defense nonproliferation budgets only contained $1.8 
billion combined for nuclear nonproliferation. This is simply not 
enough.
  I offered an amendment that would increase the amount of funding for 
nonproliferation by a combined $200 million, bringing the total for 
nonproliferation to $2 billion this year. Regrettably, this amendment 
was not made in order.
  On the Defense Department side, our amendment would have added $50 
million for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or Nunn-Lugar. 
The goal of Nunn-Lugar is to lessen the threat posed by weapons of mass 
destruction, to deactivate and destroy these weapons and to help 
scientists, formerly engaged in the production of such weapons, start 
working for peace. To date, Nunn-Lugar has reportedly helped destroy 
over 6,000 warheads.
  The Defense Department authorization bill contained a $41.6 million 
decrease in funds for Nunn-Lugar from last year's level. In fact, it is 
a $34 million decrease below the pre-September 11 level.
  Last year, Congress expanded the scope of the Cooperative Threat 
Reduction program to countries outside of the former Soviet Union. They 
authorized $50 million for this purpose. The amendment would have 
provided this $50 million. The elimination of Libya and Iraq as states 
of concern have presented us with new opportunities for progress on 
nonproliferation, as has our improved relationship with the former 
Soviet Union states whose need for assistance in securing nuclear 
materials has never been greater.

                              {time}  1930

  In the Department of Energy, there are countless programs sorely in 
need of additional funding. Our amendment would have provided $40 
million more for global cleanout, a program to secure and dispose of 
highly enriched uranium at research reactors around the globe. There 
are over 345 operating or shut-down research reactors in 58 countries 
fueled with highly enriched uranium.
  The State Department has identified 24 other facilities for highly 
enriched uranium cleanout operations because they have enough uranium 
to make a nuclear weapon. Many of these facilities are guarded by 
little more than a night watchman and a chain link fence.
  The Department of Defense authorization bill we just passed only 
contains $9.8 million for this program, which is only enough to clean 
out one site.
  A recent report by the Project of Managing the Atom at Harvard 
University suggests Congress appropriate $40 million annually to fund 
global cleanout efforts. Our amendment would have met or exceeded this 
goal. And I have also introduced stand-alone legislation to establish a 
structure to prioritize the effort to clean out highly enriched uranium 
around the world. It would have provided funding to downblend highly 
enriched uranium to low enriched uranium so that it could not be used 
directly to make nuclear weapons, but would be suitable for nuclear 
power plant fuel.
  Russia currently has over a thousand tons of highly enriched uranium, 
enough for 20,000 simple nuclear weapons. Under a 1993 U.S.-Russian 
agreement, Russia will convert 500 metric tons of highly enriched 
uranium to low enriched uranium by 2013, but this program was zeroed 
out in the Department of Energy's budget. We would have changed that.
  According to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, only a quarter 
of Russia's nuclear sites are properly secured. We would have added 
funding for global nuclear security. We would have added funding for 
security upgrades at nine Russian weapons complexes.
  The irony of removing this funding, of not sensing this urgency, 
after going to war in Iraq over weapons of mass destruction stockpiles 
we have not found, when we know there are massive stockpiles in the 
former Soviet Union for which we have cooperative arrangements to 
secure and destroy, could not be more apparent. The urgency could not 
be greater.
  We would have paid for these programs, we would have provided for the 
national defense, and this must be an urgency.
  Osama bin Laden has declared that the acquisition of weapons of mass 
destruction is a religious duty. After the Taliban was defeated, 
blueprints of a crude nuclear weapon were found in a deserted al Qaeda 
headquarters in Afghanistan.
  My amendment would not have gotten us all the way to the $3 billion 
recommended by the Baker-Cutler Commission, but it was an important 
first step. We must continue that process now in the conference 
committee, and I would urge the conferees to take up the cause of 
nonproliferation with the urgency it deserves.
  To conclude, Mr. Speaker, as Senator Nunn put it so well, the most 
effective, least expensive way to prevent nuclear terrorism is to lock 
down and secure weapons and fissile materials in every country, in 
every facility that has them.

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