[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 99 (Tuesday, June 19, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7840-S7842]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         OUR NUCLEAR DETERRENT

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, for more than six decades, the bedrock 
of American national security has been a strong, reliable, and cutting-
edge nuclear deterrent. Literally thousands of the best scientists and 
engineers in the world have dedicated themselves to ending World War 
II, winning the Cold War, and protecting the free world.
  Each year, the Directors of the three national nuclear weapons 
laboratories must certify to the President, and through him to the rest 
of the United States, that our nuclear weapons systems are reliable. 
That certification process assures Americans, and warns our 
adversaries, that the Nation's nuclear stockpile will be able to 
continue to perform its basic mission--prevention of a nuclear weapons 
exchange.
  During these six decades, discussion of the nature and size of our 
nuclear deterrent has been literally constant. Each year, hundreds of 
scientists, engineers, and global strategists devote innumerable hours 
and days to intense discussions of the proper strategy for the Nation 
and the proper nuclear stockpile to implement that strategy.
  Each year, Presidents have recommendations based upon the work of 
specialists inside and outside the Federal Government. Since the end of 
physical testing of our nuclear weapons stockpile--a big event; and, in 
fact, a major event in American nuclear weapons evolution, the idea we 
would no longer test our weapons--America has relied on a concept 
called stockpile stewardship to try to keep our nuclear weapons 
resources certifiably reliable.
  This Nation has already embarked upon, and through three different 
Presidents has reaffirmed, a commitment to physical testing-free 
testing that has cost billions of dollars. Our strategy has been 
simple: the most reliable weapons without physical testing, upgraded as 
strategy dictates.
  At the same time, the United States has embarked on a major reduction 
in the size of our stockpile and in the nuclear stores of other 
nations. We have done this through programs this Senator has supported 
and authored during the past 20 years. I salute Senator Richard Lugar, 
my colleague from Indiana, and former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia, for 
their groundbreaking work in forging these programs, and I am proud I 
have been able to work with them in these critical efforts.
  Because of these initiatives--the Nunn-Lugar, Nunn-Lugar-Domenici, 
the Nuclear Cities Initiative, the Global Initiative for Proliferation 
Prevention, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development 
Program, and others--our world is safer.
  In total, under Nunn-Lugar, we have deactivated 6,982 warheads, 644 
ICBMs, 485 ICBM silos, 100 mobile ICBM launchers, 155 bombers, 906 air-
launched cruise missiles, 436 submarine-launched ballistic missile 
launchers, 611 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, 30 strategic 
missile submarines, and 194 nuclear test tunnels. Indeed, nine more 
warheads were deactivated in the last month.
  We have offered thousands of Russian nuclear scientists alternative 
pay and occupations, in hopes they will be less susceptible to 
blandishments from other parties. We are sharing nonproliferation 
efforts with other nations beyond the former Soviet Union states.
  In more stark terms, under the Washington-Moscow Treaty, ratified by 
the Senate and signed by the President, we will have in our nuclear 
stockpile, by 2013, fewer weapons than at any time since the era of 
President Eisenhower. We will have fewer nuclear weapons than we had, 
in other words, before the Cold War began in earnest.
  So this two-pronged approach--international cooperation against 
proliferation and for elimination of weapons, coupled with the 
inception of Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship--has been America's 
strong response to the need to reduce the danger of both nuclear

[[Page S7841]]

weapon stockpiles and physical nuclear testing.
  Almost a decade ago, in a speech at Harvard University, I outlined 
what I called a new nuclear paradigm. That paradigm envisioned, among 
other things, a cut in American nuclear weapons to what I then called a 
threat-based nuclear stockpile; that is, a stockpile commensurate with 
the anticipated international threat to our Nation.
  Critical to that concept was, and remains, the principle of 
reliability and the continuous battle against degradation of our 
present stockpile. No serious expert advocated simply keeping the very 
same physical weapons we had 20 or 25 years ago, with no upgrading or 
improvements. At some point, the degradation of components in those 
weapons would mean the certification necessary from the three weapons 
labs Directors to the President could not be honestly made.
  In short, without upgrades and continuous nonphysical monitoring, our 
nuclear weapons deterrence could be put in serious doubt. Yet at this 
very time, the youngest nuclear weapons designs in our arsenal are 20 
to 25 years old. Age-related component degradation could impact several 
different systems at the same time, calling into question reliability.
  For the past several years, this Senate has supported, on a 
bipartisan basis, spending the money necessary to protect our stockpile 
from degradation. At the same time, we have recognized some of our 
systems are too complicated, pose risks to workers, and need 
substantial upgrading.
  This background brings me to the present Energy and Water Development 
Appropriations bill for fiscal year 2008 proposed by the House 
Appropriations Committee and scheduled for House floor action this 
week.
  That bill, if enacted without substantial change, would send American 
nuclear deterrence strategy in a new, unknown, direction. Think about 
that. More than 20 years of intensive study, by some of the best minds 
in the world, could begin to be overturned by enactment of a single 
appropriations bill. The new direction wouldn't be enacted as the 
result of 3 to 4 years of intensive study and hearings by all of the 
relevant committees of Congress. It wouldn't result from a convocation 
of the best minds at our disposal. It wouldn't result from the kind of 
pain-staking analysis of future risks that any prudent American would 
demand from its government. No, that new path would begin by a single 
appropriations bill, devised by a small group with the best of 
intentions, but far from public view and analysis. In that regard, I 
ask unanimous consent that an article from the Washington Post, 
``Congress seeks new direction for Nuclear Strategy,'' by Walter 
Pincus, be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

               [From the Washington Post, June 18, 2007]

           Congress Seeks New Direction for Nuclear Strategy

                           (By Walter Pincus)

       Congress is moving to change the direction of the Bush 
     administration's nuclear weapons program by demanding the 
     development of a comprehensive post-Sept. 11, 2001 nuclear 
     strategy before it approves funding a new generation of 
     warheads.
       ``Currently there exists no convincing rationale for 
     maintaining the large number of existing Cold War nuclear 
     weapons, much less producing additional warheads,'' the House 
     Appropriations Committee said in its report, released last 
     week, on the fiscal 2008 Energy and Water Development 
     Appropriations Bill. The full House is expected to vote on 
     the measure this week.
       The Bush administration had sought $88 million for the 
     Reliable Replacement Warhead program next year so that cost 
     and engineering studies could be completed and a decision 
     could be reached on congressional approval to build the first 
     RRW model, with the first new warheads ready by 2012.
       The House already passed the fiscal 2008 Defense 
     Authorization Bill, which reduced RRW funding and called for 
     development of a new nuclear weapons strategy before steps 
     are taken to produce new warheads.
       While the Senate has yet to act on the authorization or 
     appropriations measure, the Senate Armed Services and 
     Appropriations committees are expected to follow the House's 
     example by reducing proposed RRW spending and demanding 
     development of a new nuclear weapons policy.
       Rep, Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.), chairman of the House 
     Armed Services subcommittee that handles strategic weapons, 
     said in an interview last week that she expects that the 
     question of future U.S. nuclear weapons policy will be passed 
     to the next administration, since the Bush White House is 
     preoccupied with other subjects.
       The House appropriations bill eliminates RRW funding and 
     directs the Energy and Defense departments and the 
     intelligence agencies to develop a ``comprehensive nuclear 
     defense strategy based on current and projected global 
     threats.'' And it slows down funding of the Bush 
     administration's program to modernize the facilities where 
     nuclear weapons are built, stored and dismantled.
       ``These multi-billion dollar initiatives are being proposed 
     in a policy vacuum without any administration statement on 
     the national security environment that the future nuclear 
     deterrent is designed to address,'' the report said. ``[I]t 
     is premature to proceed with further development of the RRW 
     or a significant nuclear complex modernization plan.''
       The committee pointed out that neither the Pentagon's 
     Quadrennial Defense Review last year nor the administration's 
     2001 Nuclear Posture Review ``provided a long term nuclear 
     weapons strategy or the defined total nuclear stockpile 
     requirements for the 21st century.''
       The House bill more than triples the amount the Bush 
     administration is asking for dismantlement of old warheads 
     and adds $30 million to modify a facility at the Nevada 
     nuclear test site so it can be used for dismantling weapons. 
     At present, the only facility that does that work is the 
     Pantex plant near Amarillo, Tex., which also refurbishes 
     currently deployed weapons.
       Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), chairman of the 
     Appropriations subcommittee handling the nuclear program, has 
     indicated he is thinking along the same lines, according to a 
     senior Democratic staffer familiar with his views. ``The 
     Tauscher approach makes sense,'' the staff member said.
       He noted that senior Bush administration officials had not 
     publicly supported the RRW program despite a request by Sen. 
     Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), a former Appropriations 
     subcommittee chairman and a proponent of the new warheads. 
     The Senate subcommittee is expected to provide limited funds 
     for the program ``so we have a couple of years to gather 
     information while the next administration lays out future 
     requirements.''

  Mr. DOMENICI. Note an important point in this story. The funding cuts 
are proposed now; a new strategic direction will be forged later in 
this decade. Such an approach is absolutely backwards. We should forge 
the new direction, if one is believed appropriate in a world of 
increasing threats to our security, after great study. We should fund 
our present strategy, 20 years in the making, now.
  The House Bill and the Post story focus on the so-called RRW, the 
Reliable Replacement Warhead. The RRW is a proposed new element of 
administration policy. The intent of the RRW, to enable increased 
reliability and design simplification in weapons of comparable 
explosive yield is, in my view, a very appropriate consideration, which 
may well result in the ability to maintain still smaller future 
stockpiles supported by a still smaller future weapons complex. But, as 
other legislators have suggested and as I noted in the last paragraph, 
I agree that a study of the complete role of the RRW in the Nation's 
nuclear deterrent is appropriate. That study must involve far greater 
resources than those involved in the House report language. 
Furthermore, Congress will have many opportunities to review and 
finalize any decision for actual deployment of the RRW, but the funds 
proposed for investment in the RRW now should provide the detailed data 
to underpin any future congressional decision to shift portions of our 
deterrent to that design.
  But far beyond the RRW debate, with or without any RRW, stockpile 
stewardship is absolutely vital to our national security. As long as 
this Nation requires a nuclear deterrent in our defense or in support 
of our allies, we must maintain the skills and infrastructure that 
support the viability of that stockpile. That must include both trained 
people and the facilities to enable their work to proceed. Th House 
bill does harm to the Stockpile Stewardship Program. It cuts all 
funding for the new CMRR facility, which would replace the present 
facility, which will be inoperable after 2010. Without a new facility, 
our Nation will not be able to support the pit mission, which is a 
single point failure in the complex. Without a viable pit capability, 
the U.S. nuclear deterrent is vulnerable. The House bill cuts the 
Nuclear Material Safeguard and Security Upgrade, required to meet the 
Design Basis Threat around the key nuclear facilities that contain 
special nuclear material; it would cut stockpile services, the 
foundation of the production capability for our Nation; it would cut 
almost in half

[[Page S7842]]

our pit mission, the critical component of our nuclear deterrent 
systems; it would cut funding for the repair and elimination of old and 
unused facilities that now drain funds from required new facilities; it 
would cripple advanced computing, the key to science-based stockpile 
stewardship; force the shutdown of LANSCE, the accelerator needed for a 
variety of research; and, cut the Z machine, another component of our 
nonphysical testing regime.

  I urge all my colleagues to attend to this debate as it moves through 
the House and to markup in subcommittee next week on the Senate side. 
Implementing and funding a new strategic policy after extensive debate 
is intelligent; defunding critical parts of our present strategy 
without a clear new path in view poses serious risks to our national 
security.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time controlled by the minority has 
expired.
  The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I believe we are in a period of morning 
business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. That is correct.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 12 minutes.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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