[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 92 (Friday, June 18, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5144-S5147]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  NEW STRATEGIC ARMS REDUCTION TREATY

  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first of all, something has happened that 
we haven't even talked about on the floor, and it is very timely and 
very significant. We all remember what has happened in the past about 
treaties that have come up and the administration, whether it is 
Democratic or Republican, if they want a treaty, they are going to try 
to rush it through. This same thing happened with the Law of the Sea 
Treaty under President Bush, and when that happened, it was somewhat of 
a crisis because many of us were opposed to our own President. We are 
going to find this to be true about the treaty I wish to address, and 
that is the New START treaty. I think we all remember the START treaty, 
the START II treaty, and now they are calling this the New START 
treaty.
  Yesterday, on June 17, in the committee on which I am the second 
ranking member, the Senate Armed Services Committee, we held the first 
hearing on the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty or the New START treaty. 
During the hearing, we had Secretary Clinton, Secretary Gates, Dr. Chu, 
and Admiral Mullen all emphasizing the importance of verifying the 
treaty. But wait a minute. They are all speaking in behalf of the 
President, which means we haven't had a hearing yet. This is something 
we are going to be talking about doing before we get any closer to 
ratifying this treaty.
  I think the bottom-line question for all Americans and the Senate is, 
Does this treaty improve the national security of the United States? I 
don't think so. To put it bluntly, this treaty will have a profound 
negative impact and implications on the U.S. national security.
  Let's start with the need for the treaty because we are being told it 
is either this treaty or it is nothing at all, and that is just not an 
accurate statement. The United States and Russia are still committed 
under the 2002 Moscow Treaty to reduce the number of deployed nuclear 
weapons to a range of about 1,700 to 2,200--a decrease from 6,000 under 
START. Additionally, the United States and Russia had the option of 
extending START for 5 years and keeping in place the same detailed 
verification and inspection protocols under START. So it is not a 
matter that we have to do something or we won't have anything at all 
because we will continue under the existing treaties that are there. It 
was the decision of the Obama administration to abandon START I 
protocols and rush forward to another START treaty. Both countries are 
still bound under the Moscow Treaty.
  Let's keep in mind that this treaty addresses two things: It 
addresses nuclear capability, warheads and the reduction of the 
warheads down to about 1,550, as well as delivery systems. This is the 
something we keep hearing about. People don't really have an 
understanding. If you have a nuclear warhead, you still have to 
deliver. There are three basic categories of deliverance. One is to do 
it with ICBMs. We all know what that is. The other is SLBMs; that is, 
submarine-launched ballistic missiles. The third would be through the 
air. We have two vehicles that can do this; that is, the old B-52 and 
the B-2.
  So I think we need to talk about four things: modernization, force 
structure, missile defense, and verification, and then the overall 
ability to deter our enemies.
  Keep in mind that this is a treaty between two countries, Russia and 
the United States. That is not really what the problem is. I think we 
all understand the problem is Syria, North Korea, and now Iran, which 
our intelligence tells us is going to have the capability of delivering 
an ICBM to the eastern part of the United States as early as 2015. That 
is very serious.
  First of all, modernization. The well-respected Perry-Schlesinger 
Commission, a bipartisan congressional commission on strategic posture, 
has been working for a long period of time, and they have come up with 
the conclusion that our nuclear arsenal is a victim of disrepair and 
neglect. We haven't been doing anything with these. Even Secretary 
Gates--keep in mind, he was here yesterday at this hearing--he said:

       There is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible 
     deterrent and reduce the numbers of weapons in our stockpile 
     without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing 
     a modernization program.


[[Page S5145]]


  We haven't done that for any period of time at all. Nonetheless, 
Secretary Gates, the same one who was testifying yesterday, said as 
recently as last October that we have to modernize and we have to test.
  General Chilton, the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, 
testified that modernization was not only important but essential. The 
last B-52--we are talking about the equipment we have--the last B-52 we 
cranked out was in 1964. These are ancient vehicles.
  Under President Obama's first budget, he has done away with the next 
generation of bombers, so we can kind of forget about that as long as 
he is President and has a majority in this Congress. The only major 
nuclear power not modernizing its weapons is us. Everybody else is. 
Every other major power in the world is modernizing, and we all agree 
we shouldn't be the only one who is not doing this. Some lack modern 
safety features such as insensitive high-explosive and unique signal 
generators, and some rely on vacuum tubes.
  A lot of people who are the age of my kids and grandkids don't 
remember how old vacuum tubes are. They look at the radios on their 
cars and they wonder why mine in my 1965 Ford pickup takes so long to 
warm up. It is because they don't remember that is the way things were. 
That is the way our nuclear equipment is operating now. No weapons have 
been fully tested since 1992 when the United States voluntarily 
suspended its underground nuclear testing program, and that was in 
anticipation of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Meanwhile, other 
nuclear countries, including Russia, continue to modernize and replace 
their nuclear weapons.
  Press reports indicate the administration will invest $100 billion 
over the next decade in nuclear delivery systems. Now, this comes out 
of the press. I haven't heard this from the Obama administration. About 
$30 billion of this total will go, as it should, to the development and 
acquisition of a new strategic submarine. That will leave about $70 
billion over that 10-year period. According to estimates by the 
Strategic Command, the cost of maintaining the current dedicated 
nuclear forces is about $5.6 billion a year or $56 billion over the 
decade. So that leaves $14 billion, which is totally inadequate to do 
what we need to do, and certainly it is not sufficient enough to get to 
a higher degree of sophistication and modernization of our aging 1964 
B-52 bomber.
  I am concerned that the appropriators are not going to be able to 
fully fund the President's fiscal year 2011 budget request of $624 
million for the National Nuclear Security Administration. I commend 
them for this. This is an amount we should invest. I am not convinced 
we are going to be able to do that.
  Here is something people haven't talked about; that is, in the fiscal 
year 2010 NDAA--that is the National Defense Authorization Act which I 
am active in--we required that the submission of a new START agreement 
to the Senate be accompanied by a plan to modernize the U.S. nuclear 
deterrent. That is under law. That is section 1251 of the fiscal year 
2010 NDAA. So that is something we have to comply with. Yet what we are 
talking about now is ratifying a treaty before we have that 
modernization. We are not going to let that happen. It puts off 
decisions on a follow-on bomber and ICBM until 2013 or 2015.
  A letter was written to President Obama--and I was the one who wrote 
it--on December 15, 2009, signed by 41 Senators, and it stated that 
further reductions are not in national security interest of the United 
States without a significant program to modernize our nuclear 
deterrent.
  So, therefore, the first issue of this is the ratification of the New 
START treaty by the Senate has to be linked to some kind of commitment 
for modernization, which is not in place now.
  The second thing is force structure. According to the Perry-
Schlesinger Strategic Posture Commission--and I will quote two 
sentences out of that. Keep in mind, the triad is ICBM, SLBM, and the 
air delivery system.
  The triad of strategic delivery systems continues to have value. Each 
leg of the nuclear triad provides unique contributions to stability. As 
the overall forces shrink, their unique values become more prominent.

  This is this Commission. We all know about the Perry-Schlesinger 
Commission. No one questions that they are the final authority, and 
something has to be done. We need to listen to them.
  We get this also: We need to understand what the Russian force 
structure will look like and do a net assessment to determine whether 
we can maintain a viable nuclear deterrent in this new agreement. And 
we need to take into full consideration the 2010 Nuclear Posture Review 
which concluded--and I am quoting now--this is the third posture 
review:

       Large disparities in nuclear capabilities could raise 
     concerns on both sides and among U.S. allies and partners, 
     and may not be conducive to maintaining a stable, long-term 
     relationship.

  So right now, we are talking about the nuclear force structure 
suggested in section 1251 of the NDAA. We have 420 of the 450 currently 
deployed single-warhead ICBMs; we have 60 of the nuclear capability B-
52s and B-2s, and we have 240 total of the warheads or the SLBMs. Add 
that up, and that is 720. This treaty calls for 700. When we asked the 
question of the panel yesterday: Where are you going to come up with 
the 20 reduction, they didn't have it, but that is still under 
consideration. So we don't even know at this time in terms of force 
structure and the problems we have.
  Additionally, this treaty does not address tactical nuclear weapons 
even though tactical nuclear weapons remains one of the most 
significant threats. A tactical nuclear weapon could be a suitcase 
bomb; it could be anything other than the three legs of the nuclear 
triad this treaty addresses. One thing we know is that the Russians 
have 10 times--the ratio is 10 to 1--they have 10 times the tactical 
nuclear weapons that we do. I agree with Henry Kissinger. Just the 
other day, he said:

       The large Russian stockpile of tactical nuclear weapons, 
     unmatched by a comparable American deployment, could threaten 
     the ability to undertake extended deterrence.

  Again, there is a lot more on this, but I think this gets the point 
across that we have to be looking at the force structure.
  I wish to move to the missile defense part of this.
  We have heard--and we have been talking about this since January--
that the New START treaty has a provision in it, in the preamble, which 
says that if we expand our missile defense capabilities, the Russians 
could get out of this treaty. We have been told by the administration 
that is not true. I have heard so many different explanations of 
article V in the treaty that I remain concerned that it is as clear as 
mud. The Obama administration assures us there are no limitations. Yet, 
if you look at the preamble, it says:

     . . . the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms 
     and strategic defensive arms, that this interrelationship 
     will become more important as strategic nuclear arms are 
     reduced, and that current strategic defensive arms do not 
     undermine the viability and effectiveness of the strategic 
     offensive arms of the Parties.

  In other words, we don't want you to be concerned with your own 
national defense.
  There is a unilateral statement that was issued by the Russian side 
of missile defense released the same day as the full agreed-upon text. 
This was in Prague in April. This is what our President signed. It said 
that the treaty ``can operate and be viable only if the United States 
of America refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities 
quantitatively and qualitatively.'' There it is. That is a statement. 
That is undeniable. It is there.
  Sergey Lavrov, who is the Russian Foreign Minister, stated to 
emphasize that:

       We have not yet agreed on this [missile defense] issue and 
     we are trying to clarify how the agreements reached by the 
     two presidents . . . correlate with the actions taken 
     unilaterally by Washington.

  He added that:

       [The] Obama administration had not coordinated its missile 
     defense plans with Russia.

  So this is the one that I think is very significant.
  Since I am running out of time--I am going to be able to pursue this 
and get into a lot more detail. But if you look at what happened in 
Poland when we had the ground-based missile defense shield that was 
being installed in the

[[Page S5146]]

first budget this President had, he pulled the rug out from under both 
the Czech Republic and Poland and discontinued this ground-based 
capability. That is something that put us in a position that is pretty 
scary.
  I do wish to mention one thing about verification. There is limited 
verification. We all remember that President Reagan always used to say: 
Trust, but verify. Trust, but verify. This is all trust and no 
verification.
  We are looking at it right now and seeing that the verification 
process is not there. I am concerned that there are 18 inspections per 
year that are allowed--that would be 180 inspections in 10 years--given 
the fact that we conducted on the order of 600 inspections during the 
15 years of START I. The top verification priorities need to be 
accurate and effective, and they are not there now. They are still 
waiting on the National Intelligence Estimate that will assess our 
ability to monitor the treaty. I think we all recognize we are going to 
have to be able to have that verification.
  Lastly would be the deterrence. As Secretary Gates said back in 
October of 2008:

       As long as others have nuclear weapons, we must maintain 
     some level of these weapons ourselves to deter potential 
     adversaries and to reassure over two dozen allies and 
     partners who rely on our nuclear umbrella for their security, 
     making it unnecessary for them to develop their own.

  I agree with that, but that is not the message we heard yesterday. 
The New START focuses on reducing the strategic nuclear arsenals of 
Russia and the United States and fails to address the proliferation of 
nuclear weapons of other countries. The whole idea is that we are 
having an agreement, this treaty between two countries, but it is 
between the wrong two countries. This ought to be with countries such 
as Iran. Russia is not a threat; Iran is a threat to us. North Korea is 
also a threat to us. We have to be looking at where the real problem 
is. We know--and it is not even classified--that Iran will have the 
capability of sending an ICBM to the United States as early as 2015, 
and we have taken down the only defense we would have against that by 
taking out the Poland ground-based interceptor. That is scary.
  The conclusion I come to on this is the Senate must receive a 
comprehensive net assessment of benefits, costs, and risks, with a 
clear and precise listing of terms, definitions, and banned permit 
actions, and the Senate has to continue to receive a series of follow-
on hearings. We haven't had many hearings.
  I remember when we had the Law of the Sea Treaty. That was during a 
Republican administration. The Bush administration decided that Ronald 
Reagan was wrong, I guess, so they were going to have this. They 
weren't having hearings either. They sent people over there who were 
answering to President Bush. At that time, the Republicans were in the 
majority, and I chaired the Environment and Public Works Committee. We 
held a hearing, and the Law of the Sea Treaty passed the Foreign 
Relations Committee 16 to 0, and it was ready to sail through. We 
realized what was in it. They had not changed it since the 1980s when, 
at that time, Ronald Reagan was opposed to it. With that being the 
case, we had to have our own hearings. We had people coming in and 
talking about why we should not have the Law of the Sea Treaty.
  The Law of the Sea Treaty would have turned over to the United 
Nations authority over 70 percent of the Earth's surface. We were able 
to effectively kill that because we were able to show it was wrong. We 
haven't had those hearings on this treaty yet. We have to have hearings 
on the treaty before they are going to be able to get the votes. I am 
taking this opportunity, since nobody is talking about this right now, 
of alerting our Members on both sides of the aisle that this Obama 
administration is going to rescue this treaty and get it done before we 
have our hearings. That isn't going to happen. Fortunately, it takes 
two-thirds to ratify a treaty. That is our responsibility.
  Later, I will talk in more detail, as it gets closer. I will use a 
little bit of time and address the problem that my friend from Alabama 
was talking about a few minutes ago, which is that we have received a 
lot of criticism for our objection to raising the limits, which are 
currently way too low, to $75 billion.
  First, they wanted to raise the limits of liability for economic 
damages to $10 billion, and I objected to that because both the 
President and the Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, said we need 
to think it thoughtfully all the way through as to how high a liability 
limit we want. Then they came forth with no liability limits.
  These are my words and not the words of any experts, but I have spent 
many years in my life in the insurance business. I remember, in 1994, I 
was one who introduced a bill to put a repose on aviation products. At 
that time, we were importing aviation products and airplanes from other 
countries because we weren't making them here. Why weren't we making 
them here? Our tort laws would not let us. We had unlimited liability. 
They didn't have limits out there. Consequently, Piper Aircraft had to 
go into bankruptcy. They had to actually move some of their operations 
to Canada because their tort laws were different at that time. We 
introduced and passed a bill that was intended to be a 12-year repose 
bill.
  That meant if a company manufactured an airplane or an airplane part 
and it worked fine for 12 years, and there was an accident, you could 
not go back against the manufacturer. We could not get it through. 
Instead, we had an 18-year repose bill. That was one that I thought was 
too long. That meant if something had been running well for 18 years, 
then you could not go back and sue.
  I called Lloyd's of London, and they said: You are right. We don't 
care if it is 18 years or 12 or 20 years; you have to have an end to 
underwrite against. In other words, we cannot insure it unless we know 
there is an end in the future.
  Consequently, that is what we need to do in this because companies 
have to be able to have insurance in order to drill. We didn't think 
that was so necessary prior to the tragedy we are addressing now in the 
gulf. Now we realize we should be and what we need to do. If we leave 
it open ended, that will mean if we ever have any drilling or exploring 
in the gulf, it is going to have, in my opinion, to be done not even by 
the big 5, including BP, it would have to be done by the international 
oil companies--those in Venezuela and in China. So, in my opinion, if 
we adopt something with an open-ended, unlimited liability that means 
we are all through drilling in the gulf.
  Quite frankly, that is exactly what the Obama administration wants. 
All this hype and their talk about oil and gas--earlier this week, we 
had the Sanders amendment, which would have put anyone out of business 
who was in the business of drilling, including our marginal producers 
in Oklahoma. A marginal well is only 15 barrels a day. That is what we 
do in Oklahoma. Yet the average marginal well produces only two barrels 
a day but accounts for 28 percent of the domestically produced oil. 
That is significant. They would have been out of business if we had 
adopted the Sanders amendment, which we handily defeated earlier this 
week.
  I believe the statement made yesterday by Senator Rockefeller pretty 
much says it right. I hope I have it so I can refer to it. He was 
criticizing all these efforts to try to have some kind of cap and 
trade, and I think the meeting that took place yesterday verifies that 
cap and trade is in fact dead. The votes simply aren't there. I don't 
have that--yes I do. This is what took place yesterday. It is in this 
morning's Politico:

       The Senate Democrats may have emerged from a much-hyped 
     caucus meeting without a clear plan for this summer's energy 
     bill, but they appear to agree on one point; that is, cap and 
     trade is dead.

  I have been saying that for about 3 months. I think we are hearing 
that now from a lot of the Democrats. Senator McCaskill said:

       I don't see 60 votes for a price on carbon right now.

  There is the same quote by several others. This is a quote I like. 
Listen, this is profound, and I don't think I have ever quoted Senator 
Rockefeller and said it was something with which I totally agree. But 
this is something he said:

       The Senate should be focusing on the immediate issues 
     before us: to suspend EPA action on greenhouse gas emissions, 
     push clean

[[Page S5147]]

     coal technologies, and tackle the gulf oil spill. We need to 
     set aside controversial and more far-reaching climate 
     proposals and work right now on energy legislation that 
     protects our economy, protects West Virginia, and improves 
     our environment.

  I agree wholeheartedly. We on the Republican side have said we have 
an energy policy, and that it is all of the above.
  I will yield at any time to my friend from Connecticut, since he had 
time reserved. Apparently, he doesn't want it.
  It may be that the caucus that met yesterday was united in the idea 
that cap and trade is dead. But I don't think that is necessarily true 
with the Obama administration.
  I am glad to yield to my friend. My understanding is that they only 
have 4 more minutes, and a unanimous consent request will be made here. 
I am almost out of time anyway.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I am told we have time. Floor staff will let 
me know. We have a little more time available.
  Mr. INHOFE. I ask the Chair, how much time is remaining before--the 
Senator from Nebraska has reserved time; is that correct?
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Evidently not.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, let me conclude and say I will come back 
and talk about this at a later time. I do believe President Obama's 
pollster has some ideas that became public. I will share this last 
point.
  Joe Benenson, the President's campaign pollster, did a survey for 
somewhat of an extremist environmental group, and, among other things, 
he found that based on his interpretation of the survey result, pushing 
for cap and trade and tying opposition to it to big oil is a potent 
political weapon for Democrats against Republicans this fall.
  I think that says it all. People are using the tragedy in the gulf 
for political purposes. This is something we want people to understand.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. JOHANNS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.

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