[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 101 (Thursday, July 1, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H5494]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         SECURING AMERICA: PRESIDENT OBAMA AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS

  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, the recent vote in the United Nations 
Security Council to impose a new round of tougher economic sanctions on 
Iran was a significant national security success for the United States, 
and part of President Obama's broader push to reduce the threat of 
nuclear terrorism or accidental nuclear exchange.
  For years there has been a broad consensus that a terrorist attack 
with a nuclear weapon is the gravest threat facing our country. During 
the 2004 Presidential debates, both Senator John Kerry and President 
Bush pointed to such an attack as the ultimate nightmare scenario. 
Unfortunately, the prior administration failed to make nonproliferation 
a priority and blocked any progress at the 2005 Nuclear 
Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference, putting the international 
nonproliferation regime at risk.
  President Obama came into office pledging to make nuclear 
nonproliferation a priority, and he has delivered on multiple fronts: 
First, by increasing American and international pressure on Iran; and 
second, by working with Russia and others to reduce both countries' 
stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material.
  The Iran resolution, one of the most important to emerge from the 
Security Council in years, is a triumph for American diplomacy. When 
the President took office last January, the United States was 
diplomatically isolated, and unwilling to engage in the hard work of 
diplomacy that would pressure Iran to engage seriously with the 
international community. But that has now changed.
  The U.N. resolution increases the pressure on Iran to abandon its 
quest for nuclear weapons by expanding the list of organizations and 
individuals subject to financial restrictions and travel bans. And 
significantly, it also prevents and prohibits most conventional arms 
sales to Iran, a major step considering that veto-wielding Russia and 
China have been Iran's major arms suppliers for years.
  While Iran has remained outwardly defiant in the wake of the June 9 
resolution, the U.N. resolution was quickly followed by a fresh round 
of European Union sanctions, and by our passage of the Comprehensive 
Iran Sanctions Accountability and Divestment Act, which was signed into 
law today by President Obama. These new sanctions have had an immediate 
effect. Just days after Congress passed the legislation, France's 
Total, the last major Western energy company dealing with Iran, 
announced that it would stop providing refined petroleum to Tehran, 
while South Korea's GS Engineering and Construction canceled a $1.2 
billion gas project in Iran.
  The stakes are clear. If Tehran's nuclear weapons program were to 
bear fruit, elements of the Iranian regime could divert a weapon or 
materials to a terrorist group under its control, perhaps Hamas or 
Hezbollah. An Iranian bomb could also trigger a nuclear arms race in 
the world's most volatile region. This cannot be allowed to happen. And 
President Obama and this Congress are determined that it shall not 
happen.
  The last 2 years have also seen a revitalization of our efforts to 
assert American leadership in nuclear nonproliferation. President Obama 
was the leader in the Senate on nuclear terrorism and nonproliferation 
issues. I had the pleasure of working with him then to strengthen the 
International Atomic Energy Agency's inspection program. Now as 
President, we are again working together, and the President recently 
signed legislation that I authored to develop our nuclear forensic 
capability.
  The President has also proposed budgets that significantly increase 
investment in nonproliferation efforts and technologies. He understands 
we can't face this threat alone. There are 50 tons of unsecured nuclear 
material around the world. And to succeed in bringing it under lock and 
key, we must convince many Nations that this is a security risk for 
all.
  Last September, the President led an extraordinary meeting of the 
Security Council to bring nuclear security the worldwide attention it 
needs. And this April he hosted the largest summit meeting that America 
has ever seen to convince world leaders that this is not only an 
important problem, but an urgent one. The summit produced a worldwide 
consensus to secure nuclear materials around the world within 4 years, 
a groundbreaking plan that the administration and Congress are now 
implementing.
  On April 8, President Obama signed a treaty with Russia to cut 
nuclear weapons by 30 percent. This too is a crucial step forward. By 
working with Russians to reduce their arsenals and ours, we remove 
unthinkably dangerous weapons from high alert, and demonstrate that 
building nuclear weapons is not a sign of a world power; getting rid of 
them is.
  There is much work yet to be done. But President Obama and the 
leadership in Congress have clearly returned the issue of 
nonproliferation to the center of the policy debate, where it belongs.

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