[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 147 (Tuesday, September 12, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S5228]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

  SA 970. Mr. RISCH submitted an amendment intended to be proposed by 
him to the bill H.R. 2810, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 
2018 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military 
construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, 
to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for 
other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

       At the end of subtitle D of title XVI, add the following:

     SEC. 1641. MEASURES IN RESPONSE TO NONCOMPLIANCE OF RUSSIAN 
                   FEDERATION WITH OPEN SKIES TREATY.

       (a) Findings.--Congress makes the following findings:
       (1) In fiscal year 2017, the Department of Defense 
     estimated that it would spend about $44,000,000 on the costs 
     of implementation of the Open Skies Treaty. That includes 
     maintaining and operating a fleet of two Open Skies OC-135 
     aircraft with accompanying facilities, services, and sensors, 
     training and deploying Air Force flight crews, planning and 
     conducting 18 flights, including training and observation, 
     training and deploying United States observers during Open 
     Skies flights conducted by the Russian Federation over United 
     States territory, acquisition and fielding of two digital 
     visual imaging systems digital electro-optical sensors, and 
     more.
       (2) Lieutenant General Vincent Stewart, Director of the 
     Defense Intelligence Agency, stated in a hearing before the 
     Committee on Armed Services of the House of Representatives 
     on February 3, 2015, ``The Open Skies construct was designed 
     for a different era. I am very concerned about how it's 
     applied today.''. He stated in a hearing before the same 
     committee on March 2, 2016, that the Open Skies Treaty gives 
     the Russian Federation ``a significant advantage.''
       (3) In a letter to the Committee on Armed Services of the 
     House of Representatives in April 2015, Admiral Cecil Haney, 
     then-commander of United States Strategic Command, stated 
     that, ``The treaty has become a critical component of 
     Russia's intelligence collection capability directed at the 
     United States. . . . In addition to overflying military 
     installations, Russian Open Skies flights can overfly and 
     collect on DoD and national security or national critical 
     infrastructure.''.
       (4) The report of the Department of State entitled ``2017 
     Report on Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, 
     Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and 
     Commitments'' expressed numerous concerns with the compliance 
     of the Russian Federation with the Open Skies Treaty, 
     including enforcing limits on flights over the Kaliningrad 
     Oblast, denying flights near its border with the Georgian 
     regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia since 2010, and 
     improperly applying the concept of ``force majeure'' to 
     restrict flights over personnel movements of the Government 
     of the Russian Federation. The Russian Federation also 
     improperly required Ukraine to pay in advance for its solo 
     flights, which may provide grounds for Ukraine to make a 
     determination of material breach.
       (5) In response to a question about the participation of 
     the Russian Federation in the Open Skies Treaty before the 
     Committee on Armed Services of the Senate on June 13, 2017, 
     Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated, ``There certainly 
     appear to be violations of it.''.
       (b) List of Legal Countermeasures.--The Secretary of 
     Defense, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the 
     Director of National Intelligence, shall submit to the 
     appropriate congressional committees a list of legal 
     countermeasures that--
       (1) are available to the Department of Defense;
       (2) are compliant with the Open Skies Treaty; and
       (3) could be taken in response to the noncompliance of the 
     Russian Federation with the Treaty.
       (c) Definitions.--In this section:
       (1) Appropriate congressional committees.--The term 
     ``appropriate congressional committees'' means--
       (A) the congressional defense committees;
       (B) the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and 
     the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of 
     Representatives; and
       (C) the Select Committee on Intelligence of the Senate and 
     the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of the House 
     of Representatives.
       (2) Open skies treaty.--The term ``Open Skies Treaty'' 
     means the Treaty on Open Skies, done at Helsinki March 24, 
     1992, and entered into force January 1, 2002.
                                 ______