[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 149 (Thursday, September 14, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5728-S5730]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
Nuclear Weapons
Mr. President, now on the issue of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons
give the President of the United States an unprecedented and awesome
power. Nuclear weapons are the most destructive force in human history.
Yet, under existing laws, the President of the United States possesses
unilateral authority to launch them. If the President wants to, he has
the power to initiate an offensive nuclear war, even if there is no
attack on the United States or its allies. This is simply
unconstitutional,
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undemocratic, and simply unbelievable.
Such unconstrained power flies in the face of our Constitution, which
gives Congress the sole and exclusive power to declare war. While it is
vital for the President to have clear authority to respond to nuclear
attacks on the United States, our forces, or our allies, no U.S.
President should have the power to launch a nuclear first strike
without congressional approval.
Such a strike would be immoral. It would be disproportionate, and it
would expose the United States to the threat of devastating nuclear
retaliation, which could endanger the survival of the American people
and human civilization. If we lead potential enemies to believe that we
may go nuclear in response to a conventional attack, then we create the
very pressure that encourages them to build nuclear arsenals and keep
them on high alert. This increases the risk of inadvertent nuclear war,
a prospect that is just plain unacceptable.
We have the world's most powerful conventional arsenal--the strongest
Air Force, the largest Navy, and the most capable Army and Marine
Corps. And we have the most powerful nuclear arsenal to deter nuclear
attacks. We don't need to threaten to be the first to attack with
nuclear weapons to deter others from launching attacks on us or our
allies.
Nuclear weapons are meant for deterrence and not for warfighting. As
President Reagan said: ``A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be
fought.''
That is why I introduced legislation earlier this year and submitted
an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, which we are
now considering, to put an appropriate check on the American
President's unilateral authority to launch a nuclear first strike.
Let me be clear. I am not proposing we restrict the President's
authority under the Constitution to launch a nuclear attack against
anyone who is carrying out a nuclear attack on the United States, our
territories, or our allies. Under article II of the Constitution, the
United States President has authority to repel sudden attacks as soon
as our military and intelligence agencies inform him that such an enemy
strike is imminent. What I have proposed does not change that.
But what I am proposing is that we take a commonsense step to check
nuclear first use by prohibiting any American President from launching
a nuclear first strike, except when explicitly authorized to do so by a
congressional declaration of war.
Unfortunately, the need to submit this into law is more important now
than it has ever been, and that is because today we have a President
who is engaged in escalatory, reckless, and downright scary rhetoric
with North Korea, a nation with nuclear weapons. President Trump has
threatened ``fire and fury'' and has declared our military ``locked and
loaded'' and ready to attack North Korea. On what seems like a daily
basis, President Trump uses the kind of inflammatory rhetoric backed by
his unchecked authority to launch nuclear weapons, which highlights the
very situation I described earlier.
The United States threatens military action that could include
nuclear weapons, North Korea responds with increasingly provocative
behavior, and the world faces an ever-increasing risk of miscalculation
that can lead to nuclear war.
I have been talking about no first use and the need to provide an
appropriate check on any American President for a long time, but
President Trump and his Twitter account have made it painfully clear
why the need for a no-first-use policy exists.
No human being should have the sole authority to initiate an
unprovoked nuclear war, not any American President, including Donald
Trump. As long as that power exists, it must be put in check.
We need to have this debate in the United States of America. We don't
need an accidental nuclear war. We don't need nuclear weapons to be
used by the United States when we have not been attacked by nuclear
weapons. And if any President would want to use that power, then he
should come to Congress and ask us to vote on the use of nuclear
weapons in the event we have never been attacked by them. That is the
least I think the Congress should do.
We have abdicated our responsibility to declare war under the
Constitution for far too long. It actually began with the Korean war.
Now we face the prospect of a second Korean war. If nuclear weapons are
going to be used and we have not been attacked, it should be this body
that votes to give the President the ability to use those weapons.
I yield the floor.
Mr. CRAPO. Mr President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to
confirm Pamela Patenaude as Deputy Secretary of Housing and Urban
Development.
Ms. Patenaude was advanced by voice vote out of the Senate Banking
Committee on June 14, and continues to receive nearly unanimous
bipartisan support from affordable housing advocates, public housing
agencies, and industry leaders.
This month, Senate leadership received a joint letter signed by over
60 independent housing trade groups, urging that this nomination
finally be brought to the floor for a vote.
Over her distinguished career, Ms. Patenaude has touched nearly every
corner of housing policy and has held leadership roles at both the
local and Federal level.
This is not the first time Ms. Patenaude has been considered for
confirmation by this body. Twelve years ago, the Senate confirmed her
by voice vote to become Assistant Secretary of Community Planning and
Development at HUD.
The Senate recognized her back then for what she remains today: an
experienced industry veteran who will provide steadfast leadership to
HUD.
This vote is particularly important given the recent hurricanes in
Texas and in Florida. HUD's Deputy Secretary chairs the Department's
Disaster Management Group and coordinates the long-term recovery
efforts of various program offices within HUD.
Ms. Patenaude would make an immediate contribution in this critical
leadership role, drawing from her experience responding to Hurricanes
Katrina and Rita during her time as Assistant Secretary in the Bush
administration.
I am eager to work with Ms. Patenaude on that response, as well as
other key issues within HUD's jurisdiction.
I urge my colleagues to vote to confirm Ms. Patenaude today, and I
also urge the Senate to take up votes on other HUD nominees, so that
HUD can have the key leadership in place that it needs to best serve
its important mission.
Thank you.
Mr. MARKEY. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The senior assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I rise to speak about the nomination of Pam
Patenaude to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development. Ms. Patenaude comes to this nomination with valuable
experience in the field of housing and community development and a
history of affordable housing advocacy. In her previous work at HUD,
she helped administer the Department's disaster relief efforts
following Hurricane Katrina.
While I don't agree with Ms. Patenaude on every element of housing
policy, I respect her experience, and I respect her government service
in her recent work to raise awareness about the affordable housing
shortage facing so many families.
I agreed with her in her testimony in front of the Banking Committee
that ``as a nation we must recognize that housing is not just a
commodity but a foundation for economic mobility and personal growth.''
That is why I was so troubled that during her nomination hearing, Ms.
Patenaude defended the administration's terrible budget for the agency
she has been nominated to help lead. The President would cut more than
$7 billion, 15 percent, from HUD's budget, right in the midst of a
shortage of affordable housing, about which she so articulately spoke.
This budget cut
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would eliminate programs like community development block grants and
the HOME Program. These grants help our cities and small towns repair
their infrastructure, retrofit homes for seniors and people with
disabilities, combat homelessness among families, veterans, and people
struggling with mental illness and substance abuse.
Just last week, Congress approved new CDBG funds to speed up disaster
recovery assistance to communities upended by Hurricanes Harvey and
Irma. Ms. Patenaude came in front of this committee and defended those
budget cuts--programs for which she has advocated but doing,
apparently, the dirty work for the administration and for the HUD
Secretary, she agreed with this budget.
This budget would devastate public housing. It would cut funding for
major repairs by some 70 percent. Again, in the face of substandard
housing, unavailable shortages of affordable housing, it would cut
funding for repairs by 70 percent, and it would expose more families to
poor building conditions and health hazards.
I have told this story before on the floor. My wife and I live in
Cleveland, OH, in ZIP Code 44105. Ten years ago, in 2007, that ZIP Code
had more foreclosures than any ZIP Code in the United States of
America. Within a not very great distance from my home, there is block
after block of homes that are in need of repair--rentals and people
living in homes they own--far too much devastation, crying out for some
help from this HUD budget. Yet this administration turns their back on
them.
It reduces funding for lead hazard control and healthy housing
grants. Secretary Carson, whom I voted for--and not many Democrats
did--I voted for him because he is a neurosurgeon. He didn't know much
about housing when he took this job, but he knew about lead paint and
what the exposure to lead meant to babies and infants. Yet this budget
cuts lead hazard control.
I know, in my city, the public health department has said that in the
old sections in my city of Cleveland, where homes are generally 60, 70,
80 years old, virtually almost every single home has high toxic levels
of lead. Do we not care about what we sentence the next generation of
children to by doing nothing about the lead-based paint around the
windows, the lead around the pipes? All of that we have a moral
responsibility to do something about.
These cuts to HUD programs have generated bipartisan concern about
their effects on our communities, including concerns raised, in fact,
by Republican members of the Banking Committee.
I am voting against Ms. Patenaude's nomination because I can't
support the direction the President's budget proposes for HUD, proposes
for housing, proposes for our communities, and proposes for our
country. She has pledged allegiance--in spite of her background, her
skills, and her advocacy inside and outside the Department since, she
has pledged allegiance to that disastrous vision and those horrible
budget cuts to HUD.
I hope she uses her experience and knowledge to convince others in
the administration of the importance of the Federal Government's role
in housing and community development.
Too often, in this administration, we see officials who come to their
agencies with valuable experience and they quickly set it aside to push
an agenda that does not serve working families in Appalachia, OH, and
inner-city Ohio, in inner-ring suburbs, and affluent suburbs.
We have two very visible crises; one on the gulf coast and one
stretching from Florida to the Virgin Islands, which we absolutely must
tackle. We have a less visible crisis as well--not because of flooding
or hurricanes but because decent affordable housing is beyond the reach
of more and more Americans.
Ms. Patenaude is intelligent. She has good insight. She knows this.
She knows in her heart what this budget would mean to a whole lot of
Americans who work full time, who have generally low incomes--$8, $10,
$12 an hour--who simply can't find affordable, clean decent housing.
Her support for that budget will make the problem worse, and it is very
troubling. I ask my colleagues to vote no on her nomination.