[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.