[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 125 (Tuesday, July 22, 2025)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4574-S4575]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            NEW START TREATY

  Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, on February 13, President Trump said 
something that few expected to hear. He said:

       There's no reason for us to be building brand-new nuclear 
     weapons. We already have so many. You could destroy the world 
     50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new 
     nuclear weapons.
       We're all spending a lot of money that we could be spending 
     on other things that are actually, hopefully, much more 
     productive.

  I could not agree more with what President Trump said. It is why I 
want to speak today about the soon-to-expire New START treaty and the 
very real possibility of a new nuclear arms race, something that 
neither the President, the Vice President, nor any other senior 
official has even mentioned, but it is looming.
  It is important to step back a moment and understand how we got to 
this point. There is no better way to begin than with J. Robert 
Oppenheimer, the scientist who led the team of physicists and engineers 
who built the first atomic bomb. Oppenheimer, as you know, directed the 
Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory in a way that--it was widely 
believed then and is to this day--no one else could have done.
  The use of the atomic bomb against Japan marked the end of the Second 
World War. It also demonstrated to the world that a war between two 
nuclear powers would be cataclysmic for both and potentially 
apocalyptic for the entire world.
  After the war ended, Oppenheimer and many of the scientists who 
participated in the Manhattan Project, knowing the dangers, spent much 
of the remainder of their lives warning the world of the danger of a 
nuclear arms race, and they advocated for international controls on 
nuclear weapons.

  In 1954, unfortunately, at the height of the McCarthy era, 
Oppenheimer himself was targeted for his advocacy by the Atomic Energy 
Commission. No evidence was ever produced that Oppenheimer was a 
security risk or that he was anything other than a loyal American, and 
the Commissioners acknowledged as much. Nevertheless, the physicist who 
just 9 years before had been heralded as a hero for his role in ending 
the war in the Pacific had his security clearance revoked, and it 
effectively ended his brilliant scientific career.
  The flawed AEC decision remained in effect for 68 years until my 
predecessor, Senator Patrick Leahy, along with 42 of his Senate 
colleagues--Democrats and Republicans--petitioned then-Secretary of 
Energy Jennifer Granholm to vacate the AEC's flawed decision. And they 
were supported by distinguished members of the U.S. scientific 
community, including the Director and former Directors of the Los 
Alamos National Laboratory.
  On December 16, 2022, Secretary Granholm vacated the AEC's decision, 
thanks to Senator Leahy's multiyear effort. Her thoughtful decision 
recognized that the abuse of power used to discredit Oppenheimer should 
not remain a historical precedent. In doing so, Secretary Granholm 
reaffirmed the government's responsibility to encourage unrestrained, 
unthreatened scientific discourse.
  So, Mr. President, today, unfortunately, Robert Oppenheimer's worst 
fear is becoming a reality. Hundreds of our nuclear warheads are 
literally ready to launch on missiles that can obliterate targets that 
are thousands of miles away in a mere 30 minutes. And we also, as the 
Presiding Officer knows, have hundreds of nuclear bombs in this country 
and others.
  Now Vladimir Putin is recklessly threatening to use tactical nuclear 
weapons against Ukraine. That is the equivalent of a Hiroshima bomb. 
That is what we would call it today. China is expanding its arsenal of 
more than 600 nuclear weapons. North Korea is expanding its arsenal of 
nuclear warheads and ballistic missiles. And it may be only a matter of 
time before terrorists obtain the enriched uranium to build a crude 
nuclear bomb.
  Unlike the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 
1945, many of today's thousands of nuclear weapons are many more times 
powerful. And that decision to start a nuclear war can be made by a 
single individual--the President--with no requirement that he first 
consult with anyone. A single use of a tactical nuclear weapon, either 
by accident or design, could trigger a flurry of escalating responses 
with far more powerful strategic weapons that would cause incalculable 
loss of life, widespread radiation poisoning, and destruction on a 
scale unlike anything seen in human history. The number of people 
killed immediately is estimated to be in the tens or even hundreds of 
millions, and many more would later die from famine.
  There is little doubt that a nuclear war would pose an existential 
threat to civilization as we know it. So I believe we must all, 
regardless of political affiliation, reaffirm what both Presidents 
Reagan and Gorbachev said 39 years ago:

       A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

  Yet here in Congress, despite the warnings of organizations like the 
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and the Arms Control Association, one 
rarely hears a word spoken among us about this existential threat. We 
have become far too complacent because for 80 years, as Robert 
Oppenheimer and others hoped after revealing to the world the immense 
destructive power of an atomic bomb, the inevitability of mutually 
assured destruction itself has deterred the use of those nuclear 
weapons.
  It is different today. With mercurial leaders like Vladimir Putin and 
Kim Jong Un, we cannot rely on deterrence alone. Existing nuclear arms 
control treaties are either no longer adhered to by Russia or the 
United States or they are close to expiring, and there are no 
negotiations currently underway or even envisioned on a new generation 
of international limits on nuclear weapons.
  My colleague from Massachusetts Senator Markey and several others 
here have sought to counter this complacency, and I want to commend 
Senator Markey for the bill he introduced on January 20, the 
Restricting First Use of Nuclear Weapons Act, of which I am an original 
cosponsor. And last week, I also cosponsored Senator Markey's 
resolution marking the 80th anniversary of the Trinity Test and urging 
the United States to lead the world in reversing the nuclear arms race.
  But the danger of a new nuclear arms race has received far too little 
attention from Congress and from the administration. This complacency 
cannot continue. The use of a single nuclear weapon, whether tactical 
or strategic, accidental or intentional, and the likely response would 
dwarf all the other crises that we are preoccupied with by many orders 
of magnitude, and by then focusing on it would be too late.
  Despite our sharp differences with the Governments of Russia and 
China, they have as much interest in preventing an unwinnable nuclear 
war as we do. We and our allies must urgently seek to reinvigorate 
negotiations on

[[Page S4575]]

more effective mechanisms to prevent the development, proliferation, 
and use of nuclear weapons.
  The New START Treaty, which entered into force in 2011, limits 
Russia's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia 
extended the treaty in 2021, but only for a period of 5 years, and that 
expires in February 2026.
  Ideally, we and the Russians would agree to continue to abide by the 
limits of the New START while we negotiate yet another treaty to 
further reduce the number of nuclear weapons. But, unfortunately, last 
February, Putin announced the Russian Federation's suspension of New 
START, and there has been minimal discussion between our two countries 
about any further agreements.
  When New START does expire, unless a new agreement is in place, there 
will be absolutely no limits on the number of strategic nuclear weapons 
that the United States and Russia can deploy. The number of nuclear 
weapons could skyrocket to levels not seen since the 1980s, 
incidentally, at huge cost to the American taxpayer.
  The result would be a world far more dangerous than the one we now 
occupy.
  The United States has its share of responsibility for the collapse of 
nuclear arms control. During the first Trump administration, the United 
States withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. 
And during President Trump's first term, he withdrew from the Iran 
nuclear agreement, after which Iran, as we know, accelerated its 
uranium enrichment program.
  Today, some of President Trump's advisers have even proposed that we 
resume nuclear testing. We cannot do that. It would be an unmitigated 
disaster, subjecting countless Americans to cancer-causing radioactive 
fallout once again. We cannot repeat that mistake. We cannot repeat and 
cause that harm.
  Under the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the United States, 
Russia, and China have an obligation to ``pursue negotiations in good 
faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms 
race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.''
  In the past, even when relations have fallen to their lowest points, 
the United States and Russia had decades of cooperation on this issue. 
Today, with Vladimir Putin firmly in control, it is hard to see a way 
forward.
  President Trump's comments in February offer me a ray of hope. We 
should continue to denounce Putin's nuclear saber-rattling and Russia's 
suspension of its participation in New START. But the Trump 
administration should also do everything possible to breathe new life 
into talks with Russia to achieve new binding limits on Russia's 
arsenal. The security of both countries and our allies depends on this.
  If Putin refuses to replace New START, despite it being in Russia's 
own national interest, there are other concrete steps that we, Russia, 
and China could take short of negotiating an entirely new treaty that 
would help reduce the risk of nuclear war, one that could be caused by 
false alarm, by error, or by misperceptions.
  These include improving lines of communication to reduce that risk of 
miscommunication or misperception; creating joint early-warning centers 
to monitor missile launches; detargeting so that any accidental launch 
of a nuclear-armed missile lands in the ocean; removing all nuclear 
weapons from high-alert status; reducing incentives to respond quickly 
to a possible nuclear attack; reducing the number of deployed nuclear 
weapons; and renouncing first use of nuclear weapons and restricting or 
eliminating a President's authority to launch a nuclear weapon without 
congressional approval.
  Mr. President, since the 1980s, thanks to negotiators in both 
countries, the United States and Russia curtailed an unrestrained 
nuclear arms race that led to the deployment of staggering numbers of 
increasingly destructive weapons that could not rationally be justified 
for deterrence or any other purpose.
  The START Treaty and New START were historic achievements--bipartisan 
achievements. I would like to think that President Trump was serious 
when he spoke of the need for the United States, Russia, and China to 
stop building more nuclear weapons. But even modest steps to reduce the 
chance of a catastrophic mistake or miscalculation resulting in the use 
of nuclear weapons should be among our highest national priorities.
  I yield the floor.

                          ____________________