[Congressional Record Volume 171, Number 126 (Wednesday, July 23, 2025)]
[House]
[Pages H3628-H3634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
{time} 1700
RISK OF CONFLICT WITH NUCLEAR WEAPONS
(Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2025, Mr.
McGovern of Massachusetts was recognized for 60 minutes as the designee
of the minority leader.)
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address one of the most
serious issues of our time, the risk of conflict with nuclear weapons.
It is a threat that challenges our conscience. It is a threat not just
for Americans but for all humanity. It is a threat not just to humans,
but to all species of life on our planet.
We raise this issue in the context of a series of important
anniversaries. One week ago, July 16 marked the 80th anniversary of the
Trinity test, the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in New Mexico.
We still live with the legacy of above-ground nuclear tests.
Two years ago, the Defense Department awarded the Atomic Veterans
Commemorative Service Medal to the still-surviving veterans of that era
and their family members.
We must also honor the downwinders, civilians whose health and land
suffered from the effects of radiation from these tests. Many were in
the State of Nevada. In addition, we cannot forget the Pacific
Islanders who have not been able to return to their home islands or the
Uyghurs and others whose homeland in Xinjiang was the location of
China's nuclear tests. They, too, have suffered long-term health
consequences.
In 2 weeks, we will commemorate the first use of a nuclear weapon in
a conflict--and that was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on August 6,
1945--and the second, the bombing of Nagasaki, on August 9. Let us pray
that Nagasaki will be the last. Let us work to make sure that it is.
Sadly, the threat from nuclear weapons is only increasing. There are
estimated to be 13,400 nuclear weapons in the world today. Some 90
percent of these are in the arsenals of the United States and Russia.
The rest belong to the U.K., France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan,
and North Korea.
Russia has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and even
against NATO nations. North Korea uses its nuclear weapons program to
intimidate the United States, Japan, and Korea. China continues to
build up its nuclear arsenal. It has some 600 warheads today and is
expected to pass 1,000 by 2030, according to the Pentagon.
The question of Iran's nuclear program has been at the top of our
concerns. The military strikes by Israel and the United States were, as
stated, designed to degrade or eliminate Iran's nuclear development
capabilities. However, as The Washington Post reported last week, U.S.
intelligence agencies assess that only one of Iran's three principal
nuclear facilities was destroyed by the U.S. attacks. This tells us
that military action is not a reliable way to counter nuclear threats.
In 80 years of the nuclear era, the only proven, demonstrated way to
reduce the risk of nuclear conflict and to lessen the scale of its
destruction is through diplomacy and negotiations.
If not for past arms control agreements, Mr. Speaker, today's
arsenals would be larger and more dangerous. If not for limitation on
above-ground and atmospheric testing, many more people would suffer
from radiation and contamination.
However, our challenge is made harder by the fact that there is only
one arms control agreement remaining in force between the United States
and Russia. The New START Treaty limits the number of deployed
strategic nuclear warheads for each party to 1,550. The treaty expires
in February 2026. There are scant signs that either government is
interested in extending it.
President Donald Trump can and should take forward steps on nuclear
arms control. He can follow in the footsteps of other Republican
Presidents. President Eisenhower, in his ``Atoms for Peace'' speech,
expressed the moral imperative to warn Americans and the
[[Page H3629]]
world of the destructiveness of atomic weapons.
President Reagan in his second term negotiated the INF Treaty with
the Soviets. He spoke privately with Gorbachev about the elimination of
all nuclear weapons.
Earlier this year, President Trump said from the Oval Office: ``There
is 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, and they're
building nuclear weapons.''
He added: ``We're all spending a lot of money that we could be
spending on other things that are actually, hopefully much more
productive.''
On this point, Mr. Speaker, President Trump is right. President Trump
has the opportunity to make nuclear threat reduction a part of his
legacy.
As a smart first step, he and Putin can strike a deal to respect New
START's central limits and set the stage for a more comprehensive
nuclear arms control framework agreement.
Next, President Trump can put nuclear weapons on the agenda when he
meets with Xi Jinping. He expressed a willingness to do this in his
Oval Office comments.
Even talking about negotiations in itself can help reduce tensions. A
deal requires a first step, and I encourage the President to take it
and to take it soon.
We, in Congress, can use our voice. Along with our colleague, the
gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Tokuda), I am the proud sponsor of H. Res.
317, a resolution that calls on the U.S. Government to return to the
negotiating table on nuclear disarmament and to lead a global effort to
reduce and eliminate nuclear weapons. It reaffirms our country's moral
and strategic obligation to prevent nuclear war and pursue a world free
of nuclear weapons as a national security imperative.
This call is in the spirit of Presidents Eisenhower and Reagan and
Presidents Carter and Obama, and we hope President Trump. I am pleased
to report that Senators Markey, Merkley, Sanders, Welch, and Van Hollen
have all introduced a version of our resolution. I urge the foreign
policy committees of both bodies to consider these resolutions
promptly.
Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, activity in House committees is taking us
in the wrong direction. Last week, the Appropriations Committee
approved an energy and water bill that cuts the National Nuclear
Security Administration's Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation account by
$412 million. That is 17 percent. These activities help the U.S. stop
the spread of nuclear weapons, detect hidden nuclear activities, and
support arms control efforts. Why would anybody think it is a good idea
to cut that account?
Also last week, the Armed Services Committee approved the National
Defense Authorization Act. It authorizes $62 billion for the nuclear
enterprise, which represents a 26 percent increase over President
Biden's request last year. Unfortunately, the Committee rejected an
amendment by the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) to restrict
funding to create a new land-based nuclear delivery system, the
Sentinel missile, a $180 billion boondoggle he has called an endless
money pit.
The threat of nuclear war is an existential one. We have a moral
imperative to address it and address it urgently. Debates over the
utility and morality of nuclear weapons are as old as the nuclear age.
Notably, many of the people who helped make atomic weapons turned out
to be some of the most powerful voices against their use and for the
reduction in their arsenals.
Mr. Speaker, 2 years ago this week, the film ``Oppenheimer''
premiered. It told the story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the theoretical
physicist who helped create the atomic bomb but then pushed against the
development of more powerful weapons. For that position of moral
courage, he paid a political price.
{time} 1710
Mr. Speaker, 2 months ago, Dr. Richard Garwin passed away at the age
of 97. He is best known as the author of the first hydrogen bomb. Less
widely known is that he spent decades working tirelessly in arms
control and disarmament, as well as scientific panels, conferences, and
government boards.
In a 2018 interview, Dr. Garwin said: ``There is a myth, and you saw
it operate many times in the past, that if there is a perceived
security problem, well, no difficulty, we will just buy more nuclear
weapons. But that doesn't improve our security. What we want is less
nuclear weapons and less cause for using them on the other side.''
When I was a staffer for the late Congressman Joe Moakley in the
1980s, I recall going to hear Dr. Garwin and Dr. Carl Sagan give a talk
on nuclear weapons and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Dr. Sagan, of
course, is the physicist who helped us understand the idea of a nuclear
winter, which is the hemisphere-wide Dark Age caused by the radioactive
ash sent into the atmosphere following multiple nuclear detonations. It
would wipe out food supplies and cause untold deaths from starvation,
even beyond the millions killed by the blasts.
For us today, the dynamic Dr. Garwin identifies isn't in the past. It
is in the present. Our inboxes are full of policymakers expressing
fears about the growth of China's nuclear arsenal or Vladimir Putin's
intentions or Iran's plans.
Too often, policymakers have a reflexive response. They are building
more. Then we should build more. Mr. Speaker, this is so shortsighted.
It is a dangerous reaction. It is very, very dangerous. We know
firsthand the harm that such devastating weapons can have.
On the 80th anniversaries, people of many generations will gather at
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Very few survivors of those atomic bombings
remain with us, but their stories endure. The disturbing photos of the
burns and the radiation sickness endure.
In those cities, those gathered will recommit to preserving the
memory of the destruction, and to plead with current and future
generations to work to ensure that such horrors never ever, ever happen
again.
Mr. Speaker, I regret I cannot be with them in Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. That is why I have organized this Special Order on the House
floor today so that Members can share their message from the floor of
the House.
To our colleagues, to the President, and to the American people, this
is a crucial moment in world history. We have a moral responsibility to
speak out and to do more.
When we return to Washington after the anniversaries and after the
August break, let us commit to raising more awareness. Let us commit to
more congressional hearings and more debate on the floor. Let us commit
to more encouragement for scientists, civil society, and regular
citizens to raise their voices. Let us commit to legislation to contain
the growth of nuclear weapons. Let us commit ourselves to the
elimination of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster).
Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts
(Mr. McGovern) for holding this Special Hour to discuss the dangers of
nuclear weapons.
Mr. Speaker, when I first entered Congress, I was the third Ph.D.
physicist elected to this body. We had at the time Vern Ehlers, a
nuclear physicist and a conservative, religious Republican representing
western Michigan.
We had Rush Holt, a plasma fusion physicist, a progressive Democrat
representing Princeton.
We had me, a sort of garden-variety Democrat who spent the last 25
years smashing protons and antiprotons together to make particles that
have not been around since the big bang.
Although our politics were quite different, we were united by a
special responsibility to join the discussion about nuclear weapons and
ask what we could do to strengthen global nuclear security and maintain
U.S. leadership in trying to prevent nuclear war.
One area where we were always in violent agreement was to stop
wasting money on Star Wars, which was then rebranded as the SDI, the
Strategic Defense Initiative, and has now been rebranded Golden Dome.
For more than 45 years, scientists have been patiently explaining to
policymakers that this is never going to work. It is easy to overwhelm
with a trivial response to it.
[[Page H3630]]
We have spent over $200 billion on it. We have never tested it once
against the kind of countermeasures that we know any competent opponent
would deploy. Even if we succeed at stopping ballistic missiles, there
are, unfortunately, many other ways to deliver nuclear weapons that we
can never stop.
This thing is deeply--I guess ``stupid'' is not too strong a word. We
explain something to someone in a variety of terms again and again, and
they don't want to hear it because they think it messages so well.
Wouldn't it be great if we had this magic Golden Dome, or whatever we
want to call it, to stop nuclear weapons? Yeah, it would be great.
If it is an impossibility to do the fundamental physics of it, then
we should stop talking about it, and we should certainly stop wasting
money on it.
Another place where we were always in strong agreement was how we
should be strengthening the nonproliferation efforts at our national
laboratories.
Our national labs create an underlying foundation for all of our
nuclear security efforts including the nonproliferation and national
security priorities that we are talking about here today. In order to
ensure that current and future arms control efforts are properly
fulfilling their mission, we have to invest in our scientific workforce
to maintain our leadership and verification efforts.
It is certainly not well-known among Members of Congress, but when
the IAEA sends inspectors into Iran and into countries of concern,
those have been largely trained by the national labs in the United
States. When we gut the nonproliferation capacities of our national
labs or simply allow them to retire, as has been happening, we risk
putting aside one of the most powerful tools we have to actually
enforce any deal that we may get.
The President is very fond of talking about this deal he is going to
get on Iran nuclear. We listened to him talk about how he was going to
get North Korea. I support efforts to try to do that.
If we ever succeed in getting one of these deals, for sure we are
going to need to have experts we trust that can go in there and make
sure nobody is cheating. Unfortunately, what we are seeing is the
gutting of those budgets in that capacity. I guess it doesn't satisfy
the MAGA worldview.
Over the years, I have focused my attention on a few specific areas
to strengthen our nuclear security architecture. One of them is what is
called nuclear--well, it has a number of names. If for some reason a
nuclear weapon is detonated somewhere in the United States or anywhere
around the world, the President will come under huge pressure to say:
Who did that? Whose weapon was it?
There is a lot of very detailed knowledge that we have had in the
past in our national labs to be able to go in there and do what is
called nuclear forensics and find out whether that was a bomb from X,
Y, or Z. That capacity has been under duress for a long time. It seems
like it is every single time the appropriations budgets come up, we end
up having to try to defend that.
That is something that is completely irrelevant until it is the most
important question in the world. Who did that? Who let off this nuclear
weapon? How do we make sure we don't retaliate against the wrong person
or entity that did that?
There are a number of other things I have been working on. First and
foremost is H. Res. 100. It is a resolution I introduced in the House
with 19 other Members. It supports arms control and condemns Russia's
purported suspension of its participation in the New START Treaty.
The current extension of the New START Treaty is set to expire in
under a year, and anyone who remembers previous arms control
negotiations will know that there is almost no time left to negotiate a
subsequent treaty.
Additionally, any negotiations, whether with Russia, China, or any
other country, will require partners who are willing to have
discussions on arms control, which is something that is far easier said
than done.
This is not something where the two great men leading great nations
can come together and strike a deal. The details matter. We have to
have technical experts that we trust to go deep down into the weeds to
have an agreement so they can come back and say this is a solid
agreement we can trust.
It is a time when traditional channels of dialogue on arms control
and strategic stability have been closed or quiet, and we are going to
rely more than ever on keeping alternative channels open and keeping
the expertise in place. Then when the time comes for these agreements,
we have people we trust who can carry them out.
{time} 1720
Mr. Speaker, nongovernmental organizations, scientists, and research
institutions have kept this dialogue open even during the worst parts
of the Cold War, and we are going to need to rely on them to fulfill
these roles again.
Another crucial institution that we must continue to support in these
times is the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency. We have
already seen the incredibly hard work that Director General Grossi and
his staff are putting in to responding to the Russian invasion of
Ukraine with its many nuclear reactors and the myriad of other crises
on their doorstep.
Mr. Speaker, that brings us to Iran. One of the proudest moments in
my career was standing alongside Dr. Richard Garwin, who, as
Representative McGovern mentioned, was often pointed to as the father
of the hydrogen bomb and a strong advocate for nuclear
nonproliferation. He stood by my side, along with Energy Secretary Dr.
Ernest Moniz, as I announced my support for the Iran nuclear deal.
One of the tragedies of the recent past has been this President's
abandonment of the Iran nuclear deal, which has gotten us into a heck
of a pickle, as predicted by the people who actually understood what
our true options were in that negotiation.
After the U.S. bombing of Iran, there has been an immense amount of
debate about whether or not Iran's nuclear program was set back by a
certain amount of time, whether it is years or whatever. The level of
technical ignorance that has been displayed by this administration is,
frankly, frightening. They have access to the best weapons designers in
the world, and they are either not listening to them or not asking
questions.
When you hear Secretary Rubio, for example, saying not to worry about
their 60 percent enriched uranium inventory because they are going to
have to convert it to metal and that will take years, anyone with
knowledge of the history of the Manhattan Project knows that is not a
major activity. Iran has done it for a long time. They know how to do
it.
If you are only interested in converting from uranium hexafluoride to
metal, a few tens of kilograms, which is what you need for your first
set of weapons, this happens in a laboratory. It can happen in a
congressional office. You don't need a big space for this.
The conversion of the uranium hexafluoride to what is called green
salt, and the green salt to metal, is something that happens in a small
industrial building. It can happen anywhere in any city in Iran, and it
will be really hard to tell. We have not prevented them from doing what
they have to do.
The enrichment level is another thing where we are seeing, frankly,
technically ignorant statements made. We have three levels of uranium.
Less than 20 percent is generally regarded as relatively safe and can
be used in reactors without a lot of safeguards. When you get about 90
percent enriched uranium, that is the good stuff for really high-
performance weapons.
What about in between? They have 60 percent uranium. Guess what? That
is not weapons-grade, but it is weapons-usable. For example, the
Hiroshima bomb was made with a mixture of 50 percent enriched uranium
and higher enriched uranium.
The 60 percent enriched uranium that Iran has a significant inventory
of is perfectly usable even for a simple Hiroshima-style gun-type
device. Our leadership speaks in apparent ignorance of that fact,
beating their chest and saying we set them back by decades, when that
is not the case.
Just to give a sense of the scale, the 400 kilograms of uranium
hexafluoride that the IAEA watched them enrich to 60 percent is stored
conventionally in the United States in about 25 scuba tank-sized
pressurized containers. Any five of those containers have enough
uranium to make a Hiroshima-style nuclear weapon.
[[Page H3631]]
These things are not hard to smuggle. We will have a hard time
convincing ourselves, in fact, that the Iranians haven't already done
it.
Pretending like Iran does not have a credible threat and has no
leverage is a dangerous and ignorant position for our government to be
taking and one of the scariest things about the many threats that we
face right now.
Those who don't know should go look at the Wikipedia article on the
Hiroshima Little Boy bomb and the references in it. It is,
unfortunately, very well-documented over the years because it is not
the best weapon you can make, by far. You can make much more complex
and efficient weapons, but the Iranians don't have to do that.
If they simply want to replicate what was done, they would get an old
155-millimeter howitzer, replace the explosive shell with some
enriched--60 percent enriched will work just fine--uranium, shoot it
into the right-shaped target, and they have something that is as
effective as the Hiroshima weapon.
This is not a trivial risk. The only answer to this is negotiations,
and we have to get very serious about that.
It is not something that the Iranians even have to test. We did not
test the Hiroshima weapon. It was obviously going to work. The physics
hasn't changed in the 80 years since then, so we are at a very
uncertain position on that, and we shouldn't pretend otherwise.
We have also recently been hearing a lot of calls about the
resumption of nuclear testing. This is particularly worrying because
the move away from nuclear testing has been really one of the
cornerstone successes of nonproliferation and nuclear security.
Just think of all the attention Donald Trump could get by giving the
order that he wants to blow up a nuclear weapon just to make sure it
works, or whatever it is. Yes, he would get a lot of attention that
way.
Our country has a tremendous amount to lose if everyone begins
nuclear testing again. The U.S., during the Cold War, conducted over
1,000 nuclear tests, far more than any other country, and we had much
better instrumentation, knowing exactly what happened in those
explosions.
The knowledge that we gained has allowed our Nation to maintain the
safety, security, and effectiveness of our nuclear stockpile without
any further testing. If we were to resume testing, the rest of the
world would resume testing. I am sure they all have bomb designers that
are just champing at the bit to get more data on exactly what happens
if they explode one of their untested weapons.
If we do this, we would be giving away the most significant strategic
advantage that our country has, which is this huge database of exactly
what works and what does not work in detailed and very technologically
aggressive designs for our nuclear weapons.
If we open that Pandora's box, every country that is nuclear-capable
will say this is their opportunity to become coequal with the United
States in knowledge of nuclear weapons. That will be yet another
disaster for the proliferation regime.
The next few years are going to be crucial to making sure that the
world we live in remains safe from the threat of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Representative McGovern for bringing us together
to discuss this.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr.
Foster) for his thoughtful remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Tokuda).
Ms. TOKUDA. Mr. Speaker, I rise to join my colleagues and reinforce
their warning and urgent call to action.
Mr. Speaker, today, we stand at a crossroads. The world is once again
drifting toward a future where nuclear weapons are not just tools of
deterrence but urgent threats hanging over every human life.
{time} 1730
Mr. Speaker, we cannot afford to look away, not when the lessons of
the past are still very visible amongst us. Look to the people of the
Marshall Islands. Many of them are living in my district, part of our
Hawaii ohana, whose lands became sacrifice zones in the name of power.
Entire communities were displaced, and generations were scarred by
radiation. The Bikini Atoll, once a paradise, became a proving ground
for devastation.
These are not just theoretical consequences, lines on paper,
assumptions, and equations. They were real, and they are very real
still.
The United States and its allies conducted 318 nuclear tests in the
Pacific islands. The people who lived on the islands lost their
ancestral homes, now uninhabitable, and the people who were exposed to
fallout were immediately sickened with ongoing, long-term impacts for
human health, including increased rates of birth defects, genetic
disorders, and secondary cancers.
The nuclear age taught us that while bombs may drop in seconds, their
impact crosses centuries and generations, and now, instead of learning
from history and learning from the mistakes of our past, we are poised
to repeat it with greater risk, fewer safeguards, and far more at
stake.
Today, the United States, Russia, and China inched closer to an
unrestrained three-way arms race as we collectively spend well over $1
trillion on updated and new nuclear warheads and means of delivery.
Just one of these programs, as was mentioned, the Sentinel
intercontinental ballistic missile, will cost $141 billion according to
the Department of Defense.
Keep in mind, Mr. Speaker, that is not even the bottom line. Their
cost estimates keep growing and growing. A new arms race is a race with
no finish line. Let us be clear: There are no winners, only losers in
this race.
It doesn't have to be this way.
We must urgently renew and expand nuclear arms control treaties with
both Russia and with China. The path to security lies not in new
warheads or Golden Domes but in dialogue, transparency, and mutual
restraint. We must invest as much into diplomacy and prevention as we
do into silos and interceptors.
Let us be clear. All it takes is one bomb, one miscalculation, and
one moment of madness, and everything--everything--will end.
The clock is ticking, but the future is still ours to shape. Let us
choose wisdom over fear, peace over peril, and life over annihilation.
Mahalo to my colleague, Congressman McGovern, for organizing this
Special Order hour.
I ask on August 6 and August 9, let us take a moment to pause and
remember we do have a choice.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Minnesota (Ms. Omar).
Ms. OMAR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to, once again, call on the
United States to join the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons
and for all of the world's nuclear armed powers to adopt policies of
mutual disarmament and abolition.
In a few short weeks we will mark the 80th anniversary of the only
time nuclear weapons have been used in combat by the United States in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The fact is in 80 years since, we have
only avoided nuclear war by sheer luck. As long as countries possess
massive arsenals of world-destroying weapons, the risk of
miscalculation and the risk of escalation is eternal.
In the last few years, we have seen multiple situations that remind
us of the extent of this fragility and of the danger. Nuclear-armed
India exchanged fire with nuclear-armed Pakistan just this year. Cooler
heads prevailed, this time.
Nuclear-armed Israel conducted unilateral strikes on facilities in
Iran. That war didn't go nuclear this time.
Nuclear-armed Russia continues its brutal war of conquest in Ukraine.
We are avoiding escalations that increase the threats of nuclear war
between Russia and the West so far.
The truth is, the era of nuclear weapons will only end in one of two
ways. Either we will abolish these horrific weapons from the face of
the Earth, or we will use them and abolish humanity instead.
The only sane position and the only legitimate position for anyone
who values human life is abolition.
In addition, more than one-half of the countries in the world have
now formally agreed signing on to the TPNW. We should join them.
That is because just as we have gotten terrifyingly close to nuclear
war in
[[Page H3632]]
these past 80 years, we have gotten close to disarmament. It is not a
pipe dream. Reagan and Gorbachev also did it. South Africa unilaterally
dismantled their arsenal. Other countries have stopped developing
nuclear weapons before they got the bomb.
It is possible to disarm, and it is possible to abolish nuclear
weapons. We only need the political will, and we need the urgency.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, you will note that I said the bombs dropped in
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the only nuclear weapons used in combat,
but they were not--we must be absolutely clear--the only times nuclear
weapons have been used.
In fact, nuclear weapons have been used thousands of times, and their
primary targets have been Americans. We also mark this month the 80th
anniversary of the Trinity test in New Mexico. So we should remember
that entire communities have been poisoned by these weapons right here
in the United States. Entire generations have seen their families,
their friends, and their classmates die of rare cancers caused by
radiation exposure. They have been forced to drink poisoned water and
breathe poisoned air.
The effects on the communities known as the downwinders have been
catastrophic, and their suffering is still, sadly, mostly unknown in
this country. We have made some small steps toward providing overdue
compensation to these Americans, the first and the most consistent
victims of our nuclear weapons program, but we still are a long way
from justice.
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. McGovern for hosting this Special Order hour
tonight and for his years of principled leadership on this issue.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her remarks.
We are living in a time when there is great polarization in our
politics, but the issue that we are talking about here today is how to
bring Democrats and Republicans together, because as Democrats and
Republicans and liberals and conservatives we do have a mutual interest
in survival. If nuclear weapons are ever used in this current day, then
nobody wins.
What we are talking about is the salvation or the destruction of our
civilization from nuclear death. The stakes could not be higher, and
yet what is shocking to many of us is the lack of urgency and the lack
of attention to this subject.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).
Ms. TLAIB. That is right, Mr. Speaker. There is a lack of urgency,
and we need to move with urgency because a nuclear war cannot be won
and would have catastrophic human consequences.
One warhead--one--has the power to wipe out an entire city. A full-
scale nuclear war would devastate life as we know it.
Mr. Speaker, 80 years ago, the horrific U.S. bombings of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki caused unimaginable death and immense human suffering, and
survivors to this day face long-term health issues and radiation
poisoning.
So 80 years after these atrocities, we must, as a Chamber, recommit
our efforts to finally achieving the complete and total abolition of
nuclear weapons worldwide. We must ensure these war crimes are never
repeated anywhere.
Nuclear weapons are tools of death and destruction. They cannot be
used without disastrous consequences that violate international law and
our shared humanity.
The White House and Congress need to immediately work to negotiate
new constraints to cap and reduce nuclear arsenals, especially with
Russia and China. We must do everything in our power to prevent an
unrestrained nuclear arms race.
It is absolutely terrifying that in the United States the President
has the power to unilaterally decide to launch a nuclear weapon.
Think about that for one moment, Mr. Speaker. The use of just a
fraction of the nuclear weapons we possess, most of which are ready to
launch within minutes of an order from any President, including the
current one, would lead to mass destruction of unprecedented global
scale.
Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle should back
commonsense efforts to prioritize nuclear disarmament and adopt
measures to reduce the risk of nuclear war.
We must continue to work toward international agreements, Mr.
Speaker, with all nine countries that possess nuclear weapons through
comprehensive nuclear test ban treaties, as well as the treaty on
prohibiting a nuclear weapon.
Again, we must come together. I cannot say this enough: The
devastation and the consequences of any nuclear launch could be, again,
life-changing around the world. We must continue to strive for a world
free from the threat of nuclear war.
I cannot thank enough my colleague, Mr. McGovern, as he commits to
banning nuclear weapons and, again, tries to save us from any kind of
life-changing devastation to our world.
{time} 1740
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank Congresswoman Tlaib and all of my
colleagues who have been here today because this is the most important
issue, quite frankly, facing our planet.
Mr. Speaker, we can never ignore the fact that behind the conference
room discussions about the utility of nuclear weapons, behind the
corporate lobbying for nuclear modernization spending, this is a story
of human suffering.
The Nobel Committee awarded the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize to the
organization Nihon Hidankyo for its efforts to achieve a world free of
nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that
nuclear weapons must never be used again.
Nihon Hidankyo is a grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors form
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In 2 weeks, members of this organization along
with activists and citizens from Japan and around the world will gather
in Hiroshima and Nagasaki on the 80th anniversary of the atomic
bombings. They will amplify this clear and existential message: that
nuclear weapons must never ever be used again.
This organization keeps alive the testimony of the ``survivors'';
``Hibakusha'' of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are the witnesses to the
indescribable, the unthinkable, the incomprehensible pain and suffering
caused by nuclear weapons.
Nihon Hidankyo highlights the nuclear taboo, the concept that nuclear
weapons should never be used, an idea that is under threat from the
growth in nuclear arsenals around the world.
Among the organization's aims is an international treaty for nuclear
disarmament. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, or TPNW,
was adopted on July 7, 2017, and entered into force on January 22,
2021. It is the first legally binding international agreement to
comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons with the ultimate goal being
their total elimination. Mr. Speaker, 73 nations are party to the
treaty. The United States is not. Neither are the other eight nuclear
powers.
We won't get there overnight, but we should not abandon the goal. My
resolution, coauthored with the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Ms. Tokuda),
H. Res. 317, calls for good faith negotiations with the other eight
nuclear arms states to halt any further buildup of nuclear arsenals and
to aggressively pursue a verifiable and irreversible agreement or
agreements to verifiably reduce and eliminate their nuclear arsenals
according to a negotiated timetable. I encourage my colleagues to
support this resolution and join us in our efforts.
Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano).
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, the ranking member of
the Rules Committee, Mr. McGovern, for yielding. I thank him and the
CPC for organizing this very important Special Order hour.
Next month marks 80 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. These were the only times nuclear weapons have ever been used
in war.
I have to say that this memorial, this memory, this 80th anniversary
milestone is not just historical, it is somewhat personal and
unexpectedly so, say, beginning in 2001, 2002 when at the age of 40, 41
I made my first visit to Japan.
I grew up as an American, a Japanese American. One of my
grandparents, my only grandparent, my grandfather, Isao Takano,
immigrated to the United States around 1916. He was born in 1898 in
Japan, and he came from the environs of Hiroshima.
[[Page H3633]]
Growing up, we would go to his niece, my second cousin or I don't
know how to kind of appropriate the right sort of familial designation
of who is a cousin, a second cousin, but Kikue Takagi was my
grandfather's niece who married an American and lived in Anaheim and
worked at Disneyland.
We knew some facts, but we never in our times when we would get
together for our family gatherings would we ever discuss what happened
in Hiroshima. It wasn't until I was well into my adulthood on my first
trip to Japan visiting Hiroshima and visiting Kikue, who was there
taking care of her mother, that I learned that she was a ``survivor'';
``Hibakusha,'' that is the Japanese word for survivor, of the atom
bomb.
She lived in the outskirts of Hiroshima. If you have been there, it
is mountainous. It is a place, a delta, with five different rivers
converging, and she lived in the outskirts. She was a middle school
student. On the day that the bomb dropped, she was still ill, so much
so that her mother said she didn't need to go into the city center to
do her public service work. The middle schoolchildren were needed to
clean up the debris of the area around the downtown of Hiroshima. They
were doing an urban renewal project to widen the streets.
They knew, the people of Hiroshima, the political class knew that
Hiroshima was a target because it was an industrial city. But little
did they know that the teachers, the middle schoolteachers and the 13-
year-olds who were there at the city center doing this public service
work were all going to perish that day. My cousin survived because she
stayed home at the behest of her mother.
She had not visited any of the memorials until I had arrived in the
early 2000s. And I felt a tinge of guilt for asking her to do this
because she had never really sort of delved into this history by
visiting the memorial museum.
Riding over the bridge of one of the rivers to the museum the day
that Kikue and I decided to go, she told me about how the river was not
visible during the day that the bomb was dropped and the days afterward
because of the number of bodies that just covered the surface of that
water.
When you arrive at the memorial location, you can see bottles of
water that many people who attend these memorials will leave for the
thirsty souls of those who perished and those who were thirsty from the
August heat.
I feel a deep obligation and responsibility to carry this memory
forward. I remember as I crossed the bridge thinking to myself how I
was personally connected by family to this historical event, that it
was not something abstract. It was a moment that who I was, my
identity, somewhat shifted and changed.
More than 200,000 people were killed, most of them civilians. Some
died instantly. Others suffered for months or years from burns,
radiation, and grief.
Mr. Speaker, 80 years after the erasure of two cities we have still
not learned the lessons of these terrible bombings.
There are an estimated 13,400 nuclear warheads on Earth today. The
United States and Russia hold more than 90 percent of them. Together,
we control more than 12,000 warheads, and that is more than enough to
end human civilization. While the United States and Russia maintain the
largest stockpiles, China is rapidly building.
According to the Department of Defense, China's arsenal already has
500 operational warheads, and if current trends continue, it could
surpass 1,000 by the year 2030.
This growth adds to global instability and makes the case for urgent
diplomacy and arms control even stronger. Yet, the most important arms
control treaty still in force between the United States and Russia is
set to expire in less than 200 days.
If we let the New START Treaty expire, we will be left with no legal
limits on the size of the two largest nuclear arsenals in the world. At
the same time, we are seeing headlines about strikes on Iran's nuclear
facilities.
These actions revive a dangerous question: Can we stop the spread of
nuclear weapons through military force? I believe the answer is no. We
cannot destroy knowledge with a bomb. We cannot erase a nuclear program
by targeting one facility.
Strikes might delay a program, but they almost always provoke
retaliation and harden resolve. They do nothing to build the kind of
long-term trust and transparency that actually reduces nuclear risk.
{time} 1750
That is why we need a strategy based on diplomacy, prevention, and
protection. We know that this strategy can work because it did in the
past. Iran's nuclear weapons program development ground to a halt under
the Iran nuclear deal. It was only after President Trump ripped up the
accord that Iran set itself on the pathway that it is on today.
The recent strikes reinforce the military theocracy's paranoia that
the only pathway to secure the regime's long-term survival is through
the development of a nuclear program. Like I said before, if a nation
has enough willpower and know-how, they will develop a nuclear weapon.
That means that the United States' national security cannot solely rest
on deterrence. We should lead by example.
That means modernizing verification tools, supporting the
international inspectors, and investing in the diplomatic capacity to
negotiate real agreements. It also means rethinking how we can make
decisions about the use of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Speaker, Congress has a role to play. We cannot stay silent while
the risks grow and the guardrails fall away. The American people
deserve transparency about how nuclear launch decisions are made and
who is involved in making them. This is not just a matter of policy. It
is a matter of survival.
Mr. Speaker, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not mere tragedies. They
were warnings. The people who died there cannot speak for themselves,
but we can speak for the future they were denied. We can choose a path
that avoids repeating the worst mistake in human history.
Let us honor the lives lost not only with remembrance but with
responsibility. Let's choose diplomacy over destruction, prevention
over provocation, and peace over peril.
Let me return back to that scene of riding over that bridge over the
river with my cousin Kikue and the thought that I had that every world
leader who has some control over a nuclear arsenal should make a
commitment to visit Hiroshima, to walk the grounds and understand what
happened there and in Nagasaki. I think that is the only way that one
has the moral stature and authority to be a leader of a country that
has a nuclear arsenal.
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his eloquent
remarks. There is so much more that needs to be said, yet our time is
coming to a close.
Let me end by saying that when I was in college in the late 1970s, I
interned for Senator George McGovern, no relation, but a leader on arms
control issues. I was able to accompany him to a debate with William F.
Buckley at Yale University titled ``Resolved: That the SALT Talks Are
in the Interests of U.S. National Security.'' Of course, the SALT talks
were the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks.
George McGovern closed the debate--and I remember this like it was
yesterday--I thought very powerfully. He said that he recalls that when
he was a young Senator in 1963, they were debating the Limited Nuclear
Test Ban Treaty, and Senator Everett Dirksen, who was the Republican
Senate minority leader at the time, ``took to the floor to close the
debate. He said that he had just reread John Hersey's `Hiroshima,' the
description of what happened to that great city, the morning after--the
scene of one family sitting charred around the breakfast table; out in
the yard, bits and pieces of children's clothing; the broken arm of a
doll; toys and debris scattered over the landscape. And he said: `I
thought about that scene, and I said that someday Everett Dirksen will
be buried in Illinois, and when that happens, I don't want them to put
on my gravestone: `He knew about this, and he didn't care.' ''
Mr. Speaker, we all know the realities of nuclear weapons and their
devastation, and the fact that if they were ever used, it would result
in the total annihilation of our planet.
The question for all of us is: Are we going to do anything about it?
[[Page H3634]]
I said earlier that one of the most troubling factors in this whole
topic is the lack of urgency here in Congress. We don't talk about
this. We are not pushing for arms control. We are not setting goals for
the total abolition of nuclear weapons. Instead, we are, just out of
habit, voting in favor of military budgets that contribute to the
problem.
I think, at this moment, as we approach the 80th anniversaries of
these horrible events, this is a time for us to step up and to do
something before it is too late.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to commemorate and have moments of
silence to remind their constituencies of the anniversaries of the
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I urge them to join with us in a
bipartisan way in doing something about it.
George McGovern ended his debate with William Buckley at Yale by
saying this: ``Many years ago, in ancient wisdom, it was said: I have
set before thee two choices, life or death. Therefore, choose life that
thee and thy seed may live.''
Mr. Speaker, that is the choice I want the United States to make at
this moment. I hope that we are up to the task, and I hope that we
don't just continue to ignore the perils of nuclear warfare.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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