[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21945-21962]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2004

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the hour of 2:30 
p.m. having arrived, the Senate will resume consideration of H.R. 2754, 
which the clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       A bill (H.R. 2754) making appropriations for energy and 
     water development for the fiscal year ending September 30, 
     2004, and for other purposes.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, when we called this bill up, we called 
up the House version. I ask unanimous consent that all after the 
enacting clause be stricken, the text of Calendar No. 213, S. 1424, the 
Senate committee-reported bill, be inserted in lieu thereof; the bill, 
as amended, be considered as original text for the purpose of further 
amendments; provided that no points of order be waived by reason of 
this agreement.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, as I understand it, the energy and water 
appropriations bill, as reported out unanimously by the subcommittee 
and Committee on Appropriations, is pending. One amendment--there may 
be others--we are awaiting is a Feinstein, et al., amendment to be 
offered and debated. I don't believe it serves any purpose for the 
Senator from New Mexico to discuss the issue until the amendment is 
offered. As a consequence, I am going to yield the floor and put in a 
quorum call, with the full understanding that Senator Feinstein intends 
to offer shortly her amendment. And from what I understand, an hour

[[Page 21946]]

later, at about 3:30, the distinguished Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. 
Kennedy, is going to speak in support of the Feinstein amendment. In 
between those, I will speak, and there may very well--either this 
afternoon before we recess and go into morning business, or early in 
the morning--be other Senators on either side who might want to speak 
to this issue. I am not totally aware of that.
  It is not the intention of the Senator from New Mexico that we go on 
indefinitely. This is a well-known amendment. We voted on something 
like it already once. But this is different in some respects. It is 
appropriations. So in that context, it is actual money instead of 
authorizing.
  Having said that, everyone should now know the bill that is pending 
is the Senate-reported energy and water bill. All of you who had water 
projects that you asked about, you can have your staff look to see if 
you were successful. We have attempted to advise most of you. I can say 
that to the extent we have had to be arbitrary because of a shortage of 
money, it has principally been when we have somebody asking for a new 
authorization. We haven't been able to do that in this bill. With 
respect to the Corps of Engineers, the Bureau of Reclamation, we 
haven't started any new programs. So if you asked us for that, you may 
say: Gee, they didn't treat me right. It may be that you have to come 
and ask, and that is the reason. It is not a new authorization.
  We have tried our very best to do what we could with a shortage of 
money in the Corps, which I have already explained to the Senate. I 
explain it every year. We could pull the record player out and repeat 
it because every year Presidents do the same thing. They leave out 
projects, and they don't put in enough money. And then we come along 
and we have the most desired projects of all because if you are 
chairman Senators stuff your pockets with requests. They come in 
saying: Please help with this. It is a little project in my State. But 
it seems as though we are the only ones who understand how important 
these little projects are to Senators. It doesn't seem as though the 
administration--this one, other ones--thinks it is very important.
  They are not all in here. But a few more than the President was able 
to put in are here in this bill. So please look. And if you have any 
complaints, bring them to us. We will do our best. We will even explain 
to you, if we turned you down, that it is a new project. We will 
explain what that means and why we have no alternative. When we can't 
pay for the ones we have, we can't be adding any new ones.
  I note the presence of the Senator from California. Whether she 
desires to offer the amendment is up to her. I yield the floor at this 
time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.


                           Amendment No. 1655

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee. 
There should be no doubt in anyone's mind that this administration is 
reopening the nuclear door. They are doing this to develop essentially 
a new generation of nuclear weapons. They call them low yield. It is 
contained in words such as ``advanced concepts.'' Essentially, they are 
battlefield tactical nuclear weapons.
  This latest Defense authorization bill reversed the Spratt-Furse 
amendment which had existed for 10 years and had prohibited the 
development of low-yield nuclear weapons. So for 10 years there was a 
prohibition on this reopening of the nuclear door.
  With this year's Defense authorization bill, that went down the 
tubes. Now we see in this Energy appropriations bill money to move 
along in the development and the research of these weapons.
  What is interesting to me is when you ask these questions in 
committee, as I did of Secretary Rumsfeld--and I will get to that--what 
we hear is: Oh, it is just a study.
  In fact, last year, $14 million was appropriated for the study. It is 
more than just the study. It is the study and development.
  I rise today to send an amendment to the desk on behalf of myself, 
the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy; the Senator from Rhode 
Island, Mr. Reed; the Senator from New Jersey, Mr. Lautenberg; the 
Senator from Oregon, Mr. Wyden; and the Senator from Wisconsin, Mr. 
Feingold.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself, 
     Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Reed, Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Wyden, and Mr. 
     Feingold, proposes an amendment numbered 1655.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that reading 
of the amendment be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment is as follows:

    (Purpose: To prohibit the use of funds for Department of Energy 
 activities relating to the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, Advanced 
 Weapons Concepts, modification of the readiness posture of the Nevada 
Test Site, and the Modern Pit Facility, and to make the amount of funds 
         made available by the prohibition for debt reduction)

       After section 503, insert the following:
       Sec. 504. (a) Reduction in Amount Available for National 
     Nuclear Security Administration.--The amount appropriated by 
     title III of this Act under the heading ``ATOMIC ENERGY 
     DEFENSE ACTIVITIES'' under the heading ``National Nuclear 
     Security Administration'' under the heading ``Weapons 
     Activities'' is hereby reduced by $21,000,000, with the 
     amount of the reduction to be allocated so that--
       (1) no funds shall be available for the Robust Nuclear 
     Earth Penetrator; and
       (2) no funds shall be available for Advanced Weapons 
     Concepts.
       (b) Prohibition on Use of Funds for Certain Modification of 
     Readiness Posture of Nevada Test Site.--None of the funds 
     appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act for the 
     Department of Energy may be obligated or expended for the 
     purpose of modifying the readiness posture of the Nevada Test 
     Site, Nevada, for the resumption by the United States of 
     underground nuclear weapons tests from the current readiness 
     of posture of 24 months to 36 months to a new readiness 
     posture of 18 months or any other readiness posture of less 
     than 24 months.
       (c) Prohibition on Use of Funds for Site Selection of 
     Modern Pit Facility.--None of the funds appropriated or 
     otherwise made available by this Act for the Department of 
     Energy may be obligated or expended for the purpose of site 
     selection of the Modern Pit Facility.
       (d) Reduction of Public Debt.--Of the amount appropriated 
     by this Act, $21,000,000 shall not be obligated or expended, 
     but shall be utilized instead solely for purposes of the 
     reduction of the public debt.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I am very concerned that through a 
policy of unilateralism and preemption, combined with the creation of 
new nuclear weapons, we may very well be encouraging the very nuclear 
proliferation we seek to prevent. It seems to me that pursuing the 
development of new tactical battlefield nuclear weapons not only lowers 
the threshold for possible use but also blurs the distinction between 
nuclear and nonnuclear weapons.
  The amendment I have just sent to the desk essentially in many ways 
mirrors what the House of Representatives has done. Much to the credit 
of Chairman Hobson, the House of Representatives has deleted this 
funding. I believe very strongly the Senate should follow.
  The amendment I proposed would strike $15 million for the study of 
the development of the robust nuclear earth penetrator and $6 million 
in funding for advanced nuclear weapons concepts, including the study 
for development of low-yield weapons--these are battlefield tactical 
nuclear weapons--and it would prohibit spending--this is where it is a 
little different in the Senate version than in the House version--in 
the 2004 year to increase the Nevada Test Site's time to test readiness 
posture from the current 24 to 36 months to 18 months. The House 
actually cut the 24 $8 million. We fence it for this year.
  Secondly, it would implement site selection for the modern pit 
facility. The House cut $12 million. We would delay it for 1 year.
  The House also redirected the savings from this bill for water 
projects. We essentially use the money for deficit reduction. By 
seeking to develop a new generation of 5-kiloton, or below, tactical 
nuclear weapons, which produce

[[Page 21947]]

smaller explosions, the administration is suggesting we can make 
nuclear weapons less deadly. It is suggesting we can make them more 
acceptable to use. Neither is true.
  By seeking to develop a robust nuclear earth penetrator, the 
administration seems to be moving toward a military posture in which 
nuclear weapons are considered just like other weapons--like a tank, a 
fighter aircraft, or a cruise missile. By seeking to speed up the time 
to test requirement for the Nevada Test Site, the administration is 
taking us down a road that may well lead to the resumption of 
underground nuclear testing, overturning a 10-year moratorium. By 
seeking to move forward with the modern pit facility, the 
administration appears to be seeking to develop a facility that will, 
in 1 year, allow the United States to produce a number of plutonium 
pits that exceeds the entire current arsenal of China.
  Given that the United States has a robust pit stockpile and plans for 
a facility that will be able to produce an adequate number of 
replacement pits in the coming years, questions must be asked as to why 
a facility like the modern pit facility is necessary, and why now? What 
sort of message is the United States sending to the rest of the world, 
at a time when we are trying to discourage others from developing their 
own nuclear arsenal, by our taking this action? We say to North Korea, 
you cannot do this. We say to Iran, you cannot do this. Yet we set a 
precedent whereby countries such as Pakistan and India--each with their 
own indigenous nuclear capability, each diehard enemies--may well take 
the example and say: If they can do it, we can do it. We should start 
our own advanced concepts program.
  I deeply believe the combined impact of studies or development of new 
nuclear weapons enhancing the posture of our test sites and developing 
a new plutonium pit facility could well have the result of leading 
these other nuclear powers and nuclear aspirants to resume or start 
testing and to seek to enlarge their own nuclear forces--action that 
would fundamentally alter future nonproliferation efforts and undermine 
our own security. Instead of increasing it, it will undermine it.
  The House of Representatives had the foresight to realize that going 
down this path was not in the best interest of the United States 
national security. I truly hope this Senate will respond and do the 
same. I cannot say enough good things about Chairman Hobson. I have had 
the privilege of working with him on MilCon, and I think he has shown 
dramatic courage, spunk, individualism, good thinking, and solid common 
sense.
  Nearly 60 years ago, our world was introduced to nuclear weapons. I 
was 12 years old when the Enola Gay left our shores. I saw a 15-kiloton 
bomb destroy Hiroshima. It killed up to 140,000 people--just that bomb 
killed 140,000 people. A 21-kiloton bomb then destroyed Nagasaki, 
killing 80,000 people. Two bombs, 220,000 people dead, and the largest 
pattern of destruction the world has ever seen--just look at it on this 
photo.
  For the decades that followed, we saw a standoff between the United 
States and the Soviet Union with armadas of nuclear weapons, many of 
which remain today. They are targeted at each other's cities even right 
this very minute. We have seen other nations become nuclear powers--the 
United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan. And others--like I 
said, Iran and North Korea clearly have nuclear aspirations. But after 
decades of steady progress, our efforts against nuclear proliferation 
have also produced a number of dividends. Nuclear-capable states, like 
South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, the 
Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan have either forgone developing nuclear 
weapons or, like the States of the former Soviet Union, given up the 
weapons they possessed. China has recently signaled it might be 
willing, finally, to sign onto the comprehensive test ban treaty. When 
U.S. policy can urge others to act responsibly, the world is a far 
safer place and the United States is safer as well.
  As we continue to prosecute the war on terror, it should be a central 
tenet of the U.S. policy to do everything at our disposal to make 
nuclear weapons less desirable, less available, and less likely to be 
used. This does just the opposite.
  This administration appears to be looking for new ways to use our 
nuclear advantage, to restructure our force so nuclear weapons are more 
``usable.'' That sends a very troubling message to others who might 
also aspire to obtain or use nuclear weapons.
  Let me just quote a Pentagon spokesperson in saying this:

       This administration is fashioning a more diverse set of 
     options for deterring the threat of weapons of mass 
     destruction. That is why the administration is pursuing 
     advanced conventional forces and improved intelligence 
     capabilities. A combination of offensive and defensive and 
     nuclear and nonnuclear capabilities is essential to meet the 
     deterrence requirements of the 21st century.

  I profoundly disagree. If the most potent conventional military on 
Earth cannot meet the challenges without new nuclear weapons, it is a 
tragedy indeed. The administration's own nuclear posture review, 
released in January of 2002, did not focus solely on the role of 
nuclear weapons for deterrence. It stressed the importance of actually 
being prepared to use nuclear weapons. In fact, the review noted we 
must now plan to possibly use them against a wider range of countries.
  To that end, I would like to put into the record a New York Times 
article by Michael R. Gordon, dated March 9. I ask unanimous consent 
that it be printed in the Record following my comments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (See exhibit 1.)
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, in addition, the nuclear posture 
review said we need to develop new types of weapons so we can use them 
in a wider variety of circumstances and against a wider range of 
targets, such as hard and deeply buried targets, or to defeat chemical 
and biological weapons. Even the New York Times suggests we would even 
consider a first strike against a nonnuclear country if that country 
possessed biological or chemical weapons.
  It seems clear that this administration is no longer focused solely 
on the role of nuclear weapons for deterrence. Rather, the new triad 
proposed by the administration has grouped nuclear and conventional 
weapons together on a continuum, believing each has an equal role on 
the battlefield.
  During the cold war, the nuclear triad consisted of air, land, and 
sea nuclear forces--bombers, ALBMs, ICBMs and SLBMs. The new triad 
consists of offensive strike forces, missile defense--which has yet, 
incidentally, been shown to work--and a responsive infrastructure to 
support the forces. Strategic nuclear forces are combined dangerously, 
in my view, with conventional strike capabilities in the offensive leg 
of the new triad.
  This new triad represents a radical departure from the idea that our 
strategic nuclear forces are primarily intended for deterrence, not for 
offense as the new triad proposes.
  In a few months, after issuing the Nuclear Posture Review, President 
Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 17 indicating the 
United States might use nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical or 
biological attack. I find the Nuclear Posture Review and NSPD-17 deeply 
disturbing.
  Some have maintained we don't need to concern ourselves too much with 
these documents because they are merely intellectual exercises. In 
fact, at a hearing of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in May, I 
asked Secretary Rumsfeld about where the administration was going on 
these issues. He responded, in essence, that there was nothing to be 
concerned about because current research to develop nuclear weapons is 
just a study. But the fact is, the administration has begun to take 
concrete steps toward developing new classes of nuclear weapons. In 
fact, the administration's statement of policy for the fiscal year 2004 
Defense authorization bill may well have been more honest than 
intended. This is the statement of administration policy:

       The administration appreciates the Senate Armed Services 
     Committee's continued support of our national defense and 
     support for

[[Page 21948]]

     critical research and development for low-yield nuclear 
     weapons.

  As Fred Celec, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Defense for Nuclear 
Matters, stated: If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully designed to 
survive a crash through hard rock or concrete and still explode, ``it 
will ultimately get fielded.''
  That is his statement: If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully 
designed to survive a crash through hard rock or concrete and still 
explode, ``it will ultimately get fielded.''
  That is where we are going, Mr. President. I believe it is in this 
context that we must view the funding requests in this bill.
  This is not an esoteric funding request. I don't believe it is just a 
study. I believe it is the second step in the study and in the 
development of these so-called advanced nuclear concepts of moving up 
test readiness, of building a huge modern pit facility. The legislation 
before us today contains funding to start that process of developing 
this next generation of nuclear weapons, clear and simple.
  I strongly support a robust military, and our safety interests and 
our security interests should be protected, but I believe we are going 
to make our Nation and our allies less secure, not more, if the United 
States opens the door to the development, testing, and deployment of 
new tactical and low-yield nuclear weapons.
  I think there are several things wrong with the logic which suggests 
that using these weapons is acceptable. First, using nuclear weapons, 
even small ones, will cross a line that has been in place for 60 years. 
I don't want to be a Member of the Senate who crosses that line and has 
to explain to my five grandchildren why I voted to sanction a new 
generation of nuclear weapons, whether it is a robust earth penetrator 
or whether it is a tactical battlefield weapon, because you cannot 
protect from the radiation. What grandmother or mother wants to send 
their son or daughter on to a battlefield with tactical nuclear 
weapons? Sixty years of history is in the process of being reversed.
  It was the Secretary of State, GEN Colin Powell, who wrote in his 
autobiography about possibly using tactical nuclear weapons in Europe 
to thwart a Soviet invasion. Let me read what he said. He wrote:

       No matter how small these nuclear payloads were, we would 
     be crossing a threshold. Using nukes would mark one of the 
     most significant political and military decisions since 
     Hiroshima.

  That is what we are doing, I say to my colleagues--one of the most 
significant decisions since Hiroshima--and his statement in his book is 
just as true today.
  Second, I wish to speak for a moment about the fact that there is no 
such thing as a clean or usable nuclear bomb. According to Stanford 
University physicist, Dr. Sidney Drell, the effects of a small bomb 
would be dramatic. A 1-kiloton weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet 
underground--1 kiloton detonated 20 to 50 feet underground--would dig a 
crater the size of Ground Zero and eject a million cubic feet of 
radioactive debris into the air. This chart shows 1 kiloton at 30 feet 
and it will eject a million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the 
air.
  A low-yield weapon would have very little utility in trying to 
destroy a deeply buried underground bunker. Given the insurmountable 
physics problems associated with burrowing a warhead deep into the 
earth, destroying a target hidden beneath a thousand feet of rock will 
require a nuclear weapon of almost 100 kilotons. That is 10 times the 
size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
  As this chart shows, if a bunker buster were able to burrow into the 
earth to reach its maximum feasible depth--that is about 35 feet--it 
still would not be deep enough to contain a bomb with an explosive 
yield of only .2 kilotons, 75 times smaller than the bomb that exploded 
over Hiroshima, let alone a 100-kiloton bomb.
  Let me make the point. To destroy a typical bunker or another 
underground target, such as a chemical or biological weapons facility, 
you would need to burrow down at least 800 feet, which is not 
physically possible, or detonate a 100-kiloton weapon whose fallout and 
destruction belie the idea that an antiseptic nuclear weapon can be 
developed. Anything short of that would not contain the fallout.
  A fireball would break through the surface, scattering enormous 
amounts of radioactive debris--1.5 million tons for a 100-kiloton 
bomb--into the atmosphere. As this map of the Korean peninsula shows, 
just the path fallout, with travel in typical weather, would place both 
South Korea and Japan in severe danger while placing millions of 
innocent people at risk if a nuclear bunker buster were to be used in 
North Korea. We can see it used at this point. We can see the path of 
fallout. It is devastating.
  Ultimately, the depth of penetration of the robust nuclear earth 
penetrator is limited by the strength of the missile casing. The 
deepest our current earth penetrators can burrow is 20 feet of dry 
earth. Casing made of even the stronger material cannot withstand the 
physical forces of burrowing through 100 feet of granite, much less 800 
feet.
  I believe it is deeply flawed to argue, as some robust nuclear earth 
penetrator proponents do, that because it would penetrate the earth 
before detonating, it would be a clean weapon. It will not be.
  In fact, far more than the added explosive power a nuclear weapon 
provides, the most important factor in destroying a deeply buried 
target is knowing exactly where it is. Someone is not going to drop a 
bomb such as a robust nuclear earth penetrator unless they know exactly 
where the target is. If they know exactly where the target is, there 
are other things that can be done. It can be destroyed with 
conventional weapons. Access to it can be prevented by destroying 
entrances, cutting off electricity, cutting off air ducts. Cutting off 
a bunker in this way renders it useless just as effectively as 
destroying it with a nuclear blast.
  The fact is that our intelligence is weak. So I very much doubt we 
are going to be throwing around bunker busters of 100 kilotons that are 
nuclear with this fallout spread when we really do not know, among the 
tens of thousands of holes the North Koreans have in the ground, 
exactly what is what.
  Thirdly, the development of new low-yield nuclear weapons could 
lead--and this is where we are going--to the resumption of underground 
nuclear testing in order to test the new weapons. This would overturn 
the 10-year moratorium on nuclear testing. So we are changing 60 years 
of history. We are overturning a 10-year moratorium. This could lead 
other countries to resume or start testing, actions that would 
fundamentally alter future nonproliferation and counterproliferation 
efforts.
  The March 2003 Arms Control Today points out an interesting thing:

       In 1995, many of the world's nonnuclear states made it 
     clear their continued adherence to the NPT was contingent on 
     the cessation of all nuclear-yield testing. . . . A decision 
     to resume testing to build low-yield nuclear weapons could 
     deal the regime a fatal blow while providing the United 
     States a capability of questionable military value.

  This is where we are going with this bill. We are moving up test 
readiness from 24 to 30 months to 18 months. So inherent in this bill 
is the beginning of expedited testing, overturning 60 years, going 
against the nonproliferation treaty, which will then encourage other 
nations to do the same, and beginning testing once again.
  According to the 2003 Report to Congress on Nuclear Test Readiness, 
18 months is the minimum time necessary to prepare a test once a 
problem is identified. Yet even during the cold war when tests were 
ongoing on a regular basis, the Nuclear National Security Agency found 
that it required 18 to 24 months to design and field a test with full 
diagnostics.
  As purely a technical matter, 18 months is also an extremely short 
timeframe for test readiness. So why are we doing it? Why are we doing 
it now with no pressing need? Why is the administration pushing so hard 
for the absolute minimum time necessary to conduct a test?
  This tells me exactly where this administration is going. Even 
putting

[[Page 21949]]

aside the concern I have about the message that the United States 
moving ahead with test readiness sends to the rest of the world, this 
short time period may well not be technologically feasible.
  In an op-ed in the Washington Post on July 21, Secretary of Energy 
Spencer Abraham said this:

       We are not planning to resume testing; nor are we improving 
     test readiness in order to develop new nuclear weapons. In 
     fact, we are not planning to develop any new nuclear weapons 
     at all.

  Then what are we doing this for? Fourteen million dollars last year, 
$50 million this year, a $4 billion modern pit facility program over 10 
years. What are we doing it for? I think what the Secretary did by 
these comments is really an injustice in terms of casting a web over 
these moves that is not credible.
  I can only deduce that despite all the ``this is just a study'' 
rhetoric, there is an intention to test, and this administration is 
reopening the nuclear door to develop a new generation of tactical 
battlefield nuclear weapons, and I do not want to be a part of it.
  In fact, in a September 3 interview, Fred Celec stated:

       If you say, I've got to go to design a new nuclear weapon . 
     . . you probably will have to have a nuclear test.

  Likewise, I have serious concerns about the intentions behind the 
funds included in this bill for work on the modern pit facility. As I 
have said, the modern pit facility is the administration's proposed $4 
billion plan where new plutonium pits for nuclear weapons will be 
fabricated. This facility, when completed, would be able to produce 250 
to 900 plutonium pits per year.
  To put this in perspective, if the proposed modern pit facility 
operated at half of its capacity, it could equal or exceed China's 
entire new nuclear arsenal in 1 year. This production would be in 
excess of our current inventory of 15,000 plutonium pits.
  What does this say to other nations? What does this say to China? 
What does it say to Iraq? What does it say to Iran, Pakistan, India, or 
any other nation? What does it say to North Korea?
  At a time when we should be lessening our reliance on nuclear weapons 
and lessening the amount of fissile material available which might fall 
into the hands of terrorists, encouraging other countries in the world 
to do likewise by following our example, why do we need this new 
production capability?
  The Department of Energy has already begun a separate $2.3 billion 
pit fabrication and plutonium chemistry complex at Los Alamos, which 
will begin producing 20 pits per year in 2007 and can be equipped and 
enlarged to produce as many as 150 pits per year. So what do we need 
this for? No one has answered that question.
  With the current age of our stockpile pits averaging 19 years, and 
the Department of Energy estimating a pit minimum lifetime to be 45 to 
60 years, with no ``life-limiting factors'' being identified, why put 
our Nation $4 billion further into debt by creating additional capacity 
for plutonium pits we don't need? We can't find anything that indicates 
why we need these additional plutonium pits. As I said, we already have 
a $2.3 billion program to produce 20 pits that can go up to 150 pits. 
Are we going into some kind of enormous program that we don't know 
about?
  The House report language in their version of the energy and water 
bill put it this way:

       It appears to the Committee that the Department is 
     proposing to rebuild, restart, and redo and otherwise 
     exercise every capability that was used over the past 40 
     years of the cold war, and at the same time prepare for a 
     future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons. Nothing 
     in the past performance of NNSA convinces this Committee that 
     the successful implementation of the Stockpile Stewardship 
     Program is a foregone conclusion, which makes the pursuit of 
     a broad range of new initiatives premature.

  This was just written. This was considered by the House of 
Representatives, and the House of Representatives had the guts to take 
it out of the bill. So this amendment would put in place a 1-year stay. 
It is a little different from the House bill. It would put in place a 
1-year stay on site selection for the modern pit facility. If the 
administration can come forward with a convincing rationale and plans 
in a year, we can revisit this issue. But until then, we should not be 
supporting this new initiative.
  Today, America's current conventional and nuclear forces vastly 
overpower those of any other nation. So for me, it is difficult if not 
impossible to reconcile building a multibillion-dollar nuclear bomb 
factory, which is what this is, as we preach the importance of limiting 
proliferation and preventing other nations from developing weapons of 
mass destruction. And, if I may say so, it is hypocritical. It is 
hypocritical; we say one thing to others and we do an entirely 
different thing ourselves. If that is not hypocrisy, I don't know what 
is.
  Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, nuclear weapon states are 
committed to halting so-called vertical proliferation. That means they 
are prohibited from increasing their nuclear stockpiles. They are 
prohibited. The purpose is to encourage other nations to halt 
horizontal proliferation, whereby more and more nations become nuclear 
capable. That is what the NPT is trying to do. They are trying to stop 
it, and we are doing exactly the opposite. If our country goes down the 
road of developing and bringing the modern pit facility on line, we 
will effectively undermine the nonproliferation treaty.
  I know the Bush administration doesn't like it. I know they don't 
attend meetings. I know we are now on a big unilateral binge, where we 
know better than anybody else. But this is for our children and our 
grandchildren. Perhaps more than any other this represents the country 
we try to be and the country we are going to be.
  I think with this legislation, and by going down this path, we 
undermine the nonproliferation treaty. Maybe that is what they want to 
happen. And by our example we create an incentive and we present a 
challenge to others with nuclear aspirations to develop them.
  I don't know whether that is the intention. We know ballistic missile 
defense does the same thing. I think we are seeing, in Iraq, where 
unilateralism is not working. We have before us an $87 billion 
supplemental which will bring the cost of the war to about $166 billion 
so far. Yet we are starting a whole new nuclear program.
  I guess why I don't like it, most of all, is it is all done under the 
guise of study, of development. The facts are never really put on the 
table. It just kind of happens. Then some get kind of ``suckered'' into 
it, if I can use that word, because of the economics of doing it in 
this State or that State or competing for it.
  We need to begin to think what we are competing for. I don't want us 
to compete for something that is going to encourage China to begin 
nuclear weapons production or begin testing. I don't want to encourage 
something that is going to say to Pakistan and India: We developed 
tactical battlefield nuclear weapons. Look at our example. That is what 
we are doing and we don't see it.
  Finally, to those who argue that the United States needs new weapons 
for new missions, I should point out that the United States already has 
a usable nuclear bunker buster, the B61-11, which has a dial-to-yield 
feature, allowing its yield to range from less than a kiloton to 
several hundred kilotons. When configured to have a 10-kiloton yield 
and detonated 4 feet underground, the B61-11 can produce a shock wave 
sufficient to crush a bunker buried beneath 350 feet of layered rock.
  If, indeed--I don't think there is--but if there is a legitimate 
military mission for these kinds of weapons, the experts tell us we 
already have one. We don't need new nuclear weapons. On the other hand, 
the U.S. military, the strongest and most capable military force the 
world has ever seen, has plenty of effective conventional options 
designed to penetrate deeply into the earth and destroy underground 
bunkers and storage facilities. These range in size from 500 pounds to 
5,000 pounds, and most are equipped with either a laser or a GPS 
guidance system. The 5,000-pound bunker buster, like the

[[Page 21950]]

guided bomb unit 28/B, is capable of penetrating up to 20 feet of 
reinforced concrete, or 100 feet of earth.
  The GBU-28 was used with much success in Operation Enduring Freedom 
in Afghanistan.
  Other conventional bunker busters were used to take out Saddam 
Hussein's underground lairs in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In fact, the 
U.S. military possesses a conventional bunker buster--the GBU-37--which 
is thought to be capable of taking out a silo-based ICBM.
  I only wish that instead of beginning the research and development of 
a new generation of weapons, this administration would lead efforts to 
prevent nuclear development and prevent the spread and delegitimize the 
use and utility of nuclear weapons. Oh, how I wish they would. Instead, 
with these appropriations a new nuclear arms race will begin. Let there 
be no doubt. I know it as sure as I am standing here now. I know it 
from the judgment of past history. I know how difficult it has been. I 
know just how difficult it was to reach agreements with the Soviet 
Union to begin to ratchet down the nuclear arsenal of both of our 
countries. We will be dealing with governments far more difficult to 
deal with than the Soviet Union, like those typified by North Korea.
  If we appropriate these dollars, we can expect that other nations 
will follow, that a new nuclear race will begin to develop, and the 
chance that one day, somehow, some way they will be used against us. 
Those chances are clear. Let there be no doubt.
  As the Economist concluded in its May 17 issue:

       In their determination to leave no weapons avenue 
     unexplored [the administration] is proposing to lead America 
     along a dangerous path.

  This is why our amendment seeks to strike the funding in this bill 
for the development of the robust nuclear earth penetrator and the 
other so-called advanced concepts--I hate calling nuclear weapons 
``advanced concepts''--including low-yield weapons, and to limit the 
funding for enhanced test readiness and the modern pit facility.
  Right now our country is spending well over $400 billion on defense. 
Next year we will spend more on our military than all of the other 191 
nations on the planet combined. If we can't protect ourselves without 
thinking about nuclear weapons, who can? Who can? We spend more than 
191 nations combined--all of the other nations on Earth. Yet the 
proposal is that we reopen the nuclear door and begin a new generation 
of nuclear weapons.
  I think once again we will see rogue states basically conclude that 
they will be safe from the United States only if they develop their own 
nuclear weapons quickly. I think that is exactly what is happening in 
North Korea, which has responded to the Bush administration's 
aggressive posture by claiming that only a ``tremendous military 
deterrent'' will protect it from the United States. Now Iran is 
following suit. Will we encourage India and Pakistan to develop 
tactical nuclear weapons as well?
  Indeed, by seeking to develop new nuclear weapons ourselves, we send 
a message that nuclear weapons have a future battlefield role and 
utility. This is the wrong message. It takes us in the wrong direction. 
In my view, it will cause Americans to be placed in greater jeopardy in 
the future.
  We are telling others not to develop nuclear weapons and not to sell 
fissile materials, but we continue to study and design new nuclear 
weapons ourselves. Again, ``hypocrisy.''
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. The House has totally 
eliminated the money. We don't do exactly that. We eliminate some and 
we fence others. We delay the pit facility for 1 year. We don't use the 
money for water projects, and we don't use it for deficit reduction.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. I urge them to 
realize that we are at a historic turning point. It may well be that 
people do not remember the Enola Gay, they don't remember Hiroshima, 
they don't remember Nagasaki, and they don't remember that 220,000 
people were killed instantly in both of those strikes. They don't 
remember Chernobyl and what radioactive fallout does to people.
  I see this as a very historic vote. The way is carved for us by the 
House of Representatives. They have eliminated funding. They have done 
what is right. I hope we follow suit.
  I yield the floor.

                               Exhibit 1

               [From the New York Times, March 10, 2002]

           U.S. Nuclear Plan Sees New Targets and New Weapons

                         (By Michael R. Gordon)

       Outlining a broad overhaul of American nuclear policy, a 
     secret Pentagon report calls for developing new nuclear 
     weapons that would be better suited for striking targets in 
     Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Libya.
       The Nuclear Posture Review, as the Pentagon report is 
     known, is a comprehensive blueprint for developing and 
     deploying nuclear weapons. While some of the report is 
     unclassified, key portions are secret.
       In campaigning for office President Bush stressed that he 
     wanted to slash the number of nuclear weapons and develop a 
     military that would be suited for the post-cold war world.
       The new Pentagon report, in fact, finds that non-nuclear 
     conventional weapons are becoming an increasingly important 
     element of the Pentagon arsenal. But the report also 
     indicates that the Pentagon views nuclear weapons as an 
     important element of military planning.
       It stresses a need to develop earth-penetrating nuclear 
     weapons to destroy heavily fortified underground bunkers, 
     including those that may be used to store chemical and 
     biological weapons. It calls for improving the intelligence 
     and targeting systems needed for nuclear strikes and argues 
     that the United States may need to resume nuclear testing.
       The New York Times obtained a copy of the 56-page report. 
     Elements of the report were reported today by the Los Angeles 
     Times.
       One of the most sensitive portions of the report is a 
     secret discussion of contingencies in which the United States 
     might need to use its ``nuclear strike capabilities'' against 
     a foe.
       During the cold war, the United States used nuclear weapons 
     to deter a Soviet attack on Western Europe.
       But now, the Pentagon report says, the nation faces new 
     contingencies in which nuclear weapons might be employed, 
     including ``an Iraqi attack on Israel or its neighbors, or a 
     North Korean attack on South Korea or a military 
     confrontation over the status of Taiwan.'' Another theme in 
     the report is the possible use of nuclear weapons to destroy 
     enemy stocks of biological weapons, chemical arms and other 
     arms of mass destruction.
       Pentagon and White House officials turned down repeated 
     requests for interviews on the report. The Pentagon issued a 
     statement this evening noting that the purpose of the review 
     was to analyze nuclear weapons requirements, not to specify 
     targets.
       ``It does not provide operational guidance on nuclear 
     targeting or planning,'' the Pentagon statement said. ``The 
     Department of Defense continues to plan for a broad range of 
     contingencies and unforeseen threats to the United States and 
     its allies. We do so in order to deter such attacks in the 
     first place.''
       ``This administration is fashioning a more diverse set of 
     options for deterring the threat of weapons of mass 
     destruction,'' the Pentagon statement continued. ``That is 
     why the administration is pursuing advanced conventional 
     forces and improved intelligence capabilities. A combination 
     of offensive and defensive, and nuclear and non-nuclear 
     capabilities is essential to meet the deterrence requirements 
     of the 21st century.''
       Critics responded to the report by complaining that the 
     Bush administration was not only pushing for the development 
     of new types of nuclear weapons, but broadening the 
     circumstances in which they might be used.
       ``Despite their pronouncements of wanting to slash nuclear 
     arms, the Bush administration is reinvigorating the nuclear 
     weapons forces and the vast research and industrial complex 
     that support it,'' said Robert S. Norris, a senior research 
     associated at the Natural Resources Defense Council and an 
     expert on nuclear weapons programs. ``In addition the Bush 
     administration seems to see a new role for nuclear weapons 
     against the `axis of evil' and other problem states.''
       Classified versions of the report were provided to Congress 
     in January but the disclosure now could become a public 
     relations problem for vice President Dick Cheney, who is 
     scheduled to leave on Sunday for a 10-day trip to Britain and 
     Middle Eastern countries. The disclosure of the 
     administration's ambitious nuclear plans is likely to spark 
     criticism from European groups that have long supported more 
     traditional approaches to arms control. Middle Eastern 
     leaders may be alarmed to learn that the Pentagon sees Iraq, 
     Iran, Syria and Libya as potential nuclear battlegrounds.

[[Page 21951]]

       One of the most sensitive portions of the report is its 
     discussion of countries that do not have nuclear arms. 
     Recalling the Cuban missile crisis, the report noted that the 
     United States might be caught by surprise if an adversary 
     suddenly displayed a new ability involving weapons of mass 
     destruction or it a nuclear arsenal changes hands as a result 
     of a coup in a foreign land.
       ``In setting requirements for nuclear strike capabilities, 
     distinctions can be made among the contingencies for which 
     the United States must be prepared,'' the Pentagon report 
     states. ``Contingencies can be categorized as immediate, 
     potential or unexpected.''
       ``North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya are among the 
     countries that could be involved in immediate, potential or 
     unexpected contingencies,'' it added. ``All have long-
     standing hostility toward the United States and its security 
     partners; North Korea and Iraq in particular have been 
     chronic military concerns.''
       It said, ``All sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have 
     active'' programs to create weapons of mass destruction and 
     missiles.
       Among Iraq, Iran, Syria or Libya none has nuclear weapons, 
     though Iraq and Iran are making a serious effort to acquire 
     them, according to American intelligence.
       American intelligence officials believe that North Korea 
     may have enough fissile material for one or two nuclear 
     weapons, but there is considerable debate as to whether it 
     has actually produced one.
       Significantly, all of those countries have signed the 
     Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Washington has promised that 
     it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapon 
     states that have signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty 
     unless those countries attack the United States or its allies 
     ``in alliance with a nuclear weapon state.''
       The policy was intended to discourage outsider nations from 
     seeking to develop nuclear weapons. But conservatives argue 
     that Washington should be able to threaten the use of nuclear 
     weapons as a way to deter one state from attacking the United 
     States with chemical or biological weapons.
       Earlier this month, Richard Boucher, the State Department 
     spokesman, repeated the policy but then added that ``if a 
     weapon of mass destruction is used against the United States 
     or its allies, we will not rule out any specific type of 
     response.'' His qualified statement along with the Pentagon 
     report raises the question of whether the Bush administration 
     still plans to abide by the longstanding policy.
       One former senior American official said that the 
     development of new weapons to attack non-nuclear states would 
     not in itself contradict American policy since it would be no 
     more than a contingency. But using them would contradict the 
     policy, he said, unless the nations violated their 
     commitments to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty by 
     developing nuclear weapons.
       ``I would not say that developing a bunker-busting nuclear 
     weapon for use against these countries would by itself 
     violate that pledge,'' the former American official said. 
     ``But using nuclear against them would unless they violated 
     their assurance by acquiring nuclear weapons.''
       The Pentagon report discussed other contingencies as well. 
     The report stated that China is also a potential adversary 
     and is modernizing its nuclear and conventional forces. While 
     Russia has the most formidable nuclear force, the report took 
     the view that relations with Moscow have vastly improved.
       ``As a result, a contingency involving Russia, while 
     plausible, is not expected,'' the report states. Still, the 
     report said that the United States cannot be sure that 
     relations with Russia will always be smooth and thus must be 
     prepared to ``revise its nuclear force levels and posture.''
       In addition to surveying the potential situations in which 
     nuclear weapons might be employed, the report discussed the 
     sort of force that might be needed. The Bush administration 
     has said that it plans to reduce strategic nuclear weapons to 
     between 1,700 and 2,200 warheads, a big reduction from the 
     6,000 or so nuclear weapons that the United States has now.
       Critics of the Bush administration say the cuts are roughly 
     the same as those foreseen by the Clinton administration, 
     which agreed that future strategic arms treaty should reduce 
     nuclear weapons to between 2,000 and 2,500 warheads. While 
     the reductions projected by the Bush administration seem 
     deeper, the Pentagon has changed the rules for counting 
     nuclear weapons and no longer counts bombers or nuclear 
     missile submarines that are in the process of being 
     overhauled.
       Adding new detail to previous briefings, the Pentagon says 
     that its future force structure will have the following 
     components. By 2012, the United States will have 14 Trident 
     submarines with two in overhaul at one time. They will be 
     part of a triad that will include hundreds of Minuteman III 
     land-based missiles and about 100 B-52 H and B-2 bombers.
       ``This will provide an operationally deployed force of 
     1,700 to 2,200 strategic nuclear warheads and a wide range of 
     options for a responsive force to meet potential 
     contingencies,'' the report says.
       But the Pentagon report said that nuclear planning is not 
     merely a question of numbers. The Pentagon also wants to 
     improve existing nuclear weapons and possibly develop new 
     ones.
       The report cites the need to improve ``earth-penetrating 
     weapons'' that could be used to destroy underground 
     installations and hardened bunkers. According to a secret 
     portion of the Pentagon study, more than 70 nations now use 
     underground installations. It notes that the only earth-
     penetrating weapon that exists is that B61 Mod 11 bomb and 
     that it has only a limited ``ground-penetration capability.''
       The report argues that better earth-penetrating nuclear 
     weapons with lower nuclear yields would be useful since they 
     could achieve equal damage with less nuclear fallout. New 
     earth-penetrating warheads with larger yield would be needed 
     to attack targets that are buried deep underground. The 
     report said it is very hard to identify such underground 
     targets but that American Special Operations Forces could be 
     used for the mission.
       Another capability which interests the Pentagon are 
     radiological or chemical weapons that would be employed to 
     destroy stockpiles of chemical or biological agents. Such 
     ``Agent Defeat Weapons'' are being studied. The report also 
     argues that Washington needs to compress the time it takes to 
     identify new targets and attack them with nuclear weapons, a 
     concept it calls ``adaptive planning.''
       In general, the Pentagon report stresses the need for 
     nuclear weapons that would be more easy to use against enemy 
     weapons of mass destruction because they would be of variable 
     or low yield, be highly accurate and could be quickly 
     targeted.
       Pentagon officials say this gives the United States another 
     tool to knock out enemy chemical, biological or nuclear 
     weapons. But critics say that the Bush administration is, in 
     effect, lowering the nuclear threshold by calling for the 
     development of nuclear weapons that would be easier to use.
       The need to maintain the capability to rapidly expand the 
     American nuclear arsenal in a crisis, such as ``reversal of 
     Russia's present course,'' is also a theme of the report. The 
     Pentagon calls this hedge ``the responsive force.'' The 
     notion that the United States is reserving the right to 
     rapidly increase its nuclear forces has been an important 
     concern for Moscow, which has pressed Washington to agree to 
     binding limits and even destroy some of its warheads.
       The Responsive Force, the Pentagon report says, ``retains 
     the option for the leadership to increase the number of 
     operationally deployed forces in proportion to the severity 
     of an evolving crisis,'' the Pentagon report said. As part of 
     this concept, bombs could be brought out of the non-deployed 
     stockpile in days or weeks. Other efforts to augment the 
     force could take as long as a year.
       To maintain the nuclear infrastructure a number of steps 
     are planned. The Pentagon says that an ``active'' stock of 
     warheads should be maintained which would incorporate the 
     latest modifications and have the key parts.
       The report says that the United States needs a new 
     capability to produce plutonium ``pits,'' a hollow sphere 
     made out of plutonium around which explosives are fastened. 
     When the explosives go off they squeeze the plutonium 
     together into a critical mass, which allows a nuclear 
     explosion. The Pentagon said the production of Tritium for 
     nuclear warheads will resume during the fiscal 2003 year.
       Another sensitive political point involves the report's 
     discussion of the United States moratorium on nuclear 
     testing. The Bush administration has refused to ratify the 
     Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, but says it has no plans yet 
     to resume nuclear testing. But the report suggests that it 
     might be necessary to resume testing to make new nuclear 
     weapons and ensure the reliability of existing ones.
       ``While the United States is making every effort to 
     maintain the nuclear stockpile without additional nuclear 
     testing, this may not be possible in the indefinite future,'' 
     it said.

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, can we get the yeas and nays?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Allard). Is there a sufficient second? 
There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I don't know how much time I will take 
but obviously some amount of time. There are a number of other Senators 
on our side who wish to speak but I want to speak to this amendment.
  First, fellow Americans and friends here, there are a lot of issues 
that the wonderful Senator from California talked about that deserve 
some real clarification. There is an inference that we are not 
interested in nonproliferation and that we are going in the wrong 
direction. Everybody should know that the United States of America not 
too many years ago had 40,000

[[Page 21952]]

nuclear weapons. We are moving rapidly toward 5,000--40,000 moving 
rapidly toward 5,000. In fact, both the United States and the former 
Soviet Union are having difficulty getting rid of what comes out of 
these nuclear weapons because they are moving so fast. That which is 
coming out of them is creating proliferation itself because we are 
moving so rapidly. We do not know what to do with the plutonium that 
comes out of them. The Russians don't know where to put it. But in 
terms of getting rid of nuclear weapons, the United States is on a path 
from 40,000--and I can't give you the classified number but I can tell 
you it is 5,000 or less.
  That is point No. 1.
  Point No. 2: The pit--the plural ``pits'' is not a very nice sounding 
word--is an absolutely necessary incremental part of a nuclear weapon. 
Without a pit, there is no nuclear weapon--none.
  The United States is not engaged in producing new weapons but, 
rather, is seeing to it that we make sure what we have will work. That 
is called science-based stockpile stewardship, which means about 6 or 8 
years ago we voted to have no more nuclear underground testing. There 
is nothing in this amendment that says we are going to break that. If 
it was, we would be up here arguing that we are here to break the 
agreement that the United States has. The Senate voted, then the House 
followed, and the President signed. It was Mark Hatfield who offered 
the amendment. It passed here as a consequence.
  We are not involved in underground testing. I repeat: We are not 
involved.
  This amendment would strike a provision--let us take them one at a 
time--that says over there in Nevada there is a great operation wherein 
we used to do underground testing. It is huge. It is complex in nature. 
We said in the Senate when we put our blood on the line, no more 
testing. That is a vote far from unanimous. We said, we will always 
keep that Nevada desert test site ready for tests.
  Did we say that because we planned a new generation of nuclear 
weapons? Of course not. We said that because there is a huge risk to 
America in the science-based stockpile stewardship as a method of 
assuring the validity of our nuclear weapons. There are scientists in 
America who at their own expense would come and tell us it will not 
work. In a few years, you will not know whether your weapons will work 
or not. That is why we said, keep Nevada ready.
  All this amendment says--and it is high time; we should have done it 
4 or 5 years ago--spend a little bit of money, less than $20 million, 
and begin to make the Nevada Test Site ready so instead of taking 3 
years to get it ready for a test, we get it ready in 18 months. That is 
all it says.
  Incidentally, Senator Feinstein, we are both worried about our 
grandchildren. We probably cannot decide who loves our grandchildren 
more. At this time in my life, I have twice as many plus three, so if 
you are worried about your five, I am worried about my 13. But I am 
clearly not worried that this amendment, the language you are striking, 
this funding, has any chance of harming my grandchildren. That is an 
absolute myth.
  Does making the Nevada Test Site capable of conducting an underground 
test ready in 18 months endanger the children of America? Fellow 
Senators, there is a valid argument it helps the future of our children 
and America's future to have it ready on 18 months' notice instead of 3 
years. That part does not belong in this amendment and should not be 
stricken. It should be in this bill. We should make Nevada modern so if 
we need it, we use it, not 3 years after we decide we need a test 
because we have some idea there is something amiss in some of our 
weapons which are 35, 40, and 45 years old. Our nuclear weapons are 
that old. And we are saying, they will work. We used to test them. But 
now we have these great scientists and the laboratories--two of them in 
my State--and they are doing it by assimilation. And they are saying, 
we think they will work.
  Then the Senator talks about the planning or a plant to manufacture 
pits for the nuclear weapons. Fellow Senators, we need to manufacture 
pits for the weapons we have, not the weapons someone is dreaming we 
will build. There is nothing in this law that says we will build one 
additional nuclear weapon. Does the Senator know that every country 
which has nuclear weapons has spare pits, extra pits, to make sure they 
will never run short--except one country. This country. We have no 
spare pits. I don't want to infer it is the end of the world. It is 
just a fact. For those who think we could make a new nuclear weapon and 
break all our agreements, they have to know right now we do not have a 
spare pit to put in a nuclear weapon. And the world knows it.
  Senator Domenici is not giving any secrets to anyone. It is a truism. 
For 8 years we have been fooling around with funding at Los Alamos to 
see if we can make a pit. I regret to say it has been one terribly 
tough job. I cannot state today--and I know as much as anyone--whether 
they have produced one that meets all the test requirements. Frankly, 
it is the only place in America that if tomorrow we said, Get a pit, we 
need to replace one, one of our nukes needs a new pit, it is the only 
place to look to. What in the world is wrong with an administration 
that says the time has come to build a manufacturing center for pits?
  The good Senator from California ties it into the fact that she 
thinks it is for a new generation of nuclear weapons. Where is the 
authority to build a nuclear weapon? Read this law we are funding and 
tell me where there is authority to build a new nuclear weapon. This 
Senate would have to stand up and vote to build a new nuclear weapon. 
Believe you me, it would be a bigger day of debate than this particular 
afternoon in the Senate. It would be a red-letter day when the United 
States sends to the Senate floor a proposal to build more nuclear 
weapons. And it is not this day. That is not what we are doing. There 
is not one single word that says we are going to build a new nuclear 
weapon.
  So two proposals the Senator is talking about in this language, the 
fear for the future and what we are going to do to the world: In 
building pits for the future we are going to do nothing to the world. 
They are already wondering why we have not built them. That is what 
others are wondering. They are asking, What is the matter with America?
  We want to begin a plan. I am not sure when they bring the plans that 
I am going to agree to as big a plant as they want. Maybe we will build 
a little plant. But this says, begin the planning and designing. It 
provides not one penny for construction, nor does it decide where this 
place to build pits will be. Do they need it now? It could wait. But we 
have been waiting pretty long--for 9 years, maybe 10. The planners ask 
what is going on, why can't we build one? We keep asking scientists to 
build it at Los Alamos, but that is not a production center. They do 
not have the facilities. They have built the facilities and I have seen 
them. It is more like a science lab than a manufacturing plant. One 
could say, let them keep doing it that way. I don't like it and I don't 
think anyone planning for the future thinks it is a very good idea to 
plan for our future in terms of replacements at Los Alamos.
  That leaves the part of this amendment wherein we agreed with the 
Senate. We already voted in this Senate on these issues. We voted 
affirmatively in the Senate on these issues in the armed services 
authorizing bill. We already voted on every one of these issues. The 
nuclear posture review suggested the credibility of our nuclear 
deterrence is dependent upon flexibility and adaptive production 
complexes, ones that would be able to fix safety or performance 
problems on aging stockpiles as they arise. The Senate bill does that.
  The Nuclear Posture Review suggests we should keep our nuclear 
scientists engaged and thinking about the nuclear stockpile of the 
future and what it should look like. Might I repeat, the Nuclear 
Posture Review suggests we should keep our nuclear scientists--the 
greatest in the world, excited about their work, living at one of three 
great laboratories--engaged and thinking about what the nuclear 
stockpile of the future should look like.

[[Page 21953]]

  It does not commit us to build any new weapons. And there is no money 
in this bill to build new weapons. Let me repeat, there is no money in 
this bill to build new weapons. It suggests that our scientists should 
remain flexible, that we should not have to have them worried all the 
time whether thinking about certain aspects of a nuclear weapon of the 
future is a violation of the law or not.
  They should be permitted to think about--based upon what we have 
learned, what we know about both our friends and our enemies and war so 
far, and what people are creating in the world--they should be able to 
think and design and posture, but not build a single new weapon, 
whether it be one the Senator from California talks about in terms of 
tactical weapons--I do not even know where that comes into this 
thinking. There is no authority for tactical weapons in this bill, in 
this money, as the Senator in the chair knows. There was nothing in the 
authorizing committee that said that.
  There is much more to say, but I believe I have done my best, in a 
few moments, to dispose of the idea that America is on a path that will 
cause the world to start rebuilding new nuclear bombs in anyone's 
stockpile to react to our improving the Nevada weapons site. The idea 
that any country is going to react by saying, ``We are going to go do 
something now and build more bombs because they are getting Nevada 
ready,'' is an absurdity. It has no logic to it.
  We should never have let it go to 3 years. That is what it takes to 
get ready to test one there--not test a new one, to test one we have, 
to test one if science-based stockpile stewardship fails.
  I repeat, the other part of it is we do not want to start planning a 
design for a manufacturing center for pits in an inventory which would 
then make America have an inventory of spare parts like other countries 
do instead of being the only one without them.
  Now, if you finish those two, and then you argue the one that wants 
to give these engineers and scientists authority to think about what 
weapons might look like in the future, you have the whole substance--
the cake, the strawberries. Everything that goes with it in this 
amendment is encapsulated in those three ideas.
  Now, I have argued with many Senators. I have been in the Chamber on 
many issues. I have respect for some, great respect for others. The 
Senator from California is among those for whom I have great respect. 
But in this instance, the conclusions that have been drawn with 
reference to what is in this bill, and what was proposed by the review 
people of the United States who review our nuclear posture, are just 
not so, plain and simple.
  I think the Senate should not follow the House. The House, for some 
reason, decided to spend this money on water projects. That is fine.
  I say to the Senator, we would like $40 million more for water 
projects. But this Senator is not going to prevail and preside over a 
committee, because we are short of water money, that looks at these 
projects in the wrong way and then, in the end, says: Well, we will 
have $21 or $24 million more for you House Members' water projects. Not 
this Senator. We will put it right here. This is what this money ought 
to be for.
  We are going to vote on this bill. We are going to vote sooner rather 
than later. Hopefully, Senators will see it like they saw it before. A 
substantial majority voted yea on the authorizing bill to do this. We 
came along in an appropriations bill and said: The Senate told us to do 
this.
  We voted for it. So we have done what the Senate asked us to do.
  I hope the Senate will say: Having done what we asked you to do, we 
will leave the money that you put in to do what we asked you to do. We 
will leave it right there. We won't put it on the debt or put it in 
water projects. We will put it right where you asked us to put it.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, has the Pastore rule run its course?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It has not.
  Mr. BYRD. How long will it require to do so?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It will run its course at about 5:30.
  Mr. BYRD. Five thirty. Very well.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I ask the Senator, what was the question? I am sorry, I 
did not hear it.
  Mr. BYRD. I made a parliamentary inquiry of the Chair. It has nothing 
to do with what you are saying, your argument or hers.
  Mr. DOMENICI. OK.
  Mr. BYRD. I want to speak on another subject. That is what I want to 
do.
  Mr. DOMENICI. OK.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I have the floor, do I not?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes.
  Mr. BYRD. May I inquire of the distinguished Senator from California 
if she wishes to respond in any way to the Senator from New Mexico?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator from West Virginia. I would. But 
I know Senator Kennedy has come to speak on this amendment. At an 
appropriate time--I have made some notes--I would like to respond to 
him. But I do not want to delay everybody else.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I am going to speak on another subject, and 
I do not want to interfere with the discussions on this amendment.
  Does the Senator from Massachusetts wish to speak on this same 
subject?
  Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I would like to do so. This is an amendment offered 
by Senator Feinstein and myself dealing with the development and 
testing of nuclear weapons.
  Mr. BYRD. All right. Does the Senator from Arizona wish to speak on 
this subject also?
  All right.
  Mr. President, inasmuch as I have the floor, I would like to propound 
a unanimous consent request.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator may proceed with his request.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the four 
Senators on the floor at the moment, other than I, finish their 
discussions on this amendment, I be recognized. I make that request. 
Now, what I am saying is, when Senator Domenici, when Senator Kyl of 
Arizona, when the Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein, and the 
Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy, have finished their 
colloquies, their discussions, or their statements, that I then be 
recognized to speak on another subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, let me 
just talk with the Senator for a moment.
  That means I have a chance for rebuttal?
  Also, I say to the Senator, I wanted to tell you--I am not sure if 
you knew--the yeas and nays have been ordered on this amendment, and I 
assume you are going to debate an issue unrelated to this. How long 
might we expect you to speak?
  Mr. BYRD. I would suspect that my speech would require an hour.
  Mr. DOMENICI. An hour?
  Mr. BYRD. Yes, sir.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I have no objection.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Chair and all Senators.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank my friend and colleague from West 
Virginia for being typically courteous to the Members offering this 
amendment and also being courteous to the consideration of this issue 
which is of central importance not only to this appropriations bill but 
also in terms of the whole question of security for our country. We 
don't find too often where our colleagues and friends wait their time 
here on the Senate floor and are so willingly generous to give up some 
time.
  I don't intend to take an undue period of time, but it is typical of 
the Senator from West Virginia, his courtesy and his respect for the 
institution, to permit us to make a presentation on

[[Page 21954]]

an extremely important matter. I thank him very much.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the Senator.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I am not surprised, but I am always impressed with the 
spirit with which the Senator respects this institution and an 
individual Member's ability to raise important matters to make the case 
which Senator Feinstein and I are making this afternoon.
  Mr. BYRD. I thank the distinguished Senator.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, we live in a dangerous world, and the 
greatest danger of all is still the danger of nuclear war or the use of 
a nuclear weapon by a terrorist group. We know that terrorists are 
still plotting each and every day to find new ways to kill Americans.
  The United States has a responsibility to do what it can to make this 
a safer world--not as a lone ranger, not as the world's policeman, but 
for our national security, and for the principles of freedom and 
democracy that make our country what it is.
  We can't afford to let our own policy help ignite a new nuclear arms 
race. At the very time when we are urging other nations to halt their 
own nuclear weapons programs, the administration is rushing forward to 
develop our own new nuclear weapons.
  This bill contains $6 million for the development of the so-called 
``mini-nukes'', and $15 million for the so-called nuclear bunker-
buster. They want to speed up the testing of nuclear weapons, and 
select the site for a new pit facility--a factor for new nuclear 
warheads.
  These provisions demonstrate the dangerous new direction of our 
nuclear weapons policy. They continue the go-it-alone, damn-the-
torpedoes approach to the delicate balance of international arms 
control in today's world.
  By passing this amendment, we can demonstrate that we are not 
embarking on this reckless new nuclear policy. It makes no sense for us 
to tell other nations to ``Do as we say, not as we do.'' We must do a 
better job of leading the way in reducing reliance on nuclear weapons 
and honoring our commitments to international arms control. The House 
bill takes this approach, because it prohibits the use of funds for the 
development of low-yield nuclear weapons and nuclear bunker busters.
  There's a reason why arms control has been such a key element of our 
foreign policy and defense policy over many decades. Last month, an 
infuriated gathering took place in Hiroshima to honor those who died 
there in 1945. The world knows the massive devastation that a nuclear 
weapon can unleash. Since 1945 nuclear weapons have never been used 
again in war.
  Yet, this year on the anniversary of those tragedies, the Bush 
Administration's Strategic Command held a secret meeting in Nebraska at 
Offutt Air Force Base to discuss the plan for a new generation of 
nuclear weapons. They barred congressional staff from the meeting. 
Their nuclear policy is being discussed in the dark, without telling 
the American people or our allies what the policy is.
  The administration disbanded an advisory committee to the National 
Nuclear Security Administration with membership that ranged from James 
Schlesinger to Sidney Drell. Obviously, the administration is not 
interested in what some of the best minds in our country and the world 
have to say about nuclear policy in today's world. It's wrong to begin 
a new nuclear arms race by designing, building, and testing new 
weapons.
  The administration wants to lift the 1993 statutory ban imposed on 
developing ``mini-nukes.'' But these weapons are far from the type of 
small, surgical-strike weapons that the name suggests. They will not 
keep us safer or more secure. Mini-nukes are a dream come true for 
rogue regimes and terrorists, and a nightmare for every other nation on 
Earth. Just one of these weapons, carried by a terrorist in a suitcase, 
can devastate an entire city. A five-kiloton weapon would be half the 
size of the Hiroshima bomb.
  Some claim that these weapons are needed against deeply buried, 
hardened bunkers. But current technology will allow such a warhead to 
burrow only fifty feet into the ground or less. Detonating even a one-
kiloton weapon at that depth would create a crater larger than the 
World Trade Center, larger than a football field. It will spew a 
million cubic feet or radioactive dust into the atmosphere. Imagine 
what a five-kiloton blast would do.
  Not only is the Bush administration developing their new nuclear 
weapons, it's also rushing to test them. As Deputy Assistant Secretary 
of Defense, Fred Celec said in 2003, if you, ``design a new nuclear 
weapon . . . you will probably have to have a nuclear test.''
  In fact, the administration coupled its request to design their 
nuclear weapons with a request to speed up the time it would take to 
test them.
  No one questions the safety of our nuclear stockpile. This 
accelerated test readiness is not needed to preserve our existing 
arsenal. The only reason for rushing to achieve the shortest possible 
testing time is to test new kinds of nuclear weapons.
  Consistent with this goal, the administration has also requested 
funds to design a large-scale production facility for plutonium pits, 
which are factories for new nuclear warheads. The administration wants 
a facility able to produce 500 of these pits a year, a level that far 
exceeds what is needed to maintain the current stockpile.
  The administration claims that it is reducing its current nuclear 
stockpile from 7,500 tactical warheads to less than 2,200. But while 
they plan for these reductions, the Department of Energy continues to 
ask for funding sufficient to support the stockpile levels set by the 
START I Arms Control Treaty in 1991 a level set before the fall of the 
Soviet Union. If we build 500 plutonium pits a year, it will far exceed 
the number needed for the current stockpile, even if we make the 
reductions planned by the administration. The numbers don't add up. We 
are escalating the nuclear arms race, not reducing it.
  These actions demonstrate the administration's contempt for the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the foundation of all current global 
nuclear arms control. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed in 1968, has 
long stood for the fundamental principle that the world will be safer 
if nuclear proliferation does not extend beyond the five nations that 
possessed nuclear weapons at that time--the United States, Great 
Britain, the Soviet Union, China, and France. It reflected the 
worldwide consensus that the greater the number of nations with nuclear 
weapons, the greater the risk of nuclear war.
  The Non-Proliferation Treaty has clearly prevented a worldwide 
nuclear arms race. Since the treaty was signed, only five additional 
nations acquired nuclear weapons, and out of them South Africa later 
got rid of them. Israel, India, and Pakistan never signed the treaty. 
North Korea signed it in 1985, but withdrew from it last year.
  The Bush administration's policy jeopardizes the entire structure of 
nuclear arms control so carefully negotiated by world leaders over the 
past half century, starting with the Eisenhower administration.
  The history of those years is still vivid in our minds. I was 13 
years old on that fateful day in August 1945, when a B-29 bomber named 
``Enola Gay'' dropped the first nuclear weapon, ``Little Boy,'' over 
Hiroshima. More than four square miles of the city were instantly and 
completely destroyed. More than 90,000 people died instantly. Another 
50,000 died by the end of that year. Three days later, another B-29 
dropped ``Fat Man'' over Nagasaki, killing 39,000 people and injuring 
25,000 more.
  In 1957, when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, it became clear that 
two oceans could not protect us from a nuclear attack at home.
  The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 showed the entire world how close it 
could come to catastrophe, and gave supreme urgency to nuclear arms 
control.
  In 1968, the Non-Proliferation Treaty was signed in Moscow, London, 
and Washington, DC, and went into full effect in 1970. For the next 20 
years, the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated a series of 
landmark treaties

[[Page 21955]]

to keep the world from blowing itself up.
  Some say these efforts on arms control have not prevented the spread 
of nuclear weapons. But look at the past 15 years; South Africa, 
Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine--the world's third largest nuclear 
power--renounced the use of nuclear weapons and joined the Non-
Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear states.
  Britain and France ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Even 
though the U.S. Senate did not ratify this landmark treaty, every 
signatory and ratifier has obeyed the spirit of the treaty and not 
tested nuclear weapons. The United States and Russia have removed 
thousands of nuclear weapons from alert status, reduced the number of 
weapons, and coordinated in protecting nuclear materials from theft.
  Without this amendment, we turn our backs on five decades of progress 
in reducing the threat we and the world face from nuclear weapons. Some 
in the administration argue that in today's world the yield of the 
nuclear weapons in our current arsenals is so immense that our enemies 
know that we will never use them. They argue that these massive nuclear 
weapons have no deterrent value against many of today's adversaries and 
that we need smaller, more ``usable'' nuclear weapons to make 
deterrence more credible.
  In fact, if we start treating nuclear weapons as just another weapon 
in our arsenal, we will increase the likelihood of their use--not only 
against our adversaries, but also against ourselves. We would be 
dangerously blurring the line between nuclear and conventional weapons, 
and tear down the firewall between these weapons that has served us so 
well in preventing nuclear war in the entire half-century since World 
War II.
  As Secretary of State Powell said last year, ``Nuclear weapons in 
this day and age may serve some deterrent effect, and so be it, but to 
think of using them as just another weapon in what might start out as a 
conventional conflict in this day and age seems to me to be something 
that no side should be contemplating.''
  It is difficult to believe that these new types of nuclear weapons 
serve any rational military purpose. As we saw in the first Persian 
Gulf war and again in the war against Iraq, precision-guided 
conventional and stand-off weapons serve us incredibly well. How could 
low-yield nuclear weapons be any more effective than the precision-
guided conventional weapons? And their radioactive fall-out would be 
far more dangerous to our ground troops and to civilian populations.
  Our goal is to prevent nuclear wars, not start them. I urge my 
colleagues to approve the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, and say ``no'' 
to any such fateful step on the road to nuclear war.
  I wanted to thank my good friend and colleague from California for 
her presentation earlier this afternoon and also for her eloquence when 
we addressed this issue earlier in the session. She has reminded us in 
this body about how this administration has been evolving its whole 
nuclear policy with very subtle changes, moving us in a very dramatic 
and different direction than has been generally embraced over the 
period of the last 50 years.
  What she has commented on, and what troubles me and, I think, 
increasingly Members of the Senate at these hearings that have been 
held, by and large under security conditions and not in the broad 
daylight for public debate and discussions--I think, hopefully, as a 
result of these discussions and the understanding we have developed 
here, and has been particularly well developed--I think in the House of 
Representatives by many of those on both sides of the aisle, I might 
add, Republican and Democrat alike, who have examined this in 
considerable detail, they have reviewed this and made a very strong 
recommendation we not move in this direction.
  I don't think anyone can say our House colleagues have been negligent 
in assuring that we were going to develop the kinds of defense systems 
and also the defense capability to ensure the protection for our 
national security.
  As shown on this chart, we review very briefly the half century of 
arms control. Going back over the period of time, in 1963 there was the 
Partial Test Ban Treaty, and there was the Nonproliferation Treaty in 
1970. We also see the SALT and ABM Treaties, and also SALT II. These 
are all efforts by both Republicans and Democrats to move us away from 
the real dangers of nuclear confrontation and nuclear war. As we 
remember, a number of years ago we talked about the ``nuclear winter'' 
as well. We have seen enormous progress that has been made and great 
leadership by both Republicans and Democrats. Many of our colleagues in 
the recent past, such as Senators Richard Lugar and Sam Nunn, with the 
development of the Nunn-Lugar provisions, tried to get those countries 
that have been willing to sign on and move us away from the dangers of 
nuclear proliferation, to get help and assistance from the United 
States to help them achieve that goal. Now we have a very different 
direction.
  Finally, we have these statements made by the administration. Fred 
Celek said:

       If a nuclear bomb could be developed to penetrate rock and 
     concrete and still explode, it will ultimately get fielded.
       I have a bias in favor of the lowest usable yield because I 
     have advised the use of that which will cause minimum 
     destruction.

  We are basically talking about an effort that recognizes a very 
important part of our history--Republicans and Democrats--to move us 
away from nuclear proliferation, and the United States has been a 
leader. Other countries have been willing. That has been the result of 
50 years of work of Republicans and Democrats.
  Now, in a world of increased tension, in many respects as a result of 
terrorism, we are finding ourselves in a situation where the 
administration wants to alter that policy in terms of development and 
testing. Mininukes--and there is really no such thing as a small nuke; 
a nuke is a nuke. It is no different by nature, disposition, and its 
capability. Those who have served in the military are familiar with a 
great deal of information regarding nuclear weapons. Our present 
Secretary of State wrote a book and included the comments I stated. As 
a former military officer, he understands this. At a time, frankly, 
when we are unsurpassed in terms of our military capability, why in the 
world do we want to develop small conventional systems which will 
trigger other countries to do that. That could compromise what we have 
today in terms of our military and our Armed Forces.
  There is one modern military force in the world, and it happens to be 
the United States. We have to keep it that way. Why put at risk that 
advantage with the proliferation by other countries of small useful 
nukes--I think that is unwise--as well as the dangers it would pose in 
terms of the growth of terrorism.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Murkowski). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair.
  Madam President, I very much thank the distinguished Senator from 
Massachusetts for his remarks. I appreciate very much his leadership 
and support on this issue. I want to make some comments in response to 
the chairman's comments.
  The first is, on July 16, the House published their report. I would 
like to read excerpts from the House Energy and Water Development 
Appropriations Act into the Record because I think it sets some things 
straight:

       Before any of the existing program goals have been 
     successfully demonstrated, the Administration is now 
     proposing to spend millions on enhanced test readiness while 
     maintaining the moratorium on nuclear testing, aggressively 
     pursue a multi-billion dollar Modern Pit Facility before the 
     first production pit has even been successfully certified for 
     use in the stockpile, develop a robust nuclear earth 
     penetrator weapon and begin additional advanced concepts 
     research on new nuclear weapons. It appears to the Committee 
     the Department is proposing to rebuild, restart and redo and 
     otherwise exercise every capability that was used over the 
     past forty years of the Cold War and at the same time prepare 
     for a future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons. 
     Nothing in the past performance of the NNSA convinces this 
     Committee that the successful

[[Page 21956]]

     implementation of Stockpile Stewardship Program is a foregone 
     conclusion, which makes the pursuit of a broad range of new 
     initiatives premature. Until the NNSA has demonstrated to the 
     Congress that it can successfully meet its primary mission of 
     maintaining the safety, security, and viability of the 
     existing stockpile by executing the Stockpile Life Extension 
     Program and Science-based Stewardship activities on time and 
     within budget, this Committee will not support redirecting 
     the management resources and attention to a series of new 
     initiatives.

  What they are saying is, shouldn't we certify before starting this 
program? Shouldn't we certify to its safety? There are just a few 
reasons to do that. I am going to bring up the Rocky Flats plant 
northwest of Denver.
  Fourteen years ago, this plant, which had produced pultonium pits, 
sank permanently into a multibillion-dollar cesspool of contamination, 
criminality, and managerial incompetence. I am quoting from an article 
in the bulletin of Atomic Scientists:

       Not to worry says, the Department of Energy, Rocky Flats II 
     will have all the necessary equipment for suppressing 
     plutonium fires that regrettably cannot be totally 
     eliminated, but whose frequency and severity can be reduced, 
     and even planned for, in the structural and process designs.

  This keeps getting mixed up. We already have $2.3 billion 
appropriated for a pit facility at Los Alamos, and that facility will 
begin producing 20 pits per year in 2007 and can be equipped to produce 
as many as 80 pits per year and can be further enlarged to produce 150 
pits per year. At what are we throwing this money? How big does this 
thing have to get? That is what is going on in this. It may be that Los 
Alamos is having trouble with it. I don't know. But I do know this: 
Throwing money at it is not the solution.
  It might be useful to put the entire report language in the Record. I 
ask unanimous consent to print the report language in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

  Funding, House Language on New Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Testing, 
                           September 12, 2003

       The Senate is currently considering the Energy & Water 
     Appropriations bill. On Tuesday, Senators Feinstein and 
     Kennedy will offer an amendment to reduce and restrict 
     funding for specific nuclear weapons budget items. Details on 
     what has already transpired are below.

                          [Dollars in millions]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
                                                                Senate
                                  Administration     House      approps
                                      request       action      action
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.         $15         \1\$5         $15
Advanced Weapons Concepts.......           6      ..........         6
Enhanced Test Site Readiness....          24.8    ..........        24.8
Modern Pit Facility.............          22.8          10.8        22.8 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\The Committee directed that the DOE use the $5 million to work with
  the DOD ``to maximize the dual-use applicability for both conventional
  and nuclear weapons.''

  Excerpts from the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations 
                    Act, 2004--House Report 108-212

       The Committee provides $5,000,000 for RNEP and eliminates 
     funding for additional advanced concepts research in favor of 
     higher priority current mission requirements. The Committee 
     is concerned the NNSA is being tasked to start new activities 
     with significant outyear budget impacts before the 
     Administration has articulated the specific requirements to 
     support the President's announced stockpile modifications. 
     Under current plans, the NNSA is attempting to modernize the 
     industrial infrastructure of the weapons complex and restore 
     production plant capability in order to refurbish the entire 
     START I stockpile, reengineer the Federal management 
     structure of the complex and downsize the workforce by 20 
     percent by the end of fiscal year 2004, while struggling to 
     successfully demonstrate its core mission of maintaining the 
     existing stockpile through the Stockpile Stewardship Program. 
     Before any of the existing program goals have been 
     successfully demonstrated, the Administration is now 
     proposing to spend millions on enhanced test readiness while 
     maintaining the moratorium on nuclear testing, aggressively 
     pursue a multi-billion dollar Modern Pit Facility before the 
     first production pit has been successfully certified for use 
     in the stockpile, develop a robust nuclear earth penetrator 
     weapon and begin additional advanced concepts research on new 
     nuclear weapons. It appears to the Committee the Department 
     is proposing to rebuild, restart, and redo and otherwise 
     exercise every capability that was used over the past forty 
     years of the Cold War and at the same time prepare for a 
     future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons. Nothing 
     in the past performance of the NNSA convinces this Committee 
     that the successful implementation of Stockpile Stewardship 
     program is a foregone conclusion, which makes the pursuit of 
     a broad range of new initiatives premature. Until the NNSA 
     has demonstrated to the Congress that it can successfully 
     meet its primary mission of maintaining the safety, security, 
     and viability of the existing stockpile by executing the 
     Stockpile Life Extension Program and Science-based 
     Stewardship activities on time and within budget, this 
     Committee will not support redirecting the management 
     resources and attention to a series of new initiatives. 
     (Emphasis added.)

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Chair. Madam President, it may be useful 
to think for a moment--the chairman started me thinking. He asked the 
question: Why did we need 40,000 nuclear weapons? The answer is we 
didn't. Now 40 years later, we are left with enormous problems: 40,000 
nuclear weapons which this country entered into the study, the 
research, the design, and the development of. We could blow up this 
Earth time and time and time again, obliterate it from existence. Does 
anyone think that makes sense--40,000? No, because what happens is the 
economic urge, the parochial nature of States--all of this takes over 
and subliminally, under the radar, huge weapons systems become 
developed which need to be maintained, secured, activated, and 
deactivated.
  It is a crazy system, and we all pat ourselves on the back and think 
we are good Americans. Does anybody believe the United States of 
America needed 40,000 nuclear weapons? But we built them. That is what 
is happening here again. That is exactly what is happening here again.
  We are appropriating money for a $4 billion bomb factory in addition 
to the $2.3 billion bomb factory we already appropriated. If they can't 
do it for $2.3 billion--and I am talking about Los Alamos run by the 
University of California--if they can't do it, let's take a good look 
at the reasons.
  Other nations know what we are doing. The Finnish Foreign Minister, 
just a week ago, commenting on our failure to ratify the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty, the move sent completely the wrong message to the 
international community.
  That is exactly what I have been saying. That is exactly what we are 
doing. We are sending a message we are doing it and, believe me, others 
will follow suit.
  Then he went on and said:

       We should be concerned about the development of weapons of 
     mass destruction even in the case of low-yield weapons, the 
     foreign minister said in an interview to be published in the 
     Austrian daily Die Press on Friday. Muhammad el-Baradei, the 
     head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, accused the 
     United States last week of effectively breaking a ban on the 
     proliferation of weapons of mass destruction through its 
     research on so-called mini-nukes.

  The chairman says there is no research going on regarding mininukes. 
Then why did we repeal the Spratt-Furse language that for 10 years 
prevented the development of mininukes? Why did we do it if we were not 
going to build it? This is the deception. This is the covert nature of 
these programs. I do not doubt that we are building them.
  To say this is not happening really bothers me. If my colleagues do 
not believe it is happening, reread the Nuclear Posture Review. Every 
Member has access to the classified version of the Nuclear Posture 
Review which came out in January of 2000. They can read the 
unclassified version. For these purposes, I am going to quote from the 
New York Times of March 10. This is about the Nuclear Posture Review.
  It stresses a need to develop earth-penetrating nuclear weapons to 
destroy heavily fortified underground bunkers, including those that may 
be used to store chemical and biological weapons.
  Now I am quoting from parts of the article.
  There is a quote again from the Pentagon: This administration is 
fashioning a more diverse set of options for deterring the threat of 
weapons of mass destruction. That is why we are pursuing advanced 
conventional forces and improved intelligence capabilities. A 
combination of offensive and defensive and nuclear and nonnuclear 
capabilities is essential to meet the deterrence requirements of the 
21st century.

[[Page 21957]]

  In my mind, what that means is the smaller nuclear weapons will be 
built below 5 kiloton. The difference is kind of blurred between 
conventional and nuclear weapons and it makes it easier to use the 
nuclear weapon on the battlefield. That is what I believe is going on.
  Another place states: Adding new detail to previous briefings, the 
Pentagon says that its future force structure will have the following 
components. By 2012: 14 Trident submarines with two in overhead at one 
time. They will be part of a triad that will include hundreds of 
Minuteman III land-based missiles, 100 B-52, H and B-2 bombers. That is 
an operationally deployed force of about 1,700 to 2,200 strategic 
nuclear warheads.
  The Pentagon said that nuclear planning is not merely a question of 
numbers. The Pentagon also wants to improve existing nuclear weapons 
and possibly develop new ones. The report cites the need to approve 
earth-penetrating weapons. In general, the Pentagon report stresses the 
need for nuclear weapons that would be more easy to use against enemy 
weapons because they would be of variable or low yield, be highly 
accurate, could be quickly targeted.
  It is going on. No matter how one wants to cloak advanced weapons 
concept designs, it means new nuclear weapons, and that is what we are 
doing. We are breaking a 60-year tradition. We are going to move up 
testing. Testing does not need to be moved up. Why do they want to move 
up testing to the basic minimum time possible when the experts say it 
is not possible to do it in 18 months?
  Now, you can believe that we can be fairly assured by the fact that 
we spend $400 billion a year on our defense, more than every other 
nation on Earth combined; that maybe ought to give us an element of 
security; but I think to open this door, to walk through a nuclear 
door, to propose that we are going to begin to develop low-yield 
nuclear weapons and nuclear bunker busters sets an example for the 
world. They read the Nuclear Posture Review. They read the Washington 
Post. They read the French press. They read the speeches. They know 
what is happening. So we are setting an example for other nations. We 
say all the time that we do not want to proliferate, and we are 
encouraging proliferation by our own actions. Forty thousand nuclear 
weapons, I guess 45 years ago or 40 years later--I bet there is no one 
in the United States who can say we need 40,000 nuclear weapons, but we 
develop them. They are there. A lot of them have been disarmed.
  We are going to begin now this next generation. It is wrong. It is 
morally wrong. It is wrong for our children. It is wrong for our 
soldiers who have to go on the battlefield.
  Take another look at Hiroshima. Both Senator Kennedy and I spelled 
out the number of deaths. If we add them all up within a year, I think 
between Hiroshima and Nagasaki it totals 220,000 dead. That is a 
combination of a 15-kiloton bomb--what was it, a 21-kiloton bomb at 
Nagasaki--and we are talking about a 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster.
  Look at this devastation. This is one bomb. I will never forget as a 
12-year-old what we grew up with. Children today have different fears, 
but what we grew up with was the fear of an atomic bomb. That is why 
the daisy spot that was used in the Goldwater campaign had such an 
impact because there was a whole generation of young children who were 
impacted by it. I was one of them. Senator Kennedy is the same 
generation. He was one of them.
  When we were young, we said: We are never going to let this happen 
again. But in the Senate we are letting it happen again. If this Senate 
does not do what the House of Representatives does, I think there is a 
moral degradation spread over this whole body because we will then 
become the ones who launched the new generation of nuclear weapons.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator be good enough to yield for one or two 
questions?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Yes.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I saw the photograph that the Senator has of Hiroshima. 
I have a chart that gives us a for instance. If we use a 5-kiloton 
earth-penetrating nuclear explosion in Damascus--this is just a for 
instance, obviously--and they had the traditional winds that flow from 
the east to the west, it gives the general flowline of where the 
radioactivity and the dust would flow, but we can see roughly it would 
go from Syria, across northern Israel through southern Lebanon, just 
north of Haifa. The best estimates would be 230,000 fatalities and 
280,000 casualties. This is a 5 kiloton bomb.
  I have heard the Senator from California talk about the fact that 
this is a mini-nuke, but she has just again restated very clearly that 
there is really no such thing as a mini-nuke. We are talking about 
weapons that have such a massive, distinctive, unique, and special 
quality that they have such an extraordinary danger to all of those who 
are directly affected, and those who would be indirectly affected well 
into the future.
  So we are looking at these casualties the Senator mentioned, 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We can also look at what the casualties would 
be with the 5-kiloton earth penetrator that went down to 30 feet in 
depth. We are talking about major devastation that this country, as 
Senator Feinstein has said so eloquently, has never accepted--through 
Republican and Democratic control; this has not been a partisan issue 
over a long period of time.
  Let me just ask the Senator a final question that is the question I 
think all Americans are wondering about: whether we have security of 
our current nuclear capacity. This is raised in discussion and debate. 
Why should we ever take a chance, in terms of what we do have, in terms 
of a current capability?
  I have seen and read and heard the directors of the laboratories that 
have responsibility for this repeatedly indicate their sense of 
assurance. They are skilled, committed individuals who have dedicated 
basically their lives to ensure the deterrent capability of our 
capacity, in terms of nuclear weapons. They give the assurance to us 
that we can give to the American people that we have the capability and 
it is current.
  I am just interested, as someone who has spent a great deal of time 
on this, because this is an issue that has been talked about a great 
deal even during the course of this debate, whether the Senator 
believes she can give assurances unequivocally to the American people 
from what we do have--from her knowledge of the lab directors--that we 
are able to give them the assurance that our nuclear stockpile is 
current and capable and ready to meet the test if called upon.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Through the Chair, respectfully, to the Senator from 
Massachusetts, I think no one can give an unequivocal statement that 
our nuclear supplies, plants, et cetera, are unequivocally safe. I 
think a lot of steps have been taken.
  As to whether they are adequate to meet any challenge, I have never 
heard anyone say they were not.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I appreciate the distinction the Senator has made. She 
gets to the nub of the issue: The question, in other words, is whether 
we have an adequate stockpile--more than an adequate stockpile, as the 
Senator has pointed out.
  I thank the Senator. This is an issue of enormous importance and 
consequence. I share the view of the Senator that we have many 
different, important issues that are before Congress this year: 
Obviously, the overarching issues, the conflict in Iraq and the war on 
terror, and how we are going to deal with those, as well as other 
priorities to which we are committed. But the issue in terms of the 
security, even as we are thinking about the nature of terrorism, I 
think she would agree with me, is also related to the whole issue of 
the battle against terrorism, as well, in terms of what the potential 
may be in the future with the development of these, what they call 
mini-nukes, and what that means in terms of the proliferation issue.
  I thank the Senator for her comments.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. The Senator

[[Page 21958]]

was not in the Chamber. But the chart I used was of a predicted 
radioactive fallout from a B61-11, the 300-kiloton explosion in west 
Pyongyang, North Korea, using historical weather data for the month of 
May. It is a similar chart to what the Senator has shown, but it gives 
the 48-hour dose of radiation contamination. The possible effects of 
radioactive fallout should a nuclear weapon be used include, possible 
radiation burns; change in blood chemistry, hemorrhaging, as well as 
deaths in weeks or months--it is a terrible chart to have to look at. 
Of course, this is an extraordinarily large device, so we are not 
talking about a bunker buster. That is 300 kilotons. But that is the 
chart that we happen to have.
  I think the thing that bothers me most about this program is that 
nobody really knows what is going to be produced with all this money. 
It always happens kind of under the shelf. Then the economics of it 
become so important that there needs to be a continuation of it. I 
really suspect that is why we ended up with 40,000 nuclear bombs--
because once you get into it, it just keeps going and keeps rolling; 
there are constant demands. I think that is indicated by the fact that 
we have already appropriated $2.3 billion for this plutonium pit 
facility at Los Alamos and reportedly this pit facility, if it is able 
to be built correctly, can take care of all of the needs for the 
foreseeable future.
  But this is another $4 billion program--that is over 10 years--of 
which an amount is authorized in this bill that we are trying to strike 
because there is no need for it. I think we have tried to lay out the 
arguments here. This is not an easy issue. I really believe we will 
probably never have more of an issue of conscience in this session than 
we do in this vote. I think the House of Representatives have given 
their consciences a test and measured up by eliminating the funds. They 
said clearly we are not ready to spend these funds in the report 
language that I read and put in the Record. And the balance really 
rests with the Senate.
  I suspect we may be defeated. It will be a conferenceable item, and 
all of those who want this new generation of nuclear weapons will end 
up prevailing. But I can tell you I don't want my fingerprint on it. I 
don't want to have to say what I have done to my children.
  Every bit of information I have ever received indicates that with the 
most superior conventional weapons forces in the world, and an amount 
of money spent that is more than that spent by all of the nations put 
together, a huge nuclear arsenal, and the ability to dial up or down 
the kilotonnage of our nuclear bombs--my hope is we will continue our 
commitment to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; that we will not be 
hypocritical; that we will live by our words, our statements; if we 
want other nations not to proliferate; that we will see that we do not 
develop the mechanisms by which proliferation is incentivized or 
carried out.
  So I think this is a very big vote. I really hope the Members of this 
esteemed body will vote yes to strike the money from this bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, Senator Kennedy is still in the 
Chamber, and he asked a question of the distinguished Senator from 
California about the safety of our nuclear weapons.
  Senator Kennedy, once a year, each of three civilian men--it happens 
in this case they are men. I don't think there has been a woman in 
charge of either of the three nuclear laboratories since their 
inception. But, once a year, three civilians certify to the President 
of the United States that, to the best of their knowledge, the nuclear 
stockpile is intact, safe, and reliable.
  That has been going on for well over 60 years. But only 8 years ago, 
or 9, we changed the way those men concluded the weapons were safe and 
reliable and ready. Properly or improperly, we said no more underground 
testing. Prior to that, every time a certification was made to the 
President, it was predicated upon the single best way to determine the 
validity of a weapon, and that was to test it.
  Now we have said let us do it another way. Let us send a signal to 
the world we don't want to test underground. This amendment is 
relevant, which I will tell you about in a moment.
  We said to the scientists, How much money do you need to get the best 
equipment, including new equipment, to determine the validity of the 
weapons without testing? That is called science-based stockpile 
stewardship. There are many who do not think it will work, that we will 
have to return someday not for a new stockpile, but to answer that 
question we might have to return to testing.
  I know the Senator from Massachusetts has studied these issues, and 
he is a very involved Senator. But I spent a huge portion of my life 
learning this. We are going through the throes of the most incredible 
kind of research just to determine there is nothing wrong with the 
innards of a 40-year-old bomb, or 30-year-old bomb as we reduce from 
40,000 to 5,000, or less, which is where we are now and heading down.
  Yes. The answer is if you follow that sequence, those men not too 
long ago told the President they are OK. But in this amendment, one 
portion the Senator from California strikes is a provision that could 
be freestanding and important. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a 
new weapons system. It just says bring the test site in Nevada current 
so it doesn't take 3 years if you make a decision to use it. One 
portion does that. Instead of letting that system in Nevada degenerate 
so that if you need it, it will take 3 years to build it up, part of 
this amendment says move it along so it is only 18 months.
  If you want to conclude that is in there because we want to build a 
whole new system of weapons, you can do that. But the truth is it is in 
there because the time has come to get it more relevant to the problems 
we may be confronted with in terms of one of these directors saying we 
had better test the weapon. Then we have to wait 3 years. Part of this 
amendment says no, you will only have to wait 1\1/2\ years. That part 
should pass under all circumstances. Why the United States House of 
Representatives said no, I can't understand. The Senate said yes 
already, overwhelmingly.
  This amendment would take it out and say leave it at 3 years; let the 
reliability kind of lie in wait in case we need it to test a weapon; 
let it be 3 years instead of 1\1/2\ years.
  The second part of this amendment: There is no use today on the floor 
of the Senate in terms of this amendment to talk about the fact that 
years ago we had 40,000 nuclear weapons and the Soviet Union had 
60,000. Those are true numbers. That happened. I am not sure the last 
number is right, but it is plenty more than 40,000. We are on the way 
down substantially while three or four new countries are added that I 
don't think had anything to do with this amendment. Pakistan had 
nothing to do with this amendment as they developed their nuclear 
weapon. I don't believe this amendment has anything to do with the 
North Koreans. This amendment says get that site ready in case we have 
to test the weapons we own.
  We can get up here and talk all we want about America is already 
building new nuclear weapons, but it isn't true. If any Senator stands 
up here and says we are making new nuclear weapons and they are just 
little nuclear weapons, I submit they ought to ask anybody they want 
under oath anywhere in the Government, and the answer will be we 
aren't, we haven't, and we will not build a nuclear weapon until 
Congress says we can.
  Building a nuclear weapon is not in this language. Look at it. Look 
at every single word. See if it says you are going to build one nuclear 
weapon with the money in this appropriations bill. It in no way permits 
the building of a nuclear weapon. It does what I said about the Nevada 
Test Site. It says to our scientists at these laboratories, In the 
meantime you can study, you can research weapons of the future. And it 
names the kinds of things we might be looking at in the future.
  I submit that for a great nation to say anything to its scientists 
but you can do that is absolutely crazy. Do you

[[Page 21959]]

mean we are going to tell these great scientists we don't know what is 
going to be here in 15 years, but you better not be studying what kind 
of weapons we are going to need in 15 years because we are scared of 
that, we think that means we are going to build new weapons? I don't 
believe that. I believe they ought to be permitted to study. They ought 
to be permitted to think. We ought to be wondering about underground 
chemical plants that might be building things to destroy the world. I 
see nothing wrong with that. I do not see that as threatening to 
anyone, for it builds nothing. If anything, it builds brainpower on the 
part of the great scientists, and that is it.
  The last one about a plant to manufacture pits: This request says 
that for the next 40 years--40 years--we may need pit replacements from 
time to time for our nuclear weapons. That is a given. It says let us 
design the complex to do that.
  This amendment doesn't say cut it in half, we don't want you to make 
it so big. We say send us the plans and we will look at them. This says 
don't do it. Why not do it? Every other country with nuclear weapons 
has spare pits, I regret to say. But for us, it doesn't mean much. 
Nobody has to be scared. That doesn't mean next week or next month, but 
it is something our experts are saying shouldn't exist too long. And we 
are busy trying to build a couple in a makeshift manner, to which my 
friend from California alludes. It is not a factory. It will not take 
care of 30 or 40 years of the future. It is a makeshift assembly in the 
city of Los Alamos as part of the research laboratory. It has been a 
devil of a job for them to manufacture consistent with the need for a 
plutonium pit for a nuclear weapon.
  Today we are discussing things which we hardly ever discuss. But I 
believe at 10 minutes of 5 on the 15th day of September on a Monday, if 
we were authorizing the building of new nuclear weapons, there would be 
a block of Senators on this floor. There would be steam heat from those 
who oppose it.
  The truth is that isn't what the amendment does. It is not an 
amendment that will build any new nuclear bombs.
  I repeat: As important as it is, and as magnificent as the Senator 
from California is in her presentation on September 15, it is not an 
amendment that has anything to do with building or not building nuclear 
weapons, for we are not authorizing that. It won't happen because of 
what we are doing. And she won't stop it from happening with her 
amendment because it isn't happening to begin with.
  Essentially, the Senator indicated it is a moral issue. That is an 
easy term to throw around--a moral issue. I could probably say it is a 
moral issue, also. I understand it in stark, objective terms. It does 
not frighten me a bit.
  As a matter of fact, I am more frightened to think of having the 
scientists who have manned our nuclear laboratories told they cannot 
think and plan for the future regardless of what their great brains say 
might be around the corner, over the hill, or in some decade to come, 
for these United States. That frightens me more and creates more of a 
moral issue than the issue that is not even an issue, to wit, we are 
building more nuclear weapons, a new arsenal, and the like.
  It cannot be a moral issue for me because a negative can hardly be. 
If you are not doing it, it does not seem to me to be an issue, moral 
or otherwise. That is how I see it.
  The Senator suspects we will win. I am not sure. If the Senate has 
any consistency, we should. We already won once. In fact, since then we 
have learned a lot more. But we have reduced it to dollars and to 
programs that had been authorized. It is easier to see what we are and 
are not doing in this amendment, in this appropriations bill, than it 
was when we voted in favor of the authorization bill. I am not sure how 
it will come out. I am not sure what will happen in the House. I 
guarantee if the Senate votes to go to conference with the language we 
have written in this bill that came out of Appropriations, we will 
consider it a very important issue for America's future. It will not be 
easy to give it away to a House that canceled it and spent the money on 
water projects instead of these issues. That was the outcome.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If I could inquire quickly of the Senator, as I 
remember, we had the support of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at that time 
in 1998 when we considered the comprehensive test ban treaty. We did 
not ratify it, but it was supported. I don't know, as a member of the 
Armed Services Committee, of any request by the Joint Chiefs of Staff 
that they have made, any representation to the Armed Services Committee 
that they believe our nuclear capability and capacity is in any way 
threatened today.
  We do have the testing capability. It takes anywhere from 24 to 36 
months to move ahead on the tests. I don't know that we know of any 
requests made by the Joint Chiefs or any chiefs or the Secretary of 
Defense specifically suggesting our capability regarding our nuclear 
weapons is anything but robust and capable now. It is very important we 
know as we debate this issue. I would be interested in the Senator's 
answer to that.
  Second, I understand what has been done with the separate amendment 
which prohibited the development and testing of mini-nukes, as well as 
a number of provisions in the Spratt amendment in the authorization 
committee. When we get a conference report, as a member of that 
conference, the conferees understand that issue will be resolved. The 
Spratt amendment will no longer be in effect.
  So on the one hand the authorization committee will eliminate the 
Spratt amendment, which would have actually prohibited the development 
of anything below the 5 kiloton. Now we are on the second phase of this 
appropriations process in terms of the Department of Energy, and the 
Senator is saying the money in here cannot be used for this 
development. But it is clear, as the Senator from California has 
pointed out, from the Nuclear Posture Review, the debate on the 
authorization, and the elimination of the Spratt amendment, the 
continued effort to put the money in mini-nukes, this is the dangerous 
direction the administration is moving.
  I hear what the Senator has said and the assurances the Senator has 
given to Members, but I wonder why we cannot have more clarity 
regarding the legislation.
  Finally, I will add with regard to the scientists and what they were 
able and not able to pursue. As the Senator knows, we had the most 
extraordinary upgrading of weaponry, particularly in the Iraq 
situation, particularly on the precise guidance and precision bombs. We 
will not take the time in this debate to review it, but there has been 
absolutely extraordinary progress made in the area of conventional 
forces. The scientists have been working effectively. That has enhanced 
our capability.
  I am interested whether the Senator knows of any Joint Chiefs who 
believe the nuclear weapon stockpile would require additional testing?
  Mr. DOMENICI. Madam President, let me answer this way: I don't 
believe there is a single member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a single 
expert in the United States of America on its nuclear weapons arsenal, 
that if asked would they prefer that the Nevada Test Site be ready for 
tests in 18 months or 3 years, would not answer: 18 months; 3 years is 
too long.
  If you ask me, I will tell you. I believe there is no one who is 
certain that over time what we are doing is going to work and that we 
are not going to have to go to testing at some time. Almost everyone 
says that. Since they say it, I am confident they would rather have the 
Nevada Test Site ready in a shorter timeframe rather than longer.
  I thank the Senator for the question. I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. If the only question, then, is an issue of timing and 
upgrading the testing to reduce it from 2 years to 18 months or 2\1/2\ 
years, I don't think we would have an amendment here. We know that 
alone does not show the thrust of what we believe will be permitted 
with this policy.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.

[[Page 21960]]


  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I appreciate the opportunity to speak on 
this amendment in support of the Senator from New Mexico and in 
opposition to the proponents of the amendment.
  It seems to me, this amendment seeks to put our head in the sand and 
ignore circumstances around us in the vain hope that somehow everyone 
else in the world has as good intentions as the United States and if we 
just wish hard enough that they will not cause trouble.
  The amendment says we ought to at least be thinking about what we 
would do in the event that we decide our deterrent was no longer 
credible enough to deter the threats against us.
  Everyone supports the idea of a deterrent. That includes a nuclear 
deterrent. That is, frankly, one of the things that kept the Soviets 
and the United States from engaging in a hot war during the cold war.
  What we are saying is, sometimes when things change, you have to 
think about what that means in terms of your defense posture. This is 
one of those times. What the amendment would do is stop us from 
thinking about it. If you concede we need a nuclear deterrent, you 
should not propose an amendment that says we cannot think about it.
  One thing that has changed, we no longer face an opponent which, like 
the United States, had these huge mul-
timega tonnage weapons that were basically conceived, developed, and 
deployed in order to scare the other side into believing if they ever 
attacked, we would incinerate most of the people in the other country. 
These were not bunker-busting bombs. These were city-killing bombs, 
bombs that would be detonated over the opponents' city, killing 
literally millions of people. That was such a scary thought in the cold 
war it deterred aggression.
  The question is, Would that same deterrent work? I ask in the case of 
Iraq, if Iraq used chemical or biological weapons against the United 
States, does anyone believe that a credible United States threat would 
have been dropping one of our large massive nuclear weapons over 
Baghdad, killing millions of innocent Iraqis? It is not a credible 
deterrent.
  So in a world where you have terrorist organizations and terrorist-
sponsored states, and you no longer have the two great superpowers--the 
Soviet Union and the United States--facing off against each other, the 
question is, What kind of a nuclear deterrent should we have?
  What this amendment would do is stop us from even thinking about 
that. It seems to me we ought to be thinking about that. And if 
smaller, more precise weapons could do the job just as well, wouldn't 
people of good will, who are concerned about unnecessary death, be 
interested in at least thinking about weapons that would pose a 
deterrent to an attack but would not kill as many people, would not 
kill so indiscriminately?
  One of the great lessons from this Iraqi experience is that we now 
have the capability of delivering weapons very precisely. Wouldn't it 
be better to do that, even in a nuclear context, than the one we are in 
now?
  The Senator from Massachusetts just alluded to the great progress 
made in precision conventional weaponry. Even that, however, was not 
sufficient to destroy at least one, and I believe some, of the bunkers 
in Iraq. And without getting into a lot of detail, let me just say we 
are well aware that there are countries in the world that have 
developed extraordinarily robust underground facilities that we are 
going to have to take out if we are ever to win a military conflict 
with them. If we do not have the capability of doing that, they have 
the upper hand.
  Wouldn't it make sense to be able to deliver very precisely the kind 
of weapon that we are asking just to be able to think about here in 
order to destroy that kind of facility? The conventional weaponry will 
not do it, as precise as it is. As the Senator from New Mexico pointed 
out, we are not asking for money to do it. We are just asking to allow 
our scientists to think about what would be necessary and what would be 
possible--perhaps maybe not even necessary but perhaps make 
recommendations to us so we could then act on those recommendations.
  To this matter of the time, I am glad the Senator from Massachusetts 
perhaps conceded the point that if we need to reduce the time necessary 
to prepare our Nevada Test Site, we should have the ability to do that. 
All of the experts--the Senator from New Mexico is correct--agree that 
we should not have to wait 3 years to even test a weapon. As a matter 
of fact, one of the problems is that we do not necessarily know whether 
our nuclear weapons--the existing ones--will work well after all of 
these years. And our opponents do not necessarily know.
  Also, the Stockpile Stewardship Program, which is merely a bunch of 
computers designed to tell us, as best they can, whether they think 
these weapons will work, is not a perfect system at all. It is not 
going to be done for years. It is not at all sure it will provide us 
what we need to know.
  But if we have an inkling that one of our weapons cannot be 
certified, and we decide to have a test in order to determine whether 
it can be certified, right now we are in for a very long period of time 
in which our potential enemies know full well that we do not have full 
confidence in our stockpile; that we are preparing to conduct tests, 
and obviously the only reason we are preparing to conduct tests is that 
we do not have full confidence, and we are going to have to test 
something in order to see what kind of changes would have to be made. 
And that process would take 3 years. That process makes no sense at 
all.
  Another argument that makes no sense at all is that it is important 
for the United States to lead and that it is going to be impossible for 
us to argue--how little confidence this shows in the United States. Can 
we have confidence that we are right? The argument is that we cannot 
lead if we even think about developing new nuclear weapons; we cannot 
tell others in the world to stop developing nuclear weapons as long as 
we are developing nuclear weapons.
  Now, that is perverse thinking. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty was entered into, it recognized that certain countries in the 
world, including the United States, had nuclear weapons. This was not a 
bad thing. In fact, the NPT even called for us to share our nuclear 
peaceful technology with other countries if they would foreswear 
development of their weaponry.
  We have had a self-imposed moratorium now for many years even on the 
testing of any nuclear weapon. Has it stopped countries from developing 
nuclear weapons? Has it stopped North Korea? Apparently not. Is it 
stopping Iran? No. Did it stop China? No. Did it stop India? No. 
Pakistan? No.
  It looks to me as though the self-imposed moratorium is not very 
effective. And leading the world by saying, ``We are not going to test 
any weapons, would you please not test weapons,'' has resulted in a 
whole host of countries, most of which are not our allies, developing 
or seeking to develop nuclear weapons. That is not a good thing. It 
shows a failed strategy, not a successful strategy.
  If these countries are led to believe that the United States will 
keep up with them, or at least we will not prevent ourselves from 
thinking about keeping up with them, maybe they will be a little less 
likely to develop these weapons.
  If North Korea, for example, just speaking hypothetically, believes 
we are serious about preventing them from acquiring a lot of nuclear 
weapons and proliferating them around the world, clearly, that must 
mean we are willing to use our own nuclear weapons. They have to depend 
upon the United States being confident of our nuclear deterrent and 
being willing to use it under certain circumstances. If they cannot be 
confident of that, then what incentive do they have, except their good 
will, to not develop their nuclear weapons?
  So far, the idea that we have to not develop or even think about our 
nuclear weapons in order to induce other countries not to do the same 
has proven an utter failure. And there are other countries in the 
world, whose names I

[[Page 21961]]

could mention, that we believe are also trying to acquire this nuclear 
capability. So our self-imposed moratorium of even thinking about these 
weapons is not doing a very good job of convincing other countries to 
do the same. Better that we recognize reality, get our head out of the 
sand, and acknowledge that if we are going to rely upon a nuclear 
deterrent, we had better be able to think about it and even, at some 
point in the future, be able to do something about it.
  Let me just make a couple of quick other points, Madam President.
  We have made the commitment, subject to future development, of 
course, to reduce the very large arsenal of our nuclear weapons, and 
not just to reduce the number but to reduce the quantity of the very 
high megatonnage weapons. One of the reasons--well, there are a couple 
of reasons that are relevant here, but one of the reasons is that we do 
not think we would need that kind of weapon in the future because we no 
longer are facing a superpower potential enemy such as the Soviet 
Union. They are also expensive to maintain, I might add. And, thirdly, 
we know that over time these weapons deteriorate, and at some point we 
are going to want to remove them from our arsenal in any event. So we 
have made that commitment.
  Now, which is better? Which is better? That we follow through with 
that commitment to remove this large number of extraordinarily powerful 
nuclear weapons that may or may not be all that safe, and think about 
substituting, in some cases, much smaller, much more precise, much 
safer weapons maybe or just keeping those large weapons around, hoping 
they will be safe, hoping they will not deteriorate, hoping they will 
work but, if we ever had to use one, understanding that it would result 
in massive casualties?
  It seems to me that the people who really value life would want us to 
think in 21st-century terms, not middle-of-the-20th-century terms, in 
that regard.
  Another point: There is a very important relationship between 
research and development, and I do not think we should fall into the 
trap of attempting to separate research from development.
  The Senator from New Mexico made the point that nobody is talking 
here about producing weapons. And we are not. But I hope we do not get 
to the point that we are so committed to eliminating U.S. nuclear 
weapons that we would make a decision that said we will never develop 
or, at this point, we are going to put a legislative ban on the 
development of any such weapons.
  That would send a very bad signal to countries of the world against 
which we want to have some kind of nuclear deterrent. It is a little 
bit like asking what our exit strategy from Iraq is. We would like to 
leave Iraq. But the point is, you don't start signalling before the 
time is ready that we want to get out of there as soon as we can or the 
terrorists will simply wait us out. You want to demonstrate that you 
are committed to stay as long as it takes.
  We want to demonstrate to our potential enemies that we are prepared 
to do what it will take to defend the United States. Why would you want 
to signal to them that you are going to put an absolute moratorium on 
research and an absolute prohibition on development? That makes 
absolutely no sense.
  It also ensures that the great scientific minds that in the past have 
been willing to work on these projects are no longer going to be 
willing to come to the National Laboratories of the great prominence we 
have all been so proud of in the past because there is no future in it. 
They tell us now that they are not getting the kind of students coming 
out of the universities they were used to. Their manpower, in terms of 
the capability in nuclear testing, has dwindled to virtually nothing. 
If they ever had to go back to a test, let alone develop, a nuclear 
weapon, they would have to bring people out of retirement who 
understood how it worked back in the 1960s and 1970s, but they would 
have a lot of difficulty even working with the new kinds of materials, 
with the new computer technology and other advancements that we would 
probably want to incorporate into any new designs.
  If we are going to entice the best minds to think about this, to keep 
up with people in other countries that have no compunction about doing 
this, we have to send them a signal that we are not forever going to 
shut off any work in this area. What young scientist would want to 
commit his life's work to this when there is obviously no future in it?
  We have to think about these things and not be a Luddite about it, 
saying there is no problem; we are not going to think about it; we will 
just shove it under the rug; we are not for progress; we are for only 
retaining what we developed back in the 1960s and hoping it will work.
  That is very backward thinking. It is very dangerous thinking.
  There are a lot of issues involved in this particular amendment. What 
it boils down to, though, is this: Our first obligation is to ensure 
the security of the United States.
  One of the pillars of our security is our nuclear deterrent. It must 
be safe and it must be workable. It must be relevant to the new threats 
we face. If we are precluded by this amendment from even thinking about 
those things, we have done a great disservice to our constituents. At a 
time when we are not at peace but at war with terrorists around the 
globe and at a time when we are not the only nuclear power, but there 
are all kinds of countries that we are, frankly, quite concerned about 
developing nuclear weapons, countries such as North Korea and Iran and 
others that I could mention, that is exactly the wrong time to be 
sending the signal this amendment would send; that we are going to 
stick our head in the sand; we are not going to support scientists 
thinking about these issues and even potentially recommending to us the 
development of some kind of new 21st century weapons that could better 
protect our troops, better protect the American homeland, and better 
defeat our enemies who would do us harm.
  I can't think of any reason why Americans would want to support that 
kind of a policy. Remember, we have not been successful in deterring 
other nations by this unilateral embargo on our own testing and 
development. They have gone right ahead with their programs, some of 
the worst countries in the world. The ``axis of evil,'' North Korea and 
Iran, has gone right ahead with their programs. So what makes us think 
that by the United States continuing this see-no-evil unilateral 
moratorium that the great moral situation of the United States will 
prevent these countries from moving right along with their projects? 
History does not support that view.
  Better that we have peace through strength. And strength is the 
strength of the United States in terms of its commitment, in terms of 
its scientific capability, and in terms of its willpower to think about 
what we are going to need to defend America in the future.
  I hope my colleagues will defeat this amendment as they have before.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Madam President, by prior unanimous consent 
agreement, it is now the opportunity for Senator Byrd to address the 
body for 1 hour. I know Senator Lincoln had one brief statement she 
wanted to make. If there is no objection, I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator Lincoln be permitted to make her remarks at this time, and 
perhaps the clerk could notify Senator Byrd that his time has arrived.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the Senator from Arkansas 
is recognized.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to speak as in 
morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  (The remarks of Mrs. Lincoln are printed in today's Record under 
``Morning Business.'')
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from West Virginia is recognized.

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