[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12304-12342]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




   NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2004--CONTINUED


                           Amendment No. 696

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, there will now be 5 
minutes equally divided prior to a vote with respect to the Graham of 
South Carolina amendment.
  Who yields time?
  The Senator from South Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. If it is appropriate with Senator 
Sessions, I will proceed.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I understand we are in 5 minutes debate 
on each side and then there will be a vote on this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). It is 5 minutes evenly 
divided.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I am pleased to yield to the Senator from South 
Carolina on his time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for 
yielding. I have been working with Senators on both sides of the aisle 
to approve a compensation package for guardsmen and reservists. We have 
a modification to Senator Daschle's amendment. I second-degreed his 
amendment last night. We have reached a compromise where we merged the 
best of the two packages. Basically, what we are trying to do is make 
sure that Guard and Reserve members, if they choose to, can become 
members of TRICARE, the military health care network for military 
members and their families, by paying a premium. It would be what a 
retiree pays plus $100 for an enlisted Guard or Reserve member, $150 
for an officer. So it is a very good deal for the Reserve and Guard 
families. They pay into the system if they choose to be a member of 
TRICARE. That way when they are called to active duty they do not leave 
one health care plan for another. They will have continuity of health 
care. They do not get bounced around between systems. It would really 
help with recruitment and retention. It has been a bipartisan effort 
like none I have ever experienced.
  I want to add cosponsors, and then I will yield for Senator DeWine, 
who has been a tremendous leader on this issue. I ask unanimous consent 
that the following Senators be added as cosponsors to this compromise 
product: Senators Clinton, DeWine, Kennedy, Miller, Allen, Leahy, 
Stabenow, Mikulski, Landrieu, Chambliss, Campbell, Collins, and Dorgan.
  I compliment Senator Daschle for his fine efforts in making this 
possible.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Ohio.
  Mr. DeWINE. I thank the entire military coalition for all their hard 
work and support for this effort. I thank all of my colleagues. I also 
thank General Smith of the Ohio National Guard for all they have done 
to keep this initiative moving forward.
  As my colleagues are well aware, our amendment would offer a 
comprehensive approach to health coverage for members of our military 
reserve component. Put simply, it would provide a critical health care 
safety net for service members and their families by offering 
uninterrupted, affordable health insurance.
  I can't emphasize enough how important this is both as a readiness 
and as a retention issue.
  We know how important it is that we fund our military hardware and 
base installations. But, at the same time, we can't ignore our military 
personnel. We can't ignore the very men and women who voluntarily lay 
their lives on the line to protect our national security. It's the very 
least we can do, particularly as we continue to rely more and more on 
our Reserve and National Guard.
  Our amendment is an important sign of support for those called to 
serve, as well as their families. I urge my colleagues to support it.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this amendment is intended to close an 
unfortunate and unacceptable gap in health insurance coverage for 
families of Reserve and Guard members who are called up for active duty 
in the Armed Forces. The amendment is a needed step forward in taking 
care of our troops and their families, and it includes most of the 
provisions of S. 647 that I introduced earlier this year to close the 
gap.
  Today's military relies more heavily than ever on the Reserve and 
Guard. Over 215,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers, sailors, marines, and 
airmen have been mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, 
Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Noble Eagle. One challenge 
they should not have to face is maintaining their health insurance 
coverage. The problem is that few employers are willing to continue 
health insurance coverage for Guard and Reserve employees and family 
members when they are activated.
  According to the General Accounting Office, nearly 80 percent of 
reservists have health care coverage when they are working in the 
private sector. Almost all of them would like to maintain that coverage 
when they are activated, in order to provide continued health benefits 
for their family members. The military's TRICARE coverage works well 
for the reservists when they are activated, but it is not a realistic 
alternative for family members since more TRICARE providers are located 
close to military bases that are often far from the homes where the 
family members of the reservists continue to live.
  In fact, 95 percent of active-duty military families live near bases 
and health care facilities, so TRICARE is readily available to them. 
But only 25 percent of Guard and Reserve families live near bases, so 
TRICARE is inaccessible for them. Nevertheless, the other reservists 
feel they have no alternative, since their private insurance has 
lapsed. So they change to TRICARE while they are activated, and then 
change back to their former plan when the activation ends.
  This amendment will enable them to enroll their family members in 
TRICARE, too. It is the right thing to do but it solves only part of 
the problem.
  When TRICARE is not a realistic alternative for family members, they 
have the option to maintain their private health insurance plan during 
the activation. The frequency and length of activations for Guard and 
Reserves are disruptive and stressful enough. We should do everything 
we can to enable families to maintain their coverage and avoid 
unnecessary upheaval.
  We had hoped to achieve that goal in this amendment as well, but the 
consent agreement means we cannot include it. So I urge the Senate to 
adopt the pending amendment to make TRICARE available to Reserve and 
Guard personnel and families and let us work together to deal with this 
other aspect of the problem, too.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I rise today in strong support of the 
Graham-Daschle amendment to the fiscal year 2004 Defense authorization 
bill. This amendment will take a much needed step to improve the 
readiness and strength of the National Guard and Reserve by ensuring 
that more of our citizen-soldiers have adequate health insurance.
  Almost 220,000 members of the Guard and Reserve answered the call to 
duty for the war in Iraq. These volunteer soldiers, sailors, airmen, 
and marines have responded with professionalism, skill, and honor. In 
my own State, hundreds of members of the Green Mountain Boys from the 
Vermont National Guard were deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan and 
throughout the United States to answer the call to service. Our 
Nation's military would not be as large or as strong without these 
dedicated--and often-used--soldiers. Time and time again, the Total 
Force concept that we in Congress developed and promoted has given our 
military unparalled strength and unity.
  The increased callups of the Reserves since September 11 has raised 
some problems that threaten the long-term readiness of this critical 
force and--in turn--of our entire military structure. A recent GAO 
study underscored that more than 20 percent of those reservists ready 
to deploy at a moment's notice do not have health insurance. At

[[Page 12305]]

least 500 of the 4,000 members of the Vermont National Guard currently 
do not have coverage. These shortfalls mean that there are reservists 
who are reporting for duty who have not had routine access to doctors, 
to treatment, or medicine they might need, or to hospitals. These 
soldiers--ready to make the ultimate sacrifice at any moment--may not 
be in the best physical shape because our Government is not protecting 
its investment.
  At the same time, many families in Vermont and in other States have 
told me about substantial turbulence from the callups. Even beyond the 
understandable worry of watching a loved one head off for battle and 
dealing with loss of income from the temporary departure from a 
civilian job, families have had to experience the frustration and 
confusion created by switching health insurance plans. This disruption 
has resonated from the home front to the frontlines, becoming a factor 
in reservists' willingness to stay in service. These patriots make 
selfless decisions to sacrifice time with their families. Some 
sacrifice their own lives in the line of duty to their country. When we 
ask a reservist or a guardsman to answer the call, it is our duty to 
help them take proper care of their families and to make the transition 
to active duty as easy as possible.
  This amendment is a version of S. 852, the National Guard and Reserve 
Comprehensive Health Benefits Act of 2003. I worked closely with 
Senators Graham, Daschle, DeWine, Clinton, and Smith in crafting this 
legislation to deal with medical readiness problems for our National 
Guard in two main ways. First, the legislation makes members of the 
Guard and Reserve eligible to enroll in TRICARE on a cost-share basis. 
Second, it allows families to apply to the Defense Department to 
receive reimbursement for keeping their current health plans during a 
deployment. The reimbursement is capped to ensure that the costs are no 
greater than putting the family on TRICARE.
  This legislation is cost-effective, solving the problem with the 
minimum necessary expenditures. The Congressional Budget Office has 
informally scored the entire bill at $4 billion over 5 years, going 
from about $350 million in the first year and leveling out at about 
$1.1 billion per year in the fifth year. Figures from the GAO report 
confirm these cost estimates.
  This Reserve health care amendment will cost far less than increasing 
active-duty end-strength or than having to substantially increase 
recruiting and retention programs--steps which will be necessary if 
adequate support is not provided to our Reserves.
  Let me make sure everyone is clear about what this vote means. A vote 
in support of the amendment is a vote to ensure a vibrant future for 
the Guard and Reserve. It is a vote that recognizes, as have all of the 
major military associations, that we cannot continue to have a Total 
Force if the benefit structure for the Reserves is not improved. A vote 
against the Daschle amendment means treating the Guard and Reserve as 
low-paid contractors to the militry--the temporary hires who can do the 
job but who cost less because they do not have the proper salaries, 
benefits, and protections as their full-time counterparts.
  At a time when the Nation has never relied more heavily on the 
National Guard and Reserve, I urge all Senators to vote in support of 
the Graham-Daschle amendment, which will ensure a healthy, effective 
military into the foreseeable future.
  I ask unanimous consent that several endorsement letters from various 
military Reserve associations be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                        National Guard Association


                                         of the United States,

                                   Washington, DC, April 10, 2003.
     Hon. Patrick Leahy,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator Leahy. On behalf of the men and women of the 
     National Guard Association of the United States (NGAUS), I 
     thank you for the stalwart support you have given the 
     National Guard over the years. The NGAUS is pleased to offer 
     its support for your legislation entitled the National Guard 
     and Reserve Comprehensive Health Benefits Act of 2003. This 
     important legislation would offer members of the selected 
     reserve and their families, the opportunity to participate in 
     the Tricare on a cost-share basis; provide a partial subsidy 
     of private health insurance premiums for family members of 
     Guardsmen who wish to retain their private health insurance; 
     and improve transition coverage upon deactivation.
       The National Guard and Reserve contributions to the ongoing 
     operations in Iraq, fighting the global war on terrorism, 
     protecting the homeland, and supporting contingency 
     operations around the world are a key indicator of the 
     importance of maintaining a high level of readiness. The 
     General Accounting Office recently found more than twenty-one 
     percent of National Guard and Reserve members do not have 
     health coverage. Forty percent of those individuals without 
     insurance are in the junior enlisted ranks.
       Units with nearly twenty-one percent of its members unable 
     to deploy due to medical reasons has a major impact on the 
     ability of that unit to complete its mission. Providing 
     Tricare during all phases of service can decrease an already 
     lengthy mobilization process by ensuring medical readiness is 
     routinely sustained. Medical readiness is an important factor 
     in unit readiness.
       Recent National Guard mobilizations have demonstrated how 
     quickly the guard can be ready to fulfill their federal 
     mission. Some of these notifications for mobilization have 
     given Guardsmen hours and days, as opposed to the days and 
     weeks normally required. This reduced ramp also requires 
     members of the Guard to maintain their family readiness plans 
     in order to lessen the complications and distractions during 
     deployments. Providing continuity of health coverage for 
     family members will ensure those who support our service 
     members and make it possible for them to serve, are provided 
     for while their loved ones are away.
       As always, the NGAUS stands ready to assist you and looks 
     forward to our continued relationship ensuring a strong and 
     viable National Guard.
           Sincerely,

                                         Richard C. Alexander,

                                         Major General (RET), AUS,
     President.
                                  ____



                                       The Military Coalition,

                                   Alexandria, VA, April 15, 2003.
     Hon. Mike DeWine,
     U.S. Senate,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Senator DeWine: The Military Coalition (TMC), a 
     consortium of nationally prominent uniformed services and 
     veterans organizations representing more than 5.5 million 
     current and former members of the seven uniformed services, 
     plus their families and survivors, would like to thank you 
     for introducing S. 852, the National Guard and Reserve 
     Comprehensive Health Benefits Act of 2003. This important 
     legislation would offer members of the Selected Reserve and 
     their families the opportunity to participate in the Tricare 
     program on a cost-share basis; provide a partial subsidy of 
     private health insurance premiums for family members of 
     Guardsmen and Reservists who wish to retain their private 
     health insurance; and improve transition coverage upon 
     demobilization. This initiative to improve healthcare 
     readiness for members of the National Guard and Reserve 
     components and their families is at the forefront of TMC's 
     priorities for that community.
       The National Guard and Reserve components' contributions to 
     the ongoing operations in Iraq, fighting the global war on 
     terrorism, protecting the homeland, and supporting 
     contingency operations around the world are key indicators of 
     the importance of maintaining a high level of readiness. The 
     General Accounting Office recently found more than 21 percent 
     of National Guard and Reserve members do not have health 
     coverage. Forty percent of those individuals without 
     insurance are in the junior enlisted ranks.
       Providing Tricare during all phases of service can decrease 
     an already lengthy mobilization process by ensuring medical 
     readiness is routinely sustained. Medical readiness is a 
     critical factor in mission readiness.
       Recent National Guard and Reserve mobilizations have 
     demonstrated how quickly these forces can be ready to fulfill 
     their war-fighting mission. Some notifications for 
     mobilization have given Guardsmen and Reservists hours and 
     days, rather than weeks and months once required. This 
     reduced alert ramp also requires members of the Guard and 
     Reserve to maintain their family readiness plans in order to 
     lessen the complications and distractions during deployments. 
     Providing continuity of health coverage for family members 
     will ensure those who support our service members and make it 
     possible for them to serve, are provided for while their 
     loved ones are away.
       The Military Coalition supports S. 852 and applauds your 
     efforts to ensure a strong and viable National Guard and 
     Reserve as an integral component of our nation's total force.
           Sincerely,
                                           The Military Coalition.

[[Page 12306]]

     
                                  ____
                                     Adjutants General Association


                                         of the United States,

                                                   Washington, DC,
     Senator Mike DeWine,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
     Senator Tom Daschle,
     U.S. Senate, Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
     Senator Patrick Leahy,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
     Senator Gordon Smith,
     U.S. Senate, Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Senators DeWine, Daschle, Leahy and Smith: On behalf 
     of the Adjutants General of the 54 states and territories I 
     want to thank you for your introduction and support of S. 
     852, National Guard and Reserve Comprehensive Health Benefits 
     Act of 2003. The introduction of S. 852 brings the Adjutants 
     General Association of the United States another step closer 
     to its goal of providing optional, contributory TRICARE 
     coverage to members of the Guard and Reserve and their 
     families.
       The provision of health care to Guard and Reserve members 
     has been a priority of our Association since our Strategic 
     Planning Committee introduced the issue to the Adjutants 
     General in August 2000. Your legislation encompasses all of 
     the essential elements that our Association has sought since 
     that time.
       All of my fellow Adjutants General have indicated their 
     support of your initiative. We pledge our support in securing 
     passage of S. 852 and we will continue to request additional 
     co-sponsorship of the bill by the senators from our 
     respective states. Please share this letter of support with 
     your Senate colleagues as you consider further action.
       Once again, we thank you for your outstanding effort on 
     behalf of the Guard and Reserve.
           Sincerely,
                                                     John F. Kane,
                                         Major General, President.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks time? The time of the sponsors has 
expired.
  Who yields time in opposition? The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Two and a half minutes per side?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Two and a half minutes in opposition.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I served as a reservist for over 10 
years. Some of my best friends are reservists. My Army Reserve partner 
is now my chief of staff. I have a lot of good friends in the Army 
Reserve and National Guard. They have a lot of needs. There is much we 
can do for them. I have not specifically been hearing in my State this 
insurance question, although I can list half a dozen other items 
reservists have told me that are important to them. I do not think we 
have had the kind of serious study about what should be our priority in 
helping reservists be more willing to serve. They are doing a 
tremendous job at this point in time. We have had 400 special forces 
National Guardsmen from my State in Iraq and Afghanistan; several have 
been wounded. They are critical to our Nation.
  But we have not thought this through. We do not have the $2 billion 
to $3 billion to spend on this program at this time. I do not believe 
the conferees can take that much out of existing active-duty accounts 
to pay for this. At this point, it is unwise. What we need to do is 
continue to study this matter. I chair that subcommittee, and we can 
talk about it and come back with priorities that benefit all reservists 
in a fair and equitable way and fund those expenditures.
  I yield the remainder of my time to the Senator from South Dakota.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I will use my leader time, but I thank the Senator from 
Alabama for his kindness.
  Let me thank and congratulate all Members who have had so much to do 
with offering this amendment--Senator Graham of South Carolina, Senator 
DeWine, Senator Leahy, and so many others who have made this effort 
over the course of the last several months.
  The distinguished Senator from Alabama said we need to think this 
through. This has been the subject of a great deal of study. The GAO 
has studied it; various economic analyses have been done on it.
  There are three numbers I call to my colleagues' attention. The first 
is 700. There has been a 700 percent increase in the utilization of 
Guard and Reserve in active-duty and law enforcement roles since 
September 11--700 percent. The dislocation caused by that new role has 
been remarkable in all of our States. We are asking them to be law 
enforcement officers. We are asking them to be soldiers. We are asking 
them to fight in wars. We are asking them to play a role they did not 
play before.
  The second number I ask my colleagues to remember is one-tenth of 1 
percent. That is what the cost of this amendment would be, one-tenth of 
1 percent of the Defense Department budget. We can afford one-tenth of 
1 percent to say to all of those Guard and Reserve personnel: You are 
playing a role; you have never played a role before by seven times.
  Now we are going to give them the chance just to purchase health 
insurance. That is all they are going to do, purchase TRICARE 
insurance. We are not going to give it to them, but we will let them 
purchase it.
  The final number is this: 30; there is a 30 percent uninsured roster 
right now among the National Guardsmen who are under 30. Thirty is an 
important threshold. We have a vast number of people we have called 
upon to serve their country in war and in peace, in roles involving 
National Guard, as well as in the military. All we are saying through 
this amendment is: You have a chance to buy health insurance, so you 
can do it better. And when you do it, you are going to be healthy.
  I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time having been yielded back, the 
question is on agreeing to the amendment.
  Mr. DASCHLE. I ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Ensign) 
and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the 
Senator from Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), and the Senator from Massachusetts 
(Mr. Kerry) are necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``aye''.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber 
desiring to vote?
  The result was announced--yeas 85, nays 10, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 185 Leg.]

                                YEAS--85

     Akaka
     Alexander
     Allen
     Baucus
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Byrd
     Campbell
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Chambliss
     Clinton
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Conrad
     Cornyn
     Corzine
     Crapo
     Daschle
     Dayton
     DeWine
     Dodd
     Dole
     Domenici
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Edwards
     Enzi
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Harkin
     Hatch
     Hollings
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Lott
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Mikulski
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Nelson (NE)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Roberts
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stabenow
     Stevens
     Talent
     Wyden

                                NAYS--10

     Allard
     Bond
     Craig
     Kyl
     Nickles
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Sununu
     Thomas
     Warner

                             NOT VOTING--5

     Ensign
     Graham (FL)
     Inouye
     Kerry
     Voinovich
  The amendment (No. 696) was agreed to.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the underlying amendment, 
as amended, is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 689), as amended, was agreed to.

[[Page 12307]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we accept the expression of the will of 
the Senate on this matter. I had the difficult position to oppose it, 
which I did.
  As we look toward the benefits for the Guard and Reserve, they are 
deserved, richly, in most instances, but there is a balance that is 
somewhere not clearly definable between what we do for the regulars and 
what we do for the Guard and Reserve. If it gets out of balance, we 
could precipitate a bit of civil strife between these two magnificent 
categories of men and women who proudly serve in the uniform for our 
country and carry out their duties side by side on the battlefield and 
here at home. We will move on.
  It is my intention to carefully consider this amendment, which was 
strongly adopted by the Senate, in the context of the overall bill and 
such other amendments in the House and the Senate as may contribute to 
the benefit of the men and women of the Armed Forces.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.


                           Amendment No. 715

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on 
behalf of Senator Kennedy and myself, and we are joined by Senators 
Feingold, Dayton, and Stabenow.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the pending amendment is 
set aside. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from California [Mrs. Feinstein], for herself, 
     Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Feingold, Mr. Dayton, and Ms. Stabenow, 
     proposes an amendment numbered 715:

   (Purpose: To strike the repeal of the prohibition on research and 
               development of low-yield nuclear weapons)

       Strike section 3131.

  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I think the Senator probably knows 
this would strike the Spratt-Furse language.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we understood a number of Senators were 
going to introduce it.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I was 12 years old when the Enola Gay went out of the 
Pacific. I remember that big mushroom cloud on the San Francisco 
Chronicle and then, for months afterward, I remember the pictures that 
came back from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It may well be that we are too 
far removed from that day to really understand the repercussions of 
what this bill is going to begin to allow to happen in the United 
States. What is going to be allowed to happen is a reopening of the 
door to nuclear development which has been closed for decades.
  This amendment would strike section 3131, and that is the repeal of 
the Spratt-Furse language which prohibits the development of so-called 
low-yield nuclear weapons. This prohibition of nuclear development was 
adopted in the 1994 Defense authorization bill. It has been the law of 
the land for the last decade.
  The language of Spratt-Furse--I would like to read it--says that with 
respect to U.S. policy, ``it shall be the policy of the United States 
not to conduct research and development which could lead to the 
production by the United States of a new low-yield nuclear weapon, 
including a precision low-yield warhead. The Secretary of Energy may 
not conduct or provide for the conduct of research and development 
which could lead to the production by the United States of a low-yield 
nuclear weapon which, as of the date of the enactment of this act, has 
not entered production.''
  And then it has a section on the effect on other research and 
development, and it says that nothing in this section shall prohibit 
the Secretary of Energy from conducting or providing for the conduct of 
research and development necessary to design a testing device that has 
a yield of less than 5 kilotons; secondly, to modify an existing weapon 
for the purpose of addressing safety and reliability concerns, or, 
three, to address proliferation concerns.
  President Bush is right when he says the greatest threat facing the 
United States lies in the global proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction and terrorist access to these weapons. But by adopting a 
new approach to national security in the wake of 9/11 that stresses 
unilateralism and preemption and increases U.S. reliance on nuclear 
weapons, I am deeply concerned that this administration may actually be 
encouraging the very proliferation we seek to prevent.
  This bill, left intact, clearly opens the door to the development of 
new nuclear weapons and will, if left as is, begin a new era of nuclear 
proliferation, as sure as I am standing here.
  A couple of weeks ago, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright 
talked with the Democratic Senate Caucus and she said something 
interesting. She said, in all of American history, there never has been 
a greater change in foreign policy and national security than between 
this administration and the last one.
  Indeed, I deeply believe this bill places America at a crossroad in 
the conduct of foreign policy, and how we determine nuclear weapons 
policy will go a long way to determining whether we control nuclear 
proliferation or expand it. This bill will expand it. Let there be no 
doubt.
  To my mind, even considering the use of these weapons threatens to 
undermine our efforts to stop proliferation. In fact, it actually 
encourages other nations to pursue nuclear weapons by emphasizing their 
importance.
  For decades the United States relied on its nuclear arsenal for 
deterrence only. In the symmetric world of the Cold War, we faced the 
Soviet Union with nuclear weapons and a conventional military that was 
stronger than ours. Nuclear weapons were used to deter not only a 
nuclear attack on our homeland but also a conventional attack against 
our allies in western Europe and Asia.
  Today the Soviet Union is gone, but the world is not a safer place. 
Rather, we have seen new nuclear states emerge--India, Pakistan, and 
lately North Korea. As we continue to prosecute the war on terror, it 
should be a central tenet of U.S. policy to do everything at our 
disposal to make nuclear weapons less desirable, less available, and 
less likely to be used.
  This bill will do exactly the opposite. Instead of ratcheting back 
our reliance on nuclear weapons, this administration is looking for new 
ways to use nuclear weapons and to make them more usable. Does anyone 
in this Chamber doubt that others will follow? I do not. The 
administration's 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 being prepared to use nuclear weapons in the 
future. In fact, the review noted that we must now plan to possibly use 
them against a wider range of countries.
  The Nuclear Posture Review said that we need to develop new types of 
nuclear 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 or biological agents. And indeed, a few 
months after issuing the Nuclear Posture Review, President Bush signed 
National Security Presidential Directive 17, saying the United States 
might use nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical or biological 
attack.
  In the past, U.S. officials have only hinted at that possibility. But 
this administration has made it formal policy. In doing so, it has 
telegraphed the importance of nuclear weapons and the administration's 
apparent willingness to use them.
  In the legislation before us today, there is language requested by 
the administration asking Congress to repeal the Spratt-Furse 
provision--a decade old law that bans research on weapons with yields 
of 5 kilotons. Now, that is a third the size of the bomb used at 
Hiroshima.
  I believe Spratt-Furse is an important prohibition with positive 
security equities for the United States. Since it has been in effect, 
no nation has developed lower yield nuclear weapons.
  This administration wants to repeal Spratt-Furse for one reason, and 
one reason only: to build new nuclear weapons, particularly for 
missions against

[[Page 12308]]

the hardened bunkers that rogue states may be using to store chemical 
and biological weapons.
  By seeking to build nuclear weapons that produce smaller explosions 
and develop weapons which dig deeper, the administration is suggesting 
we can make nuclear weapons less deadly. It is suggesting we can make 
them more acceptable to use. But there is no such thing as a clean 
nuclear weapon that minimizes collateral damage.
  Consider the following facts: According to a Stanford physicist, 
Sidney Drell, destroying a target buried 1,000 feet into rock would 
require a nuclear weapon with the yield of 100 kilotons. That is 10 
times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
  According to Dr. Drell, even the effects of a small bomb would be 
dramatic. A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet 
underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and 
eject 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air.
  According to models done by the Natural Resources Defense Council, 
detonating a similar weapon on the surface of a city would kill a 
quarter of a million people and injure hundreds of thousands more.
  So there really is no such thing as a ``usable nuclear weapon.''
  Moreover, nuclear weapons cannot be engineered to penetrate deeply 
enough to prevent fallout. Based on technical analysis at the Nevada 
Test Site, a weapon with a 10-kiloton yield must be buried deeper than 
850 feet to prevent spewing of radioactive debris. Yet a weapon dropped 
from a plane at 40,000 feet will penetrate less than 100 feet of loose 
dirt and less than 30 feet of rock.
  Ultimately, the depth of penetration 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 strongest 
material cannot withstand the physical forces of burrowing through 100 
feet of granite, much less 850 feet.
  In addition, the United States already has a usable nuclear bunker 
buster, the B61-11, which has a ``dial-a-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. We have the weapons to 
do the job. We don't need another.
  But the U.S. military, the strongest and most capable military force 
the world has ever seen, bar none, has plenty of effective conventional 
options at hand designed to penetrate deeply into the earth and destroy 
underground bunkers and storage facilities.
  Those conventional bunker busters range in size from 500 to 5,000 
pounds, and most are equipped with either a laser or GPS guidance 
system. A 5,000-pound bunker buster like the Guided Bomb Unit 28/B is 
capable of penetrating up to 20 feet of reinforced concrete or 100 feet 
of earth. It 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. With this 
conventional arsenal at our disposal, there is little military utility 
that a low-yield nuclear weapon provides to the U.S. military.
  While I agree that nuclear weapons may have some military utility in 
certain circumstances, the benefit of the development of new mini-nukes 
appears to me to be far outweighed by the costs. But with the sought-
for repeal of Spratt-Furse, the administration seems to be moving 
toward a military posture in which nuclear weapons are considered just 
like other weapons--in which their purpose is not simply to serve as a 
deterrent but as a usable instrument of military power, like a tank, a 
fighter aircraft, or a cruise missile.
  But there are several things wrong with that logic. Nuclear weapons 
are different.
  First, using them--even small ones--would cross a line that has been 
in place for 60 years. If the Spratt-Furse prohibition is repealed, the 
development of new nuclear weapons could lead to the resumption of 
underground nuclear testing in order to test the new weapons. This 
would overturn the 10-year moratorium on nuclear testing and could lead 
other nuclear powers, and nuclear aspirants, to resume or start 
testing, actions that would fundamentally alter future nonproliferation 
and counterproliferation efforts.
  I understand Secretary of State Powell has written a letter 
supporting this, and I must express my profound disappointment. I must 
restate something he said last year on ``The NewsHour With Jim 
Lehrer.'' I quote Secretary Powell:

       I mean, the thought of nuclear conflict in 2002, with what 
     that would mean with respect to loss of life, what that would 
     mean to the condemnation--the worldwide condemnation--that 
     would come down on whatever nation chose to take that course 
     of action, would be such that I can see very little military, 
     political, or other kind of justification for the use of 
     nuclear weapons. 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 
     something that no side should be contemplating.
  This was 1 year ago. What has changed, Mr. President? Why would we 
open the door to nuclear development at the very time we are trying to 
say to North Korea this is unacceptable, at the very time we are 
worried as to whether Pakistan can securitize its nuclear weapons, and 
whether there may be a nuclear holocaust between Pakistan and India?
  I have never been more concerned about where this Nation is going 
than I am today. Let me give another example. China has a no-first-use 
nuclear policy. Their warheads have been stable at between 18 and 24 
ICBMs. Yet we have a policy document, the Nuclear Posture Review, that 
says we would countenance a first use of nuclear weapons against China 
if they were to use military action against Taiwan, and we said the 
same thing about North Korea going into South Korea. This is in 
writing.
  Does no one think anybody reads these things? Does no one believe 
that we do not set the tenor of the world with respect to weapons? We 
are the largest weapons seller on Earth, and I do not want to see us 
develop more nuclear weapons, nor do I believe the American people want 
to see it either. This bill allows that to happen.
  I do not believe this side of the aisle can sit by and let it happen 
to our children and our grandchildren. Tactical nuclear weapons in the 
most sophisticated military in the world should play no part.
  I cannot think of a single issue that should more define the 
political agenda today than whether the United States should go back 
into the nuclear business again, and repeal of Spratt-Furse is the 
first step in that direction.
  In the Energy Committee, I suspected this was coming, and I asked 
Secretary Abraham: Are there any plans? He said no. Last Wednesday, in 
Defense Appropriations, I asked Secretary Rumsfeld what is going on. He 
said: Oh, it is just a study. Just a study, baloney. Does anyone really 
believe that?
  The repeal of Spratt-Furse opens the door for America to begin to 
develop nuclear weapons again, and I for one do not believe we should 
sit by and see that happen.
  We are telling others not to develop nuclear weapons. We are telling 
others not to sell fissile materials. We are concerned when North Korea 
has plutonium and uranium and Iran begins to start up refining uranium. 
Yet it is all right for us to go out and begin to develop weapons that 
are one-third the size of the weapon that hit Hiroshima and killed 
instantly 175,000 people? I do not think so. And I do not believe that 
is what the American people stand for either.
  This is a big vote. This is a vote that opens the door. How we can 
repeal language that says to all the world the United States is not in 
the nuclear development business, I do not know, but I find it 
absolutely chilling and even diabolical, particularly when we preach to 
other nations.

[[Page 12309]]

  At a time when we brand as evil certain countries based in part on 
their pursuit of nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction, we must 
be careful how we consider our own options and our own contingencies 
regarding nuclear weapons. So I urge my colleagues to think very 
carefully about the implications this defense bill is going to carry 
throughout the world.
  The 10-year old prohibition on study, on testing, and on developing 
nuclear weapons is going to be thrown out the window, and it is a major 
signal that the United States is going to get back into the nuclear 
arms business.
  I urge this Senate to join Senator Kennedy and I in support of this 
amendment. I yield time to Senator Kennedy, as much time as he 
requires.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, over the past years, we have had the opportunity to 
consider the Defense authorization bill, and a number of extremely 
important weapons systems have been debated on the floor of the Senate. 
By and large, over that period, we have seen the results in our 
military.
  All of us recognize the extraordinary performance of our military in 
these past weeks where they performed with, first, extraordinary 
courage; second, with extraordinary leadership; and third, with the 
latest and the best of technology. I think all of us want to make sure 
those are the items which are going to be there for the security of our 
military. They are going to be the best trained, best led, and best 
equipped with the latest technology.
  We ought to consider the various proposals that are before us and ask 
what is the military significance of any of the matters we are asked to 
consider on the Defense authorization bill. It is against the 
background that the Senator from California has pointed out that we 
ought to examine what is the possible need for this kind of a weapons 
system and another opening of the debate on the testing of nuclear 
weapons.
  Make no mistake about it, we may hear that all we are interested in 
is the design of the nuclear weapon, but we will come back to that 
because it is the clear intention of the administration to move ahead 
with not only the design but also the testing of nuclear weaponry.
  We have to ask: How does that affect our national security? How does 
that affect our national defense? First of all, we ought to be asking 
ourselves, given the fact that our Armed Forces were in battle over the 
past weeks, resulting in an enormous success: What came out of that 
conflict that would make us take this step of lifting the ban on any 
kind of nuclear test? What happened in Iraq? What was the objective? 
What was the military objective in Iraq that would make us say what we 
want to do on the Defense authorization bill is move us back from the 
successful negotiations over the last 50 years of Republican and 
Democratic Presidents in moving us away from nuclear proliferation and 
moving us away from the possibility of nuclear confrontation? That is 
what the record has been over the last 50 years under Republican and 
Democratic Presidents alike.
  The Senator from California has reviewed that. We remember times when 
we came dangerously close--I certainly do--in the Cuban missile crisis 
to the real possibilities of nuclear conflict and nuclear exchange 
which effectively would have annihilated the United States and the 
Soviet Union as we knew it. It came dangerously close, and since that 
time Republican and Democrat leaders have said, OK, we do not want to 
see an escalation of the nuclear arms race. We have seen step after 
step to contain it. One of the most important ways of containing it is 
to have a moratorium on testing and also to have a battle against the 
proliferation of weapons.
  What we have with this administration is basically an effort to lift 
what they call the Spratt amendment, which is a prohibition for 
research and development into the nuclear weapons. One can call them 
mini nukes. One can call them small nukes. Basically, I call them low-
death weapons because that is what they are. We are talking about the 
killing of thousands of individuals with these weapons systems, and the 
administration is attempting to open this whole process again.
  Over the period of the last 5 years we have not had any testing of 
nuclear weapons by India or by Pakistan, two nuclear powers. We have 
not seen any testing either by the United States, Russia, or China 
probably for the last 15 years. Progress was being made. We have seen 
five countries that have basically gone nonnuke, basically renounced 
their nuclear weapons in the world. We have been making real progress.
  What do we hear from the other side? We are living in a dangerous 
world. Well, I hope on the other side they are going to be able to tell 
us how nuclear weapons are going to solve the problem of dealing with 
al-Qaida, how nuclear weapons would have solved our problem in dealing 
with the threats in Morocco this week or Saudi Arabia, for example, the 
last week.
  What do they intend to do with these nuclear weapons? Well, we hear 
maybe they can be used in our new, dangerous world to deal with the 
problems of biological and chemical weapons.
  Have my colleagues read the reports on what would happen if we have 
nuclear weapons incinerating large storage spaces of gas or chemical 
weapons, and if those were to fractionate into the air in terms of 
critical masses, the amount of devastation and death that would mean to 
thousands or tens of thousands of troops if they were near or hundreds 
of thousands of civilians who were near?
  What is the singular purpose? What is the military necessity? What do 
the Joint Chiefs want to do with this weapons system?
  We will hear the other side say, let's not get all worked up about 
this because all we are trying to do is some research on this issue.
  Listen to what some of the principal spokespeople for the 
administration say about that. In February, the Pentagon's Deputy 
Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs, Fred Celec, was asked: What 
would happen if a nuclear bomb could be developed that would crash 
through rock and concrete and still explode?
  He said: It will ultimately get fielded.
  And you are talking about all we are trying to do is a little 
research in this area? Come back to us later on; we will come back and 
talk to you if we are really going to get into testing of nuclear 
weapons.
  This is what the head of the nuclear affairs weapons system at the 
Pentagon said: It will ultimately get fielded.
  Then we go to Linton Brooks, who is the administration's nuclear 
weapons chief at the Department of Energy, who said the same thing to 
the Armed Services Committee in April: I have a bias in favor of the 
lowest usable yield because I have a bias in favor of something that is 
the minimum destruction. I have a bias in favor of things that might be 
usable.
  There he is, Linton Brooks, the administration's nuclear weapons 
chief at the Department of Energy. Come on, now. You are talking about 
we are just going to do a little research and then we will come back 
and talk to you? Do you think our friends and adversaries around the 
world are going to believe that is what is going to happen in the 
United States? They will read those statements and they will start 
their programs of testing. That is what we are risking.
  For what? We still have not heard from the military as to what it is 
our conventional bombs cannot do. What is it that our conventional 
artillery cannot achieve and accomplish? Where were their failings? 
Where is the potential target out there somewhere in the world? It was 
never told to us in the Armed Services Committee. It was never revealed 
to us in the Armed Services Committee.
  Nonetheless, we want to find out if we want to go ahead--with all of 
the potential dangers that we know in terms of the dangers of 
proliferation of weaponry and the dangers from testing.
  We have the administration's own Nuclear Posture Review in January of

[[Page 12310]]

last year outlining the plans for developing new nuclear weapons, 
including improved weapons and warheads that reduce collateral damage. 
Do you know what that means in layman's language, reduced collateral 
damage? That means these smaller nuclear weapons. That is what it 
means.
  Now, let us look at what these low-death weapons--I call them low-
death weapons--could do. We have seen the administration talk about not 
exploding them even in their testimony before the Armed Services 
Committee. They refused to rule out the use of any nuclear weapons in 
the battle with Iraq; although Tony Blair did, our Secretary would not.
  Well, now we have the 5-kiloton, earth-penetrating nuclear explosion. 
This chart depicts the average wind patterns for a winter day in the 
Middle East. It depicts a hypothetical attack outside of Damascus, 
Syria, using the nuclear weapon with a yield of 5 kilotons. The 
threshold of this ban exploded at a depth of 30 feet. This is the 
level, approximately 50 feet. This is at 30 feet.
  This blast would cause 230,000 fatalities and another 280,000 
casualties from radiation exposure within 2 years of the blast.
  This is a plume pattern developed by the Defense Threat Reduction 
Agency computer model. We are talking about tens of thousands--hundreds 
of thousands--of casualties. That is what we are talking about with 
this weapon system.
  What is the challenge? Are we finding that the Russians are building 
up to develop this kind of capability? No, we have not heard that. Have 
we heard the Chinese are now trying to build up their capability 
somehow to be a threat to us? No, we have not heard that. Have we heard 
the Pakistanis are going to do it? No. The Indians are going to do it? 
No, we have not heard they are going to do it. They have actually 
complied with the test ban treaties by not having any explosions, and 
they have been working with us in terms of the reduction. Certainly the 
Russians have in terms of reducing the total number of nuclear weapons.
  We stood on the floor and passed an agreement with Russia not many 
weeks ago. So what is out there? What is out there that is going to put 
us on the track toward the reassumption of nuclear testing? What is the 
threat to us today?
  It seems to me we do live in a dangerous world, with what is called 
al-Qaida. Everyone in the United States understands it, if they read 
the newspapers in the last few days and they see what has happened in 
the Middle East and what has happened in Morocco. We have to ask 
ourselves: How in the world will this particular weapon system help us 
deal with that particular threat? That reason has not been made.
  The reason for this weapon system other than, well, let's take a 
chance, we can move ahead, it will be nice to add this to our 
stockpile, add one more weapon system, seems to be the argument. We 
have the possibility of going ahead; why not go ahead and do it.
  I don't hear the other questions being raised about the range of 
activities that are going to take place in countries around the world. 
Make no mistake, this will release a chain of reactions across this 
world in nuclear testing. On the one hand, the United States says, 
look, we are trying to negotiate with the North Koreans in order to 
reduce the possibilities of nuclear exchange and miscalculation on the 
Korean peninsula. But do not pay attention to what we do. We are going 
over here to develop some new nuclear weapons. How does that work? What 
kind of message does that send in this world today? Who will buy that? 
Maybe those who support it are going to say how that kind of activity 
has worked in the recent past, how that kind of threat has resulted in 
other countries being cowed and intimidated into laying off on that. It 
will be the contrary.
  Now, should these systems ever need to be developed, other colleagues 
want to speak about what the dangers would be, as to the possibilities 
of terrorists being able to purloin, steal, a small weapon system and 
being able to use that more effectively. We all know it is enormously 
complicated and difficult for them to do it today--not an 
impossibility--and we are realistic in terms of trying to do more to 
make sure that is done, but there is a whole range of additional 
threats by smaller systems that can cause devastation to hundreds of 
thousands of people.
  Finally, we see what this administration will do; they will deploy 
the dangerous nuclear weapons. They could be developed to penetrate, 
according to their Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear 
Affairs. Linton Brooks: ``I have a bias in things that might be 
usable.''
  And there is the administration's nuclear policy review that 
indicates deployed warheads reduce collateral damage. That is what we 
are talking about. This is a matter of enormous risk.
  If this risk were balanced by the danger, sign me up. But that case 
has not been made. This would be a remarkable step backward from the 
firewall established going back to GEN Eisenhower, all the way through, 
a firewall between conventional and nuclear.
  This administration, this policy, will break that down. It is wrong. 
It is not in our national security interests. That ought to be the 
test. This fails to meet that test.
  I hope our amendment is acceptable.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Crapo). The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reed from Rhode 
Island be added as a cosponsor, Senator Durbin of Illinois, I believe 
Senator Dayton already is, and Senator Bingaman, as well.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from Alabama.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, this is an issue we have considered in 
the Armed Services Committee, of which I am a member. I note it passed 
on a vote of 15 to 10 with bipartisan support.
  I hear the opponents to this amendment using words such as ``these 
matters should not even been contemplated.'' ``We should not even think 
about a new type of nuclear weapon that may be less dangerous, have 
less collateral damage than the ones we already have. That is not where 
the United States should be.''
  I note for my colleagues, the cold war approach to life has changed. 
We are in a new world environment. We need to be thoughtful about how 
we go forward. We should not shut off any study, any evaluation, of 
nuclear weapons in what we might need in the future, what would be 
better, what could create peace in a more effective way than the 
current armament system we have.
  They say if we do anything, if we study, if we go out and do any 
research, if we even think about what other nations might be doing, we 
can no longer encourage countries not to proliferate their weapons. I 
don't think so.
  What is happening now? They say Pakistan, they talk about India, 
Korea, Iran, and other countries that are, in fact, working on nuclear 
weapons. They are doing that now, are they not? Aren't they doing that 
right now, this very minute? The fact we have not done any research or 
development or built any weapons in over a decade, I suppose, how has 
that had any impact on what they decide to do? These countries make 
decisions on what they think might be in their best interest. We have 
to work with them and encourage them not to do certain things.
  If a lot of countries around this world--a lot of them are our Allies 
like Japan--if they felt we did not have an adequate military 
capability or option or weapon system that would allow us to 
effectively defend their interests, they may decide they have to have 
nuclear weapons, too. The United States has a peacekeeping role in the 
world. It is a high calling. It requires us to be very thoughtful. We 
cannot exercise blind fear about the world we are in and the technology 
that is out there and what is going to happen.
  A lot of people may not know, of all the nuclear powers in the world, 
this country is the only one incapable at this moment of building a new 
weapon. We do not have the capability at this point to build new 
weapons. Despite that, the President has called for a reduction in our 
nuclear stockpile by one

[[Page 12311]]

half or more. We are in an unprecedented reduction in the nuclear 
capability of this country, removing thousands of weapons from our 
inventories. However, we do not need to stick our head in the sand. We 
do not need to assume other countries are not out there studying 
nuclear weapons and will study nuclear weapons whether we study nuclear 
weapons. That is silly. That has no logical basis.
  Think about it. Whether we have a laboratory somewhere that is 
studying nuclear weapons, this is going to determine whether Kim Jong 
Il decides to build new weapons? Whether Iran or China decides to build 
more weapons? No sir, not at all. That makes no sense whatever.
  We have had smaller weapons in the past. They have been removed from 
stockpiles. I don't think that destabilized the world during that 
period.
  They say, well, even though we are reducing our stocks by half, even 
though we have no weapons program, even though we are not doing nuclear 
testing, it is our fault. We are somehow destabilizing the world. We 
are causing Kim Jong Il to create weapons. I don't think it is our 
fault. I am not part of the ``blame America first'' crowd. Anyone wants 
to go to the DMZ up there and look into that depraved country of North 
Korea, stand in that wonderful, free, progressive country of South 
Korea, and see what he has done to the people of North Korea and has no 
moral rejection of him and his would-be empire, his regime, and has no 
sense of compassion for the people he oppresses, and now we are going 
to blame ourselves for his misbehavior? And we are sending him food to 
feed his own people because he cannot raise the food to do so? I don't 
think so.
  I believe this country has a moral responsibility to lead in this 
world and we will not be an effective leader if we don't maintain 
leadership in all forms of weaponry--yes, including nuclear weaponry. 
It is just that simple.
  I hope we do not have to develop any new systems, but I don't see 
anything wrong with doing some research. We might learn what others are 
doing out there, too, and that might be important to our national 
defense.
  We are the premier nuclear power in the world--premier power in 
general and the premier nuclear power in the world. If we ever got to 
the point where we had some smaller weapons, why would that make the 
world more dangerous than the big ones we have, let me ask you? I think 
that is not where we need to be heading. We need to be rational about 
where we are. Nuclear power remains a part of our arsenal. A growing 
number of nations around the world, as they have been from time to time 
since nuclear power became available, are studying ways to develop 
their own nuclear power.
  They say we can't use it against al-Qaida. Maybe we can, maybe we 
can't. Probably we would not use a nuclear weapon against a group like 
al-Qaida. But who would have thought we would have been at this level 
of conflict in Afghanistan or Kosovo or Bosnia 15 years ago? Who knows 
what the future may bring? A great nation, a great Congress, who has a 
responsibility to protect and defend this Constitution and this Nation, 
should be thinking ahead to make sure we have the capability, as time 
goes by, to deal with any threat that faces us. To do otherwise would 
be irresponsible.
  Let's be clear about this. This amendment we passed 15 to 10 in 
committee does not authorize building small weapons. It does not 
authorize testing weapons. It talks about study and research. If any 
step further than that has to be taken, this Congress would explicitly 
have to approve it. Then we can hear these debates about whether or not 
we want to go forward, depending on what the state of the world is at 
that time.
  I used to be a Federal prosecutor. As I understand the law, it would 
be a crime to utilize the language in this bill to build one of these 
weapons or to test one of these weapons because it would not be 
authorized in law. You cannot use money appropriated by Congress for 
things not authorized. This language does not authorize testing. It 
does not authorize building of a nuclear weapon.
  We have also to be concerned in this age of increasing knowledge 
about nuclear power, with the increasing ability through technology and 
other capabilities to transmit that knowledge around the world. We 
ought to be aware that others could step forward and make breakthroughs 
in nuclear power that could in many ways undermine the leadership we 
have in the world today. We do not need to have other nations studying 
nuclear power, nuclear weaponry, and us not.
  Think about this. We have cut our power down substantially. We are 
cutting down the number of our weapons very substantially--half or more 
than half. We absolutely cannot make a commitment that we will never do 
anything else in the future. That would simply set out a marker that 
would be the goal any nation could seek to attain and then they would 
be on equal power with the United States of America militarily, in 
terms of nuclear weapons. We should not do that.
  We need to make it clear to the entire world we care about peace, we 
care about world harmony, but we will not allow our Nation to be 
vulnerable to attack because our Nation--I can say it with confidence--
our Nation stands for peace, prosperity, trade, and freedom in this 
world. That is what we stand for. A lot of nations don't. If somebody 
in this body is not capable of making that value judgment, then I think 
they need to go back and study their history a little bit. So we can 
stand for right in this dangerous world; we simply have to be 
militarily strong.
  Americans expect us to be thinking about it and going forward. 
President Bush supports this amendment that passed with bipartisan 
support in the committee. Secretary of State Powell supports this 
amendment, as do Admiral Ellis and General Jumper, two of our key 
military people who deal with these issues.
  I simply think it would be irrational to prohibit research that could 
inform future decisions as to whether such weapons would enhance the 
national security of our country. It would not prejudice our Congress 
to decide these questions in the future. Let us not fear greater 
knowledge that would inform our future decisions. Let's make sure this 
Nation does not have its head in the sand. Let's make sure our Nation 
is alert to what our capabilities are, what our enemies' capabilities 
are, and to the need for change if that need arises. I think that is 
the right approach. I think that is why the Armed Services Committee 
sent this amendment to the floor as part of this bill.
  I thank Senator Warner for his leadership. He has led us in this way, 
in a careful way. There is nothing extreme about this amendment. It is 
the right step at this time.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, the Senate considers a myriad of topics. 
Every week those who follow our debates will hear us discuss far-
reaching topics from the farm bill to a transportation bill to a tax 
bill, how to move the economy, how to deal with health care and 
education. All of those are critically important issues. But I cannot 
believe I have witnessed in my time on Capitol Hill a more historic 
debate than what we are undertaking at this moment.
  We are literally talking about whether the United States will 
initiate a nuclear arms race again. Nothing I can think of meets this, 
in terms of gravity and its impact on the future of the world.
  If I might, I would like to ask the ranking member of the Armed 
Services Committee, my colleague from the State of Michigan, if he 
would be kind enough, before I say a few words here, since he was in on 
the committee debate on this bill and understands what is included in 
it, if he would answer a couple of questions relative to this issue of 
nuclear weapons so we can put this debate in context.
  Is it a fact, I ask the Senator from Michigan, without yielding the 
floor--is it a fact we are embarking on at least two dramatic changes 
in the policy of the United States of America toward research and 
building of nuclear weapons in this legislation?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. There are at least two provisions 
here.

[[Page 12312]]


  Mr. DURBIN. Would the Senator be kind enough to tell me, when we use 
the term low-yield nuclear weapons, is it not true these are weapons 
which have about one-third of the killing power of the nuclear weapon 
used, the atomic bomb used in Hiroshima which killed, in a matter of 
seconds, 140,000 people? Is that true?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator is correct. The so-called low-yield weapons 
indeed are about one-third the power of the weapon that was used at 
Hiroshima.
  Mr. DURBIN. Could the Senator from Michigan tell us how we are 
changing our policy in relation to the building or research on these 
types of low-yield nuclear weapons?
  Mr. LEVIN. Under the law that exists today, the so-called Spratt-
Furse language which exists in law today, there is a prohibition on 
research and development which could lead to the production of a so-
called low-yield weapon. Under the bill, that language would be 
stricken from the law and there would be no such prohibition.
  Mr. DURBIN. Could the Senator also tell me in relation to even more 
powerful nuclear weapons, the so-called bunker busters--which name, I 
think, does not do justice to the gravity of the weapon, the severity 
of the weapon we are considering--I am told by some these weapons have 
detonation power up to 70 times the power of the bomb we dropped on 
Hiroshima. Could the Senator from Michigan tell me, in terms of 
developing and building these new doomsday weapons, 70 times more 
powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, what does this bill do?
  Mr. LEVIN. The so-called bunker busters, which is a total misnomer in 
my book because these are city busters--they may indeed be nation 
busters or world busters, but nevertheless the so-called bunker busters 
are two weapons. There is a so-called B-61 weapon, which is about the 
power of 28 Hiroshimas, and the other one is the B-83, which is up to 
71 Hiroshima weapons, in terms of power.
  Mr. DURBIN. If I could put that in context, if the bomb in Hiroshima 
killed 140,000 people instantly, can the Senator even calculate how 
many people may be casualties from the largest nuclear weapon which is 
envisioned by this new piece of legislation?
  My calculations are that up to 9 or 10 million people could be killed 
with that type bomb.
  Mr. LEVIN. I don't have a calculator. Whatever 140 times 70 would 
amount to would be that number, assuming the same approximate density 
in Hiroshima.
  Mr. DURBIN. I thank the Senator from Michigan for his diligent work 
on this committee.
  Consider the gravity of this debate. Consider for a moment what we 
are embarking on if we accept President Bush's vision and the 
administration's vision of the future of America and the world. We have 
just come off a war in Iraq--a war which once again proved decisively 
the strength of the American military. We have a military operation 
without peer in the world, the very best in skill when it comes to men 
and women in uniform, and the best technology on Earth. We spend 
upwards of $400 billion a year and more to develop this weaponry and 
this national defense. When called upon as in Iraq, as in the Persian 
Gulf, and so many other times, they have shown they are decisive in 
their goals. Frankly, there is nothing on Earth to match it. I don't 
think there was a moment in the invasion of Iraq when people said, If 
we just had another weapon, perhaps this would go more smoothly. Within 
3 weeks, we conquered that nation. We brought to bear a dictator and 
his army. No one ever questioned that we have the most powerful 
military in the world prepared to do that.
  What the Bush administration tells us is it is not enough. Whatever 
conventional weaponry we own, it is not enough when we consider the 
future of the world; and we, as the United States, need to move 
forward, as the Senator from Michigan has told us, to develop so-called 
``low-yield nuclear weapons''--these compact nuclear weapons and these 
bunker buster nuclear weapons some 70 times the power of what was 
detonated in Hiroshima. I think this is a dramatic departure in 
American foreign policy.
  I agree with the Senator from California and thank her for her 
leadership in offering this amendment, which I cosponsored with the 
Senator from Massachusetts.
  I hope my colleagues, despite their warm and strong feelings for the 
President and his administration, will pause for a moment and think 
about what we are doing today and the road and the course we are about 
to follow.
  This bill is a declaration that the United States is prepared to 
launch a nuclear arms race in the world again--a nuclear arms race 
which is no longer the province of a handful of nations.
  There was a time when ownership of a nuclear weapon reflected a 
prosperous country with great military capability. Look at North Korea 
today, as poor as they come, suffering from famine. This country is in 
the process of developing a new nuclear weapon every single month. To 
think that the United States could initiate a new nuclear arms race 
with our research and development and not see this replicated around 
the world in other countries is naive and wrong and dangerous. That is 
what is wrong with this proposal of the Bush administration.
  I also ask my colleagues to put in context the Bush administration's 
overall view of foreign policy, which is a departure from 200 years of 
thinking in America. President Bush came to this office and said we 
will no longer wait for nations that are an imminent threat to the 
United States. Since 9/11, we need to change the strategy, and change 
the rules. We will now be engaged in preemption. That is, we will 
attack those countries which we think could be a threat to the United 
States. That is dramatic change. With that dramatic change, coupled 
with this change in policy, think about what we are saying to the rest 
of the world. Whether you are a threat to the United States, if we 
perceive you to be a threat to the United States, we can attack you. 
Whether you are a threat to the United States, if we perceive you to be 
a threat, we can use nuclear weapons in attacking you. And we are about 
to develop several new generations of nuclear weapons to do it.
  Step back for a second, as any rational person would do, and ask, 
What does some other country in the world do in response to that? I 
know I am about to be attacked. Whether I threaten the United States, I 
have to be on guard. If I know they will use nuclear weapons, even if I 
don't, then what are you going to do? You are going to arm yourself to 
the teeth, as the North Koreans have done. Develop as many weapons as 
quickly as you can to let the United States know that if they use 
preemptive foreign policy and nuclear weapons in that preemption, there 
will be an answer coming back from that country. That is a recipe for a 
global arms race. There is no end in sight, if we allow that to occur. 
It is exactly what is being suggested by this policy.
  The Senator from Alabama came to the floor and said we should be 
thinking ahead. That is why he supports this. I would say to the 
Senator I agree with him completely. We should be thinking ahead, and 
that is why we should oppose this. The United States ought to make it 
clear we are not going to initiate any nuclear testing to develop new 
weapons, that we are not looking for a new generation of nuclear 
weapons, and that we, frankly, don't believe it makes for a stable and 
a peaceful world for other countries to develop these nuclear weapons 
either.
  If we set an example with this new generation of nuclear weapons 
called for by this bill, how do we then turn to the rest of the world, 
and say, Stand in place, don't change, let the United States develop 
new nuclear, but you don't do the same? That isn't going to work. It is 
not rational. It doesn't show the kind of direct thinking I think we 
should ask from this administration and every other administration.
  I support the amendment offered by my colleagues to strike the 
section of the bill that repeals the prohibition on R&D of low-yield 
nuclear weapons. This is calling for a study for the development of 
nuclear weapons.
  Sadly, we know the spokesmen for the administration have made it 
clear

[[Page 12313]]

that after one study they will be developed, in no uncertain terms. 
That, of course, is an invitation for a global arms race.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a letter of May 
19 of this year from several prominent scientists across the United 
States in support of this amendment.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                                                     May 19, 2003.
       Dear Senator, As scientists and engineers with long 
     experience on nuclear weapons and defense issues, we are 
     writing to urge you to retain the Spratt-Furse law banning 
     development leading to the production of nuclear weapons with 
     yields of less than five kilotons.
       There is no need for the United States to develop new low-
     yield nuclear weapons beyond those it has already developed 
     and tested. Opponents of the law argue that the ban impedes 
     exploration of nuclear weapons concepts for attacking deep 
     underground targets and destroying chemical and biological 
     agents. However, technical analysis shows that low-yield 
     weapons would not be effective for these tasks. Low-yield 
     earth penetrating weapons cannot burrow deep enough and do 
     not have a large enough yield to destroy deep underground 
     targets; moreover, the explosion would not be contained for 
     even low-yield earth-penetrating weapons, and would 
     necessarily result in large amounts of radioactive fallout. 
     If a nuclear weapon was used to attack chemical or biological 
     agents, it is far more likely that this would result in the 
     dissemination of these agents rather than their destruction.
       Moreover, the law does not restrict research and early 
     development of low-yield weapons, and places no restriction 
     at all on work on higher yield weapons. The law only 
     prohibits later stages of development and engineering that 
     are geared toward production of a low-yield weapon.
       Some opponents of the law argue that maintaining expertise 
     at the U.S. weapons labs requires weapons scientists to 
     explore and develop new weapons concepts, and that 
     ambiguities in Spratt-Furse law have had a ``chilling 
     effect'' on such efforts. However, last week the House Armed 
     Services Committee adopted an amendment that clarifies the 
     wording of the law. We urge you and your colleagues to 
     support such a clarification in the Senate to make clear that 
     the ban permits research and early stages of development, 
     while prohibiting the engineering and development of new low-
     yield nuclear weapons for deployment.
       Arguments that low-yield weapons serve U.S. interests 
     because they produce less collateral damage and are therefore 
     more usable than high-yield weapons are shortsighted. Any use 
     of nuclear weapons would demolish a firebrake that has held 
     for nearly 60 years and would be a disaster for the world. 
     The United States should be seeking to increase the barriers 
     to using nuclear weapons, not decreasing them.
       Moreover, it is counter to U.S. interests for the United 
     States to pursue new nuclear weapons at a time when the 
     highest U.S. priority is preventing other countries or groups 
     from obtaining them. The perception that the United States is 
     pursuing these weapons and considering their use would give 
     legitimacy to the development of similar weapons by other 
     countries, and would be an incentive to countries that are 
     concerned they may be a target of such weapons to develop 
     their own nuclear weapons as a deterrent.
       The act of repealing this 10-year-old law would send a 
     strong, negative message to the rest of the world about U.S. 
     intentions with respect to maintaining the existing 
     international moratorium on nuclear testing. If the pursuit 
     of new low-yield weapons leads to the resumption of U.S. 
     nuclear testing, this would inevitably lead to testing by 
     other countries--thereby reducing U.S. security and 
     undermining U.S. efforts to stop the spread of nuclear 
     weapons.
       Given the technical realities and limitations of low-yield 
     nuclear weapons, as well as the likely security costs of 
     developing new low-yield nuclear weapons, we urge you to 
     retain the Spratt-Furse law.
           Sincerely,
     Hans Bethe,
                           Professor Emeritus, Cornell University.
     Sidney D. Drell,
          Professor Emeritus, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, 
                                              Stanford University.
     Richard L. Garwin,
           Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow and Director, Science and 
         Technology Studies Program, Council on Foreign Relations.
     Marvin Goldberger,
           President Emeritus, California Institute of Technology.
     John P. Holdren,
      Professor and Director, Program on Science, Technology, and 
             Public Policy, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 
                                                       University.
     Albert Narath,
         Former Laboratory Director, Sandia National Laboratories.
     Wolfgang K.H. Panofsky,
        Professor Emeritus and Director Emeritus, Stanford Linear 
                          Accelerator Center, Stanford University.
     Bob Peurifoy,
              Former Vice-President, Sandia National Laboratories.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me also say the policy implications of 
crossing the line toward the use of nuclear weapons and actually making 
them useful weapons argues most forcefully against developing such 
weapons.
  I am particularly concerned that this administration's policy of 
preemption, combined with the policy of first use of nuclear weapons, 
is an incentive to proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, 
especially nuclear weapons.
  Let me go back to the point made by the Senator from Massachusetts. 
The threat we face today is not a threat of nuclear power against the 
United States. It is a threat of terrorism. No one has rationally 
suggested that the development of these nuclear weapons can be used as 
a deterrent against al-Qaida and terrorism. How could our possession of 
even a low-yield nuclear weapon have stopped September 11? It could not 
have. We are dealing with asymmetrical power, to use a cliche which you 
find on Capitol Hill in most committee hearings involving the military. 
It just says you don't have to match the United States strength. You 
can find a vulnerability where you have the strength to inflict 
casualties and damage. That is what happened on September 11.
  Otto Bismarck once said, ``Preventive war is like committing suicide 
out of fear of death.'' I believe we should remember those words of 
wisdom.
  Let me elaborate on a few points.
  The September 17, 2002 National Security Strategy of the United 
States stated as a matter of self-defense that America will act against 
such emerging threats before they are fully formed to forestall or 
prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries. The United States will, 
if necessary, act preemptively.
  When you put together a policy of preemption, a policy of first use 
of nuclear weapons, and a new generation of nuclear weapons, which this 
bill calls for, it does not make for a safer world. It is an invitation 
for a world of uncertainty and a world of danger we will be leaving our 
children.
  I have watched this administration come forward with many proposals I 
disagree with. I cannot think of any proposal they have suggested which 
is more dangerous than what we are considering today.
  For those who are following this debate, this is not another routine 
bill. This bill is about to discard 50 years of American foreign policy 
and 50 years of American nuclear policy. It is going into uncharted 
territory with a new approach which invites danger, retaliation, and 
proliferation. It will, in my mind, increase the likelihood of nuclear 
confrontation in the future.
  I hope on a bipartisan basis the Senate will adopt the amendment 
offered by the Senators from California and Massachusetts.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Minnesota.
  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I wanted to say to the distinguished 
chairman of the Armed Services Committee, who suggested earlier that we 
alternate back and forth, even though there is no agreement, I would be 
more than happy to defer to someone on his side.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank our colleague. I am perfectly 
contented and listening carefully to the debate. At the appropriate 
time I will make my remarks and then move to table. I want to in no way 
inhibit the debate on this important subject. I feel very strongly a 
contrary form of view, as do a majority of the colleagues I know. We 
certainly witnessed in the Armed Services Committee a strong vote in 
favor of going ahead with this provision in our bill. I am respectful 
of the views of others, but I am mindful of what we did on the 
Committee on Armed Services in our vote on this issue.
  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, if the chairman wants to wait, I will look 
forward to hearing his remarks. I have the greatest respect for him, 
and also many of my colleagues from the other side of the aisle who 
will offer their comments at a later time.
  At the request of Senator Feinstein, I ask unanimous consent that 
Senator

[[Page 12314]]

Jeffords be added as an original cosponsor of the amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DAYTON. I am proud to rise with my very distinguished colleagues 
who have introduced this measure, Senator Feinstein and Senator 
Kennedy; they who have eloquently stated, along with the Senator from 
Illinois, the reasons why this drastic change in American policy is so 
ill-advised--to resume the testing, development, and deployment of 
nuclear bombs. That would put the United States back into the front of 
the world pack of nations now proceeding with nuclear weapons 
development. We should be leading the world in the opposite direction, 
to stop the future proliferation of nuclear bombs. We can't do both.
  We can't tell other nations around the world not to build even a 
single nuclear weapon and then do it ourselves. We already have 
thousands of nuclear bombs. Yet we are going to tell other governments: 
You can't have even one.
  We should be negotiating those agreements. We should prevent other 
nations that do not presently have nuclear weapons from developing 
them. We should negotiate agreements with North Korea, Iran, whereby 
they would stop and dismantle their nuclear weapons production in 
return for economic assistance, food, technological development, 
whatever it is we can do to improve their peaceful standard of living 
and help bring them back into the civilized world.
  We should proceed to carry out the agreement which President Bush and 
President Putin reached over a year ago to consolidate and reduce the 
nuclear weapons which our two countries have. We should discuss with 
the new Chinese leadership their doing the same. We should redouble our 
efforts to track down and purchase and to lock up the nuclear weapons 
and materials that are loose from the old Soviet Union or from any 
other source, before they fall into the very dangerous hands of 
terrorist organizations which, if they get nuclear weapons, will use 
them against us. How can we do all that if we ourselves are developing 
our own next generation of nuclear bombs? It is crazy. It is crazy to 
do it. And it is crazy to think that the rest of the world would stand 
idly by while we proceed to do so.
  Why do we need to do this? We have the most overwhelming military 
force in the world, as we just demonstrated in Iraq. We have the 
greatest, most overwhelming military dominance of any nation in the 
history of the world over every other nation. We must maintain that 
overwhelming military superiority, and we will. President Bush has 
proposed increasing our military spending every year that he has been 
in office, and this Congress has provided him with every dollar he 
requested. I voted for every one of them myself.
  We are now spending this year more money on our military strength 
than the next nine nations of the world combined. I agree with my 
colleague from Alabama who is properly vigilant about what other 
nations are doing. We do need to look ahead and make sure that we 
maintain the kind of superiority and dominance which we can then use to 
prevent nuclear wars or any kind of wars around the world. But we don't 
need those devices today, and we don't see anybody else in the world 
developing them. So we should be trying to stop it, not move it 
forward.
  We don't need the so-called low-yield nuclear devices to win a war, 
not any war anywhere in the world and not for any time in the 
foreseeable future. Parenthetically, there is no such thing as a low-
yield nuclear device. It is an oxymoron, low-yield nuclear device. 
There is only one description of these devices: They are nuclear bombs. 
They are nuclear bombs more powerful than the ones used in Hiroshima 
and Nagasaki 58 years ago. My understanding is that in terms of yield, 
in terms of radioactive fallout they may be more constrained, but in 
terms of the explosive power of these advanced weapons, they go beyond 
anything that was used in World War II, which is, as we recall, the 
only time in the history of the planet that nuclear bombs have ever 
been unleashed by one nation against another.
  It is our responsibility as the leader of the world to assure that 
they are never used again. Nothing is more dangerous to our national 
security than the continued development and production and ultimately 
proliferation of more nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. The 
reality is we can't prevent their use once they are produced. We can 
try, and we have. And we will continue to do so. With treaties, through 
negotiation, we can build a national missile defense system as the 
President has proposed, as Congress has appropriated initial funding. 
But even if it could be made to work perfectly, a terrorist group could 
put a nuclear weapon in a briefcase or in a car's glove compartment and 
annihilate New York City or San Francisco or Mobile, AL, or 
Minneapolis, MN.
  We can't prevent the use of one of these nuclear weapons once it has 
been produced, which is why we can and must stop their production 
before. We still have a chance to do that. We still have that 
opportunity, and that is what this administration's priority should be, 
to put an end to the nuclear arms race and those who want to enter it 
and to negotiate these agreements. But to do that, we have to set the 
example. We have to lead the world in the direction we want it to go.
  We can't say, we are the exception; everybody else follow this set of 
rules, but we are different. We know that our intentions are honorable. 
We know that we would not use them inappropriately. But we are not 
viewed that way by anyone else, as we would not view anyone else that 
way. We have to lead by our actions as well as by our words.
  As others have pointed out, if we were to do this now as we try to 
put the lid on other nations' development of their nuclear industry 
weapons industry, it would be catastrophic. In the eyes of the world we 
would look as though we don't really understand how we are viewed by 
them.
  This is an historic opportunity. It is so critical that this 
administration, which has proven that it knows how to win wars with 
military might--that we have established--which they inherited from 
President Clinton's administration, shows that we know how to win the 
peace.
  We know how to win the peace in Afghanistan, where our efforts to 
rebuild the country have been minimal, tragically, in the last year and 
a half compared to the scope of the need and the opportunity to 
showcase the American economic social system, our way of life, so that 
the people of that country can benefit, and people especially in the 
Arab nations can see the benefits and advantages of our system. We need 
to do the same in Iraq--seize control and security there and bring in 
the U.N. and other nations in efforts to bring that country over to a 
democracy and a stable government, encourage and assist their economic 
recovery, and negotiate with others.
  That is the direction in which we need to go, but it is not the 
direction this administration is going, or cares to go, or knows how to 
go. It is the wrong signal to send to the rest of the world that we 
intend to proceed further down the path of our domination militarily 
and our use of weapons of any level of destruction in order to achieve 
future goals; and if we proceed in that direction, we must expect that 
the rest of the world will follow. That would be more dangerously 
destabilizing to this Nation and to the planet than anything I can 
imagine.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chafee). The Senator from South Carolina 
is recognized.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, we have a number of speakers who wish to 
speak on this legislation. I wonder if it would be more orderly if we 
tried to arrange the time so that people----
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Chair recognized the Senator from South 
Carolina.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. I am glad to yield to the Senator for a 
moment.
  Mr. REID. I am sorry, I didn't know. We might be better off--we have 
a number of Senators waiting, so that there will be some order--I 
wonder how

[[Page 12315]]

long the Senator from South Carolina is going to speak approximately.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. About 5 minutes.
  Mr. REID. I am wondering if it would be appropriate, I say to my 
friend from Michigan, if we had one on our side, Senator Bingaman, for 
20 minutes, and Senator Feingold wishes 20 minutes, and Senator Dorgan 
wants 5 minutes. I am wondering--if there is someone from the 
Republican side who wishes to speak interspersed with ours, they would 
be allowed to speak.
  I ask unanimous consent that following the statement of the Senator 
from South Carolina, Senator Bingaman be recognized for 20 minutes, and 
following him, the Senator from Wisconsin for 5 minutes, and then the 
Senator from North Dakota for 10 minutes.
  Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I just 
suggest two things: One, the interspersed order include Republican 
speakers, should they desire----
  Mr. REID. That was part of the request.
  Mr. LEVIN. Secondly, there will be additional speakers beyond that. I 
would not want to suggest that the debate would end then because we 
have additional speakers.
  Mr. REID. Senator Feinstein is here. She wishes to speak for a 
considerable period of time. We need to confer with the Senator.
  Mr. LEVIN. Prior to that, Senator Byrd wanted to speak. I wanted to 
speak for 10 minutes, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Senator 
Akaka want to speak as well.
  Mr. REID. Why don't we lock these in?
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I wish the opportunity to speak at the end for 1 
hour.
  Mr. REID. I say to my friend, a number of other people wish to speak.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. At the end. If it is a unanimous consent agreement, I 
don't want to be cut off.
  Mr. REID. You will not be cut off. This is just to line speakers up 
for an hour or so. There is plenty of time for debate after that.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. Reserving the right to object, what was 
the last thing the Senator said?
  Mr. REID. Senator Feinstein wanted to be protected for future time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection to the request?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The Senator from South Carolina is recognized.
  Mr. GRAHAM of South Carolina. Mr. President, I rise in opposition to 
the amendment. As quickly as I can--a lot of people want to speak--I 
will frame the debate for those who are listening.
  The Armed Services Committee was asked by the Pentagon to give some 
relief on a 10-year prohibition on research and development of low-
yield nuclear weapons for a specific military purpose. The Pentagon and 
others tell us that the warfare of the future is going to have a 
component to it about which we need to be thinking.
  As we have seen in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other places, the enemies 
of tomorrow and today have gone underground in a deep fashion--
underground not only to hide their forces, but to hide weaponry and to 
potentially build chemical or biological weapons facilities, 
underground to develop hydrogen nuclear weapons, underground to protect 
their troops from the awesome power that we have today.
  The committee, after listening to the Pentagon's request, in the bill 
we have before us, lifted the ban on research and development to allow 
the Pentagon to do research and development in this area as they could 
on any other weapons system.
  The question becomes for the Senate, after having received input from 
our Department of Defense and those experts who are paid to follow such 
matters, whether saying no to their request to do research and 
development only is a wise decision.
  My colleague who previously spoke mentioned the word ``crazy.'' I 
think it would be incumbent upon us to listen, as the committee has 
done. And the committee, in a bipartisan fashion, after listening, 
voted to lift the ban on research and development, to go forward and 
look at the ability to combat the threats of the future by having a 
low-yield nuclear weapon that could go to the underground chemical or 
biological weapons factory that may exist in the future--to go to the 
underground nuclear weapons facility that may exist in the future.
  As we have seen from Afghanistan and Iraq, the enemy has dug deep 
into the earth. From the last gulf war to Operation Iraqi Freedom, we 
have seen how the military has modernized and transformed itself. In 
the first gulf war--Desert Shield and Desert Storm--only about 10 
percent of the weapons used were precision-guided munitions. That 
changed to the point where 90 percent of the weapons used in Operation 
Iraqi Freedom were precision guided. I argue that that modernization 
effort, keeping that technological edge, saved a lot of American and 
Iraqi lives.
  I suggest to my colleagues that this is a dramatic moment in our 
Nation's history. We have just upgraded the threat level to orange. We 
have seen last week what is going on in the world--al-Qaida is still 
alive. They are on the run, but they have the ability to hurt people. 
They desire nuclear weapons. There are a lot of rogue states that are 
going to try to pursue a nuclear weapon, or fissile materials, and they 
will most likely be successful. People are going to enhance their 
biological and nuclear weapons ability.
  I argue that to stop research and development on a potential weapon 
that could destroy a terrorist group or prevent a rogue nation from 
creating a chemical or biological capacity that is deep underground is 
illogical--just to take it off the table in a blind fashion, trying to 
say we are doing something that is going to spread nuclear weapons. I 
don't believe we are.
  Secretary Powell has written a letter on this matter, on May 5, in 
which he says:

       I do not believe that repealing the ban on low-yield 
     nuclear weapons research will complicate our ongoing efforts 
     with North Korea.

  It is a reality that the enemies of today and tomorrow will go 
underground. They will go deep into the earth, and they will have 
laboratories and research facilities available to them to develop 
weapons of mass destruction. I hope the Senate will listen to the 
Pentagon and develop a weapon that counteracts that threat. Whether or 
not we deploy that weapon we will decide later. But to take the 
research component off the table and not even plan for that possibility 
is very irresponsible. We will take up as a body whether or not to 
authorize this development, as we should.
  I implore my colleagues, please do not ignore the threats that exist 
today, an enemy going deep into the Earth where conventional weapons 
may not be able to destroy that chemical or biological factory or that 
nuclear weapons program. Let's at least look at the possibility of 
having a weapons mix in the future that protects us from the evil that 
exists today.
  I think what the committee has done is very responsible. I 
congratulate the chairman and all those involved in lifting this ban at 
the Pentagon's request. History will judge us poorly--who knows what is 
going to happen down the road--if we as a political body do not listen 
to what I believe to be a real threat and try to at least talk about 
and develop a counteraction to that threat for the future. That is what 
this debate is about.
  If this amendment is adopted, it would tie the hands of the American 
military in looking at weapons systems to combat a real threat at a 
time when the threats we face are growing, not lessening. I think that 
would be a very bad move on the Senate's part. It would tie the hands 
of the Department of Defense unnecessarily.
  We are not talking about deploying a weapon. We are talking about 
researching and developing a weapon that may save lives in the future, 
and I hope the Senate as a whole will follow the lead of the committee 
and vote this amendment down. I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from New 
Mexico is recognized.
  Mr. BINGAMAN. I thank the Chair.
  Mr. President, I start by saying I have always been a strong 
supporter of

[[Page 12316]]

maintaining our nuclear arsenal. I do believe that nuclear weapons have 
a significant role in our defense strategy, but their use for us in 
that defense strategy is to deter others from using nuclear weapons. 
That has been the essential role they played.
  It has been a very important role. It was an important role in 
winning the cold war, and it remains an important role for our 
military. But the amendment that has been put forward by Senator 
Feinstein and Senator Kennedy is not dealing with nuclear weapons as a 
deterrent. What it is trying to get at is the change in philosophy that 
seems to have taken place among some in the administration that nuclear 
weapons are not just to be used as a deterrent; they are also to be 
used as a weapon. They are to be used in warfighting. They are to be 
used to counter preemptive threats that may present themselves to us, 
and that is a substantial change from what we have done with nuclear 
weapons in the past. I strongly believe it is important to maintain in 
law the ban that was put in law sometime ago.
  This Spratt language, named for Congressman Spratt, whom we all know 
and respect, was developed in 1994, and it was developed as a follow-on 
to an action by George H. W. Bush, Sr., our current President's father, 
when he was in the White House. He made the decision on September 27, 
1991, to take out of our inventory nuclear artillery shells, tactical 
bombs, landmines--the various tactical low-yield nuclear weapons we had 
fielded at that time, primarily in Europe.
  That decision was made as a follow-on to the end of the cold war. It 
was a decision which was intended to reduce the risk of some kind of 
nuclear misstep by a field commander or by accident. It was a step 
intended to reduce the risk of a nuclear weapon being detonated when, 
in fact, it was not desired.
  There is a lot of history behind this issue. Some might think, if 
they just tune in and watch this debate, this is a new idea this 
administration has come up with: Let's develop new low-yield nuclear 
weapons; let's do the research and gear up for development.
  The truth is, we have had many so-called low-yield nuclear weapons in 
our stockpile in the past. Let me review a little bit of that history.
  This first paragraph I have reproduced for folks to look at is the 
Davy Crockett MK-54 warhead which was a nuclear warhead that was 
capable of producing the same damage as up to 1,000 tons of TNT. When 
they talk about low-yield nuclear weapons, they are talking about up to 
5,000 tons of TNT. So this is substantially less powerful than that. 
This was developed back in the fifties. It is technology about which 
everyone knows. It was launched from a recoilless rifle. This was a 
weapon capable of being launched that way. One could send it off 
anywhere. The range was 1.2 to 2.5 miles. As I say, it had a yield of 
up to 1,000 tons of TNT. This, to me, is an example of some of the 
history we know about on low-yield nuclear weapons.
  Let me also point to a second example. This is the so-called MADM, 
the Medium Atomic Demolition Munition. Looking at the photograph, you 
might say I am talking about the one in the center. I am not. I am 
talking about the much smaller warhead that is over on the left in this 
photograph. This could go up to as high as 15,000 tons of TNT. It was 
in our arsenal until 1986. It was intended for use in destroying dams 
or bridges, and it was entirely portable. As one can see from the size 
of this warhead, this would be easily carried by a single person.
  The third example, and the last example I want to show, is this W-79. 
This is one of the weapons that was in our arsenal and was taken out of 
our arsenal. This is the so-called neutron bomb. We have heard of the 
neutron bomb. There was a lot of discussion about the neutron bomb a 
couple decades ago. It had what was then designated a C-plus safety 
rating because they determined after a while that they could detonate 
one of these if there was a stray bullet that hit the high explosive 
and, therefore, one of the reasons it was taken out of the field as an 
artillery shell was because of the safety problem involved.
  To give an idea of the detonation of this neutron bomb, it is 
pictured in this photograph. One can see that the amount of 
radioactivity, the amount of damage, the collateral damage from it was 
very substantial.
  Let me go to the last of these charts just to make another point.
  My colleague from South Carolina was saying what we need is a nuclear 
weapon; we need to see about developing a nuclear weapon that can be 
used to go deep underground and, thereby, get at chemical weapons 
fabrication activities or perhaps biological weapons fabrication 
activities.
  The truth is, if you put one of these weapons on a rocket and send it 
off, you cannot get it very deep into the ground. If it is a 12-foot 
long weapon, the maximum it can go is 48 feet into the ground. If it is 
100-ton TNT equivalent, the experts tell us you have to bury that at 
least 140 feet under the ground or else you are going to have 
radioactive fallout. If you have a 1,000-ton weapon, you have to bury 
it at least 450 feet when it is exploded to contain the fallout. The 
truth is, we cannot put this on a rocket and get it down 450 feet. It 
is just not practical.
  The points I am making are these are not sophisticated weapons. This 
is not a new technology all of a sudden which someone decided to 
develop.
  This is technology that was in our arsenal. We are now seeing this 
administration say, OK, let's come back and once again begin to look at 
this as a viable part of our warfighting capability. I do not see the 
justification for it; I do not think it makes sense; and it poses 
enormous additional risks for us in terms of proliferation potential.
  One of the other comments the Senator from Alabama made a few minutes 
ago was: We already have a great many nuclear weapons. What can be so 
wrong about developing some that are small?
  One thing that could be wrong is that the risk of proliferation of 
much smaller, more portable weapons, is substantially greater. The 
smaller the weapon, the easier it is to move. These weapons are not 
sophisticated. These are not like the very large, high-yield weapons 
that are difficult to reproduce. There are many countries in this world 
that have the capability to produce low-yield nuclear weapons, and many 
of them, I am sure, will get more interested as time goes on if they 
see this is the direction in which we are moving.
  I think Senator Kennedy made reference to the speech Mr. Putin gave 
last Friday. The article in the New York Times on Saturday summed it up 
well when speaking of President Putin. He appeared to be responding to 
the Bush administration's new nuclear strategy announced last year when 
he said Russia, too, was considering developing new variants of nuclear 
weapons.
  This was his statement to the Russian Duma. He said: I can inform you 
that at present the work to create new types of Russian weapons, 
weapons of the new generation, including those regarded by specialists 
as strategic weapons, is in the practical implementation stage.
  He did not elaborate, nor did his advisers, though some analysts said 
he appeared to be referring to Russia's efforts to modernize its 
nuclear arsenal and to develop low-yield nuclear devices. That remark 
was greeted with applause.
  This is a dangerous road we start down if we decide to rely more on 
tactical nuclear weapons and once again commence the development of 
tactical nuclear weapons. I think it is an unwise course. My own view 
of our overall defense strategy is that we have always thought it 
served our interests to emphasize those areas in which we have a 
comparative advantage.
  We know today, more than perhaps ever in our history, that we have an 
enormous comparative advantage over any potential adversary in the 
world in the area of conventional weaponry. We have precision-guided 
weapons. We have smart weapons. We have demonstrated their use 
extremely effectively in the recent conflict in Iraq. Our comparative 
advantage does not lie in developing small, easily transportable 
nuclear weapons. Many other countries have the capability to do that, 
and not only countries but perhaps groups as well.

[[Page 12317]]

  Once development of those weapons is pursued by us, the likelihood of 
proliferation increases and the likelihood of similar activities by 
other countries increases. Those types of weapons can be easily 
fabricated. They can be easily transported. They can be easily 
concealed. It is certainly not in our interest.
  I know several of my colleagues have said all this provision is, that 
everyone is getting upset about, is a provision to repeal the ban on 
research and development, so what could be so wrong with repealing the 
ban on research and development?
  I do think that the reason many of us are concerned is we believe 
very much that if one of these weapons--if a new type or a new suite of 
these weapons is developed, it will ultimately be fielded. We believe 
that is the wrong way to go to maintain our security and to maintain 
the security of the world in general.
  Fred Celec, who is the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense 
for Nuclear Matters, recently said that the administration wants the 
weapon; that is, the robust nuclear earth penetrator--and that is a 
separate amendment. Senator Dorgan from North Dakota is going to be 
offering an amendment relating to the robust nuclear earth penetrator 
sometime later this afternoon. But Mr. Celec said the administration 
wants the weapon and will move forward with its development and 
production. If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully designed to survive 
a crash through hard rock or concrete and still explode, it will 
ultimately be fielded. That is a news article from the San Jose 
Mercury.
  So there is reason to be concerned with this provision. Congressman 
Spratt, I believe, showed good judgment when he proposed this provision 
in 1994. The Congress showed good judgment when it adopted this 
provision as a follow-on to the decision by former President Bush to 
take these kinds of weapons out of our arsenal. I believe we would do 
well to keep this ban on research and development in place. I hope my 
colleagues will agree and support the amendment by the Senator from 
California and the Senator from Massachusetts.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. In terms of alternating now, I think we should have the 
Senator from New Mexico address the Senate on this issue.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if the Senator from New Mexico will yield for an 
inquiry.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I am pleased to.
  Mr. LEVIN. Can the Senator give an approximation of how long he will 
speak?
  Mr. DOMENICI. I will be very brief. An hour and a half.
  Mr. LEVIN. An hour and a half?
  Mr. DOMENICI. No, sir. About 15 minutes.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, the Senator can take such time as he feels 
necessary.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I understand.
  Mr. WARNER. Because he brings to this debate a very important aspect 
of many years in the Senate dealing with this subject.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The senior Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I acknowledge upfront the very astute 
and academically sound argument of my colleague from New Mexico, Mr. 
Bingaman. While I have been working in this field for the last 25 to 26 
years in particular, and the last 10 with more emphasis, this has 
occurred in the last period of time. My work has come as the United 
States has prepared its great nuclear weapons laboratories to use new 
kinds of science to determine the viability and credibility of the 
existing warheads without underground testing.
  As everyone recalls, this body passed an amendment, rather 
overwhelmingly, saying we should not use underground testing for our 
weapons. I have learned since then how little we knew about that 
proposition when we cast that vote. Nonetheless, it is the law of the 
land. It has cost the American taxpayer, in my way of looking at it, 
billions of dollars.
  Frankly, as I look at the risk in the world, I do not think it has 
saved the world from nuclear weapons as people had thought. Already 
with that ban, there are new countries with new nuclear weapons, and 
they did not need underground testing. At least they did not need it as 
we had assumed they would need it when we stopped ourselves from doing 
it. Yet we have the greatest scientific community of men and women in 
the world, believe it or not, accumulated in three laboratories, and 
about 85 percent of their work goes to that one item.
  How can we make sure that the weapons we have are valid without 
testing, all of which was done in the hope that nobody else would get 
bombs, get any nuclear weapons, because an underground test would 
proliferate the desire, if nothing else, for more nuclear weapons?
  I was not on the Senate floor for the entire argument when that 
amendment of nonnuclear testing occurred. My great friend Mark Hatfield 
was a proponent. But I do know the argument was of the type that if we 
did not do that, we would be inviting other countries to do what is 
necessary to develop nuclear weapons. If we did not do it, we could 
dampen that.
  Now, I do not suggest the arguments are analogous.
  It is interesting that this enormous debate is taking place regarding 
an amendment that says nothing in the repeal of the previous amendment 
regarding low-yield weapons. ``Nothing in the repeal made by subsection 
(a) shall be construed as authorizing the testing, acquisition, or 
deployment of low-yield nuclear weapons.''
  We could say we do not believe what we are saying, that it is not 
true, if America wants to direct its scientists--the same scientists I 
just spoke of, incidentally--it will be the same laboratories. They 
will not invent some new ones. In addition to everything you are doing, 
you will be given permission to think about, to hypothesize, to ponder, 
to make pictures of, draw diagrams of low-yield bombs and what they are 
all about.
  Does it make sense, in the kind of world we live, to say to the 
greatest scientists in the world--we are spending about $6 billion a 
year for them to make sure the current nuclear weapons are OK, safe, 
and will deliver, if called upon, without underground testing, but to 
say to that same group, you cannot spend any time--you cannot have a 
department, you cannot have a division, you cannot have your smartest 
people or even any people in those institutions thinking about low-
level nuclear bombs--not making them, not preparing to deploy them, for 
this statute forbids it.
  Our laboratories are filled with dedicated Americans. They want to do 
their jobs. They want to do no more or no less than they are 
authorized. They do not want to be called upon by a congressional 
committee to respond to doing more than they had authority to do; and 
clearly they never want to be accused of having done less than they 
were supposed to.
  On the other hand, does it seem possible we should be saying to these 
most brilliant of scientists, here on the wall is a statute and 
regardless of what comes to your great minds about low-level nuclear 
bombs, stop thinking about it. It is against the law. We do not want 
you thinking about it.
  Maybe that is a little farfetched. But it is not farfetched to say 
thinking about it and writing something down about it is against the 
law, at least if what my colleague from New Mexico says on the floor 
prevails.
  Those scientists know so much more than us about the world and the 
changes occurring, and we are wondering about what Russia is going to 
be doing. There is apt to be 3 or 4 nuclear powers in the next 10 years 
and there is nothing in the world we can do about it. We can sit on the 
floor and talk about low yield; maybe that is what they are after. 
There will be nuclear devices that can be delivered long distances 
causing huge amounts of damage. They are going to happen. The people 
working on those are not going to spend one iota of concern on whether 
we have this provision in our law.
  Some of our scientists might just come up with a great idea about a 
low-

[[Page 12318]]

level bomb that could be great for America considering what they see 
going on in the world, converse to what the argument has been. The 
argument has been, we will teach the world to do what we are doing. I 
am suggesting our scientists will say to us, we are learning from the 
world what we might want to do in order to keep the peace longer and 
better and be able to tell our adversaries what you are thinking of 
doing.
  I thought that was what we were all about. I thought that is what Los 
Alamos scientists are all about. I thought they were part of this great 
deterrent. I still believe they are. I believe to permit them to work 
in this area is part of the deterrent. It does not commit the country 
to build new kinds of weapons. It does not permit us to produce or test 
new weapons. It does not suggest we should deploy new weapons. It 
allows our scientists to study and perform research and development 
options that policymakers in the administration and even in the 
Congress may want to know more about.
  I know this for sure when I say ``may want to know more about it.'' I 
say that because these smart people might come to us and tell us, 
believe it or not, something we do not know. Would that be preposterous 
to some of us sitting in the Senate? Would it be preposterous that 
after this prohibition is lifted in 5 years they could come to us and 
say, We have been studying and here is what we have found. It is 
something you never had in mind, we never had in mind. But think about 
it. All of that seems to me to come on the good side.
  On the negative side, I cannot see where researching, thinking about, 
intellectualizing about low-level waste, is adding to the proliferation 
of nuclear weapons problem in the world. Remember, even if someone in 
the administration wanted the new weapons, they could not proceed to 
full-scale development, the production and deployment, unless Congress 
authorizes and appropriates funds required to do so. This has not been 
done. It should not be done without more information or debate, and it 
will not be done.
  Finally, there are very important intelligence, nonproliferation 
reasons why our scientists should be able to develop their thinking in 
these important areas of research. If anyone in this world is thinking 
about low-level weapons, we must know as much as we can about them. I 
just said that in a different way a moment ago.
  NNSA, the new semiautonomous agency that controls our weapons 
development, should challenge their scientists and engineers to think, 
to explore, to discover, to innovate. By removing the prohibition on 
research and development on low-level yield weapons, our experts will 
expand their own understanding and capabilities without artificial 
restrictions.
  I repeat, if anything comes out of this that is surprising, it will 
be what we will be able to do to prevent proliferation from happening 
somehow, somewhere in the world. In fact, I think that is more apt to 
happen as a result of the thinking and the development that occurs here 
by our scientists than the reverse. We have no idea what these great 
minds can be thinking, but the great minds of the other scientists in 
the world are thinking about them also.
  As a matter of fact, we heard some statements about Russia thinking 
about them as if we ought to be afraid of that, because if we do not do 
it, they will not do it. If anyone believes that, they probably would 
believe almost anything. They are busy looking at whatever kind of new 
nuclear weapons that do not break any of the agreements with us. We 
will soon be greatly reducing our arsenals of heavy weapons, and at the 
same time other countries and their scientists will develop nuclear 
weapons. They will be developing low yield ones, too. They will be 
developing low yield ones with very different ways of using them than 
we ever thought. We ought to have the very best looking at how that 
might happen, if it might happen.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, will the Senator from Wisconsin yield just 
for a unanimous consent request?
  Mr. FEINGOLD. I yield.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after Senator 
Feingold, Senator Inhofe be recognized and then Senator Byrd be 
recognized after that Senator, and then Senator Talent be recognized 
after Senator Byrd.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there an objection? Without objection, it 
is so ordered.
  The Senator from Wisconsin.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment 
offered by the Senator from California and the Senator from 
Massachusetts. I am pleased to have cosponsored it. I commend the 
Senators for offering this important amendment, and I am extremely 
pleased to be one of a large group of Senators who have come to the 
floor to express their concern about this policy and to support this 
amendment.
  I share their concern, as I know that many of our colleagues do, 
about the provision in the underlying bill that would repeal the 10-
year ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons. 
Lifting this ban could be the first step in the resumption of nuclear 
testing and the creation of new classes of nuclear weapons which I 
oppose.
  Our men and women in uniform are facing new threats, but our defense 
procurement policy remains planted firmly in the cold war by calling 
for more nuclear weapons. We should not endorse a policy that could 
start or spark another nuclear arms race.
  I am deeply concerned that the administration's Nuclear Posture 
Review represents a departure from this country's longstanding nuclear 
weapons policy. Lifting the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons and 
funding a feasibility study on the so-called robust earth penetrator 
and directing the Secretary of Energy to accelerate the readiness 
posture for the Nevada Test Site from 24 to 36 months to 18 months all 
point toward a disturbing destination--the resumption of an active 
nuclear weapons program, including underground testing by the United 
States.
  These decisions send dangerous signals to our allies and adversaries 
alike. The United States has urged nonnuclear states and rogue 
operators not to pursue nuclear programs. But if we, as a nuclear power 
with enough of these weapons to destroy the world many times over, 
begin developing mini-nukes or other new forms of these dangerous 
weapons, I think we run the risk of inviting other countries and other 
organizations to do so as well.
  I supported the Moscow Treaty earlier this year because, while it is 
not perfect, it does move us closer to the goal of reducing the 
strategic nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. I don't 
think we should undermine this worthy goal by now starting down the 
path toward smaller, more easily transported nuclear weapons that could 
fall into the wrong hands.
  I recognize that the underlying bill would lift the ban on research 
and development of low-yield nuclear weapons without authorizing that 
such weapons be tested, acquired, or deployed by the United States. But 
I still think this is a perilous first step toward a new class of 
nuclear weapons. It is one we should not take. I, therefore, urge my 
colleagues to support the amendment offered by the Senators from 
Massachusetts and California.
  I yield the remainder of my time and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
  Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me make real clear things that 
somehow get lost in the discussion. I have heard it said by the last 
four or five speakers that doing this is moving forward with the 
development and production of low-yield nuclear weapons. Nothing could 
be further from the truth.
  By repealing the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons research, our 
nuclear weapons experts will be able to explore weapons concepts that 
could help us to respond to new threats. We ought to treat research and 
development of low-yield nuclear weapons like research and development 
of any weapon. For

[[Page 12319]]

any weapon that we have had, any weapon, conventional or otherwise, we 
have had to go through this period of time. That doesn't mean we are 
going to make one. It means we are going to be prepared if need be.
  By repealing the ban as we did in the Senate bill, the administration 
is still required to specifically request funding at each phase of the 
research and development as required by the National Advanced 
Authorization Act of Fiscal Year 2003. The Congress has the prerogative 
whether to authorize and appropriate for such activities. With the many 
new and emerging threats in the world, we cannot afford to be 
unprepared.
  I was listening to the Senator from Wisconsin talk about how, 
somehow, this starts some kind of a nuclear race. Really that is just 
not true. People argue that research on nuclear weapons would encourage 
nuclear proliferation. Since 1993, when the ban went into effect, the 
ban we are seeking to repeal right now, several nations have sought and 
in some cases achieved nuclear capabilities--in other words, countries 
such as India and Pakistan and North Korea. There is no correlation 
between U.S. weapons research and proliferation. More significant is 
the U.S. track record of nuclear reductions.
  Our top military people and diplomatic leaders support repeal of this 
prohibition: ADM James Ellis, GEN John Jumper, Secretary of State Colin 
Powell.
  In 1994, Congress prohibited any research and development which could 
lead to the production of a low-yield nuclear weapon. That is less than 
5 kilotons. This is an arbitrary restriction and it impedes the ability 
of scientists and engineers who support our national defense to explore 
a full range of scientific and technical concepts for the nuclear 
weapons stockpile.
  It has a chilling effect on creative thinking when scientists have to 
consult a lawyer before exploring concepts involving nuclear weapons. 
It restricts the ability of this or any administration to explore 
options to modify our nuclear weapons capability to prepare for 
changing defense needs in the 21st century.
  These needs are changing. I remember 8 years ago, sitting in the 
Senate Armed Services Committee hearings, when there was a proposal 
that said we would no longer need ground troops in the next 10 years. 
It was about 10 years ago. Yet here we come up with the problems that 
we had in Afghanistan. We had the great battles there, ground troop 
battles. We went into Iraq. That was on the ground; it wasn't in the 
air. Now we are looking at other options and possible risks and we 
don't know what they are going to be.
  The point is, we have to be ready for whatever does come. It is 
prudent national security policy to allow the administration to 
consider weapons concepts that would hold at risk deeply buried and 
hardened targets to defeat chemical and biological agents and reduce 
collateral damage.
  Reducing collateral damage--if we were to be able to do this research 
and ultimately it became necessary to have this, we would be able to 
penetrate deeply into the ground to knock out chemical threats, to 
knock out biological threats, maybe even nuclear threats, and not cause 
any collateral damage. In the absence of that, you would have to use 
something else, a MOAB, for example, that would clear an area of maybe 
5 or 10 square miles, killing everything within that range. So it would 
be an effort to reduce collateral damage.
  Repealing this prohibition would not authorize the administration to 
build any nuclear weapon. I think it is very important people 
understand that.
  What happens if all of a sudden there is a changing threat out there 
and we discover we need to be able to develop a low-yield nuclear 
weapon, if every Senator in here, every Democrat and every Republican, 
agreed that we had to have this? If we don't do research and 
development now, it could be years before we would be able to have it. 
If we go ahead, then we would be able to have it in a very short period 
of time.
  I chaired the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness for 
quite a number of years. I see my colleague from Hawaii over there, who 
is my ranking member. Of course he chaired it also. We know that the 
threats change all the time. The whole idea of readiness is to be ready 
for anything that should come up. Unfortunately, we cannot predict what 
the future holds.
  We predicted it wrong 10 years ago. We predicted it wrong 5 years 
ago. We could predict it wrong this time. Just by doing research and 
development, we are not coming out with any kind of production on any 
kind of low-yield nuclear weapon. It is just a matter of being prepared 
in the event that everyone should decide that we have to have this 
capability.
  I hope we vote down this effort to stop our ability to be able to do 
research and development in this area. Again, on every weapons system 
we have, we have had to go through an extensive and long period of time 
on research and development. It doesn't cost us any more to be ready in 
the event that capability should be required.
  I thank you very much.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mrs. Dole). The Senator from North Dakota is 
recognized.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to modify the 
previous agreement: That I be recognized next and the next Senator to 
be recognized following the movement back and forth on our side would 
be Senator Akaka.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. Madam President, I am listening to this debate, and I 
guess I just do not understand. We are hearing that it is important for 
our country to begin studying or developing, researching a new class of 
nuclear weapons, a new design of nuclear weapons, low yield--which is 
an oxymoron--low-yield nuclear weapons, bunker buster nuclear weapons.
  I was thinking of something Martin Luther King said, which was: ``The 
means by which we live have outdistanced the ends for which we live. We 
have learned the secret of the atom but forgotten the sermon on the 
Mount.''
  I don't understand what we are thinking about here. At a moment in 
history when we need to be the world leader in stopping the spread of 
nuclear weapons and reducing the threat of nuclear weapons, we are 
debating whether we ought to begin producing more nuclear weapons. Is 
there someone here who can't sleep because we don't have enough nuclear 
weapons? There is roughly 30,000 nuclear weapons on this Earth.
  About 2 years ago, or 1\1/2\ years ago, our intelligence community 
thought one was missing. They thought that one from the Russian 
stockpile had been stolen. At least there was the rumor. They had an 
epileptic seizure about one nuclear weapon missing. Would it be 
detonated in an American city? They were concerned about one nuclear 
weapon.
  There are 30,000, roughly, nuclear weapons, and we have people here 
worried about not having enough of the right kind. I just do not 
understand.
  We just heard there is a change in threat. There may be a change in 
threat. Everybody knows the threat isn't being addressed in this bill. 
There is $9 billion in this bill to build a big, old antiballistic 
missile system; a national missile defense system. Take a look at the 
threat meter and find out what the least likely threat against this 
country is. It isn't that a terrorist or terrorist group will have 
access to an ICBM with a nuclear tip on it and fire it against the 
United States. A nuclear weapon, if sent here by a terrorist, isn't 
coming in here at 14,000 miles per hour on an intercontinental 
ballistic missile. It will be pulled up at 2 miles an hour at a dock at 
an American city in a container loaded by terrorists. Yet we are going 
to spend $9 billion on national missile defense.
  I understand we have been doing that for the last several years. It 
doesn't make any sense to me. We are unprepared in other areas. At a 
time when we ought to be leading, to say to the rest of the world, 
don't build more nuclear weapons, don't use nuclear weapons, this 
country is sending a signal to

[[Page 12320]]

the rest of the world in dozens of ways saying, you know, we will not 
renounce first use. We believe in the opportunity for preemptive 
attack, if we are challenged; we ought to study new nuclear weapons, a 
bunker buster design of nuclear weapons.
  Again, this issue of low yield is nuts. I don't want to hear people 
talk about low yield. The people who talk about low-yield nuclear 
weapons are the same people who talk about the ability to use nuclear 
weapons. If anybody here thinks there is an ability in this world to 
use nuclear weapons in a war, then I don't know what planet you are 
living on. Once the movement of nuclear weapons goes back and forth 
between adversaries, I am sorry, your children will have no future. If 
30,000 isn't enough, I am just wondering what hours of the night you 
are awake worried about your lack of protection.
  I do not understand this at all. If ever this world needed this 
country in all of its majesty and in all of its wonders of leadership 
capability, if ever this world needed this country, it is now.
  My colleagues are no doubt tired of this. I will point out again what 
I have in this desk. I have some pieces of metal that were given to me 
that came from an ICBM. This came from an ICBM which used to have a 
warhead on it aimed at the United States. It could have destroyed an 
American city. We didn't shoot it down. It was never launched. That is 
how I have this.
  We, with Nunn-Lugar funds, destroyed this missile in its silo. Where 
this missile used to exist, there is now planted sunflowers. Yes. This 
missile is gone. We sawed wings off bombers. We have destroyed 
submarines, and we paid for it. We didn't shoot them down. We paid for 
their destruction under arms control agreements and arms reduction 
agreements.
  Our job at the moment is to continue the Nunn-Lugar program and 
continue these efforts to say to other countries that all of us must 
back away from this madness.
  This is not modernization; it is madness. How many more nuclear 
weapons do we want? What kind of an additional signal do we want to 
give to countries around the world that it is OK to build nuclear 
weapons and it is OK to be doing research on classes of new nuclear 
weapons?
  I say to those of you and to the administration that I guess they are 
getting the message. We hear it from Russia. They got the message. We 
are going to do some research on these so-called low-yield nuclear 
weapons. They can do some research on low-yield nuclear weapons. I 
guess they are getting the message. I suppose the Chinese got the 
message. All of them will get the message. Then our children will have 
a much less bright future because we will have not seized the 
opportunity and the responsibility as the world's leading power, 
economic and military, to steer us in a direction away from nuclear 
confrontation, away from building more nuclear weapons, and away from 
first use. We will not have done that. We will have instead flexed our 
muscles and said that we have unlimited money. Let us just go ahead and 
spend billions here and billions there.
  I found it interesting. Last week I couldn't get one-fourth of $1 
billion through this Senate that had been approved previously to try to 
feed hungry kids in Africa who are on the abyss of starvation. Forty-
thousand people a day die because they do not have enough to eat, 
mostly kids. That is the equivalent of one Hiroshima bomb every 3 days.
  We have plenty of money for all the things we are talking about 
today. We didn't have enough money to deal with the issue of hunger and 
famine in Africa a couple of days ago. But aside from the issue of 
priorities, which, in my judgment, is a twisted set of priorities, 
losing the opportunity and failing to seize the moment in which 
American leadership is demanding to move this world away from a belief 
that we need more nuclear weapons and that it is OK for countries to 
potentially use nuclear weapons is a miserable failure on the part of a 
country and a legacy, in my judgment, in a very negative way.
  My hope is that before we go too far we will have the votes on this 
amendment and subsequent amendments. I intend to offer another 
amendment in a group of four. I hope we will have the votes to begin to 
turn this country in a constructive direction in this debate on the 
authorization bill.
  This is about judgment. There is an unending appetite in this Chamber 
right now to do all of these things. But, in my opinion, this is about 
using good judgment as a nation to assume our responsibility in the 
world.
  I regret very much that if the work of the committee prevails on the 
floor of the Senate today, then we will this evening find a world that 
is much less secure than it was before this committee began its work.
  We have the capability to do awfully good things. But it requires our 
leadership. It requires our character and our judgment to decide there 
is a right direction and a wrong direction. The wrong direction, in my 
judgment, is for our country to say to the rest of the world, let us 
all build some more nuclear weapons. Let us worry about some threat or 
some rogue nation digging tunnels so deeply we can't catch them or 
explode them. So let us deal with new nuclear weapons.
  I can't think of a more destructive course or a more destructive set 
of policies than those coming to us in this bill dealing with these 
issues. Some say it is irrelevant; it doesn't matter; this is only 
research. Are you kidding? That is what the other countries will say as 
well as they begin to ramp up their programs. It is only ``research'' 
on their next group of designer nuclear weapons. It is only research. 
But we will have taken the cork out of the bottle, and it won't be 
easily put back in.
  I hope my colleagues will support the amendment. This is a very 
important vote, perhaps one of the most important votes on the Defense 
authorization bill.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
  Mr. KYL. It is my understanding that the debate has been going back 
and forth. Senator Allard was in the queue but has graciously allowed 
me to get in front of him. What I would like to do is propound a very 
limited request. I ask unanimous consent that after I speak, Senator 
Akaka be recognized to speak, and after he has completed, Senator 
Allard be recognized to speak.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I am in agreement with that. I want to 
consult my distinguished ranking member. The Senator from Michigan and 
I had worked out a schedule.
  Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if the Senator from Arizona would modify the 
request to add Senator Reed immediately after Senator Allard on his 
side.
  Mr. KYL. Senator Akaka would be after me, and then Senator Allard, 
then Senator Reed.
  Mr. LEVIN. Senator Reed of Rhode Island.
  Mr. WARNER. In that order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. KYL. Madam President, I appreciate the cooperation of my 
colleagues. This is a very serious debate. We need to be careful of the 
language we use and the arguments we make. I would like to respond to a 
couple arguments just made. I think we can clearly be sending some very 
bad signals to some very bad countries of the world in the Senate. When 
a Member of the Senate speaks about low-yield nuclear weapons as 
``nuts,'' we make a grave mistake.
  The majority of the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, the 
Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the 
Secretary of Energy--these are very serious people who have a very 
serious reason for asking that this language be retained in the bill.
  The reason low-yield weapons research is being sought is because the 
world has changed since the time we developed these huge megaton 
nuclear weapons that can kill millions in just a few seconds. Instead 
of wanting to use those kinds of weapons, the United States would 
prefer, if it had to, to use a much smaller weapon, a low-yield weapon.
  There are several potential uses for this kind of weapon. To digress 
for a

[[Page 12321]]

moment, we used to have a lot of these. They are called tactical 
nuclear weapons. Russia still does. The United States got rid of ours. 
Russia says it is going to be getting rid of its tactical nuclear 
weapons as well. Tactical nuclear weapons are not new. Low-yield 
nuclear weapons are not new. But the United States, in order to have a 
credible deterrent against a strategic nuclear attack, developed these 
very robust weapons that can take out cities, that can take out huge 
military targets with one weapon. One of the reasons was because we 
were not very accurate 20 years ago when the weapons were designed. We 
could get pretty close but nothing like the precision with which our 
weapons can be targeted today.
  In the most recent conflict in Iraq, we literally saw missiles flying 
through windows of buildings in downtown Baghdad. The kind of precision 
we have today enables us to use much smaller yield weapons to achieve 
the same results that large conventional weapons are being used for 
today. But they can do so much more effectively. For example, we know 
that some so-called conventional bunker busters were used in an attempt 
to decapitate the Iraqi leadership in the early stages of the war. We 
were impressed with the fact that these missiles could actually go 
through a hole in the floor bored by one missile and then three or four 
more in the same hole and destroy a lot below. But it did not do the 
job. As good as they were, apparently the leadership of the Iraqi 
regime lived on. So we cannot say we have the capability, even in 
dealing with that regime, to destroy those kinds of targets.
  What we know from intelligence is that there are a lot of other 
nations in the world that know one thing: If you get deep enough 
underground with enough concrete and steel above your head, they can't 
get you. That is exactly the kind of facility being built by our 
potential enemies today. There is only one way to get those, and that 
is through a precise low-yield nuclear weapon. The design of those 
weapons is certainly in the mind of our scientists. And if they are 
allowed to think about this, to do some research on it, we think at 
least we would be prepared, should the Pentagon decide that it wants to 
ask the Congress for the authority to go forward with the program, to 
be able to do so.
  The point has been made adequately, this does not authorize anything. 
This merely removes a self-imposed prohibition on the United States. No 
other country in the world is suffering under this same prohibition. We 
legislated this restriction on ourselves. Russia does not have it. 
China does not have it. Great Britain does not have it. France does not 
have it, nor do the countries of the world that are proliferating or 
building weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons in 
violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  There may be a reason for us to need these kinds of weapons in the 
future. It has also been noted that they could be very useful in the 
destruction of chemical and biological agents or weapons which are not 
easily destroyed by conventional weaponry and in any event where the 
fallout can be more dangerous than the weapon just sitting there on the 
ground. If you put a large conventional explosion on top of chemical or 
biological agents, you could end up dispersing those agents in a very 
dangerous way over a far greater area than if the enemy actually tried 
to use the weapon. But with a precise low-yield nuclear weapon, you 
might well be able to destroy that biological or chemical agent or 
weapon. In this new world there may well be reasons to have these 
weapons. For somebody to suggest it is nuts is simply an uneducated 
approach to this very serious issue.
  I made the point that this is not an authorization. All we are doing 
is removing a self-imposed restriction on thinking about this, on doing 
research. If the researchers conclude it could be done and the Pentagon 
decided it should be done, Congress would still have to authorize such 
a program and fund it through appropriations. So I don't think we 
should be against thinking in the Senate, against researching something 
that we may well wish we had down the road.
  This could save lives. Think about the application of such a weapon 
as we have today on one of these targets. We would risk killing 
millions, and there is no point in doing that. It would be immoral to 
do that.
  A second point made earlier was to demonstrate the ICBMs that have 
been destroyed and to suggest that if we now move forward with 
rebuilding some nuclear weapons, we would be signalling to other 
nations that it is OK to build these nuclear weapons. Let's parse that 
a little more carefully.
  The reason we are destroying nuclear weapons is because we want to 
get rid of some of these very large nuclear weapons that we don't think 
we need anymore because circumstances have changed. Frankly, I don't 
think it is a very credible deterrent for us to say--I will say this 
regarding Iraq because that is over and so I think one can safely talk 
about the situation there. I don't want to talk about potential future 
situations--to Saddam Hussein, if you use chemical weapons against our 
troops, since we have foresworn chemical weapons and we have foresworn 
the use of biological weapons--we don't even have them; our only big 
ticket type here is a nuclear weapon--we won't take any option off the 
table. We just might use a nuclear weapon if you use biological or 
chemical weapons against us.
  We threatened that once before, and some say it worked to deter his 
use of those chemical weapons. Would it work today? Does anybody really 
believe the United States would kill maybe 3 or 4 or 5 million innocent 
Iraqi citizens by bombing Baghdad with one of our big nuclear weapons 
today? Those are the kinds of weapons we have. They kill lots of people 
real fast. As a deterrent when the cold war was going on, we wanted to 
let the Soviet Union know that they better not launch against us 
because they would suffer just as much destruction as we would and, 
therefore, we could deter their actions.
  Would it really deter a Saddam Hussein from using biological or 
chemical weapons against us? Would he really think we would use one of 
our great big nuclear weapons? I don't think so. So, ironically, these 
great big weapons are too big to use.
  The deterrent may not be credible. As a result, it makes sense for us 
to destroy a large number of those weapons, to take them out of our 
inventory and keep only enough that we think would really be necessary 
in the event we needed to deter a nuclear-armed country, such as Russia 
or China today. The other legal nuclear countries, of course, are 
France and Britain. In addition, we have India and Pakistan, which are 
not part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  So we say we can deter an action by a Saddam Hussein with a far 
smaller, less destructive kind of weapon. If he knows that we have a 
low-yield nuclear weapon that can bust his bunker and all of the other 
leadership, maybe he will think twice before he orders the use of 
chemical or biological weapons.
  Today, the experience in Iraq shows that we could not get the 
leadership of Iraq. So what does this teach other potential enemies? If 
you burrow deep enough underground and put enough steel and concrete 
over your head, like Saddam Hussein apparently did, you are not going 
to be able to get him, or get us, and therefore we have nothing to 
fear. That is another reason we need these weapons. We are willing to 
get rid of our great big weapons; that is the signal we are sending. We 
also will continue to have a credible deterrent with much smaller kinds 
of weapons.
  I mentioned the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. I will make this 
point. The nuclear countries of the world that signed the NPT agreed we 
would be the nuclear powers; but in exchange for other countries that 
signed up, including countries such as Iran, we said we would provide 
them with information and assistance regarding atomic energy--the 
peaceful uses of nuclear energy. We have done that.
  When countries have come to us and asked, we have provided that 
assistance because that is what the NPT calls for. We have abided by 
it; they have not. What makes anyone think

[[Page 12322]]

that a self-imposed congressional limitation on the United States has 
deterred countries such as North Korea and Iran--or India and Pakistan 
for that matter--from developing weapons in contravention of the NPT?
  Obviously, our action hasn't prevented them from developing these 
weapons. So what kind of an argument is it that this law on the books 
has been effective at stopping other countries? It didn't stop Saddam 
Hussein, Iran, or North Korea; and other countries are also trying to 
work on a nuclear capability.
  So let's not kid ourselves. This isn't stopping proliferation. What 
will stop it is a strong signal from the U.S. that it will not be 
countenanced, because if you have signed the NPT, like Iran, you don't 
have any right; you signed that right away for something we gave you. 
We are going to have a credible deterrent to your use of such a weapon.
  Finally, I am astonished at the argument that was made earlier that 
we should be ``setting our priorities straight,'' we should be willing 
to spend money on hunger in Africa rather than defending the United 
States of America. That was the argument made on this Senate floor. I 
am concerned that we are sending the wrong signals to the world--
especially our potential adversaries--if that kind of a statement is 
left unresponded to.
  The U.S. Government has an obligation above all others, and that is 
to protect and defend the people of the United States of America. That 
is our primary obligation as Members of this body. If it is necessary 
not to spend one nickel but simply remove a provision of the law that 
prevents our scientists from even thinking about this problem, and if 
we are saying that has a lower priority than spending money on hunger 
in Africa, then something is gravely wrong.
  Fortunately, we are not going to do this. The Armed Services 
Committee understood the need to remove the restriction on thinking. 
The Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and 
Secretary of Energy have said to remove that restriction so our people 
can think about this problem. I think that is the priority here. That 
is why we should support the action of the Armed Services Committee. It 
should not be illegal to think of ways of defending America.
  I will conclude with this statement. Everybody would like to see a 
day when there are no nuclear weapons. But we cannot disinvent the 
nuclear weapon. Either we have confidence in the United States of 
America as a power that can help do something to stop the wrong people 
from acquiring these weapons and using them, or we do not. If we have 
so little confidence in America that we don't trust ourselves with 
these weapons to be used as a way of stopping the likes of Saddam 
Hussein, then we have lost our way indeed.
  Americans must have the confidence that we will do the right thing as 
a government. Members of the U.S. Congress make this kind of policy. Do 
we have so little confidence in ourselves that we are not willing to 
let our scientists think about this problem?
  We hold the decision in our hands to authorize a program, to 
appropriate the money for a program. So it is not as if we are giving 
anything up by allowing our scientists to think about this.
  Yet that is what the opponents of the committee bill would have us 
do. I find it incredible that we would, like the Luddites of old, say 
we don't want to know any more about this because nuclear weapons are 
really icky things. Well, they are not nice, but somebody needs to have 
the ability to deter others from gaining their capability or, God 
forbid, invoking the use of these weapons.
  Only a country that is willing to think about what kinds of 
deterrents may be required in the future is going to be able to provide 
that degree of stability in the world. That burden rests upon the 
United States of America. I gladly accept it as a representative of the 
Government that I think we can trust.
  That is what it boils down to today. Do we trust the President, the 
Secretary of Defense, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and a 
majority of the Committee on Armed Services or don't we? I think we can 
put our trust in them. I do, and I urge my colleagues to support the 
committee action and defeat the amendment against the committee action.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Hawaii is recognized.
  Mr. AKAKA. Madam President, I rise today to support the amendment 
offered by Senators Feinstein and Kennedy to the fiscal year 2004 
Defense authorization bill to strike section 3131 and to keep the 
prohibition on the research and development of low-yield nuclear 
weapons.
  Let me explain to you and my colleagues why I am supporting this 
amendment. In 1993, Congress placed a prohibition on research and 
development that could lead to the production of new low-yield nuclear 
weapons that would have an explosive yield of less than 5 kilotons. I 
am informed that this administration has sought to eliminate this 
prohibition.
  The administration's Nuclear Posture Review calls for exploring new 
nuclear weapons ``concepts'' to be able to attack hard and buried 
targets in so-called rogue nations with reduced collateral damage.
  According to the administration, the restriction on research on low-
yield nuclear weapons impedes this effort. But the existing law gives 
nuclear weapons laboratories sufficient room to explore new nuclear 
weapons concepts. Adequate research is permitted but not production.
  However, the fiscal year 2004 authorization bill follows the 
administration's request and repeals the 1993 prohibition. Yet the 
development and production of low-yield nuclear weapons would create 
many problems. As I noted in my statement to the Senate on April 11, 
2003, although the administration is looking to reduce collateral 
damage from a nuclear explosion, low-yield weapons could still cause 
widespread devastation if used, threatening civilian populations and 
U.S. forces.
  We already have several conventional weapons that can be used to 
destroy or incapacitate buried bunkers. Rather than pursuing new 
nuclear weapons, we could devote additional resources to improving the 
ability of our conventional forces to render deeply buried targets 
inoperable.
  Developing the new low-yield nuclear weapons could also encourage a 
new arms race in tactical nuclear weapons and setback U.S. 
nonproliferation efforts. There is already some evidence of a new 
action-reaction arms race cycle starting.
  Just last Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin told the Russian 
Duma in his annual address that Russia is working on a new generation 
of nuclear weapons. Russian military experts were quoted as saying that 
President Putin was probably referring to new low-yield nuclear weapons 
like those proposed by the administration.
  Last month, Secretary of State Colin Powell sent a message to the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee conference in 
Geneva in which he said the United States ``remains firmly committed to 
its obligations under the NPT.'' Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf 
outlines the steps the United States had taken to fulfill its article 
VI obligations to the conference. But he expressed very strong worries 
that the NPT regime was being weakened by nonnuclear countries covertly 
pursuing nuclear weapons programs.
  The majority of the signatories to the NPT treaty agreed to its 
indefinite extension in 1995 on the assumption the nuclear weapons 
powers would continue to reduce their nuclear arsenals and ratify a 
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The administration's pursuit of new 
nuclear weapons makes it harder to convince the world to crack down on 
possible NPT violators.
  I urge my colleagues to vote for this amendment. We should act to 
stop the further proliferation of nuclear weapons and prevent the start 
of a new mini-nuke arms race.
  I yield back the remainder of my time.
  Mr. REID. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

[[Page 12323]]

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, we have had excellent cooperation on 
both sides of the aisle in this very important debate. I would like to 
propound a unanimous consent request on which my distinguished 
colleague from Michigan, the leader, Senator Reid, and I have worked. 
This is on the pending Feinstein-Kennedy amendment.
  I ask unanimous consent that prior to a vote in relation to the 
pending Feinstein-Kennedy amendment No. 715, the following Members be 
recognized to address the Senate: Senator Reed, 20 minutes; Senator 
Biden, 20 minutes; Senator Kennedy, 5 minutes; Senator Feinstein, 15 
minutes; Senator Levin, 25 minutes; and under the control of the 
Senator from Virginia will be 60 minutes, which I will allocate.
  Mr. REID. Madam President, if I can ask the Senator to accept this 
modification, that the order of the speakers on our side be Senator 
Reed of Rhode Island, Senator Biden, Senator Boxer, Senator Kennedy, 
Senator Feinstein, and Senator Levin.
  Mr. WARNER. With that addition, I say to my colleague, we would add 
more time for Senator Boxer?
  Mr. REID. Senator Boxer is scheduled for 5 minutes. Senator Levin 
does not want to be the final speaker, so we will have him go before 
Senator Feinstein. That is a total of 90 minutes.
  Mr. WARNER. That is acceptable.
  Let me finish the request. I ask unanimous consent that following the 
use or yielding back of time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation 
to the amendment, with no amendment in order to the language proposed 
to be stricken prior to the vote.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Presiding Officer.
  I say to colleagues on my side of the aisle, I hope they will 
approach me as soon as possible to indicate such time as they might 
wish to take of the hour under the control of the Senator from 
Virginia. The Senator from Colorado wishes to address the Senate. I 
yield the floor for that purpose.
  Mr. ALLARD. I wish to make a few comments in regard to the Kennedy-
Feinstein amendment currently before us.
  Mr. WARNER. Madam President, I say to the Senator, since we discussed 
what he intends to do, I yield to him such time as he may require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. Madam President, I think it behooves all of us to take 
the time and review where we are in this debate.
  The current law prohibits research and development of low-yield 
nuclear weapons. It prevents scientists from even thinking about low-
yield nuclear weapons. There is a provision in the bill before us that 
says we will be able to think about low-yield nuclear weapons, but it 
specifically prevents testing, acquisition, or deployment of low-yield 
nuclear weapons unless you come to the Congress and ask permission to 
move forward with that type of effort.
  The Kennedy-Feinstein amendment we are currently considering takes it 
back to the current prohibition of even thinking about what it is we 
need to do about low-yield nuclear weapons.
  During the Easter break, which was a 2-week break, I spent the first 
week on townhall meetings in Colorado. The second week I spent visiting 
our National Laboratories.
  Our National Laboratories are pretty much known for their 
responsibility of managing the nuclear stockpile to make sure that it 
is safe and reliable. As I visited these laboratories, I found out they 
do much more than that. They give a lot of thought to what type of 
deterrence should we have as far as being a superpower. They do a lot 
of thinking about our vulnerabilities. They think about our potential 
threats and what might be the proper response to those threats.
  So the nuclear laboratory scientists tell me that they wish at least 
they could study the low-nuclear weapon alternative. I agree. I think 
at least we ought to look at the pros and cons. We ought to try to 
gather the scientific data and understand which situations may be 
needed. Maybe we do not need low-yield nuclear weapons, but they at 
least need to think about it and they need to have a study.
  Ambassador Linton Brooks testified before the Armed Services 
Committee, and he was the acting administrator of the National Nuclear 
Security Administration. He also testified before the Strategic Forces 
Subcommittee on April 8, 2003. This is what he said: Repeal of the low-
yield restriction simply removes the chilling effect on scientific 
inquiry that could hamper our ability to maintain and exercise our 
intellectual capabilities and to respond to the needs that one day 
might be articulated by the President.
  He also noted that such warhead concepts could not proceed to full-
scale development, much less production and deployment, unless Congress 
authorizes and appropriates the funds required to do this.
  As a point of reference in the ban on research and development of 
low-yield nuclear weapons--low yield is defined as below 5 kilotons as 
a comparison. So in nuclear technology, we are talking about a 
relatively small type of warhead.
  I respect the view of the scientists I visited at our various 
laboratories. One thing I came away thinking is they are dedicated 
Americans. They are dedicated scientists. They have a lot of ingenuity, 
and they are supported by a tremendous workforce that is dedicated to 
making sure we have a safer world and that we can actually preserve 
freedom. They are concerned that we remain a world leader. My view is 
we are a world leader, but we are a world leader in reducing nuclear 
weapons.
  Earlier the Senator from North Dakota commented about the fact that 
where he had silos for missiles with nuclear warheads, he now has 
sunflowers growing in the field. Well, right now, under the 
Presidential directive of President Bush, we are removing peacekeepers 
from the ground. We are taking out a sizable proportion of some of the 
Cold War relics that are supposed to act as deterrents as far as a 
nuclear war is concerned.
  While these sunflowers are growing and the President is removing more 
of our nuclear warheads, what is the rest of the world doing? What I 
have observed is that there are countries such as Iran and Iraq--no 
longer Iraq but at one point in time at least--Afghanistan, Pakistan, 
and North Korea are building more nuclear weapons. They are trying to 
develop that technology.
  We have been a leader. The problem is nobody is following. I think 
these countries are more concerned not so much about what the United 
States is doing but about what their neighbors are doing, what it is 
that they are going to have to require to defend their borders. So this 
is beyond what we do in this country.
  Even though this country remains committed and has shown leadership 
in reducing our nuclear weapons, we have to remember that other 
countries are moving ahead, regardless of what we are doing. We need to 
give some thought to that. We need to study that issue.
  I am looking at some figures on nuclear testing which we postponed on 
September 23, 1992. That was the last date of underground nuclear tests 
by the United States. Since that date, we have had a number of nuclear 
tests by China, France, India, and Pakistan. I have a whole list of 
them.
  I ask unanimous consent that this list be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                 NUCLEAR TESTING POST SEPTEMBER 23, 1992
------------------------------------------------------------------------
          Date                   Country                 Source
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9/25/92.................  China...............  The Washington Times 10/
                                                 24/92.
10/5/93--Banon low yield    Do................  Associated Press 10/5/
                                                 93.
6/10/94.................    Do................  The New York Times 6/11/
                                                 94.
10/7/94.................    Do................  The Washington Post 10/8/
                                                 94.
5/15/95.................    Do................  The Washington Post 5/16/
                                                 95.
8/17/95.................    Do................  The Washington Post 8/18/
                                                 95.

[[Page 12324]]

 
9/5/95..................  France..............  Reuters 12/27/95.
10/2/95.................    Do................    Do.
10/27/95................    Do................    Do.
11/21/95................    Do................    Do.
12/27/95................    Do................    Do.
1/27/96.................  France..............  Associated Press 1/28/
                                                 96.
6/8/96..................  China...............  The Washington Post 6/9/
                                                 96.
7/29/96.................    Do................  The Washington Post 7/30/
                                                 96.
5/11/98.................  India...............  The New York Times 5/12/
                                                 98.
5/13/98.................    Do................  The New York Times 5/14/
                                                 98.
5/28/98.................  Pakistan............  The Washington Post 5/29/
                                                 98.
5/30/98.................    Do................  The New York Times 5/31/
                                                 98.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: Sept. 23, 1992 was the date of the last underground nuclear test
  conducted by the United States.

  Mr. ALLARD. I do not see that other countries are responding to our 
efforts. So I think we need to think about our own vulnerabilities and 
our own potential threats. That is what we are trying to do in the 
armed services bill. We are trying to at least give our scientists an 
opportunity to study our nuclear weapon vulnerabilities.
  Earlier on in the debate, some comment was made--I think we had a 
dialogue between a couple of Members who were supporting the Kennedy-
Feinstein amendment. The point was made during that dialogue that this 
provision we have in the bill would lead to the building of new 
weapons. That is not true. We have a specific provision in the bill 
that says nothing in the provision shall be construed as authorizing 
the testing, acquisition, or deployment of low-yield nuclear weapons.
  What it does provide for is study and thinking about our 
vulnerabilities, our deterrence efforts, and our potential threats.
  I mentioned that Ambassador Linton Brooks testified in front of our 
subcommittee. I have a letter from General Jumper explaining how 
important it is that we at least study the low-yield nuclear weapons. I 
have a letter from Admiral Ellis talking about that need. We also have 
a letter from Secretary of State Colin Powell talking about the need of 
having low-yield nuclear weapons. I ask unanimous consent these three 
letters be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:
                                      Department of the Air Force,


                                 Office of the Chief of Staff,

                                      Washington, DC, May 8, 2003.
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I seek your support for repealing 
     Section 3136 of the Fiscal Year 1994 National Defense 
     Authorization Act (42 USC Sec. 2121). This section of the 
     law, commonly referred to as the Precision Low-Yield Weapon 
     Development (PLYWD) limitation, prohibits the Department of 
     Energy and by extension the Air Force from conducting any 
     research and development on a new nuclear weapon design with 
     a yield of five kilotons or less.
       Research and development of new low-yield weapon concepts 
     is required in order to evaluate all potential options to 
     meet current and emerging combatant commanders' requirements. 
     Low-yield nuclear weapons currently in the stockpile simply 
     are not suited to satisfy all these requirements.
       We are pursuing full rescission of this section of the law 
     instead of just an amendment. A partial repeal that only 
     permits basic research and development with no prospect for 
     production would effectively have the same impact as the 
     current law.
       A similar letter has been sent to the Ranking Minority 
     Member of your Committee and to the Chairman and Ranking 
     Minority Member of the House Armed Services Committee.
           Sincerely,

                                               John P. Jumper,

                                                    General, USAF,
     Chief of Staff.
                                  ____



                                        Department of Defense,

                                  United States Strategic Command,
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee,
     Russell Senate Office Building,
     Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: The Nuclear Posture Review put in motion 
     a major change in the role of our nuclear forces. As we 
     continue to strategize the most effective methods of 
     addressing new and emerging threats to our National Security, 
     it is an inherent responsibility of the Department of Defense 
     to not only reevaluate the capabilities of our nuclear 
     arsenal, but to thoroughly analyze the potential of advanced 
     concepts that could enhance our overall deterrent posture.
       US Strategic Command is interested in conducting rigorous 
     studies of all new technologies, and examining the merits of 
     precision, increased penetration, and reduced yields for our 
     nuclear weapons. The nation needs to understand the technical 
     capabilities of threats under development by potential 
     adversaries and to thoroughly explore the range of options 
     available to the United States to deter or defeat them. Once 
     we complete the precise engineering analyses necessary to 
     validate facts related to nascent advanced concepts, the 
     results of the research will enable dispassionate, fact-based 
     discussions on very important defense and policy issues.
       The findings of the Nuclear Posture Review were strongly 
     endorsed by the Service Chiefs. Repealing Section 3136 of 
     Fiscal Year 1994 NDAA (42 USC 2121) will allow US Strategic 
     Command the ability to evaluate the full range of advanced 
     concepts through research and development activities.
       Your support in repealing the prohibition on low-yield 
     research and development for nuclear weapons is greatly 
     appreciated. A similar letter has been sent to the Ranking 
     Member of your committee.
           Sincerely,

                                                   J.O. Ellis,

                                               Admiral, U.S. Navy,
     Commander.
                                  ____



                                       The Secretary of State,

                                          Washington, May 5, 2003.
     Hon. John Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     U.S. Senate.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to express support for the 
     President's FY2004 budget request to fund the feasibility and 
     cost study for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), 
     and to repeal the FY1994 legislation that prohibits the 
     United States from conducting research and development on low 
     yield nuclear weapons. I do not believe that these 
     legislative steps will complicate our ongoing efforts with 
     North Korea. Inasmuch as work on the RNEP was authorized and 
     funded in last year's National Defense Authorization Act, I 
     believe that North Korea already has factored the RNEP into 
     its calculations and will not vary those calculations 
     depending on how Congress acts on this element of the FY2004 
     budget request.
       Thank you for your important work on these issues and 
     please do not hesitate to ask if I can be of further 
     assistance in the future.
           Sincerely,
                                                  Colin L. Powell.

  Mr. ALLARD. Many rogue nations have built and are continuing to build 
hard and deeply buried facilities to protect their most valuable assets 
such as their leadership, communications equipment, and facilities for 
the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction. We know that 
conventional weapons cannot hold all of these targets at risk. A recent 
report by the Congressional Research Service cited a DIA estimate of 
some 1,400 known or suspected strategic underground facilities world 
wide. It further states that the only way to destroy them is with a 
strong shock wave that travels through the ground.
  The question that the Congress and the administration must now 
grapple with is how to ensure the continued credibility of the Nation's 
nuclear deterrent into the 21st century. We must recognize that today's 
stockpile was designed and manufactured to deter the threat by the 
former Soviet Union. As we all know, that threat no longer exists. 
Today, we are faced with a multi-dimensional challenge that requires a 
different set of tools.
  By repealing the ban on research and development of low-yield nuclear 
weapons, this does not mean the United States is about to resume 
nuclear weapons production. In fact, the United States has not 
manufactured a new nuclear weapon for more than a decade. The advanced 
concepts initiative merely allows the labs to explore the technical 
boundaries of providing solutions to new and emerging national security 
challenges. Advanced concepts work will allow the labs to train the 
next generation of scientists and engineers that the Nation will need 
to ensure a safe, secure and reliable nuclear deterrent.
  The fear of the erosion of the firewall between the use of nuclear 
and conventional weapons use is another unfounded issue. During the 
1950s, 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, when U.S. tactical nuclear weapons were 
deployed throughout the world and warfighting plans were in place, no 
U.S. nuclear weapons were ever used. We still maintain the policy that 
only the President can authorize the use of nuclear weapons and there 
are no plans to change that very important policy, nor is there any 
desire on the part of the Department of Defense to develop battlefield 
nuclear weapons to accomplish what our conventional weapons can already 
do.

[[Page 12325]]

  Now I will review the bill that is before us.
  It states specifically in the legislation that nothing in the repeal 
made by section A shall be construed as authorizing the testing, 
acquisition, or deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon.
  We are just talking about studying, thinking about low-yield nuclear 
weapons.
  The key is if the U.S. President is faced with a situation so grave 
that the use of nuclear weapons is considered, we must have a full 
sweep of options. Options in our current stockpile are very limited and 
would result in a significant level of collateral damage if the nuclear 
weapon is required to resolve a crisis in terms of the best interests 
of the United States.
  These are challenging times, but they are crucial times, important 
times, and it is important we make the right decision because the world 
is changing. We need to know that. We need to know what the parameters 
are as we move forward in determining what is best to protect America. 
To have a provision in law that says you cannot study or think about 
all the options when you are looking at your vulnerabilities and where 
you need to go to protect America is foolhardy.
  I hope the Senate today will defeat the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment 
and at least allow for study and our scientists to think about various 
alternatives, including a low-yield nuclear weapon. I am here to ask my 
colleagues in the Senate to join me in voting no on the Kennedy-
Feinstein amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Rhode Island is recognized.
  Mr. REED. Madam President, I rise in support of the Kennedy-Feinstein 
amendment. First, we should explain the terminology better because 
there is a suggestion implicit in many of the comments today that a 
low-yield nuclear device is something akin to a big conventional 
weapon.
  Nuclear weapons are sui generis, the most horrific weapon that man 
has ever developed. Under this bill we remove a ban on the research and 
development, and therefore testing and deployment of so-called low-
yield weapons, 5 kilotons or less.
  Let me put that in perspective. The weapon dropped on Hiroshima was 
14 kilotons. The weapon dropped on Nagasaki was 21 kilotons. A 5-
kiloton weapon, a 1-kiloton weapon, is a significant weapon causing 
significant damage.
  When we talk about low-yield nuclear weapons, it is almost like 
talking about a small apocalypse because nuclear weapons have 
apocalyptic qualities in their destruction and in their fear.
  As a result, for more than 50 years we have attempted to put them 
beyond use. This language in this bill lowers that threshold 
dramatically. It says we will begin after a 10-year prohibition not 
just research, but this bill takes away the prohibition on developing, 
engineering, testing, and deploying weapons. Low-yield weapons. But 
again, those low-yield weapons have fantastic power.
  I heard some of my colleagues talk about the fact if we had such 
weapons like this we surely would have gotten Saddam Hussein. Dropping 
a weapon, even a ``low-yield nuclear weapon,'' in an urban area will 
create incredible collateral damage. Not as much, of course, as a 400-
kiloton weapon but the damage is huge. In fact, Sidney Drell, a 
physicist and arms control advocate, calculated that a 1-kiloton weapon 
penetrating at 40 feet, a penetrating type weapon, would create a 
crater larger than the impact area at the World Trade Center and put 
about 1 million cubic feet of radioactive material in the air. If we 
had dropped such a weapon on Baghdad, we would not be in Baghdad today. 
Our troops would be ringing the city waiting for the radiation to clear 
and trying to minister to the civilians.
  The notion we need these weapons for military purposes is 
unsubstantiated. There is no military requirement for a so-called low-
yield nuclear weapon.
  In testimony before the Armed Services Committee on April 8, 2003, 
Ambassador Brooks, the head of NNSA, testified after a question from 
Bill Nelson:

       Well, is there a requirement in your opinion for a new low 
     yield?
       Ambassador Brooks: No.
       Senator Bill Nelson. Is there a requirement for such a 
     weapon under consideration or being developed?
       Ambassador Brooks: There is no requirement being developed. 
     To the best of my knowledge there is no requirement under 
     consideration. There is no military need for this weapon.

  That is the testimony of the administration.
  I am sure there are many people who would say yes, it is nice to 
study. There are lots of things that are nice to study. But without a 
military requirement for such a weapon, why are we abandoning a 
significant prohibition that has aided, I believe, our efforts in 
trying to tame or at least contain the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons?
  It seems to me counterintuitive that one could argue, as I think some 
of my colleagues do, the way to stop the proliferation of nuclear 
weapons is to build more nuclear weapons. I don't think that makes 
sense.
  There is a suggestion also throughout the discussion this afternoon 
that this is just about research, nothing else. I was intrigued by this 
notion and I asked Ambassador Brooks about it at a hearing. His initial 
justification for the language requested by the administration was it 
would, in his words, ``remove the chilling effect on scientific inquiry 
that could hamper our ability to maintain and exercise our intellectual 
capabilities to respond to needs that one day might be articulated by 
the President.''
  I asked a very obvious question. Why didn't the administration simply 
send up a modification to section 3136, the ban, simply to carve out 
language that will allow research but still would maintain the 
prohibition against engineering, development, testing, and deployment? 
I said:

       For example, the language could simply say: It shall be the 
     policy of the United States not to produce a low-yield 
     nuclear weapon, including precision low-yield nuclear weapon.

  Ambassador Brooks replied to my query:

       It is accurate that that would eliminate one of the 
     concerns I have with the language, though the language now 
     does have, we fear, a potentially chilling effect on R&D and, 
     as you described a possible modification, it might not. So 
     speaking narrowly from the prospect of trying to get a robust 
     advanced concept program working, language like that might be 
     entirely suitable.

  But that is not what this legislation includes. Not a limited 
exception to research, but a categorical elimination of the ban on 
research, engineering, development, testing, deployment of so-called 
low-yield nuclear weapons.
  It is pretty clear here we are really not talking about just 
research. In fact, I hope this amendment of Senator Kennedy and Senator 
Feinstein passes. I support it. If it fails, I am prepared to offer 
language that will, in fact, limit it just to research.
  Now, we also heard before the committee that one of the reasons we 
need this research project is so scientists can continue to work on it, 
maintain their skills. It turns out if that is the case, there are 
plenty of opportunities with existing weapons in the inventory to go 
ahead and hone those skills.
  Even if such opportunities were not readily available, to give up a 
significant and recognized prohibition on at least one class of nuclear 
weapons simply to satisfy technical training would at least suggest to 
me that other ways should be found to train our scientists, and other 
ways, I think, could be found to train the scientists.
  There is also a perception, I think inherent in the discussions 
here--and I have alluded to it in my initial comments--that the effect 
of one of these so-called low-yield weapons is that it will produce 
less collateral damage. That is true, but less than what? Less than the 
bomb at Hiroshima which, to my recollection, took over 100,000 lives. 
Are we willing to engage or use or tactically employ weapons that only 
take, in one fell swoop, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 lives and claim they 
are low yield and therefore innocuous? There is nothing innocuous about 
the weapons we are talking about.

[[Page 12326]]

  I believe very strongly that it is incumbent upon this Senate to 
maintain the ban. I think it is wise policy. I think it is a policy 
that has given us advantages as we have urged other nations to refrain 
from the development of nuclear weapons.
  There are some discussions about whether arms control has succeeded 
or failed. I think many times we point to those cases in which 
countries acquire nuclear weapons, but we fail to recognize the many 
instances where countries have given up their nuclear weapons--such as 
several countries in the former Soviet Union like the Ukraine, Belarus 
and Kazakstan. Because of the spirit of the nonproliferation treaty and 
because of the efforts of the United States and other countries urging 
that they become compliant with the nonproliferation treaty, these 
countries voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons. I do not know that 
today, if they were watching what we are doing here, they would be so 
eager to give up their nuclear weapons.
  So we lose a great deal more than simply this language in the bill. I 
think we lose a diplomatic advantage, in terms of the goal which I hope 
we are still pursuing, which is the elimination, I hope, or certainly 
the containment, of nuclear weapons.
  I urge all my colleagues to think very clearly and to recall several, 
for me, salient points. These are weapons of horrendous effect. Don't 
think low-yield, think small apocalypse. These are weapons that have no 
military requirement today.
  What we do here will be emulated by other countries. That is the 
nature of world leadership. We have a chance to preserve at least this 
aspect of arms control, which will give us the opportunity, I hope, to 
argue for even more, and more effective means of nonproliferation.
  I urge my colleagues to support the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment.
  I yield my time to the Senator from Michigan.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Who yields time?
  The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we are now operating under a time 
agreement. We will have our distinguished colleague from Nevada here 
momentarily. For the moment, let's put in a quorum call and this side 
will bear the time on the quorum call because I see my two colleagues 
are engaged in a colloquy. So I observe the absence of a quorum and ask 
that it be charged to this side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I yield to the Senator from Nevada such time as he may 
require.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. ENSIGN. Mr. President, the 1994 National Defense Authorization 
Act stipulated that:

       It shall be the policy of the United States not to conduct 
     research and development which could lead to the production 
     by the United States of a new low-yield nuclear weapon, 
     including a precision low-yield warhead. The Secretary of 
     Energy may not conduct, or provide for the conduct of, 
     research and development which could lead to the production 
     by the United States of a low-yield nuclear weapon.

  This legislation has been effective in preventing our nuclear weapon 
scientists from conducting any research into these low-yield nuclear 
weapons.
  I believe that repeal of the low-yield research and development 
prohibition is in the national interest. The National Security Strategy 
outlined in the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review included the long-term goal 
to maintain a strong nuclear deterrent with a smaller nuclear arsenal 
by utilizing missile defense and conventional strike capabilities. To 
accomplish this without putting U.S. safety or security at risk 
requires that the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear 
Security Administration be allowed to adapt and/or rebuild the existing 
nuclear stockpile to meet current and emerging threats.
  The United States has deployed low-yield nuclear weapons throughout 
the history of the stockpile and has them today. These weapons have 
enhanced nuclear deterrence by providing the President with credible 
options for attacking targets of national importance. The existence of 
low-yield weapons over the last 50 years has not blurred the nuclear 
threshold and it is unlikely that future conceptual studies will 
either. Maintaining a strong research and development capability will, 
more likely, assure our allies and dissuade and deter our adversaries.
  The Department of Defense has important and emerging missions that 
low-yield weapons can uniquely address. For example, low-yield weapons 
have the potential to significantly reduce collateral effects and yet 
still provide the high temperatures needed to destroy chemical and 
biological agents stored in bunkers. The 1994 legislation has been a 
significant barrier to the advanced development program needed to study 
this capability and other innovative technologies.
  Maintaining a viable nuclear weapons enterprise is vital to both the 
National Nuclear Security Administration and the Department of Defense. 
The low-yield research and development prohibition has had a chilling 
effect on the ability of National Nuclear Security Administration 
scientists to respond to Department of Defense requirements and in 
fulfilling the goal of developing the responsive infrastructure needed 
to respond decisively to changes in the international security 
environment or to stockpile surprises.
  The low-yield research and development prohibition has been called 
``a pillar of arms control'' by its supporters and its repeal a 
possible cause of increased global nuclear proliferation. However, 
nuclear proliferation occurred steadily throughout the 1990s. India, 
Pakistan, North Korea and others have pursued active nuclear weapon 
development programs despite the United States self-imposed refrain 
from low-yield studies.
  Repeal will not commit the United States to producing new or modified 
warheads. Congressional approval is required prior to any full-scale 
development.
  The Feinstein-Kennedy amendment would strike the repeal of the 
prohibition on research and development of low-yield nuclear weapons in 
the defense authorization bill.
  It should not be illegal to think of, or research, ways to defend 
America. I urge my colleagues to vote against the Feinstein-Kennedy 
amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Delaware.
  Mr. BIDEN. Mr. President, how much time do I have available under the 
unanimous consent agreement?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty minutes.
  Mr. BIDEN. I thank the Chair.
  Before I begin speaking in support of the Kennedy amendment, I would 
like to make just one generic point. I find it fascinating that the 
United States of America, of all countries in the world, feels the need 
to increase its nuclear arsenal at this moment--low-yield, high-yield, 
no-yield, any yield.
  It is fascinating that, at this moment in the world's history, in our 
relative strength and power, we are the ones who think we need another 
nuclear weapon in our arsenal. But that is just, as a friend of mine 
named Arlen Mekler used to say, a random thought.
  Let me get to the heart of this. I obviously support the Feinstein-
Kennedy amendment which would keep the 1993 Spratt-Furse amendment in 
place. That amendment, as we all know, bans all work on low-yield 
nuclear weapons, those with a yield below 5 kilotons. We had a lot of 
reasons to do that. It is sometimes useful to remember why we did these 
things in the first place. I might add we enacted that amendment at a 
time when the Russians had a whole heck of a lot more weapons than 
exist now; at a time when things were actually a little more dangerous, 
when our vulnerability to nuclear attack was greater than it is today.
  But the question now is, Why should we oppose the repeal of that ban? 
After all, section 3131 states:

       Nothing in the repeal . . . shall be construed as 
     authorizing, testing, acquisition,

[[Page 12327]]

     or development of a low-yield nuclear weapon.

  So why stop our nuclear weapons labs from just thinking about these 
low-yield weapons?
  One answer is that the current law doesn't restrict research and 
early development on these low-yield weapons. It only prohibits later 
stages of development and engineering that are geared toward the 
production of low-yield nuclear weapons.
  Obviously, what we would do by lifting this ban is to be in the 
position of being able to move toward production of those weapons, a 
notion that will not be lost on the rest of the world.
  The other answer is that low-yield nuclear weapons are not like 
regular ones. Regular nuclear weapons are designed to deter 
adversaries. The massive destruction and civilian casualties that they 
can cause make nuclear weapons unlike even other weapons of mass 
destruction. Low-yield nuclear weapons are different. They bridge the 
gap between conventional weapons and the city-busting weapons of the 
cold war, and they offer the lure of a better way to destroy point 
targets. Supporters of low-yield weapons argue they could deter an 
adversary, and that is true. All nuclear weapons have a deterrent 
function. But the deterrent benefits that low-yield weapons provide are 
far outweighed by both the risk that they will actually be used and the 
dangerous signal they send to other countries, whether intentional or 
not, that we intend to fight a nuclear war.
  Low-yield weapons also blur the distinction between nuclear and 
conventional war, and they begin to make nuclear war more 
``thinkable,'' as Herman Kahn might have said. Herman Kahn's book was 
titled ``Thinking About the Unthinkable.'' He understood that nuclear 
war was unthinkable, even as he demanded that we think about how to 
fight one, if we had to.
  Looking at the foreign defense policies of the current 
administration, I fear they fail to understand that very vital point. 
They want to make nuclear war ``thinkable.'' Section 3131 of this bill 
could make it ``thinkable'' that we could use these low-yield weapons--
as if we needed to have these low-yield nuclear weapons, despite the 
overwhelming conventional deterrent we have. Had we had them, I wonder 
if anyone might have suggested that we use these low-yield nuclear 
weapons that we may produce against any of the bunkers Saddam Hussein 
was in. I am sure we could hear a voice today that if we had a low-
yield nuclear weapon, we could have used it that first night and 
guaranteed he was gone. The fact that we would have been the only 
country for the second time in world history to use a nuclear weapon, 
in this case unlike the first, without any real need, would have been 
lost on some people. But, I wonder what that message that would have 
sent to India and Pakistan, which are cheek to jowl with nuclear 
capability.
  The administration's failure, in my view, to understand that nuclear 
is still ``unthinkable'' is, I think, the most fatal flaw in this 
approach. That failure to understand could lead to bigger failures--a 
failure to understand how to keep other countries from developing 
nuclear weapons, a failure to view nonproliferation as a vital and a 
workable policy objective, and perhaps even a failure to avoid nuclear 
war which would do horrible damage to any country involved, including 
ourselves.
  Consider what the administration has said regarding nuclear weapons. 
We parse out what the administration says a piece at a time. I don't 
think we understand that the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, 
takes it in its total context. Let us look at the whole range of what 
they have said so far about nuclear weapons.
  The Nuclear Posture Review of December 2001 spoke of reducing U.S. 
reliance on nuclear weapons. But it also reportedly listed not only 
Russia and China but also North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya as 
potential enemies in a nuclear war with the use of nuclear weapons. I 
emphasize ``reportedly listed''--I have not looked at the classified 
document. I am referring to what has been printed on the Web and what 
has been in the press. The Nuclear Posture Review spoke of possibly 
needing to develop and test new types of nuclear weapons, and gave that 
as a reason for increasing our nuclear test readiness, and further said 
nuclear weapons might be used to neutralize chemical and biological 
agents.
  More recently, civilian Pentagon leaders ordered a task force to 
consider possible requirements for new low-yield nuclear weapons, even 
while assuring the Senate that no formal requirement has yet been 
established.
  A Presidential strategy document reportedly stated the United States 
might use nuclear weapons against a country with chemical or biological 
weapons. Then, in a runup to the war in Iraq, the administration 
proclaimed (but never explained) a new doctrine of preemption against 
any potential foe that acquired weapons of mass destruction.
  All that taken individually is understandable. Taken collectively, it 
could give someone a very foreboding picture. And do those statements 
increase our leverage over potential foes, and with a world community 
at large, or do they only give the rogue states the argument that they 
really are threatened and, therefore, really need nuclear weapons? Do 
our statements enable the rest of the world to ``blame the victim,'' as 
the neo-conservatives would say--and I would agree with them on the 
outrageousness of that--instead of blaming those responsible for 
setting disorder in motion?
  If you are North Korea, or Iran, or Libya, or Syria, which part of 
the reports I just referenced are you likely to rely on to make your 
specious case to the rest of the world?
  We have seen the willingness of the rest of the world to engage in 
the suspension of disbelief. As a friend of mine said, never 
underestimate the ability of the human mind to rationalize. We have 
seen our friends, from the French on, rationalize why we shouldn't do 
what needs to be done.
  Which part of the administration's strategy statements, which I 
briefly outlined, do you think the bad guys--North Korea, Iran, Libya, 
and Syria--are likely to rely on? The part where we say we reduce our 
reliance on nuclear bombs, or the part that names those countries as a 
possible target for nuclear preemption?
  As long as you are already listed on the possible target list, what 
are you going to say, and what are you going to do? Obviously, they are 
going to say, ``We have to do this because of what the United States is 
doing.''
  There is no one in the world who doubts our capacity to annihilate, 
by conventional weapons alone, any other country in the world. There is 
no doubt in anyone's mind. And now we are saying that for our defense, 
we need another nuclear weapon. How do you think the world will 
interpret that? Some will say it doesn't matter what the rest of the 
world thinks. But it surely matters, in 1,000 different ways, whether 
it is a matter of deciding you will not let us sell chickens in your 
country or deciding whether you will allow businessmen to operate in 
your country or deciding whether you will cooperate in any other 500 
ways we need cooperation on.
  What do our statements say, if you are North Korea or Libya or 
anywhere else? Do you say the United States is getting a low-yield 
nuclear weapon, so it is time we gave up our efforts to get nuclear 
weapons? Or if you think we are getting a low-yield nuclear weapon, 
might you decide it is time to accelerate your efforts?
  So far we have one clear answer, from North Korea. It is not the one 
we wanted. Iran appears to be accelerating its nuclear weapons program 
as well. I am not suggesting they would not be doing that if we weren't 
enunciating the policies of this administration. I suspect they would 
anyway.
  The whole question here is, How do we keep dangerous weapons, 
particularly nuclear weapons, out of the hands of the most dangerous 
people in the world, be they terrorists or those who would support 
them? That is our policy; that is the President's policy; and I agree 
with it. But obviously, we haven't quite gotten it right. So far, I 
don't think the administration has the

[[Page 12328]]

answer to the question of how to achieve our objectives.
  For a while, it seemed as though the administration's answer was to 
declare war on every adversary that dared to go nuclear. But do we 
really intend to go to war with North Korea, if the price is the 
slaughter of hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians? Do we 
intend to go to war with Iran, when we cannot guarantee security in 
Iraq?
  The list of countries that we accuse of having weapons of mass 
destruction is long; will we take them all on? And what do we do when 
Indian officials cite our Iraq war arguments as justification for a 
possible Indian attack on Pakistan that could risk a nuclear war? Is 
this the world we want?
  The Administration has refused to negotiate directly with North 
Korea, so we have yet to really test North Korea's claim that it would 
be prepared to meet all our security concerns in return for truly 
normal relations with us. Instead, we have demanded that North Korea 
first renounce its nuclear programs and take tangible steps to 
dismantle them.
  I sympathize with the concern not to be bullied or blackmailed. 
Nobody likes to be seen as backing down. I even sympathize with the 
President's intense dislike of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. There 
is much to dislike in the man, and even more to dislike in his regime.
  But what have we achieved through this policy? So far, we have gotten 
the end of the 1994 Agreed Framework--which had kept North Korea from 
reprocessing more of its spent nuclear fuel to get plutonium for 
nuclear weapons. We have seen international inspectors kicked out of 
North Korea. And now North Korea may be reprocessing its spent nuclear 
fuel, which could give it enough material for a half dozen more nuclear 
weapons.
  We may be making some progress, with China engaging North Korea. If 
we are lucky, North Korea's posturing will lead China and Russia to 
finally support us and bring some pressure on North Korea. But we don't 
know whether they can really influence a North Korea that sees itself 
already in the American crosshairs as part of the ``axis of evil.''
  The administration talks of stopping North Korea from exporting its 
nuclear weapons. That worries me a little bit because it implies we 
have already given up on stopping them from producing them.
  And North Korea could just export plutonium with which to make 
nuclear weapons; they will be able to become the plutonium factory of 
the world if they keep on the road they are on now. How are we going to 
stop that? The plutonium needed for a nuclear weapon can fit in a 
briefcase. It does not even need much shielding because it is not very 
radioactive. The whole shipment might be bigger than a bread box, as 
Steve Allen used to say, but it wouldn't be much bigger. It certainly 
wouldn't be bigger than a trash can. Can we really stop and search 
every trash can leaving North Korea? What will we do if a year from now 
North Korea claims to have provided weapons plutonium to groups in 
other countries that will destroy major cities unless we do what it 
wants?
  What are we going to do about Iran, which has North Korean medium-
range missiles and is moving toward the ability to enrich its own 
uranium?
  Nobody ever said that nonproliferation was easy. I don't have a 
silver bullet, and I don't expect the President to have one either. But 
don't we have to keep our eye on the ball? When conservatives opposed 
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, they said countries would 
build nuclear weapons for their own strategic reasons. That's right. It 
means if we want to prevent proliferation, or roll it back, we have to 
affect those strategic calculations.
  Nonproliferation policy gives us a framework for those efforts. The 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives us international support and may 
affect the calculations of countries whose neighbors sign and obey the 
treaty. The Nuclear Suppliers Group buys us more time by restricting 
exports of nuclear and dual-use materials and equipment. But in the 
end, it still comes down to influencing a country's strategic 
calculations.
  How can we influence those countries? Deterrence is one big way to 
influence them. Any country that builds nuclear weapons knows if they 
use them on us, they will very quickly cease to exist. But deterrence 
is still a mind game. It didn't help when the administration belittled 
deterrence in order to press its case for missile defense. And 
deterrence may not work if we say: By the way, we may still target you, 
even if you don't build nuclear weapons.
  For countries that are not our enemies, security assurances are a big 
way to influence them. The U.S. nuclear umbrella offers a country a lot 
of security at a low cost; but that umbrella may not look so good if 
the United States is threatening nuclear war against a large number of 
countries. At that point, our friends may question whether we will 
really be able to protect them, when we are taking on all those other 
countries. That is the question you hear people asking in Japan.
  To achieve lasting nonproliferation, we must treat the regional 
quarrels that drive countries to seek nuclear weapons. We did that with 
Argentina and Brazil. As South Africa moved away from apartheid, we 
were able to do that there as well. We are making a real effort to help 
India and Pakistan step back from the brink and have to continue that 
effort. But we also have to address security concerns in east Asia, 
including North Korea's concerns, if we are to keep that whole region 
from developing nuclear weapons, weaponizing the peninsula, and Japan 
becoming a nuclear power. We have to pursue peace in the Middle East, 
if we are truly going to take advantage of our military victory in 
Iraq.
  Nor is there really any alternative to working with the international 
community. We don't have the ability to inspect sites in Iran; the 
Atomic Energy Agency does have that ability. Our forces in Iraq don't 
have a great record in their hunt for weapons of mass destruction; the 
IAEA and the U.N. could help in that hunt, both by providing detailed 
information from past inspections and by helping to monitor sites they 
have visited in the past.
  We cannot close down proliferation traffic by ourselves. The 
cooperation of other countries, especially Russia and China, is 
essential.
  These are the paths to nonproliferation. They are long and difficult. 
We don't know whether they will succeed, but we can see where we want 
to go, and we can see how working these issues will help us get there.
  But building low-yield nuclear weapons is not a path to 
nonproliferation; neither is a program to do R&D on such weapons, while 
Defense Department officials tell people to come up with reasons to 
build them; neither is a program to test these weapons, which would 
surely be necessary to develop a new low-yield weapon, and which would 
just as surely be the death knell not only of the Comprehensive Nuclear 
Test-Ban Treaty--which I think is the objective of some--but of the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT.
  Frankly, neither is nonproliferation served by the administration's 
plan to field a nearly worthless missile defense system in Alaska next 
year, just so the President can say he did it. The push to deploy that 
system has been at the expense of making an effective defense. The 
defense will lack the radar it needs for several years, and the space-
based infrared collection it needs for even more years. And the funds 
and equipment to deploy it are coming out of the funds and equipment 
needed to test it, to improve it, and to make sure it works. You have 
to wonder what the administration's priorities are.
  The path of deterrence, security assurance, nonproliferation, 
diplomacy, and sensible weapons development is difficult, but at least 
it is headed in the right direction.
  The path of hasty deployment of a missile defense that cannot be 
useful for years to come is simply foolish. The path of new nuclear 
weapons, new nuclear testing, and looking at nuclear weapons as 
something ``normal'' may

[[Page 12329]]

be a highway paved with good intentions, but as the nuns used to make 
me write on the board after school when I misbehaved: The road to Hell 
is paved with good intentions.
  This is a road to disaster. We should know better than to go down it.
  The Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, in my view, will keep us off that 
dangerous highway. It deserves our support.
  I yield the floor.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, I rise in support of the amendment 
offered by Senator Feinstein, Senator Kennedy and others on low-yield 
nuclear weapons.
  The Defense Authorization bill would repeal the ban on research and 
development of low-yield nuclear weapons, sometimes called ``mini-
nukes.''
  The ban, known as the Spratt-Furse Amendment, was enacted in 1993. 
That law prohibits ``research and development which could lead to the 
production by the United States of a low-yield nuclear weapon.'' It 
even has specific exemptions, including allowing research on existing 
weapons and research to address proliferation concerns.
  To state it plainly, this is not about basic research or defensive 
research. This is about research and development to produce new nuclear 
weapons. And since these weapons would have yields of less than 5 
kilotons of TNT, these are not strategic weapons.
  That means that if we pass this bill without adopting the Feinstein 
amendment, we are heading down the path of developing new, low-yield, 
tactical nuclear weapons. And you can bet that if we develop these 
weapons on the drawing board, we will see a demand to build and test 
these weapons to be sure that they would work. Why would we build these 
mini-nukes if we don't intend to use them?
  We don't need to go down that path. America has the strongest 
military in the world. We also have a huge arsenal of strategic nuclear 
weapons, which can strike anywhere in the world, for deterrence. We 
don't need tactical nuclear weapons, not even to strike buried targets 
like bunkers. We have conventional weapons to do that. Our scientists 
are developing better weapons all the time. I am so proud of the 
brilliant people at the Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, 
Maryland, who developed and produced the ``bunker-buster'' thermobaric 
bombs used against caves in Afghanistan. But the bottom line is that 
America doesn't need new nuclear weapons.
  I don't want to go down that path because it is destabilizing and 
dangerous to America's national security.
  Why is it so dangerous?
  It would signal that the U.S. would no longer use nuclear weapons 
only for deterrence. That would legitimize nuclear weapons and increase 
the risk that they'll be used against us or our allies. If we move to 
testing of nuclear weapons, other nations would almost surely follow 
our lead.
  Increasing the range and number of weapons in our nuclear arsenal 
would fundamentally undermine our nuclear nonproliferation efforts, 
including the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, NPT. That would mean 
more countries developing and deploying nuclear weapons.
  The production of small nuclear weapons, some of which could even be 
portable or easily transported in a truck, poses a particular danger. 
Even if the U.S. would effectively safeguard such weapons, other 
countries might develop similar weapons. The presence of a large but 
unknown number of tactical nuclear weapons in Russia poses one of the 
greatest dangers to our national security. If we are concerned about 
terrorists getting nuclear bombs, the last thing we should do is 
develop more small, easily-transported weapons.
  America's national security will best be served if we keep in place 
the existing ban on research and development leading to production of 
low-yield nuclear weapons. I urge my colleagues to join me in support 
of this amendment.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, for more than half a century, our world has 
lived under the specter of a nuclear Armageddon. The end of the cold 
war has reduced this threat, but both the United States and Russia 
continue to be armed to the teeth, each side possessing many thousands 
of nuclear weapons, any one of which could devastate an innocent city.
  During the cold war, both Democratic and Republican Presidents held 
out the chance that an end to the nuclear arms race could lead to the 
renunciation of nuclear weapons. I point to article VI of the Nuclear 
Non-Proliferation Treaty, signed by President Nixon in 1968, and 
ratified by the Senate in 1969: ``Each of the Parties to the Treaty 
undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures 
relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to 
nuclear disarmament, and on a Treaty on general and complete 
disarmament under strict and effective international control.''
  But the United States is no longer striving for a world free of 
nuclear weapons. The administration now seeks to develop a new 
generation of nuclear weapons, from bunker-busting hydrogen bombs that 
could wipe out a buried cache of arms, and a whole city with it, to 
low-yield mini-nukes, which could even take the form of the suitcase 
nuclear weapons that are the worst case scenario for our homeland 
security planners.
  The alarm at the development of these new weapons is underscored by 
the Nuclear Posture Review, released in January 2002, and the National 
Security Strategy, released in September 2002. Taken together, these 
documents envisage a United States that could strike anywhere on the 
globe with overwhelming force. The Nuclear Posture Review, in 
particular, moves breathlessly from discussions of conventional weapons 
to strategizing on the use of nuclear weapons.
  The unavoidable conclusion is that the administration seeks to 
reduce, and perhaps eliminate, the difference between conventional and 
nuclear weapons.
  A new reliance on nuclear weapons for our national security can only 
lead us to greater dangers. CIA Director George Tenet warned the Armed 
Services Committee on February 12, 2003, that the ``domino theory of 
the 21st century may well be nuclear.'' We must heed this warning.
  One powerless country after another may seek to develop the most 
extreme weapon of mass destruction in order to assure its security, 
fearing an imminent, preemptive attack from the world's only 
superpower, which views itself as being unconstrained by international 
law, the U.N. Security Council, or the court of world opinion.
  Rather than attempt to head off this destabilizing trend, this 
administration has recast its preemptive war as a liberation of the 
oppressed, threatened to find ways to punish allies who opposed our 
belligerency, and proposed the development of new nuclear weapons.
  If we do not wish to be in a state of perpetual war, the United 
States must recapture its standing as a peacemaker. Let us step back 
from the brink of a nuclear arms race. Moving forward with new bunker-
busting and low-yield nuclear weapons can only send us in the wrong 
direction. I urge my colleagues to reject the moves by this 
administration to initiate new nuclear arms programs.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that under the 
agreement we are now working, the time for Senator Boxer be given to 
the Senator from Massachusetts, Mr. Kennedy. So instead of 5 minutes, 
he has 10 minutes.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that immediately 
following the vote this evening on the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, 
Senator Reed be recognized in order to offer an amendment on the 
subject of low-level nuclear weapons; provided further that immediately 
following the reporting of that amendment, Senator Warner be recognized 
to offer a second-degree amendment; provided further that following any 
debate with respect to the amendments this evening, the amendments be 
temporarily set aside, and when the Senate resumes consideration of the 
bill tomorrow

[[Page 12330]]

morning, there will be 20 minutes equally divided for debate between 
Senator Warner and Senator Reed. Finally, I ask that following the use 
of that time, the Senate proceed to a vote in relation to the Warner 
second-degree amendment, and that if the amendment is agreed to, then 
the underlying amendment be agreed to, as amended.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I would like to proceed on this side for 
about 5 or 6 minutes and then we will rotate. I must say, I express my 
pleasure at the cooperation we are receiving on both sides of the 
aisle, particularly from our Members with regard to amendments. I might 
say there is a colleague on that side of the aisle who has a very 
meritorious commitment to be at a certain place at 7:45, and it is a 
family matter. We are going to try to yield back time on our side to 
accommodate the colleague on the other side. I am not announcing the 
time exactly, but I hope it can come about at about 7:42 or 7:43, 
enabling him to meet a very serious matter relating to his children. We 
are going to make that work; is that correct?
  Mr. LEVIN. We are going to do our best. While the Senator is 
speaking, I will talk to Senator Kennedy and Senator Feinstein.
  Mr. KENNEDY. I think I will only need 3 \1/2\ or 4 minutes, if we are 
trying to accommodate somebody.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am willing to cut my time down as well. I haven't talked 
to Senator Feinstein, who has already cut her time down.
  Mr. WARNER. We are providing flexibility to my colleague from 
Michigan to try to make it work.
  Mr. President, I think it is important that in the Record of this 
debate there at least be one statement, if I may say, on behalf of the 
Senator from Virginia which enables the reader of the Record to 
determine with ease exactly what the debate is about. For that purpose, 
I will make a broad unanimous consent request.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the following material be 
printed in the Record: First, the existing law passed in 1994, which is 
the subject of the debate we are now having. That is to be followed by 
the submission of the Department of Defense as to the rationale for 
removing this particular law. That is to be followed by the manner in 
which we did it in the Armed Services Committee--it is a copy of the 
bill section. That is to be followed by correspondence received by the 
Senator from Virginia, first from the Secretary of State in which he 
expresses his opinion in regard to the amendment; and then the 
statement by Admiral Ellis, Commander of the Strategic Command, stating 
his support for the work done by the committee. That is to be followed 
by a letter from General Jumper, expressing his support for the work 
done by the committee. Then I have listed as a matter of convenience 
for my colleagues the seven steps that are taken, traditionally, with 
respect to nuclear weapons.
  That is the information relevant to this debate.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                      Existing Law Passed in 1994

     SEC. 3136. PROHIBITION ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-
                   YIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

       (a) United States Policy.--It shall be the policy of the 
     United States not to conduct research and development which 
     could lead to the production by the United States of a new 
     low-yield nuclear weapon, including a precision low-yield 
     warhead.
       (b) Limitation.--The Secretary of Energy may not conduct, 
     or provide for the conduct of, research and development which 
     could lead to the production by the United States of a low-
     yield nuclear weapon which, as of the date of the enactment 
     of this Act, has not entered production.
       (c) Effect on Other Research and Development.--Nothing in 
     this section shall prohibit the Secretary of Energy from 
     conducting, or providing for the conduct of, research and 
     development necessary--
       (1) to design a testing device that has a yield of less 
     than five kilotons;
       (2) to modify an existing weapon for the purpose of 
     addressing safety and reliability concerns; or
       (3) to address proliferation concerns.
       (d) Definition.--In this section, the term ``low-yield 
     nuclear weapon'' means a nuclear weapon that has a yield of 
     less than five kilotons.
                                  ____


                       Subtitle C--Other Matters

       Section 221. Section 3136, the so-called PLYWD legislation, 
     prohibits the Secretary of Energy from conducting any 
     research and development which could potentially lead to the 
     production by the United States of a new low-yield nuclear 
     weapon, including a precision low-yield warhead.
       This legislation has negatively affected U.S. Government 
     efforts to support the national strategy to counter WMD and 
     undercuts efforts that could strengthen our ability to deter, 
     or respond to, new or emerging threats.
       A revitalized nuclear weapons advanced concepts effort is 
     essential to: (1) train the next generation of nuclear 
     weapons scientists and engineers; and (2) restore a nuclear 
     weapons enterprise able to respond rapidly and decisively to 
     changes in the international security environment or 
     unforeseen technical problems in the stockpile. PLYWD has had 
     a ``chilling effect'' on this effort by impeding the ability 
     of our scientists and engineers to explore the full range of 
     technical options. It does not simply prohibit research on 
     new, low-yield warheads, but prohibits any activities ``which 
     could potentially lead to production by the United States'' 
     of such a warhead.
       It is prudent national security policy not to foreclose 
     exploration of technical options that could strengthen our 
     ability to deter, or respond to, new or emerging threats. In 
     this regard, the Congressionally-mandated Nuclear Posture 
     Review urged exploration of weapons concepts that could offer 
     greater capabilities for precision, earth penetration (to 
     hold at risk deeply buried and hardened bunkers), defeat of 
     chemical and biological agents, and reduced collateral 
     damage. The PLYWD legislation impedes this effort.
       Repeal of PLYWD, however, falls far short of committing the 
     United States to developing, producing, and deploying new, 
     low-yield warheads. Such warhead concepts could not proceed 
     to full-scale development, much less production and 
     deployment, unless Congress authorizes and appropriates the 
     substantial funds required to do this.
                                  ____


   Subtitle B--Program Authorizations, Restrictions, and Limitations

     SEC. 3131. REPEAL OF PROHIBITION ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 
                   OF LOW-YIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

       (a) Repeal.--Section 3136 of the National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 103-160; 
     107 Stat. 1946; 42 U.S.C. 2121 note) is repealed.
       (b) Construction.--Nothing in the repeal made by subsection 
     (a) shall be construed as authorizing the testing, 
     acquisition, or deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon.
                                  ____



                                       The Secretary of State,

                                          Washington, May 5, 2003.
     Hon. John Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     U.S. Senate.
       Dear Mr. Chairman: I am writing to express support for the 
     President's FY2004 budget request to fund the feasibility and 
     cost study for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), 
     and to repeal the FY1994 legislation that prohibits the 
     United States from conducting research and development on low 
     yield nuclear weapons. I do not believe that these 
     legislative steps will complicate our ongoing efforts with 
     North Korea. Inasmuch as work on the RNEP was authorized and 
     funded in last year's National Defense Authorization Act, I 
     believe that North Korea already has factored the RNEP into 
     its calculations and will not vary those calculations 
     depending on how Congress acts on this element of the FY2004 
     budget request.
       Thank you for your important work on these issues and 
     please do not hesitate to ask if I can be of further 
     assistance in the future.
            Sincerely,
     Colin L. Powell.
                                  ____



                                        Department of Defense,

                                           U.S. Strategic Command.
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Senate Armed Services Committee, Russell Senate 
         Office Building, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman, The Nuclear Posture Review put in motion 
     a major change in the role of our nuclear forces. As we 
     continue to strategize the most effective methods of 
     addressing new and emerging threats to our National Security, 
     it is an inherent responsibility of the Department of Defense 
     to not only reevaluate the capabilities of our nuclear 
     arsenal, but to thoroughly analyze the potential of advanced 
     concepts that could enhance our overall deterrent posture.
       U.S. Strategic Command is interested in conducting rigorous 
     studies of all new technologies, and examining the merits of 
     precision, increased penetration, and reduced yields for our 
     nuclear weapons. The nation needs to understand the technical 
     capabilities of threats under development by potential 
     adversaries and to thoroughly explore the range of options 
     available to the United States to deter or defeat them. Once 
     we complete the precise engineering analyses necessary to 
     validate facts related to nascent

[[Page 12331]]

     advanced concepts, the results of the research will enable 
     dispassionate, fact-based discussions on very important 
     defense and policy issues.
       The findings of the Nuclear Posture Review were strongly 
     endorsed by the Service Chiefs. Repealing Section 3136 of 
     Fiscal Year 1994 NDAA (42 U.S.C. 2121) will allow U.S. 
     Strategic Command the ability to evaluate the full range of 
     advanced concepts through research and development 
     activities.
       Your support in repealing the prohibition on low-yield 
     research and development for nuclear weapons is greatly 
     appreciated. A similar letter has been sent to the Ranking 
     Member of your committee.
           Sincerely,

                                                   J.O. Ellis,

                                               Admiral, U.S. Navy,
     Commander.
                                  ____

                                      Department of the Air Force,


                                 Office of the Chief of Staff,

                                      Washington, DC, May 8, 2003.
     Hon. John W. Warner,
     Chairman, Committee on Armed Services,
     U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
       Dear Mr. Chairman, I seek your support for repealing 
     Section 3136 of the Fiscal Year 1994 National Defense 
     Authorization Act (42 U.S.C. Sec. 2121). This section of the 
     law, commonly referred to as the Precision Low-Yield Weapon 
     Development (PLYWD) limitation, prohibits the Department of 
     Energy and by extension the Air Force from conducting any 
     research and development on a new nuclear weapon design with 
     a yield of five kilotons or less.
       Research and development of new low-yield weapon concepts 
     is required in order to evaluate all potential options to 
     meet current and emerging combatant commanders' requirements. 
     Low-yield nuclear weapons currently in the stockpile simply 
     are not suited to satisfy all these requirements.
       We are pursuing full rescission of this section of the law 
     instead of just an amendment. A partial repeal that only 
     permits basic research and development with no prospect for 
     production would effectively have the same impact as the 
     current law.
       A similar letter has been sent to the Ranking Minority 
     Member of your Committee and to the Chairman and Ranking 
     Minority Member of the House Armed Services Committee.
           Sincerely

                                               John P. Jumper,

                                                    General, USAF,
     Chief of Staff.
                                  ____


             Nuclear Weapons Life Cycle Management Process

       Phase 1--Concept Study.
       Phase 2--Feasibility Study.
       Phase 2A--Design Definition & Cost Study.
       Phase 3--Full Scale Engineering Development.
       Phase 4--Production Engineering.
       Phase 5--First Production.
       Phase 6--Quantity Production & Stockpile Maintenance 
     Evaluation.
       Phase 7--Retirement & Dismantlement.

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I oppose the amendment.
  Research on precision low-yield nuclear weapon design is prudent in 
today's national security environment. Why would we want to prevent any 
type of research on weapons that might contribute to improving our 
national security? Authorizing the research does not authorize the 
production, testing, or deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon. 
Congress reserves the right to decide that as a separate matter, should 
such a step be requested by this or any future Administration.
  I have received three letters on this matter: two from top military 
leaders, Admiral James Ellis, Commander of U.S. Strategic Command and 
General John Jumper, Chief of Staff to the U.S. Air Force, and one from 
Secretary of State Colin Powell. All three of these distinguished 
leaders urged support for repealing the ban on low-yield nuclear 
weapons research.
  In the current international environment, with many new unexpected 
threats, it is prudent to allow research on low-yield nuclear weapons 
to learn whether such weapons could add to the deterrent value of our 
nuclear force. A repeal of the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons 
research and development would permit the scientists and engineers at 
our national laboratories to consider whether these types of weapons 
are feasible and for what purpose. For instance, could such a weapon 
destroy a laboratory with biological and chemical agents without 
disbursing them as a conventional weapon would do? What would be the 
collateral effect?
  I do not agree with those who assert that even allowing this research 
to go forward would undermine our nuclear non-proliferation efforts. 
The United States is steadfast in its determination to prevent nuclear 
proliferation through many means including diplomacy, multilateral 
regimes to control the export of sensitive technologies, and 
interdiction of illegal exports. The U.S. also has a proven record of 
nuclear reductions.
  Secretary Colin Powell confirmed this view in his letter sent to me 
on May 5th, 2003. In that letter, Secretary Powell stated: ``I do not 
believe [repealing the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons research and 
development] will complicate our ongoing efforts with North Korea.''
  Over the past decade--while the current prohibition on this type of 
research has been in place--the United States has taken thousands of 
nuclear weapons out of the active stockpile, abided by a moratorium on 
underground nuclear tests, designed no new nuclear weapons, and 
refrained from research on low-yield nuclear weapons.
  Some might argue that these activities served the purpose of 
encouraging other countries not to develop or proliferate nuclear 
weapons. But let's examine the record.
  Over the past decade, India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons for 
the first time. Other nations have continued to seek nuclear weapons 
capabilities, including Iraq, Iran and North Korea. And many nation are 
pursing chemical and biological weapons capabilities. I believe this 
shows that other nations make decisions about whether or not to acquire 
nuclear and other WMD capabilities based on their assessment of their 
own national security need--not based on U.S. action in this area. The 
argument that some make that if U.S. refrains from certain types of 
activities, others will follow, just does not stand the test of time.
  Some would also argue the authorizing of this research would lower 
the nuclear threshold. I disagree. As Ambassador Linton Brooks, 
Administrator of the Nuclear Security Administration, testified before 
the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, on April 8, 2003, the ``[n]uclear 
threshold is awesomely high.'' If wars of the future are about winning 
hearts and minds, about liberating rather than conquering, then the 
threshold for using nuclear weapons remains very high indeed. But as 
long as we maintain a nuclear deterrence force, we would be remiss if 
we did not keep it safe, secure and reliable, and if we did not 
maintain our research capabilities both for ourselves and to understand 
what other countries might be exploring.
  It is worth noting that the United States had a large number of low-
yield nuclear weapons in our inventory during the '50s, '60s, and '70s 
which have now been removed from the inventory. During each of these 
decades there were significant national security challenges to the 
United States. None of those challenges came close to reaching the 
nuclear threshold, notwithstanding the availability of low-yield 
nuclear weapons.
  We have a responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all 
Americans. We should not place artificial limits on the intellectual 
work of our gifted scientists to explore new technologies, to 
understand what is possible as well as what potential adversaries could 
be exploring. Should threats emerge which cannot be deterred or 
destroyed with conventional weapons, our President must have other 
options available to protect the citizens of the United States, our 
interests and our allies. This has been the policy of the United States 
for almost sixty years.
  The provision in the Senate bill merely permits the research that 
will inform future decisions as to whether such weapons would enhance 
the national security of our country overall. It does not prejudice how 
Congress would decide that question in the future. Let us not fear 
greater knowledge to inform our future decisions.
  I urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Massachusetts is 
recognized.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, this issue is as clear as any issue ever 
gets. You are either for nuclear war or you are not. Either you want to 
make it

[[Page 12332]]

easier to start using nuclear weapons or you don't.
  Our conventional weapons already have vast power and accuracy. We can 
make them even more powerful. No one at the Pentagon and no one in the 
administration has given us any examples--none at all--of cases where a 
smaller nuclear weapon is needed to do what a conventional weapon 
cannot do.
  For half a century, our policy has been to do everything we possibly 
can to prevent nuclear war, and so far we have succeeded. The 
hardliners say things are different today: A nuclear war won't be so 
bad if we just make the nukes a little smaller. We will call them mini-
nukes. They are not real nukes. A little nuclear war is OK.
  That is nonsense. Nuclear war is nuclear war is nuclear war. We don't 
want it anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Make no mistake, a mini-nuke is 
still a nuke. Is half of Hiroshima OK? Is a quarter of Hiroshima OK? Is 
a little mushroom cloud OK? That is absurd.
  The issue is too important. If we build it, we will use it. No 
Congress should be the Congress that says let's start down this street 
when it is a one-way street that can lead only to nuclear war.
  Some may say that smaller weapons are less dangerous than the larger 
weapons already in our arsenal. But these nuclear weapons are actually 
more dangerous, because they are smaller, therefore easier to steal and 
smuggle. The Administration's goal is to make them more usable by 
lowering the thresholds for the first use of nuclear weapons.
  Some may say we can't build new weapons, and haven't built them in 
years. To that I ask why do we need to build new weapons when we have 
over six thousand warheads in our inventory? It's enough to destroy the 
world at least ten times over, and leave the world in nuclear winter. 
It would take only ten nuclear weapons to paralyze the United States.
  Some believe our non-proliferation efforts do not stop North Korea or 
Iran from developing nuclear weapons of their own. No one argues that 
these weapons have the capability to stop North Korea. But why not 
target them now with our existing nuclear weapons. This is not an 
argument for new nuclear weapons.
  Some argue that current law ties the hands of the Pentagon. But there 
is no military requirement for these weapons, just hypothetical 
situations proposed by the other side. No one can point to an actual 
situation where we would use these weapons.
  Some may argue that we need to do this research to go after Al Qaida 
and other asymmetric threats. How can we consider using thee weapons 
when we don't know where our adversaries are? Al Qaida is active in 
Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Germany. Would we use these low-
yield weapons against these countries?
  Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe that we 
have reduced our weapons while other countries have begun nuclear 
weapons programs. They say no one is following our lead and that since 
1992, we have stopped testing while China, France, India, and Pakistan 
have continued to test. On the contrary, there have been no tests in 
the past five years. Four states who were nuclear states have come 
under the non-proliferation treaty as non-nuclear states: South Africa, 
Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine.
  They think we need to have our smartest people thinking about low-
yield nuclear weapons. Lifting the ban would give them their freedom to 
indulge in intellectual curiosity, and it is more likely to yield a way 
to stop proliferation. However the research banned by this amendment is 
an offensive, not defensive capability. This is research leading to the 
development and the production of weapons, not pure intellectual 
exploration of advanced concepts. The Spratt amendment prohibits the 
construction of prototypes.
  Some will argue that we cannot be confident that our weapons will 
work, without the development of these new weapons. According to the 
National Academy of Sciences (July 2002), ``The United States has the 
technical capabilities to maintain confidence in the safety and 
reliability of its existing nuclear weapons stockpile under the CTBT, 
provided that adequate resources are made available to the Department 
of Energy's nuclear weapons complex and are properly focused on this 
task.''
  My colleagues believe that we still retain the right to authorize and 
appropriate funds for nuclear weapons systems. We should be allowed to 
think about these weapons to prevent others from developing this 
capability. But no one else is developing these weapons; if we start, 
others may follow. We may be igniting a new nuclear arms race. Nothing 
in law prohibits our scientists from doing research on our adversaries' 
capabilities.
  Finally, some say we should develop these weapons because we cannot 
use the existing weapons, because they are too large. They say killing 
millions of Iraqis is too many. If we use a lower-yield weapon, we can 
deter Saddam Hussein. But this is just arguing for hundreds of 
thousands dead, rather than millions. If we really want a surgical 
strike capability, then we should develop a conventional alternative.
  Mr. President, I yield back my remaining time to the Senator from 
Michigan.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the provisions in this bill relating to the 
development of new nuclear weapons mark a major and a very dangerous 
shift in American policy. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction 
is the greatest threat we face. Uncorking the nuclear bottle to develop 
new and modified nuclear weapons goes in the opposite direction of the 
commitment we made when we signed the nonproliferation treaty. We are a 
party to that treaty.
  It has been said on this floor that North Korea is a party to the 
nonproliferation treaty, and they have to live up to it. They got 
something in return for their signature. They did, indeed. They got our 
signature, and our signature committed us to end the nuclear arms race.
  Uncorking the nuclear bottle, which these provisions do, makes a 
mockery of our argument to other countries around the world that they 
should not go nuclear.
  Just think about some of the headlines in the last few months about 
North Korea: ``U.S. Assails Move by North Koreans to Reject Treaty.'' 
That is the nonproliferation treaty to which we are a signatory, too, 
that commits us to end the nuclear arms race, not to start a new 
chapter in the nuclear arms race. So we assail their move.
  Another headline: ``Military Action Possible, U.S. Warns North 
Korea.'' We take their move toward nuclear weapons so seriously that we 
have actually suggested we may initiate military action to stop them 
from moving in a nuclear direction. Yet we, if these provisions stay, 
are moving in that same direction. We have told Iran the same thing. We 
have urged Russia: Do not help Iran go nuclear. Do not supply them with 
any materials which they might use to go nuclear.
  Yet in these provisions in this bill, we would, if they stay in the 
bill, lift a prohibition that exists in current law in the United 
States which prohibits the research and development on nuclear weapons 
that could lead to the production of new nuclear weapons. That is what 
the so-called Spratt-Furse language does. It prohibits research and 
development on nuclear weapons which could lead to their production. 
That is the language which was stricken by a 15-to-10 vote in the Armed 
Services Committee, and that is the language which the amendment 
offered by the Senators from California and Massachusetts would restore 
to the law.
  We have a special responsibility for a lot of reasons. No. 1, we are 
the leader. We have to live up to what we say we want others to do. But 
we are also the only country that has actually used nuclear weapons. We 
say we are determined to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Are we 
serious about that? If we have a prohibition in our law which says we 
will not do research and development on nuclear weapons which

[[Page 12333]]

could lead to their production, are people around the world going to 
take us seriously that, in fact, we want to stop other countries from 
going nuclear, gaining nuclear weapons, that our major fear is the 
proliferation of nuclear weapons if we take the position that an 
existing prohibition in law on research and development that could lead 
to production of those weapons is going to be lifted by us?
  We have a special responsibility. This is a security issue for us. 
Are we really more secure in the world where that nuclear bottle is 
uncorked and uncorked by us, by lifting an existing ban in our law?
  Nuclear weapons cannot be seen as just another option for warfare. 
They cannot be seen as usable as warfighting weapons. Yet the 
administration is moving to change the historic position of one U.S. 
administration after another by looking to make nuclear weapons more 
usable, not just as another capability but usable in warfighting, and 
that is the language which has been quoted on this floor.
  The language of the head of the nuclear weapons program talks about 
the desirability of designing weapons which are usable. That is his 
word, ``usable.'' One administration after another has gone in the 
other direction.
  The specific weapons that are covered by the ban are so-called low-
yield nuclear weapons. What a misnomer that is for reasons so many of 
us have given on the floor this afternoon. Five kilotons, which is the 
definition of a low-yield weapon, is roughly one-third the size of the 
nuclear bomb that was used on Hiroshima which immediately killed 
140,000 people, left hundreds of thousands radiated and injured in 
other ways. And by the way, 140,000 people was almost half the 
population of Hiroshima.
  Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, whether they are a 
third the size of the bomb that was used at Hiroshima or 20 times the 
size or 40 times the size. They are weapons of mass destruction.
  The administration seeks to repeal a ban on research and development 
which could lead to the production of a weapon of mass destruction. 
That is the bottom line, and the statement by the Administrator of the 
National Nuclear Security Administration, Mr. Linton Brooks, makes it 
very clear that there is an intent here to develop weapons which are 
``usable.'' That is not my word. That is not the word of the supporters 
of the amendment, the Senator from California and the Senator from 
Massachusetts. That is the testimony of the Administrator of the 
National Nuclear Security Administration who said that he has a bias in 
favor of things--referring to weapons--that might be usable, referring 
to the so-called low-yield nuclear weapons.
  It is more than research. In this law which exists, unless we repeal 
it, are prohibitions on research and development. The Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of Defense in charge of these programs, Mr. Celec, who has 
also been quoted today, specifically said the following. Fred Celec, 
Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, made 
clear that:

       The administration wants the weapon and it is moving 
     forward.

  He is talking about a weapon that could be a deep penetrator. It 
could be a so-called bunker buster, but also it could be a low-yield 
weapon. He is not specific. If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully 
designed to survive a crash through hard rock and still explode, it 
will ultimately get fielded, Celec said in an interview with the 
Mercury News. The San Jose Mercury News in 2003 ran that story, and we 
have confirmed that, in fact, that is what he said. He was not 
misquoted. So we have the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense 
for Nuclear Matters saying that if a hydrogen bomb can be designed to 
penetrate hard rock and still explode, ``it will ultimately get 
fielded.''
  That is the path the language in the bill repealing the so-called 
Spratt amendment would take us down.
  All of this is being done in the context of what is called the 
Nuclear Posture Review which was completed by the administration in 
December of 2001. This was the first step in an effort to develop new 
usable nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Posture Review is the basis for a 
new strategic policy that is described in a March 23, 2002, Washington 
Post article:

       Would give U.S. Presidents the option of conducting a 
     preemptive strike with precision-guided conventional bombs or 
     nuclear weapons.

  That is the policy shift which occurred back then. That is the 
environment in which we are determining whether or not to lift a 
prohibition on research and development of new nuclear weapons.
  That Nuclear Posture Review walks away from a longstanding policy 
that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons 
against a nonnuclear state. That Nuclear Posture Review, again 
according to the Washington Post article, specifically identifies 
countries that could be targets, including North Korea, Iran, Syria, 
and Libya.
  The legislative proposal that accompanied the administration's 
request to repeal the Spratt-Furse prohibition on low-yield nuclear 
weapons says the following--that is the proposal that accompanied the 
request that the committee voted to approve by a 15-to-10 vote. This is 
what the administration's language says:

       In this regard, the . . . Nuclear Posture Review urged 
     exploration of weapons concepts that could offer greater 
     capabilities for precision, earth penetration--

  And other things.
  The justification concluded that the Spratt-Furse law impedes this 
effort.
  It does indeed.
  Without the Spratt-Furse law, there is no legal impediment to the 
development, testing, production, or deployment of new, usable nuclear 
weapons.
  Will that impediment be removed? That is the issue we are going to 
decide tonight. At a time when we are trying to dissuade other 
countries from going forward with nuclear weapons development, when we 
strongly oppose North Korea's pulling out of the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty, when we are spending over a billion dollars to 
prevent the spread of nuclear weapons material and technology, it seems 
to me that lifting this prohibition on the research and development of 
nuclear weapons which could lead to their production sends a terrible 
message. We are telling others not to go down the road to nuclear 
weapons, but instead of being a leader in the effort to prevent the 
proliferation of nuclear weapons, we would be recklessly driving down 
that same road.
  In short, the United States should not follow a policy that we do not 
tolerate in others. We live in a dangerous world where proliferation of 
weapons of mass destruction is the greatest threat we face. The answer 
is not to make the world more dangerous by our own actions.
  If Senator Allard wishes to alternate, there would then be someone to 
speak from his side. If not, I know Senator Feinstein is next in line.
  I yield the floor.
  The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from California.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank all of those who have come to 
the floor to speak. I think this is a very important debate because I 
think we are at a crossroad.
  Clearly, this Defense authorization bill, when coupled with the 
repeal of the Spratt-Furse amendment, opens the door to new nuclear 
development. In my tenure in the Senate, in either a classified or 
unclassified session, I have never had any information provided that 
this is necessary or that there is a military requirement to do so.
  One of the reasons this should not be repealed is, when it is 
combined with other provisions in the Defense authorization bill, one 
can really see where this is going. For example, this bill authorizes 
$15 million for the study of the robust nuclear earth penetrator. It 
authorizes $6 million for advanced nuclear weapons concepts. Then if we 
look at page 448 of the report, we see that the committee recommends a 
provision that would require the Secretary of Energy to achieve and 
thereafter maintain a readiness posture of 18 months for resumption by 
the United States of underground nuclear tests. This moves up a 3-year 
period to 18 months.

[[Page 12334]]

  So if we combine all of these, it is very clear to me that where this 
country is going is toward the resumption of nuclear development.
  I wish to rebut a couple of arguments. It was said that we need 
capabilities for any possible contingency, and I could not agree more. 
But if we read Spratt-Furse, it allows research but it disallows 
development and production. In other words, it allows research on 
existing systems; it does not allow research on new systems. 
Consequently, if Spratt-Furse is repealed, what automatically is being 
said is that we begin study, research, and testing on new systems. If 
research is promising and there is a military need, the administration 
can come back and ask for specific authorization. As I said, there is 
no specific military requirement for these weapons that we know about.
  It has also been said today that developing low-yield weapons is 
important to preserve U.S. credibility in determining threats. In fact, 
we already have over 6,000 nuclear weapons in our stockpile, and we 
already have a warhead that can be dialed down to 1 kiloton or less. So 
what is the need to go to 5 kilotons of new development? We do not know 
because it has never been presented to us.
  We also have an overwhelming conventional military advantage over any 
other country. We have conventional bombs that range in size from 500 
to 5,000 pounds. A 5,000-pound bunker buster, like the guided bomb unit 
28B, is capable of penetrating up to 20 feet of reinforced concrete or 
100 feet of earth. This was used with success in Operation Enduring 
Freedom in Afghanistan.
  To my knowledge, we have never been told that this is inadequate or 
that there is no other way, other than a nuclear way, to get at a deep 
bunker; we have never been told that our intelligence does not work or 
you cannot plug an air hole or you cannot use a number of conventional 
bunker busters to achieve a similar result.
  We have been told that repealing Spratt-Furse will not affect 
proliferation because others will seek nuclear weapons anyway. Well, 
our standing in the world, I have thought, really rests on our moral 
case, our sense of justice, our sense of equity, our freedom. In fact, 
since 1992, the United States has not developed new weapons and others 
have followed suit. Russia has not tested since then and has not 
developed new weapons. China stopped testing. India and Pakistan have 
not tested for 5 years and are not currently developing new weapons. 
But we can be sure, when it is learned that the United States is going 
to go ahead with new studies, new feasibility tests on up to 5-kiloton 
new nuclear warheads, that others will follow suit.
  I believe U.S. restraint is, in fact, an important element of our 
nonproliferation effort.
  This is a very big vote that is before us right now because the only 
reason to repeal Spratt-Furse is to signal that we are, in fact, going 
to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. This is a horrible 
mistake. I think it is a mistake morally. I think it is a mistake 
militarily. I do not know a commander who would want to send his troops 
onto a battlefield where a 5-kiloton nuclear weapons device had been 
utilized. So why are we doing this? It makes no sense to me. I hope 
this body would vote against it.
  I leave with one point. A 1-kiloton weapon detonated at a depth of 20 
to 50 feet would inject more than 1 million cubic feet of radioactive 
debris and form a crater about the size of ground zero in New York. If 
we fail to repeal the repeal, we will allow research to go ahead to 
develop up to five times that when we have conventional weapons that 
can do the job as well. I have very strong feelings on this subject.
  I thank Senator Kennedy, Senator Levin, and all Members who have come 
to the floor to speak in support of our amendment.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Talent). The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. ALLARD. I think we are getting to the point where we are ready to 
wrap up debate. I will make a few comments and we will move to table 
and have a vote in a relatively short period of time. I am warning 
everyone we are getting close to a vote.
  I thought I would take a few moments to review some of the comments 
made by individuals in the administration about the need to allow for 
research, at least, and study as far as the low-yield nuclear weapons 
were concerned.
  I rise in opposition to the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment. Let me read 
from a letter from Secretary of State Powell, dated May 5, 2003.

       I am writing to express support for the President's FY2004 
     budget request to fund the feasibility and cost study for the 
     Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator (RNEP), and to repeal the 
     FY1994 legislation that prohibits the United States from 
     conducting research and development on low yield nuclear 
     weapons. I do not believe that these legislative steps will 
     complicate our ongoing efforts with North Korea.

  This is a statement from our Secretary of State.
  ADM Ellis, U.S. Navy, had this to say in a letter to the chairman:

       The nation needs to understand the technical capabilities 
     of threats under development by potential adversaries and to 
     thoroughly explore the range of options available to the 
     United States to deter or defeat them. Once we complete the 
     precise engineering analyses necessary to validate facts 
     related to nascent advanced concepts, the results of the 
     research will enable dispassionate, fact-based decisions on 
     very important defense and policy issues.

  If you repeal the law on low-yield nuclear weapons, you end up 
producing nuclear weapons which will cause less collateral damage if 
used and, therefore, the United States is more likely to use that. That 
is the assertion.
  First, in response to that, NNSA cannot produce or deploy a new 
nuclear weapon without an authorization and appropriation from 
Congress. Second, there have been thousands of deployed low-yield 
nuclear weapons during the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and today, and 
that has not lowered the nuclear weapon threshold. Nuclear weapons are 
still a very high threshold that only the President can initiate.
  On April 8, 2003, Admiral James Ellis said:

       . . . it's not clear to me there is a direct linkage 
     between the size of the weapons and the awesome 
     responsibilities embodied in that decision.

  Ambassador Linton Brooks quoted, as then acting director of NNSA, in 
an April 8, 2003 hearing:

       Is there a logic to saying that we have older low-yield 
     weapons, but that we now know we are not going to ever want 
     to produce new low-yield weapons. Now to some extent I admit 
     we are talking about--since I'm not going to develop or 
     produce anything without the permission of the Congress and 
     if the Congress decided to give me permission, it could 
     modify the ban . . .

  Now, we are looking at both administrations that have basically taken 
the position that we need to have a nuclear response to either chemical 
or biological weapons or weapons of mass destruction.
  On December 7, 1997, President Clinton issued some guidelines which 
would permit nuclear strikes after enemy attacks involving chemical or 
biological weapons, which was reported widely at that time.
  Finally, I point out some language and remind my colleagues we have 
specific language in the bill, and I will again repeat that language:

       Nothing in the repeal made by subsection (a) shall be 
     construed as authorizing testing, acquisition, or deployment 
     of a low-yield nuclear weapon.

  The issue is clear. I am now willing to move forward with the vote.
  Mrs. FEINSTEIN. I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Biden as a 
cosponsor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALLARD. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. ALLARD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. ALLARD. For Members' information, we are going to proceed to a 
vote. I want Members to understand we are

[[Page 12335]]

going to hold this vote open an extra length of time to accommodate 
those who are expecting the vote to occur at 7:45. This will allow 
Members who are anxious to get home early tonight to leave early, and 
then we will keep the vote going later on.
  Having made that announcement, I will move to table.
  Mr. LEVIN. Will the Senator withhold for just a moment.
  Mr. ALLARD. I understand we have some time to be yielded back on both 
sides.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Nevada.
  Mr. REID. Mr. President, Members all over town have been expecting 
this vote to occur at 7:45, so I hope the leader will allow us to have 
the vote drag on for a little while to make sure our people get back.
  Mr. ALLARD. I have contacted the leader on the Republican side. He is 
expecting us to leave this open to somewhere around 8:10.
  Now we both have time to yield back.
  Mr. LEVIN. I yield the remainder of my time.
  Mr. ALLARD. I yield the remainder of the time on the Republican side.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time is yielded back.
  Mr. ALLARD. Now I move to table the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment. I 
ask for the yeas and nays.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The question is on agreeing to the motion. The clerk will call the 
roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I announce that the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. 
Lott) and the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Voinovich) are necessarily absent.
  Mr. REID. I announce that the Senator from North Carolina (Mr. 
Edwards), the Senator from Florida (Mr. Graham), the Senator from 
Hawaii (Mr. Inouye), and the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) are 
necessarily absent.
  I further announce that, if present and voting, the Senator from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Kerry) would vote ``aye.''
  The result was announced--yeas 51, nays 43, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 186 Leg.]

                                YEAS--51

     Alexander
     Allard
     Allen
     Bayh
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brownback
     Bunning
     Burns
     Campbell
     Chambliss
     Cochran
     Coleman
     Collins
     Cornyn
     Craig
     Crapo
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Ensign
     Enzi
     Fitzgerald
     Frist
     Graham (SC)
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hagel
     Hatch
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Kyl
     Lugar
     McCain
     McConnell
     Miller
     Murkowski
     Nelson (NE)
     Nickles
     Roberts
     Santorum
     Sessions
     Shelby
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Sununu
     Talent
     Thomas
     Warner

                                NAYS--43

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Breaux
     Byrd
     Cantwell
     Carper
     Chafee
     Clinton
     Conrad
     Corzine
     Daschle
     Dayton
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Durbin
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Harkin
     Hollings
     Jeffords
     Johnson
     Kennedy
     Kohl
     Landrieu
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Lincoln
     Mikulski
     Murray
     Nelson (FL)
     Pryor
     Reed
     Reid
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Schumer
     Stabenow
     Wyden

                             NOT VOTING--6

     Edwards
     Graham (FL)
     Inouye
     Kerry
     Lott
     Voinovich
  The motion was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. ALLARD. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, we appreciate the cooperation of all 
Senators. We were able to accommodate one Senator who had a very 
serious problem. That is achieved and we are now completed. I believe 
the Senator from Rhode Island is to be recognized for the purpose of 
laying down his amendment.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Rhode Island is recognized.


                           Amendment No. 751

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mr. 
     Levin, and Mr. Feingold, proposes an amendment numbered 751.

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

   (Purpose: To modify the scope of the prohibition on research and 
               development of low-yield nuclear weapons)

       Strike section 3131 and insert the following new section:

     SEC. 3131. MODIFICATION OF SCOPE OF PROHIBITION ON RESEARCH 
                   AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-YIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

       (a) Modification.--Section 3136 of the National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 103-160; 
     107 Stat. 1946; 42 U.S.C. 2121 note) is amended by striking 
     ``research and development'' each place it appears and 
     inserting ``development engineering''.
       (b) Conforming Amendments.--(1) The caption for subsection 
     (c) of that section is amended by striking ``Research and 
     Development'' and inserting ``Development Engineering''.
       (2) The heading for that section is amended by striking 
     ``RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT'' and inserting ``DEVELOPMENT 
     ENGINEERING''.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
Virginia is recognized to offer a second-degree amendment. The Senator 
from Virginia.


                 Amendment No. 752 to Amendment No. 751

  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I send to the desk an amendment in the 
second degree and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report.
  The assistant legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Virginia [Mr. Warner] proposes an 
     amendment numbered 752 to amendment No. 751.

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

       In lieu of the matter proposed to be inserted, insert the 
     following:

     SEC. 3131. REPEAL OF PROHIBITION ON RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT 
                   OF LOW-YIELD NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

       (a) Repeal.--Section 3136 of the National Defense 
     Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1994 (Public Law 103-160; 
     107 Stat. 1946; 42 U.S.C. 2121 note) is repealed.
       (b) Construction.--Nothing in the repeal made by subsection 
     (a) shall be construed as authorizing the testing, 
     acquisition, or deployment of a low-yield nuclear weapon.
       (c) Limitation.--The Secretary of Energy may not commence 
     the engineering development phase, or any subsequent phase, 
     of a low-yield nuclear weapon unless specifically authorized 
     by Congress.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Rhode Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, for over 50 years, the United States has 
been in the vanguard in both urging and acting to delegitimize the use 
of nuclear weapons. Today, the Bush administration is implementing a 
departure from this bipartisan policy of arms control by adopting 
measures that will lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.
  Dissatisfaction with America's nuclear policy by conservatives was 
evident even before George W. Bush became President. One of the more 
dramatic examples of this was the rejection of the Comprehensive 
Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty by the Senate in 1999. A particularly revealing 
aspect of that vote was the opposition to a proposal to put the treaty 
aside rather than to formally defeat it. Deferral would have given a 
future President the ability to renegotiate aspects of the treaty, such 
as verification, that were specifically criticized. A combination of 
ideological and political motivations forced a vote that further 
weakened efforts at arms control. Indeed, today the defeat of the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty still lingers as something that I 
think is a serious erosion of arms control throughout the world and our 
ability to influence other nations to refrain from testing and 
developing.
  In a similar vein, Republicans in Congress enacted legislation that 
fixed the

[[Page 12336]]

minimal number of launch vehicles and warheads in order to prevent the 
Clinton administration from initiating reductions through negotiations 
with the Russians. This legislation was quietly repealed when President 
George W. Bush announced his intention to conclude the Moscow treaty. 
The Moscow treaty seems to be the type of arms control treaty that 
conservatives can be comfortable with since it does not actually 
require the elimination or destruction of nuclear weapons by either 
side. I have heard today repeatedly discussions of how we are 
destroying nuclear weapons. In fact, under the Moscow treaty, we are 
simply redesignating nuclear weapons. We are calling them operational 
and nonoperational. We are not destroying nuclear weapons.
  The Bush administration not only accepted these precedents, but 
rapidly and deliberately built upon them. The President quickly 
announced the withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty. Here 
again, there was scant attention paid to the possibility of negotiating 
changes with the Russians in order to pursue the development of an 
antimissile system without jettisoning the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty 
has been a long-time target of the right wing. President Bush's 
decision was as much about appeasing a powerful component of his 
political base as it was a reflection of strategic thinking.
  The President has made it clear that he will not pursue further 
negotiations under the START process with the Russians. He is content 
to let the Moscow treaty stand as the beginning and the end of his arms 
control initiatives.
  The most effective nonproliferation program, the Cooperative Threat 
Reduction Program, was greeted initially by the Bush administration 
with skepticism. The program was placed on hold for the first year of 
the administration while the program was under review. The program was 
delayed an additional year when the administration could not make the 
certifications necessary for the program to proceed. The program 
survived the review and the certification delay but 2 years was spent 
on justifying the program rather than aggressively eliminating weapons 
and weapons material.
  All of this was prelude to the publication of the Nuclear Posture 
Review in December of 2001. The review is classified and the 
administration provided only a cursory nonclassified briefing. Public 
comments by the administration suggest the major shifts in policy 
included in the review.
  For the first time, the Nuclear Policy Review indicates that the 
United States is prepared to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear 
nations that are not aligned with a nuclear power. Previously, the 
focus of our policy was to respond to the nuclear potential of other 
nuclear powers and their allies as a means of deterring the use of 
nuclear weapons. Today, the United States is contemplating the use of 
nuclear weapons against nations that do not possess nuclear weapons. In 
so doing, the NPR, the Nuclear Posture Review, blurs distinctions 
between conventional and nuclear weapons.
  Instead of trying to place nuclear weapons beyond use or at least 
severely restricting their use to the deterrence of an attack by a 
nuclear power, the NPR makes them just one more tool in our tool kit. 
In so doing, it mischaracterizes the horrific effects of nuclear 
weapons; trying to suggest that they are a little bit more than a 
conventional weapon, when they are of a dimension and scale that is 
beyond the contemplation of anyone who has used conventional weapons.
  The NPR maintains the current size of the stockpile of nuclear 
weapons. Despite the end of the cold war, the dissolution of the Soviet 
Union and the emergence of a democratically elected government in 
Russia, the administration continues to maintain thousands of warheads 
in the stockpile.
  The NPR holds out the possibility of the resumption of nuclear 
testing, either to maintain the current stockpile or to develop new 
types of nuclear weapons. Budget requests to fund the production of 
hundreds of new plutonium pits per year, a necessary component of a 
nuclear weapon, are included in this budget.
  Requests to undertake the designs of new weapons if needed and to 
shorten the time necessary to initiate and conduct a nuclear test are 
included in the budget proposals, and all of them strongly suggest that 
testing could go well beyond the need to maintain the existing 
stockpile.
  Coupled with the rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban 
Treaty, the NPR sent a disturbing signal that we would once again 
undertake a testing program. Such a program may very well be imitated 
by other nations, either through perceived need or as a means to 
maintain their prestige in the nuclear club. In any case, this, too, 
would further weaken the restraints against the use of nuclear weapons.
  In the context of these dramatic changes in policy, rejection of the 
comprehensive test ban treaty and a new nuclear policy review that 
blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, the 
administration proposed last year to begin the design of a robust 
nuclear earth penetrator to use against hard and deeply buried targets. 
This weapons would modify an existing nuclear device. In essence, the 
kinetic package already in the stockpile would come out of inventory 
and the key work would involve the design of a casing that could 
penetrate the proper depth for the weapon.
  The first point to be made is that the existing weapons being 
considered are quite large, on the order of several hundred kilotons to 
over 1 megaton. For a frame of reference, the weapons dropped on 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in the range of 14 to 21 kilotons. Thus, 
the smaller of these bunker busters is roughly 25 times the size of the 
bombs dropped on Japan. These weapons will bust more than a bunker. The 
area of destruction will encompass an area the size of a city. They are 
really city breakers, not bunker busters.
  A further point is the fact that conventional munitions have 
substantially increased their precision. We have seen that in Iraq 
rapidly and effectively. Although they have not achieved the ability of 
flying through an open door and taking the elevator down to the bunker 
command center, increased precision means enhanced ability to target 
and destroy entrances and the communication network of a command center 
or other sensitive target.
  We have much better capacity today with conventional weapons, and 
many would argue these conventional weapons could effectively deal with 
many, if not all, of these potential targets.
  Finally, the recent fighting in Iraq presented our forces with just 
the type of targets that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is 
envisioned to engage; deeply buried command centers and possible 
storage areas for weapons of mass destruction. From preliminary reports 
and from casual observations, it does not appear in any way that our 
military efforts were inhibited by the lack of a robust nuclear earth 
penetrator.
  Last year Senate Democrats were able to delay spending money on a 
robust nuclear earth penetrator by requiring a report identifying the 
types of targets this weapon is designed to hold at risk and the 
employment policy for the robust nuclear earth penetrator. The 
classified report has been submitted and the administration is forging 
ahead.
  Equally unsettling as the robust nuclear earth penetrator is the 
proposal by the administration to repeal the 1993 statutory ban on the 
research, development, testing, and production of low-yield nuclear 
weapons. Current law prohibits work on weapons with yields equal to or 
less than 5 kilotons. In attempting to justify this proposal, 
Ambassador Linton Brooks, Acting Director of the National Nuclear 
Security Administration, NNSA, stated before the Senate Armed Services 
Committee, that ``we are seeking to free ourselves from intellectual 
prohibitions against exploring a full range of technical options.''
  Importantly, he did not justify this proposed work as a current 
military requirement. At present, there is no military requirement for 
a low-yield nuclear weapon. As I said before, really,

[[Page 12337]]

low-yield nuclear weapon is a misnomer. These are still horrendous, 
horrific weapons. They might better be referred to as small 
apocalypses, not low-yield weapons.
  More illustrative of the motivation behind the efforts is a 
subsequent statement of Ambassador Brooks at the hearing. The 
Ambassador declared:

       I have a bias in favor of the lowest usable yield because I 
     have the bias in favor of something that is the minimum 
     destruction . . . I have a bias in favor of things that might 
     be usable.

  Let me commend the Ambassador for his candor and his responsiveness 
to the question because I think he has laid it out very accurately and 
very precisely and very well. No longer are we being motivated by a 
sincere and intense and consistent desire to try to avoid the use of 
nuclear weapons. We are trying to design weapons and produce weapons 
that we fully anticipate can be used. That is an extraordinary sea 
change in our policy. And it is a sea change that I think will 
reverberate around the world to our disadvantage, not to our security.
  At the heart of the debate over these so-called low-yield nuclear 
weapons lies the observation, if not the fact, that the ability to 
limit collateral damage makes a weapon more likely to be used. The 
advent of precision-guided munitions makes attacks on urban areas more 
acceptable to leaders. Would we have dropped a dumb bomb on Saddam 
Hussein's suspected hideouts in the crowded neighborhoods of Baghdad? 
It would have been a much tougher call.
  In a similar fashion, as suggested by Ambassador Brooks' comments, 
developing low-yield nuclear weapons, small apocalyptic weapons, tilts 
the scales for use, not for restraint. That is a balance I think will 
again jeopardize our situation, not enhance it.
  Proponents of this new policy with its bias in favor of things that 
are usable, in the Ambassador's terms, attempt to justify their 
position on several grounds. They argue arms control and 
nonproliferation have failed. We heard the arguments on the floor of 
the Senate all day long. They cite a litany of states that acquired 
nuclear weapons since the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty in 1968: India, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa, and apparently 
North Korea. But this litany must be placed in context. Forty years ago 
when the original nuclear powers--the United States, the Soviet Union, 
Britain, France, and China--had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it was 
routinely assumed that proliferation would be rapid and irreversible. 
President Kennedy predicted in the early 1960s that an additional 25 
countries might develop nuclear weapons within 10 years. This dire 
prediction did not come true because of efforts at arms control 
exemplified by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
  Recently, this point was reiterated by Deputy Secretary of State 
Richard Armitage who stated: Instead of the 25 or so countries that 
President Kennedy once predicted, only a handful of nations possess 
nuclear weapons. Of course, we suspect many more countries have 
chemical or biological weapons, but still short of the scores that have 
been predicted in the past.
  We have reached this state of affairs in no small part through the 
concerted efforts of many nations, agreements such as the Nuclear Non-
Proliferation Treaty and Chemical Weapons Convention, organizations 
such as the IAEA and nuclear supply groups--these constitute a global 
security architecture that have served us satisfactorily and kept us 
safe.
  Moreover, of the five states that have acquired nuclear weapons since 
1968, three--Israel, India, and Pakistan--never signed on to the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In retrospect, many look back and 
wish we could have urged them, convinced them, persuaded them, to sign 
on because it would have made their ascendency to the nuclear ranks 
that much more difficult.
  South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons and joined the regime as a 
nonpossessor. That leaves the very special case of North Korea which 
joined the NPT in 1985 and has been caught on at least two occasions 
violating this obligation before its recent announced repudiation of 
the treaty.
  Critics of the nonproliferation regime frequently fail to acknowledge 
that Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan ceased their suspected 
nuclear program in part because of the international law norm 
represented by the nonproliferation treaty.
  Similarly, with the demise of the Soviet Union, the newly independent 
states of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine found themselves in 
possession of nuclear weapons. All of them voluntarily relinquished 
their weapons in favor of joining the NPT. Their decision, at the 
urging of the United States and others, reaffirmed the norms of 
nonproliferation. Indeed, as recently as May, 2000, the United States 
reaffirmed this norm by joining the four other original nuclear powers 
in declaring their commitment to the ``unequivocal undertaking'' to 
eliminate nuclear arsenals.
  That affirmation is in stark contrast to the legislation before us 
that seeks to expand and enhance our nuclear arsenal. Today, 
nonproliferation is being advocated by the United States as ``do what I 
say,'' not ``do what I do.'' Unfortunately, the United States is more 
often imitated than obeyed.
  Last Saturday, Vladimir Putin's annual address was reported in the 
American media. According to one report:

       [Putin] appeared to be responding to the Bush 
     administration's new nuclear strategy, announced last year, 
     when he said that Russia, too, was considering developing new 
     variants of nuclear weapons.

  President Putin declared, in his words:

       I can inform you that at present the work to create new 
     types of Russian weapons, weapons of the new generation, 
     including those regarded by specialists as strategic weapons, 
     is in the stage of practical implementation.

  As the newspaper report further indicated:

       [A]nalysts said he [Putin] appeared to be referring to 
     Russia's efforts to modernize its nuclear arsenal and to 
     develop low yield nuclear weapons.

  At this point in the speech, the press reported that the ``remark was 
greeted by applause.''
  I don't know how comfortable we all feel with the Russian Duma 
applauding the statement that Russia is considering modernizing their 
nuclear forces, potentially developing low-yield nuclear weapons. 
Indeed, it seems terribly ironic to me that as we urge support and help 
for the Russians to destroy their nuclear arsenal, they are 
simultaneously taking the path we are in trying to create and build a 
new, more modern arsenal.
  Acknowledging the important role of the nonproliferation treaty, as I 
have over many decades, should not be equated with assuming the arms 
control regime is without shortcomings. A structure that was designed 
primarily to moderate the superpower confrontation between the United 
States and the Soviet Union cannot be expected to adapt to the new 
threats and new technologies of the post-cold-war world without 
conscious and committed efforts led by the United States to deal with 
these new circumstances. Thus, it is incumbent on ourselves, the United 
States, not simply to walk away from this regime of arms control but to 
adapt it to the new contingencies, the new threats, the new environment 
of this new strategic world.
  The consequences of the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction 
are so devastating that reliance on military means alone to deter or 
preempt such an event is shortsighted. Abandoning serious efforts at 
arms control will weaken, not strengthen, our efforts to protect the 
Nation. We must engage, again, I believe, in a concerted effort to 
strengthen these norms of nonproliferation, of nonuse--not weaken them, 
as this legislation suggests.
  A second argument used by proponents of these policies is that it is 
just about research; no one would ever deploy these weapons. These 
advocates have not been paying attention to the Bush administration. 
These are the words of Fred Celec, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of 
Defense for Nuclear Matters, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury 
News, talking in the context of the development of a ``hydrogen

[[Page 12338]]

bomb that can be successfully designed to survive a crash through the 
hard rock or concrete and still explode,'' which is an earth 
penetrator. Mr. Celec concludes, in his words, if we can do it, ``it 
will ultimately get fielded.''
  So this is not about hypothetical research; it is not about a big 
science project, or training scientists. In the view of a very 
influential member of the Department of Defense, it is about getting 
weapons we can put in the field. I can't think of any weapon that we 
would field, that we would place in the hands of American military 
personnel, that we wouldn't test first. So we are also talking about 
testing.
  These are grave--not just possibilities, but if you listen to the 
spokesman of the administration, these are right over the horizon. I 
think it is very disturbing. That is why I think we have to act here to 
exercise our judgment and our responsibility to ensure that our policy 
is consistent with the best interests of this country. I hope, through 
consideration of this amendment, we will do that.
  A third point that seems implicit in many of the arguments that are 
made on behalf of these weapons is the notion that nuclear weapons can 
be designed so their use is, if not relatively benign, then at least 
tolerable.
  As previously discussed, the proposed modification of existing 
weapons to create a robust nuclear earth penetrator is anything but 
benign or tolerable. It will pack an explosive punch at least 25 times 
that of Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and even if technology and the Congress 
allows for a smaller yield robust nuclear earth penetrator, its use 
will be devastating.
  Sidney Drell, a noted physicist and arms control advocate, pointed 
out that even a 1-kiloton weapon, penetrating to 40 feet, would create 
a crater larger than the impact area at the World Trade Center and put 
about 1 million cubic feet of radioactive material in the air. Such 
radioactivity could last for many years and would likely be spread over 
a fairly large area by the prevailing winds. That is not a small, 
discrete weapon that plows into the ground with a little puff of smoke 
emanating. That is a devastating weapon.
  A fourth rationale raised by proponents is that permission to develop 
low-yield nuclear weapons is necessary to train the next generation of 
nuclear scientists. This argument ignores the existence of thousands of 
nuclear weapons that are available for training purposes. The ban on 
low-yield nuclear weapons applies only to the fabrication of new 
weapons, not the dismantling and study of existing ones. Moreover, the 
idea that decades of arms control efforts would be cast aside simply to 
provide a training exercise should cause a more exhaustive search for 
other training opportunities rather than the creation of a new class of 
nuclear weapons. Or, at a minimum, it should prompt a careful exemption 
from the ban for the purpose of research, and not the wholesale repeal 
of the ban that is included in this legislation before us.
  A fifth rationale advanced by supporters is the possible use of a 
low-yield nuclear device to attack a facility that contains biological 
or chemical agents. The theory is that the radiation can destroy the 
biological or chemical agents in addition to destroying the facility. 
But this rationale begs two questions. What will destroy the radiation 
emitted by the nuclear blast and why are precision-guided missiles not 
as suitable a response? Once again, this is the very specialized threat 
that may be dealt with by other means and is an attempt to deal with 
the possibility of chemical and biological exposure through the release 
of a definite radiological exposure. It is not a compelling reason to 
abandon the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons.
  A final justification for the development of low-yield nuclear 
weapons is that it will act as a deterrent. Proponents argue that our 
existing nuclear weapons are so large that we are self-deterred from 
using them and our adversaries know this. But with new, low-yield 
weapons, our adversaries will have renewed concern that we will employ 
nuclear weapons.
  Several points are in order. First, in the war on terror, our 
adversaries are unlikely to be deterred by any size nuclear weapon, due 
to their fanaticism and the practical problem of targeting them. In a 
confrontation with rogue states, the targeting problem is easier, but 
the use of nuclear weapons of any size presents difficult tactical 
problems.
  Our doctrine of air superiority, information dominance, precision 
weapons, and speed makes the use of nuclear weapons less attractive on 
military grounds since we plan for and anticipate the rapid destruction 
of enemy forces and the swift seizure of key political objectives. The 
use of nuclear weapons will likely slow us down and increase the cost, 
both short run and long run, of our operations.
  In Iraq, we were confronted by a rogue state. We heard before the 
hostilities of the existence of deep underground facilities. We were 
told there were significant weapons of mass destruction throughout the 
country. Yet, I don't think any military commanders would have even 
contemplated the use of low-yield nuclear weapons, or any type of 
nuclear weapon. For one reason, if we had, we would still be miles away 
from Baghdad, because we could not occupy a place that was radiating 
plutonium. We would have caused significant civilian casualties. We 
would have caused a political firestorm that could never be contained 
in that part of the world and passed across the globe.
  These are the practical considerations that deter us--not the fact 
that we do not have a low-yield weapon.
  In addition, the ``deterrent effect'' may have the opposite effect on 
these rogue nations, as we think we are going to deter them.
  Indeed, as Michael May, the former head of Lawrence Livermore 
National Laboratory, suggested, the emphasis on tactical nuclear 
weapons ``increases the motivation of 'targeted states' to improve and 
extend their own nuclear force, or to get one if they don't have it.''
  The behavior of North Korea and Iran, although clearly unjustified, 
might be prompted by such considerations.
  The amendment I offer today is designed to do what I heard 
practically all of my colleagues say was the intent of this proposal by 
the administration--to allow scientists to do research but clearly to 
prevent the development, the testing, the fielding, and the use of 
nuclear weapons, particularly low-yield nuclear weapons.
  The amendment I offer today would amend the current Spratt-Furse law 
so that research is allowed. Work beyond research would, however, 
remain prohibited.
  Since 1953, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense 
have worked in a very formalized weapons development process. In the 
DOE nuclear weapons development process there are a series of numbered 
phases of development. They are pictured in this chart. The top chart 
represents the development of a new weapon. There are eight phases as 
indicated in the chart. The bottom array is the development of or 
modification of an existing weapon such as the case would be with the 
robust nuclear earth penetrator. It is coming out of the stockpile, but 
it is still subject to the same clearly defined phases that have been 
defined now for almost 50 years, concept assessment, feasibility, all 
the way through retirement.
  The amendment I offer today would prohibit ``development 
engineering,'' which is phase 3, or phase 6.3. Again, these are clearly 
identified phases. There will be no confusion in the Department of 
Energy or in the Department of Defense as to what is prohibited, what 
is allowed, and what is allowed as ``reasonable.'' That is what I have 
heard consistently my colleagues say, that the whole purpose of this 
proposal by the administration and the development phases are well 
understood. They have been in use for 50 years. The phases were 
developed jointly by the Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor to 
the DOE, and the Department of Defense in a memorandum of understanding 
signed in 1953.
  Again, my amendment is very clear. It allows phase 1, phase 2, and 
phase 2-A activity for a new weapon. The red

[[Page 12339]]

line comes at phase 3. It would allow phase 6.1, 6.2, and 6.2-A. The 
red line phase comes at 6.3 for the modification of existing weapons. 
Research is allowed, and everything else is prohibited.
  The amendment is designed to allow what, as I said, the Bush 
administration claims is a primary reason to seek the repeal of the 
Spratt-Furse law--the need to ``train the next generation of nuclear 
weapons scientists and engineers.''
  I and many of my colleagues do not support providing an open-ended 
authority to this or any other administration to develop, test, 
produce, and deploy new nuclear weapons. Unless we adopt this amendment 
or some variance of the amendment, that is precisely what we will be 
giving the administration.
  The amendment would address the primary concern of ADM Ellis, 
Commander of Strategic Command, the command responsible for nuclear 
weapons.
  In a letter to the Armed Services Committee, ADM Ellis stated that 
the ``U.S. Strategic Command is interested in conducting rigorous 
studies of all new technologies and examining the merits of precision, 
increased penetration, and reduced yield for our nuclear weapons.''
  Nowhere is there a suggestion that he would like the permission to 
develop the test in the field of new weapons.
  Again, if we are serious about arms control, and if we recognize the 
request for less stability in research, this amendment will be adopted. 
I hope it is. I would prefer, frankly, the restoration completely of 
the Spratt-Furse amendment. But this will, I think, do what must be 
done--prevent development, testing, and fielding of new nuclear weapons 
of the low-yield type.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Senate has just voted to authorize the 
research of new nuclear weapons for the first time since 1993. We have 
removed a prohibition on research which could lead to the production of 
nuclear weapons. This is a major shift, in my judgment, a terribly 
mistaken shift in policy because of the message it so clearly sends to 
the world that we are now going to walk down the road we are telling 
the rest of the world not to walk down.
  The amendment which has been offered by Senator Reed, of which I am a 
cosponsor, starts from that point. However, as the Senator from Rhode 
Island just described, it does not seek in any way to reverse what the 
Senate just did relative to the research that the opponents of the 
Feinstein-Kennedy amendment said was so important to protect. It 
accepts the decision of the Senate and the opponents of the Feinstein-
Kennedy amendment--the argument made that research should not be 
prohibited. Senator Reed's amendment does not prohibit research. 
Rather, it says we should not allow the development of these new 
weapons and, of course, any subsequent testing or deployment of those 
weapons; that if we are going to let the world know we are not 
committed to the deployment and the development of new weapons, we have 
to send a clear signal to the world of some kind that even though 
research would be allowed, nonetheless we are not going to raise the 
prohibition or lift the prohibition on the development of new nuclear 
weapons.
  I believe it was a mistake to repeal the Spratt-Furse language. I 
think what we are doing is telling the North Koreas and the Irans of 
the world that we are not going to tolerate your having nuclear 
weapons, but we are going to develop new nuclear weapons ourselves. It 
is a totally inconsistent position. It undermines our whole position 
and our standing in the world to argue that nations such as North Korea 
and Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.
  It is mighty difficult to persuade even our Allies in the world that 
we should take strong measures to stop North Korea from getting nuclear 
weapons, and we should take strong measures to stop Iran from getting 
nuclear weapons, including working with the Russians to try to stop 
Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but, oh, by the way, we are going to 
do research and development on new nuclear weapons.
  As the Senator from Rhode Island and others have said, this isn't 
just a matter of research, because the Deputy Assistant Secretary of 
Defense for Nuclear Matters puts it this way: ``If a hydrogen bomb 
could be successfully designed to survive a crash through hard rock and 
still explode, it will ultimately get fielded''--I presume speaking for 
the administration.
  So nobody should be, in any way, fooled that what we are talking 
about is just simply research. Unless we put a prohibition in to stop 
the development of these weapons, what the world will believe--and I 
think accurately--is that it is not just research, it is development. 
Then, in the words of Fred Celec, the Deputy Assistant Secretary on 
nuclear matters: It will get fielded.
  Now, the opponents of the last amendment said: Well, that is not what 
we are trying to do here. We are not trying to make any commitment to 
fielding a weapon or even developing a weapon. All we are talking about 
is research. And since the Spratt amendment prohibits research on 
weapons which could lead to their deployment and to their production, 
we think the Spratt amendment simply goes too far and should be 
repealed.
  So what the Senator from Rhode Island does in his amendment is say: 
Well, then, for Heaven's sake, consistent with that--and to avoid 
sending a message which even the opponents of the Feinstein-Kennedy 
amendment said they do not want to send--let us keep the prohibition on 
the development of new nuclear weapons. That is all the amendment 
offered by Senator Reed does.
  It seems to me it is the least we can do to avoid sending a signal 
from the U.S. Senate that this country is now going down a road that we 
are saying no country should go down, which is the road of new nuclear 
weapons.
  The former Assistant Energy Secretary, Rose Gottemoeller, in March of 
2003 put it this way:

       Other countries watch us like a hawk. They are very, very 
     attentive to what we do in the nuclear arena. This is going 
     to be considered another step in the tectonic shift.

  She was referring to the repeal of the Spratt-Furse language.

       I think people abroad will interpret this as part of a 
     really enthusiastic effort by the Bush administration to 
     renuclearize. And I think definitely there's going to be an 
     impetus to the development of nuclear weapons around the 
     world.

  The greatest threat we face is the terrorist threat and the 
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We should do what we can 
to avoid sending a signal to the world that we are committed to the 
development of new nuclear weapons. The prohibition now has been lifted 
on research and development of new nuclear weapons, which could lead to 
their production.
  Unless we adopt the Reed amendment, it will appear to the world--
accurately--that this Senate is committed to the development of new 
nuclear weapons. I hope we are not going to make that commitment. It 
would be a terrible mistake for what it would unleash.
  In order to avoid that commitment from being made, or from appearing 
to be made, to the rest of the world, we need the Reed language, which 
says that we are going to keep the prohibition of Spratt-Furse from the 
development stage on.
  The Senate has spoken relative to research. The words again of the 
opponents, who have said: My Heavens, under Spratt-Furse, you can't 
even do the research. Surely, we ought to allow scientists to think.
  The Reed amendment is consistent with what the opponents of 
Feinstein-Kennedy said was their main reason for opposing the 
prohibition that exists in law. So I would hope that we could adopt the 
language that is in Senator Reed's amendment, to indicate we, in fact, 
are not committed to the development of new nuclear weapons, and that 
we would not march down a road when we tell other nations they must not 
march down that road.

[[Page 12340]]

  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I have listened very carefully to the 
arguments by my two distinguished colleagues, the Senator from Rhode 
Island and the Senator from Michigan.
  The Senate has acted on repealing a portion of the ban, and I think 
it is important that the Senate be consistent and that it should be a 
total repeal unless it could be construed as not being the intention of 
the Congress to fully support the actions of the research in the first 
two steps.
  My second-degree amendment would allow the entire repeal, as called 
for in the bill, to take place. But very importantly, I then make it 
eminently clear that not one step can go beyond the research phase 
unless--and I read section (c):

       The Secretary of Energy may not commence the engineering 
     development phase, or any subsequent phase, of a low-yield 
     nuclear weapon unless specifically authorized by Congress.

  Laws should be written that are clear, so they are understandable. 
This second-degree amendment absolutely places in the mind of every 
reasonable person who reads it precisely what is the intent of the 
Congress. And that intent is that this is approved to go forward in the 
vote we have just taken. In the second degree amendment to the pending 
amendment, it is clear that Congress is fully in charge, working with 
the executive branch. The Congress, and only the Congress, can 
authorize and appropriate the funds necessary to go one step beyond 
what the earlier amendment provided.
  Very simple. I do not need to prolong this argument. The second 
degree amendment is eminently clear.
  Mr. REED. Will the chairman yield for a question?
  Mr. WARNER. Absolutely.
  Mr. REED. I think I understand your second degree, but if I could, 
just for a moment--my amendment authorizes research activities in 
phases 1, 2, and 2-A, and 6.1, 6.2, and 6.2-A, and then prohibits the 
following phases. Your amendment would authorize work in these phases.
  I think the difference is that rather than a clear prohibition, which 
would require someone coming back to the Congress and seeking to repeal 
the prohibition, you would require them to come back and get an 
authorization to proceed. I think that is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. I do not want to get tangled up in the terminology, but 
the bill, as passed out by the Armed Services Committee that is pending 
before us, repeals, in the entirety, the law that was passed in 1994.
  Then you are coming along and saying: All right, I cede the ground 
that was authorized by this bill that just passed, but I wish to 
reimpose the limitation on the subsequent steps to the research.
  All I am saying is, let's be consistent. We have repealed. Leave it 
repealed. But insert the Congress at precisely the point the Senator 
raises there and say: Not one step more until the authorization and 
appropriation takes place.
  Mr. REED. Essentially, the functional difference between my amendment 
and your second degree is, at this point, under my amendment the 
administration would have to come and lift the prohibition; under your 
amendment, they would have to come and get an authorization. I think 
that is the functional difference.
  Mr. WARNER. I think the Senator is correct.
  Mr. REED. Let me say, if I may, again, we are united in the notion of 
allowing the research in these first three phases. We choose a 
different way to control government access in the succeeding phases. 
But the effect, I hope, at the end of the deliberations is that the 
development, engineering, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons of 
low-yield will be subject to congressional authority.
  Mr. WARNER. I think the advantages, if I may say with respect to my 
two highly esteemed colleagues, are that the second-degree amendment 
can be understood by anyone who can interpret the English language.
  When I look at your amendment--I have been over here working it and 
reworking it--it leaves a little bit of a challenge.
  Mr. REED. If the chairman will yield, that is why I have this chart, 
which is quite obvious, and it absolutely could explain your amendment, 
too.
  I will lend it to you.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Michigan.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I am just comparing the two amendments. It 
seems to me in terms of directives, the simplicity of the Reed 
amendment has it all over the amendment of the Senator from Virginia. 
It is shorter than the Senator's amendment, if I am reading this 
amendment correctly. I want to make sure I have the right amendment 
before I make this statement. It looks like on page 2 at least there 
are 10 lines of type; is that correct? Am I looking at the correct 
amendment?
  Mr. REED. I believe you are.
  Mr. LEVIN. On the first page.
  Mr. REED. It reads ``03.857'' on the upper left hand.
  Mr. LEVIN. Correct. It is at least as simple as the amendment of the 
Senator from Virginia, which I understand is really a substitute.
  Mr. WARNER. My esteemed colleague is absolutely correct.
  Mr. LEVIN. When the Senator says it reimposes the limitation on 
development, the Senator is correct. It does do that.
  Mr. WARNER. Which amendment are you discussing? The Reed amendment?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Reed amendment, according to my dear friend from 
Virginia, would reimpose the prohibition on development that was just 
repealed in the bill's language and left in because of the defeat of 
the Feinstein amendment. That is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. First, it has to be removed and nothing has been removed 
yet. The law of the land remains the same tonight as it has been since 
1994. We are endeavoring to see what should be done about it. The bill 
reported out by our committee on a fairly significant vote in favor of 
repeal would have the effect of repealing it in its entirety.
  Mr. LEVIN. That is correct.
  Mr. WARNER. My amendment says, yes, carry forward with the intent of 
the majority vote in the Senate Armed Services Committee but put in the 
steps of Congress having to authorize and approve funds for each step 
subsequent to research.
  Mr. LEVIN. And the Senator's amendment is useful.
  Mr. WARNER. Which Senator's?
  Mr. LEVIN. The Senator from Virginia, the Senator I am addressing.
  Mr. WARNER. I wish we were arguing that case. Both of us were trial 
lawyers. If you had made that mistake on the floor of a trial 
courtroom, I would have you nailed right now.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am glad we are not in a trial courtroom because you 
surely don't have me nailed here.
  Mr. WARNER. You are working your way around trying to figure out 
exactly what it is you and the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island 
want to do.
  Mr. LEVIN. It is quite clear what the Senator from Rhode Island and I 
want to do, which is maintain a prohibition on the development of new 
nuclear weapons. The difference is exactly what the Senator from Rhode 
Island said, which is that his amendment, which I have cosponsored, 
maintains a prohibition on development; whereas the amendment of the 
Senator from Virginia says the administration would have to come back 
for reauthorization.
  The Senator from Virginia's amendment is valuable. As a matter of 
fact, I offered the amendment the Senator from Virginia is offering 
tonight in committee. It was defeated by one vote.
  Mr. WARNER. In the committee?
  Mr. LEVIN. In our committee I offered the amendment saying, come back 
for reauthorization because under the circumstances, having defeated 
what we just had previously defeated in committee, I thought that was 
the best that could be achieved. And we could not achieve that because 
it was defeated by a 13-to-12 vote. I don't doubt there is value to 
what the Senator from Virginia is doing.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I apologize. I did not intend to 
plagiarize your

[[Page 12341]]

good work. Suffering from a middle-age crisis, I forgot that you might 
have done that.
  Mr. LEVIN. I am delighted that the Senator from Virginia has offered 
this as a second-degree amendment. Believe me, if the amendment of the 
Senator from Rhode Island is defeated by the adoption of the amendment 
of the Senator from Virginia as a substitute, all of us would be very 
supportive of the amendment of the Senator from Virginia. Let it be 
clear that while there is value in it, there is not as much value in it 
as the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island. It is not as clear a 
statement to the world that we are not committed to the development of 
new nuclear weapons.
  What the Reed amendment says is: Development of these new weapons is 
prohibited. That is a very clear statement. The clarity of that 
statement is absolutely pure. It is a lot clearer in terms of assuring 
the world that we are not committed to the development of new nuclear 
weapons than is a statement such as the amendment offered by the 
Senator from Virginia which is, if you want to develop, come back to us 
for authorization.
  I say that in all sincerity. I look the Senator from Virginia in the 
eye and say: His amendment, in my book, has value but not nearly the 
value of the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island.
  I hope we will adopt the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island 
and defeat the substitute offered by the Senator from Virginia. But 
should the substitute prevail, I would in all good conscience vote for 
the substitute amendment if, in fact, it is substituted for the 
amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island.
  Nonetheless, there is a much stronger statement made of reassurance 
to the world, a statement to the North Koreas and the Irans of the 
world, that we are not committed to developing new nuclear weapons, if 
we say exactly that. That is what the amendment of the Senator from 
Rhode Island says. We are not going to proceed with the development, 
even though we are going to allow research on these new nuclear 
weapons.
  I hope, again, the substitute is not agreed to and that the amendment 
of the Senator from Rhode Island is agreed to.
  Again, I commend the Senator from Virginia because I do think that 
there is a contribution in his substitute amendment which is better 
than just simply repealing the Spratt-Furse language.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I thank my colleague for what I interpret 
as kind words. We remain to have a difference of opinion as to the 
advisability of not repealing this current prohibition in its entirety.
  I have no further comments with respect to the pending amendments.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who seeks recognition? The Senator from Rhode 
Island.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I believe on the amendment that I offered 
earlier today on missile defense, we have reached agreement. It might 
be appropriate at this time to call up the amendment.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I am perfectly willing. That is a very 
good suggestion.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I will lay aside the pending amendment. We 
are trying to identify the numbers so we can call up the amendment.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                           Amendment No. 711

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the 
pending amendment and call up amendment No. 711.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will report.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

       The Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Reed], for himself, Mrs. 
     Feinstein, and Mr. Feingold, proposes an amendment numbered 
     711.

  The amendment is as follows:

 (Purpose: To provide under section 223 for oversight of procurement, 
performance criteria, and operational test plans for ballistic missile 
                           defense programs)

       Strike section 223, and insert the following:

     SEC. 223. OVERSIGHT OF PROCUREMENT, PERFORMANCE CRITERIA, AND 
                   OPERATIONAL TEST PLANS FOR BALLISTIC MISSILE 
                   DEFENSE PROGRAMS.

       (a) Procurement.--(1) Chapter 9 of title 10, United States 
     Code, is amended by inserting after section 223 the following 
     new section:

     ``Sec. 223a. Ballistic missile defense programs: procurement

       ``(a) Budget Justification Materials.--(1) In the budget 
     justification materials submitted to Congress in support of 
     the Department of Defense budget for any fiscal year (as 
     submitted with the budget of the President under section 
     1105(a) of title 31), the Secretary of Defense shall specify, 
     for each ballistic missile defense system element, the 
     following information:
       ``(A) For each ballistic missile defense element for which 
     the Missile Defense Agency in engaged in planning for 
     production and initial fielding, the following information:
       ``(i) The production rate capabilities of the production 
     facilities planned to be used.
       ``(ii) The potential date of availability of the element 
     for initial fielding.
       ``(iii) The expected costs of the initial production and 
     fielding planned for the element.
       ``(iv) The estimated date on which the administration of 
     the acquisition of the element is to be transferred to the 
     Secretary of a military department.
       ``(B) The performance criteria prescribed under subsection 
     (b).
       ``(C) The plans and schedules established and approved for 
     operational testing under subsection (c).
       ``(D) The annual assessment of the progress being made 
     toward verifying performance through operational testing, as 
     prepared under subsection (d).
       ``(2) The information provided under paragraph (1) shall be 
     submitted in an unclassified form, but may include a 
     classified annex as necessary.
       ``(b) Performance Criteria.--(1) The Director of the 
     Missile Defense Agency shall prescribe measurable performance 
     criteria for all planned development phases (known as 
     ``blocks'') of each ballistic missile defense system program 
     element. The performance criteria shall be updated as 
     necessary while the program and any follow-on program remain 
     in development.
       ``(2) The performance criteria prescribed under paragraph 
     (1) for a block of a program for a system shall include, at a 
     minimum, the following:
       ``(A) One or more criteria that specifically describe, in 
     relation to that block, the types and quantities of threat 
     missiles for which the system is being designed as a defense, 
     including the types and quantities of the countermeasures 
     assumed to be employed for the protection of the threat 
     missiles.
       ``(B) One or more criteria that specifically describe, in 
     relation to that block, the intended effectiveness of the 
     system against the threat missiles and countermeasures 
     identified for the purposes of subparagraph (A).
       ``(c) Operational Test Plans.--The Director of Operational 
     Test and Evaluation, in consultation with the Director of the 
     Missile Defense Agency, shall establish and approve for each 
     ballistic missile defense system program element appropriate 
     plans and schedules for operational testing to determine 
     whether the performance criteria prescribed for the program 
     under subsection (b) have been met. The test plans shall 
     include an estimate of when successful performance of the 
     system in accordance with each performance criterion is to be 
     verified by operational testing. The test plans for a program 
     shall be updated as necessary while the program and any 
     follow-on program remain in development.
       ``(d) Annual Testing Progress Reports.--The Director of 
     Operational Test and Evaluation shall perform an annual 
     assessment of the progress being made toward verifying 
     through operational testing the performance of the system 
     under a missile defense system program as measured by the 
     performance criteria prescribed for the program under 
     subsection (b).
       ``(e) Future-Years Defense Program.--The future-years 
     defense program submitted to Congress each year under section 
     221 of this title shall include an estimate of the amount 
     necessary for procurement for each ballistic missile defense 
     system element, together with a discussion of the underlying 
     factors and reasoning justifying the estimate.''.
       (2) The table of contents at the beginning of such chapter 
     9 is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 
     223 the following new item:

``223a. Ballistic missile defense programs: procurement.''.

       (b) Exception for First Assessment.--For the first 
     assessment required under subsection (d) of section 223a of 
     title 10, United States Code (as added by subsection (a))--

[[Page 12342]]

       (1) the budget justification materials submitted to 
     Congress in support of the Department of Defense budget for 
     fiscal year 2005 (as submitted with the budget of the 
     President under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States 
     Code) need not include such assessment; and
       (2) the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation shall 
     submit the assessment to the Committees on Armed Services of 
     the Senate and the House of Representatives not later than 
     July 31, 2004.

  Mr. REED. I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors Senators 
Feingold and Feinstein.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.


                     Amendment No. 711, As Modified

  Mr. REED. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment 
be modified with the changes at the desk.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Warner). The Senator has that right.
  The amendment is so modified.
  The amendment (No. 711), as modified, is as follows:
       Strike section 223, and insert the following:

     SEC. 223. OVERSIGHT OF PROCUREMENT, PERFORMANCE CRITERIA, AND 
                   OPERATIONAL TEST PLANS FOR BALLISTIC MISSILE 
                   DEFENSE PROGRAMS.

       (a) Procurement.--(1) Chapter 9 of title 10, United States 
     Code, is amended by inserting after section 223 the following 
     new section:

     ``Sec. 223a. Ballistic missile defense programs: procurement

       ``(a) Budget Justification Materials.--(1) In the budget 
     justification materials submitted to Congress in support of 
     the Department of Defense budget for any fiscal year (as 
     submitted with the budget of the President under section 
     1105(a) of title 31), the Secretary of Defense shall specify, 
     for each ballistic missile defense system element, the 
     following information:
       ``(A) For each ballistic missile defense element for which 
     the Missile Defense Agency in engaged in planning for 
     production and initial fielding, the following information:
       ``(i) The production rate capabilities of the production 
     facilities planned to be used.
       ``(ii) The potential date of availability of the element 
     for initial fielding.
       ``(iii) The expected costs of the initial production and 
     fielding planned for the element.
       ``(iv) The estimated date on which the administration of 
     the acquisition of the element is to be transferred to the 
     Secretary of a military department.
       ``(B) The performance criteria prescribed under subsection 
     (b).
       ``(2) The information provided under paragraph (1) shall be 
     submitted in an unclassified form, but may include a 
     classified annex as necessary.
       ``(b) Performance Criteria.--(1) The Director of the 
     Missile Defense Agency shall prescribe measurable performance 
     criteria for all planned development phases (known as 
     ``blocks'') of the ballistic missile defense system and each 
     of its elements. The performance criteria may be updated as 
     necessary while the program and any follow-on program remain 
     in development.
       ``(2) The performance criteria prescribed for a block under 
     paragraph (1) shall include one or more criteria that 
     specifically describe, in relation to that block, the 
     intended effectiveness against foreign adversary 
     capabilities, including a description of countermeasures, for 
     which the system is being designed as a defense.
       ``(c) Operational Test Plans.--The Director of Operational 
     Test and Evaluation, in consultation with the Director of the 
     Missile Defense Agency, shall establish and approve for each 
     ballistic missile defense system element appropriate plans 
     and schedules for operational testing. The test plans shall 
     include an estimate of when successful performance of the 
     element in accordance with each performance criterion is to 
     be verified by operational testing. The test plans for a 
     program may be updated as necessary while the program and any 
     follow-on program remain in development.
       ``(d) Annual Testing Progress.-- The annual report of the 
     Director of Operational Test and Evaluation required under 
     section 232(h) of the National Defense Authorization Act for 
     Fiscal Year 2002 (Public Law 107-107; 10 U.S.C. 2431 note) 
     shall include the following:
       ``(1) The test plans established under subsection (c); and
       ``(2) An assessment of the progress being made toward 
     verifying through operational testing the performance of the 
     system under a missile defense system program as measured by 
     the performance criteria prescribed for the program under 
     subsection (b).
       ``(e) Future-Years Defense Program.--The future-years 
     defense program submitted to Congress each year under section 
     221 of this title shall include an estimate of the amount 
     necessary for procurement for each ballistic missile defense 
     system element, together with a discussion of the underlying 
     factors and reasoning justifying the estimate.''.
       (2) The table of contents at the beginning of such chapter 
     9 is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 
     223 the following new item:

``223a. Ballistic missile defense programs: procurement.''.

       (b) Exception for First Assessment.--The first assessment 
     required under subsection (d) of section 223a of title 10, 
     United States Code (as added by subsection (a)), shall be an 
     interim assessment submitted to the Committees on Armed 
     Services of the Senate and the House of Representatives not 
     later than July 31, 2004.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Talent). Will the Senator suggest the 
nature of the modification?
  Mr. REED. The staffs have been collaborating all day. They have 
reached an agreement. The modifications make it clear that goals will 
be established with respect to the National Missile Defense Program. 
The modifications are acceptable to the majority and minority. I 
believe we have a meeting of the minds on all the details.
  Mr. WARNER. The Senator is correct. The modification was reviewed on 
this side, and we are prepared to accept the amendment.
  Mr. REED. I urge acceptance of the amendment at this time.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I commend the Senator from Rhode Island and 
all those who worked with him to make this amendment possible. It is a 
significant contribution to making our missile defense system more 
effective, both in terms of the cost and operational effectiveness. It 
fills some very important holes that otherwise would have existed, and 
it is his tenacity that made it possible.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, earlier today, when the amendment was 
being discussed, I did encourage the Senator from Rhode Island and the 
Senator from Colorado to see whether or not they could bridge the gap. 
They have done that.
  So I compliment my good friend and fellow member of the Armed 
Services Committee, as well as the Senator from Colorado. They did a 
job that will be helpful.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, the amendment, as modified, 
is agreed to.
  The amendment (No. 711), as modified, was agreed to.
  Mr. LEVIN. I move to reconsider the vote.
  Mr. WARNER. I move to lay that motion on the table.
  The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I ask for the yeas and nays on the 
substitute amendment of Senator Warner.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
  There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, as a simple courtesy, I ask for the yeas 
and nays on the amendment of the Senator from Rhode Island.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. It is in order to request the yeas and nays on 
the underlying first degree amendment.
  Is there is a sufficient second? There is a sufficient second.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  Mr. WARNER. I thank the Chair. This concludes the matters on the 
bill.

                          ____________________