National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019

Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, I rise to speak in favor of the Reed- Warren amendment.

For months, I have been voicing concerns about the Trump administration's dangerous plans to develop new, more usable low-yield nuclear weapons. Specifically, this Defense bill authorizes the Pentagon to begin developing a new low-yield warhead, which the Trump administration wants to put on our Nation's submarine-launched ballistic missiles. I think this decision is strategically unwise for many reasons.

I am concerned about discrimination and the risk of rapid escalation into a nuclear conflict. As many experts have publicly suggested, Russia may not be able to distinguish between an incoming Trident missile that poses an existential threat to their nation and a low- yield nuclear missile that is intended to serve as more of a warning. That may be a risk this administration is willing to take, but it is not one I can support.

I am also not convinced that additional low-yield nuclear weapons are necessary for deterrence. Let's be clear. Together with our allies, the United States brings overwhelming nonnuclear coercive power to the table, but beyond that, the United States already possesses a significant low-yield nuclear arsenal. In fact, we are in the process of spending billions of dollars to upgrade our delivery systems in order to ensure that our flexible deterrent is capable of reaching anyplace, anytime.

I am troubled by the message that developing new nuclear weapons variants sends to the world about America's commitment to nonproliferation. Our credibility to negotiate with other countries, like North Korea, to demand that it reduce its nuclear arsenal, depends, in part, on the fact that we have long been committed to reducing our own. We must not do anything to jeopardize that progress.

That is not what this amendment is all about. In fact, I offered an amendment in committee to fence the funding for low-yield SLBM until we can better understand the impact of this new weapon on our Navy and on our obligations as a steward of nonproliferation around the world, but my amendment was not successful.

I understand that some of our military leaders, and some Members of my own party, genuinely believe this new low-yield weapon is necessary. I know my colleagues approach this seriously, and I know people with good intentions can disagree, but that is exactly the purpose of this Reed-Warren amendment. The point is, we should be having this debate right here in Congress. That is where the debate belongs.

The impact of the underlying provision currently in the Defense bill is that the Pentagon will not need to come to Congress to ask for permission to develop a new low-yield nuclear weapon in the future. Instead, they can merely notify that they intend to do so and then proceed on their own. If this Defense bill passes in its current form, Congress will have lost our best opportunity to have a say in how they will develop it, what it will cost, or how and where it will be deployed.

The argument in favor of the existing provision is that low-yield nuclear weapons should be treated ``just like any other weapon,'' but I would say this to my colleagues: That is not the case. As Secretary Mattis has said, there is no such thing as a ``tactical'' nuclear weapon and ``any nuclear weapon used any time is a strategic game- changer.'' The truth is, nuclear weapons are not like other weapons, and we should not treat them that way. We should all be able to agree that nuclear weapons are in their own class, and they deserve special scrutiny by Congress.

In fact, we have faced this very question before. Fifteen years ago, there was a similar effort to take Congress out of the debate and out of any question about the use of nuclear weapons. In that case, Senators John Warner and Jack Reed offered a bipartisan compromise proposal that said the executive branch could only go forward in the development of new nuclear weapons with explicit authorization from Congress. That proposal passed unanimously, 96 to 0, including votes from 10 of our Republican colleagues who still sit in the Senate today.

The provision in the underlying Defense bill would gut that bipartisan agreement, an agreement that has held for more than 15 years. It was offered at the eleventh hour, behind closed doors, and on a party-line vote.

In contrast, the amendment offered by Senator Reed today is consistent with that compromise, and a vote for the Reed-Warren amendment is a vote to sustain that bipartisan consensus.

Regardless of what you think about the development and use of low- yield nuclear weapons, as a Member of the Senate, you should vote to have a voice in that process. That is what the American people sent us here to do, and that is what we owe them.

I would like to thank Senator Reed for his decades of bipartisan leadership in this area, and I urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the Reed- Warren amendment.

I yield back my time.

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Ms. WARREN. Yes, I do.

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