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Floor Speech

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of my amendment to reverse the fiscal year 2018 NDAA provision restricting U.S. funds to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization's Preparatory Commission, also known as the CTBTO's PrepCom.

As the only physicist in Congress, I feel a special responsibility to speak out on the importance of strengthening our global nuclear security architecture and maintaining U.S. leadership in this area.

The Preparatory Commission is tasked with monitoring countries' compliance with the comprehensive ban on nuclear explosive testing, including onsite inspections.

Before the PrepCom funding ban went into place, the U.S. experts regularly provided training to the PrepCom's international team of inspectors and worked with our international partners to continually refine the state-of-the-art methods used in these inspections.

When the funding ban was enacted, it removed our ability to continue this work, which resulted in Russia, China, and even Iran stepping in to fill the gap. Their efforts may be more focused on dumbing down the capability of PrepCom's verification regime, instead of strengthening it under U.S. leadership.

President Trump recognized the importance of nonproliferation and of oversight into our adversaries' nuclear testing. He worked for years at attempting to negotiate the dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear testing and development program. Although it failed in the end, it was not a dumb thing to attempt.

If a final deal had been reached, onsite inspections by a trusted international team of technically competent inspectors would have been a key factor, and that is what PrepCom is and what it should be under renewed U.S. leadership.

As our Nation fights against the unprovoked Russian aggression in Ukraine, and China and Iran's increasing belligerence, repealing this funding ban, and getting the PrepCom out from under our adversaries' control and back into U.S. control has never been more important.

As a Nation, we must continue our efforts to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons and continue longstanding commitments to our allies.

Mr. Speaker, I urge passage of this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I would just like for the Members on the other side to ask themselves: assume that President Trump had succeeded at his negotiations with North Koreans, that would have required a technically competent team of international inspectors there the day after the agreement to make sure that there was not testing and other weapons- related activities. This is why you keep the PrepCom alive and working and under U.S. leadership. It makes the U.S. stronger, safer, and more able to deliver on the treaties that I think all of us hope may some day be passed to actually reduce and eventually eliminate nuclear weapons.

So until that time, we have to have a competent team in place. They, unfortunately, have to be international if they are going to be trusted by all sides on this. That is why it is important to keep the PrepCom as strong as we can, and it has to be under our leadership.

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