National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2024

Floor Speech

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, I would like to begin by thanking Ranking Member Smith, Mr. McGovern, and their staffs for working with us on this critically important amendment and for their leadership throughout this NDAA process.

As we know, Mr. Chair, with war criminals threatening to use nuclear weapons and serious tensions along NATO's eastern border and in the South China Sea, today's world is being redefined by escalating tensions between major nuclear powers.

We don't have to look far back in history to see the danger here. The Cold War was full of near misses and numerous crises that could have gotten out of control and ended in nuclear war.

We are now entering a period of dangerous nuclear competition. As such, we must remember one of the key lessons that the Cold War taught us about nukes: We must preserve the ability to quickly step back from the brink and clearly signal de-escalation when necessary.

Unfortunately, the current draft of the NDAA includes a provision that prohibits our country from doing just that. Specifically, this dangerous provision makes it impossible for our country to reduce our stockpiles of intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs, for any reason, with no exceptions.

This inflexible policy was created and implemented by lawmakers in promotion of economic considerations and not national security priorities, Mr. Chair. Making national security decisions with the potential to end humanity based on so-called economic considerations is simply ridiculous. It is dangerous.

While we preserve this insanely expensive weapon that is obsolete, many children in my district go to schools without clean drinking water.

Maintaining this incredibly large stockpile of these weapons isn't even necessary in maintaining a credible deterrent. The U.K., France, India, and China all have very credible nuclear deterrents with much smaller stockpiles, Mr. Chair.

The shortsighted policy places serious and concerning restraints on the President of the United States, the United States Congress, and the Department of Defense's ability to consider and modify the role ICBMs play in our nuclear arsenal and our national defense, and it unnecessarily wastes taxpayer dollars in the process.

Preserving our ability to reduce our nuclear stockpiles proved key to reducing tensions, Mr. Chair, and achieving commonsense, planet-saving arms control agreements during the Cold War.

Just as we have the ability to increase our nuclear defense in times of crisis, we must have the ability to reduce our nuclear forces when it is in our interest.

To be clear, Mr. Chair, this amendment does not change the size of our nuclear forces. It merely allows for reasonable consideration and debate in the future.

Mr. Chair, as the mother of two who dreams of a world where our children and families are freed from threat and fear of nuclear war, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time.

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, just to be clear, this amendment does not change the size of our nuclear forces. It merely allows for reasonable consideration and debate in the future, especially around de- escalation. Again, our history shows during the Cold War, it was critical.

Mr. Chair, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer), my good colleague.

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

I just want to be clear with my colleagues. This amendment gives our government more options that could avoid our world ending in nuclear war. It is that simple. It doesn't reduce. It doesn't increase. It literally allows for real consideration and debate and allows the President of the United States and the Department of Defense to make those decisions.

It is a commonsense amendment. Really, I think it is incredibly important, especially, again, at a time of watching what is going on in our world right now and what happened during the Cold War. It is important for us to be able to de-escalate when needed, for us to be able to again make more thoughtful decisions, not based on this kind of scare tactic of let's do more, let's get this out there and everything without actually considering some of the really important factors that are around these very dangerous, again, world-ending weapons that we have that could end in nuclear war in our world.

It is very, very important, again, for all my colleagues to understand: This is not about reducing. This is about actually having more options.

Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Ms. TLAIB. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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