The Increasing Threat of Nuclear Weapons
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to focus on one of the most serious issues of our time: the increasing threat of nuclear weapons.
Over decades of negotiations, a multilayered architecture of nuclear arms control agreements resulted in significant reductions in the total number of nuclear weapons and nuclear warheads in the arsenals of the United States and Russia. It also promoted and built an international consensus to shun nuclear testing and embrace nonproliferation.
Today, we face the challenge that the only remaining arms control agreement between the U.S. and Russia, New START, expires in February 2026, just a little over a year from now.
The world stands at the brink of a nuclear arms race with no guardrails or no limits. The U.S. has committed itself to modernize its nuclear arsenal over 30 years at a cost estimated to exceed $1.5 trillion.
Russia repeatedly has threatened to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine and even against NATO nations for any reason he perceives as the West making threatening moves against Russia.
North Korea continues to threaten South Korea, Japan, and the United States with a nuclear strike while forming a new alliance with Russia.
China is engaged in a buildup of its own nuclear arsenal. The Pentagon estimates China will likely have 1,500 nuclear warheads by 2035 if the pace of its buildup continues. Iran may decide to build nuclear weapons following tit-for-tat missile strikes with Israel and the U.S.' failure to revive negotiations on restoring curbs on Iran's nuclear program.
Adding to this uncertain and tense global nuclear security landscape, the American people voted to return Donald Trump to the Presidency for a second term.
Now, during his first term as President, he withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal and allowed other arms control agreements to expire or for the U.S. to withdraw.
It will be on his shoulders to help the world back away from the brink of the first use or exchange of nuclear weapons since the end of World War II, and to avoid a new nuclear arms race with all of its financial and geopolitical costs.
If he chooses to take on these challenges, he will not find himself alone.
In 2017, most of the nations of the world came together to adopt the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, TPNW. The treaty is an international agreement that prohibits the development, testing, production, and use of nuclear weapons. It entered into force in 2021. The TPNW's goals are to eliminate nuclear weapons and reduce global nuclear arsenals to zero. Currently, 93 nations have signed the treaty and 74 have ratified it.
Along with my colleague Earl Blumenauer, I am the proud author of H. Res. 77, a bill that calls on the President to embrace the goals and provisions of the TPNW and make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of U.S. national security policy. It also calls on the United States to lead a global effort to move the world back from the nuclear brink and to prevent nuclear war by returning to negotiations that advance nuclear arms reduction. I am grateful that 43 of my House colleagues have joined this resolution as cosponsors.
I am also the sponsor of H.R. 3154, the HALT Act, which would freeze current nuclear arsenals and press for a return to the negotiating table.
Further, on November 1, in the First Committee on International Peace and Security of the U.N. General Assembly, delegates voted to study the impacts of nuclear war for the first time since 1989.
While there is already a wealth of robust research on the effects of nuclear weapons, this has not been comprehensively brought together in 35 years. During these decades, there has been major progress on climate and scientific modeling tools, and this new study will allow scientists to review the improvements in our understanding of the effects of nuclear war.
Mr. Speaker, 144 nations voted in favor of the resolution, including nuclear powers like Germany and nations who suffered from atomic testing in decades past. Only three nations opposed: Russia, France, and the U.K., with the latter saying this matter has been studied enough. Thirty nations abstained, including the United States.
Finally, Mr. Speaker, in October, the Nobel Committee decided to award the Nobel Peace Prize for 2024 to the Japanese organization Nihon Hidankyo. This grassroots movement of atomic bomb survivors from Hiroshima and Nagasaki received the Peace Prize for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never ever be used again.
The award reminds us most vividly of the cost of nuclear war. As many of my House colleagues know, for over a decade I have championed the cause of the atomic veterans to be recognized for their sacrifice, suffering, and patriotism in working on U.S. atomic testing and production sites, often with little or no protection from radiation.
After years of bipartisan work by Congress, in September 2023, in a moving ceremony, the Pentagon awarded the Atomic Veterans Commemorative Service Medal in-person and online to those still-surviving atomic veterans and posthumously to their families.
However, members of the military were not the only ones who suffered. Civilians, especially in the State of Nevada, were also victims of atomic testing. Known as the down-winders, these civilians and their lands suffered from the impact of nuclear radiation and drift carried by wind and water. They, too, deserve to be recognized and honored.
Mr. Speaker, what my colleagues and I are talking about here today is a big deal. This issue needs more attention. The relevant committees here in Congress ought to be doing hearings. We ought to be discussing this more and more on the House floor because, really, the ultimate question here is the salvation or the destruction of our planet.
Certainly, we all can come together to protect not only the people of the country but the people of the world from nuclear weapons.
Pingree).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his thoughtful comments and for urging both Democrats and Republicans to learn more about this issue. Democrats and Republicans ought to have a mutual interest in survival, because that is really what is at stake here.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Garamendi) for his powerful remarks. I thank the gentleman also for being the co-chair of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group.
I yield to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Beyer), the other co- chair of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his remarks and, again, for reminding us how costly the nuclear arms race is. The American people want us to spend money on them and not on weapons that, if ever used, could destroy this entire planet.
Mr. Speaker, I am now proud to yield to the gentlewoman from Michigan (Ms. Tlaib).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her inspiring remarks and for always speaking truth to power.
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to yield now to the gentleman from California (Mr. DeSaulnier).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. DeSaulnier) for his words. Again, I think what my colleagues are hearing today are concerns that many of our constituents share, that we are spending this excessive amount of money on stockpiling nuclear weapons and the concern that we are not talking about the impact if these weapons were ever used. It would be devastating.
Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield to the distinguished gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Ramirez).
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her powerful remarks.
Mr. Speaker, I am now happy to yield to the gentlewoman from Nevada (Ms. Titus), who can tell us firsthand about the impacts of nuclear testing on people in nearby areas--not just nearby, but hundreds of miles away--how it not only pollutes the air, but the water and the soil and everything else.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for being such an advocate on behalf of people who have been victimized by nuclear testing. We appreciate all the work that she does.
Lee), who has been a champion on arms control issues for many years.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for her leadership on this and so many other issues.
During his first term, President Trump was right to initiate talks and to try to negotiate a nuclear agreement with North Korea. Perhaps he can be successful at this initiative over the next 4 years. I hope it is something he decides to prioritize.
There are other important nuclear security issues that I hope he will take to heart and, like his Republican predecessors, Ronald Reagan and Dwight Eisenhower, help lead the world away from the brink of a nuclear arms race and a nuclear war.
These include taking a critical look at nuclear modernization to ensure it will provide cost-effective deterrence, hold the Pentagon accountable for unnecessary and costly weapons programs, adhere to the nuclear weapons limits set forth in the New START agreement, extend and expand upon existing arms control engagement, uphold the global taboo on explosive nuclear weapons testing, and stop funding missile defense programs that do not work.
Mr. Speaker, I believe we should aspire to be a world free of nuclear weapons. That is what you have heard over and over from the Members who have spoken here today.
I want to close with one final thought. Mr. Speaker, when I was in college, I worked my way through college, working in the office of Senator George McGovern of South Dakota, no relation but one of my heroes and a champion on nuclear arms control.
I accompanied him to a debate with William Buckley at Yale University, and the debate was on: Resolve that the SALT talks are in the interests of U.S. national security.
Governor McGovern closed that debate by saying, in 1963, we were debating the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. ``Senator Everett Dirksen [of Illinois] took to the floor to close the debate. He said that he had just reread John Hersey's `Hiroshima,' the description of what happened to that great city, the morning after, the scene of one family sitting charred around the breakfast table; out in the yard, bits and pieces of children's clothing; the broken arm of a doll; toys and debris scattered over the landscape. And he said: `I thought about that scene, and I said that someday Everett Dirksen will be buried in Illinois, and when that happens, I don't want to put on my gravestone: ``He knew about this, and he didn't care.'' ' ''
Mr. Speaker, the choice is whether we are going to reduce and eventually reverse this nuclear madness. That means not victory for anyone if it is ever used but the death of all and perhaps the death of our planet.
Many years ago, in ancient wisdom, it was said: I have set before thee two choices, life or death. Therefore, choose life that thee and thy seed may live.
That is the choice he wanted the United States to make in 1978. That is how he concluded that debate. That is the choice I want the United States to make in the year 2024.
Mr. Speaker, the stuff that we are talking about here today is not theoretical. It is not just some abstract debate. This is real. It is shocking that we are not focused more on this issue.
Again, Democrats and Republicans ought to have a mutual interest in survival because if these weapons are ever used, it could mean the end of our planet. As Mr. Foster from Illinois said earlier, we don't want to look into the sky, see one terrible flash, and that is the end of it, and we wonder how we got there.
We have it within our power right now to do something to reverse this trend toward nuclear destruction. We just have to have the courage to stand up to the defense contractors and all of their big money and to people who, quite frankly, think that the only way we can be strong is to build more and more nuclear weapons.
That is not the measure of our strength. The measure of our strength, quite frankly, is the quality of life of the people in our country. We live in the richest country in the history of the world. We have 47 million people who do not know where their next meal is going to come from. We should all be ashamed of that. It is a national scandal.
When we try to raise that issue on the floor, we are told we don't have the money. Yet, we have over a trillion dollars to build more nuclear weapons? That is insane. That is mad.
Mr. Speaker, the plea of all of us here today, to Democrats and Republicans alike, we want the issue of a nuclear-free world on the table. We want that to be one of our goals. We want to aspire to that goal. We want Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to come together and to make that a reality.
I hope that people across this country get more engaged on this issue and demand more of their government on this issue. The trend right now and the way we are headed is in the wrong direction.
Let's strive for a world free from nuclear weapons. Let's urge the next President to do this. Again, I have great concerns, deep concerns, about the next President and his priorities. Do you know what? We can't give up hope. We ought to do everything we can to press him and this Congress to move in a different direction.
Mr. Speaker, I thank all of my colleagues for participating in this Special Order, and I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source