Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2013

Floor Speech

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Mr. MARKEY. This debate has taken on the characteristics of ancestor worship, and I understand it. I know it's hard for individuals to let go of the Cold War, to let go of an era where foreign policy was characterized by this bitter rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. The reality: We won. It's over. We didn't just win. It was basically a world where there's unipower now. It's us.

The Chinese only have 40 to 50 nuclear missiles. The Russians have already dramatically reduced their weapons. The likelihood of a nuclear war between the United States and Russia is negative zero. And yet there are Members that don't want to see any reductions in our nuclear weapons force, notwithstanding the fact that those extra expenditures then would have to come out of other budgets, including the budget for the National Institutes of Health to find a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's. And so we have this curious disconnect between the reality of the world that we live in today and the understandable but erroneous commitment that many Members on the other side have to a relic of a Cold War-era rivalry that no longer can withstand fiscal scrutiny.

So let's just take this debate about whether or not the United States is vulnerable.

Each one of our submarine-based nuclear weapons systems have 96 independently targetable warheads onboard. That is: each one of our sub commanders can destroy the 96 biggest cities in China; each one of our sub commanders can destroy the 96 biggest cities in Russia; each sub commander, with their first nuclear weapon, could destroy Tehran; each sub commander could destroy Pyongyang and still have 95 independently targetable nuclear weapons onboard that one submarine, much less every other submarine that we have out there.

And so to have an amendment that says, after New START was agreed to between Russia and the United States, after the Air Force and the Navy signed off on New START, to have Members of the House proposing that notwithstanding that agreement that was reached that does enhance American national security by reducing the likelihood that there would be a conflict between the United States and Russia, as low as that likelihood is, that we have this micromanagement that comes in of our military.

But it's more than that. Let's admit it. It's all about jobs. You're thinking about the defense bill as a jobs bill, and I understand that. But whenever we're talking about the defense bill, those jobs that are created should relate in some way to American national security. And what the Air Force and the Navy are saying is that they do not believe they need more nuclear weapons. In fact, they can agree to and have already accepted the reduction in nuclear weapons that is in the New START Treaty.

And so I understand from a jobs perspective why you want to lock in jobs that may have been created a generation ago in the height of the Cold War, but we have to redeploy for the 21st century not only militarily, but also into what strengthens us domestically in terms of medical research and educational programs.

So I can't really understand why we're even debating this issue. There is a treaty between our two countries. Our military has signed off. Our military says it actually enhances our security.

And I agree with the gentleman from Washington State: This is an area where we should actually give some respect to the United States Senate that ratified the treaty, to each one of your Joint Chiefs that signed off on it, and not allow a jobs bill to trump our national security; and that if you can find programs that actually enhance our security and you want to spend the money on it, let's debate that. But this is an area that is already resolved.

I urge a ``no'' vote on the Berg amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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