National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016

Floor Speech

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Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the distinguished vice chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee for this amendment and for yielding time.

Mr. Chairman, the New START treaty is the only bilateral arms control treaty I am aware of that only requires one party to reduce its nuclear weapons, and that is the United States, while the other party, Russia, increases its stockpile.

I have a prediction here for you today. If this truly is fully implemented by the United States prior to the 2018 deadline, we will see Russia cheating on the treaty immediately thereafter. Mark my words, unless there is a U.S. President in office at the time Putin respects, he will cheat on this treaty as soon as he gets a chance.

The Russians have no respect for the agreements they make. They have no respect for international law or sovereignty. They respect one thing and one thing alone: strength.

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As chairman of the Strategic Forces Subcommittee, I understand the responsiveness of our ICBMs as their most critical feature and their most significant contribution to our nuclear triad. The U.S. has had ICBMs on alert since the early 1960s. This amendment ensures that there is no change to the longstanding, bipartisan U.S. defense posture that ICBMs are kept on high alert levels.

In recent weeks, the usual groups who want to disarm the United States have been calling on the U.S. to de-alert ICBMs. We should continue to pay no attention to these tired, repetitive voices who long for the nuclear freeze days of the cold war when they were relevant. Instead, Admiral Haney, the current commander of U.S. Strategic Command, said just last week he ``fundamentally disagrees'' with these calls to de-alert U.S. ICBMs.

Finally, this amendment ensures the administration follows its own stated policy. In an April 2015 hearing before my subcommittee, the DOD witnesses told us that the administration explicitly examined and rejected de-alerting our ICBMs.

Those who are arguing against the amendment are even further to the left on nuclear weapons than our global zero President. This is not just a missile state issue--this is a profound national security issue. De-alerting our ICBMs is a terrible idea. I urge a ``yes'' vote on my colleague's amendment.

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I strongly oppose this amendment because it strikes a section that helps us set priorities in defense spending. Dismantling U.S. nuclear weapons is not a priority. Getting nuclear modernization done is the priority.

Two weeks ago, Secretary of State Kerry announced at the NPT review conference that the U.S. would accelerate its dismantlement of nuclear warheads by 20 percent. While Russia continues to make overt nuclear threats to the U.S. and our allies, we accelerate unilateral nuclear disarmament. This is insane.

Let's be clear about one point in particular. Section 3121 of the underlying bill does not contradict any U.S. treaty obligations. Current arms control treaties do not require the U.S. to dismantle any nuclear warheads.

In the FY16 budget request, NNSA detailed its plan to focus the next 5 years of dismantlement work on warheads retired prior to 2009. Section 3121 provides them enough money to do so, and it does not restrict this work on pre-2009 warheads.

Section 3121 allows the administration to carry out the dismantlement plan it described in the FY16 budget request. It simply prevents the unilateral disarmament and acceleration proposed by Secretary Kerry, which is a misguided attempt to appease those who would disarm the United States.

Section 3121 also prohibits dismantlement of certain U.S. nuclear cruise missile warheads for 5 years. This is a prudent measure because Russia is in plain violation of the INF Treaty through its flight testing and deployment of ground-launched, intermediate-range cruise missiles.

Simply put, we should not unilaterally disarm the United States cruise missile warheads when Russia is building and deploying its own cruise missiles in direct violation of the INF Treaty.

As Russia continues to make nuclear threats against the U.S. and our allies, accelerating the U.S. nuclear weapon dismantlement by 20 percent is exactly the wrong message to send.

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