Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016
Floor Speech
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, we just heard Mr. Quigley and Mr. Simpson in a debate about this very same issue, and I don't want to cover the exact same ground, but I want to put this in the context of, I think, a very serious concern that all of us ought to have.
The rebuilding, or what is known as the life extension program for our nuclear bombs, is but one small part, actually, one very large part, but small in comparison to the total reconditioning, rebuilding of our entire nuclear enterprise.
And when you consider the totality of what we are doing in this appropriations bill and last night, when we took up the defense authorization bill, you can only, and you must, come to the conclusion that the United States is now involved in a very significant, total restructuring and rebuilding of our entire nuclear deterrent system. It is not just the six to seven different nuclear warheads that are going to be rebuilt at a cost of several tens of billions of dollars; it is also all of the delivery systems. We are, in fact, engaged in a new nuclear arms race.
Now, many of us grew up in the sixties and seventies--fifties, sixties, and seventies--and I think all of us have a memory of the arms race and all of the drills, hiding underneath the table, all of that trouble. I think we have a memory of what went on with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
When you step back and look at what we are doing in the appropriations bill before us as well as in the National Defense Authorization Act, you must come to the conclusion that we are on the path to spend $1 trillion over the next 25 to 30 years rebuilding the entire nuclear enterprise. We have, in this bill, all of the nuclear weapons.
In this one, we went from some $9 million last year for this W80 to over $190 million in this bill. Yes, there are safeguards and, yes, we ought to pull all of this money back until we decide how this fits into the new cruise missile, the new long-range cruise missile replacing the old variety.
That goes on the new stealth bomber, the LSRO, a new stealth bomber, at $550 million a copy, more than half a billion dollars a plane. A cruise missile, a new plane doing the exact same thing, and that is to be added to a new Minuteman missile for the silos in the Midwest, the upper Midwest, new Minuteman III missiles.
That will be added to the new submarines that are going out there with new missiles and new warheads and, on top of that, some new stealth technology that is going on that we really can't even talk about.
But it is happening, $1 trillion in a nuclear arms race that is being replicated by China and Russia, the United Kingdom and France.
What in the world is this world coming to?
This isn't Iran. Iran is a separate issue, significantly important, but this is different. This is the major nuclear-armed countries in the world, all of them, upgrading their nuclear systems.
We have the new bombs, new precision bombs. We have the new delivery system, stealth. It is extraordinarily dangerous because the hair trigger of the past and all of the rules of the past are now going to be put aside, and now we have a really, really, fine hair trigger.
You won't know but a few minutes ahead of time when it is incoming because it is a stealth bomber or a cruise missile or even a hypersonic missile. And suddenly, there you are; you have got seconds to make a decision about whether you are going to annihilate the world or not. How do you respond to this?
And you have got Russia over there talking about using a nuclear weapon as a deterrent to reduce some sort of standard military conflict. This is an extraordinarily dangerous situation.
I want to draw the attention of the entire House and use this particular effort to reduce this account by $25 million. The gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Quigley), I think, had a better proposal, and that is to reduce the whole thing.
But here we are. Pay attention, men and women of this House and of the Senate. Pay attention to what the overarching issue is here. It is the opening quarter of a new nuclear arms race among the great powers of the world.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I commend the gentleman for taking up this issue. The MOX facility lifecycle cost is now over $47 billion and at the end of the day will not solve the problem.
The disposition of the unnecessary plutonium stock can be done in other ways. We ought to set aside that money. You are quite correct to put it into nonproliferation issues, trying to figure out where the loose nukes might be around the world.
Mr. Chairman, I will draw your attention and the attention of the gentlemen and gentlewomen here today that in yesterday's National Defense Authorization Act, those facilities that sense the movement of nuclear materials across borders, the in-place were withdrawn, taken out. We ought to pay attention to that, put those back in in one more piece.
I commend the gentleman for being right on. And we do need to sort out the MOX facility and come to some conclusion; otherwise, we are in a $47 billion rathole that won't solve the problem.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Idaho's concerns and the way he is approaching it is really quite commendable and the right way to go about it. Two studies have been done, the most recent dealing with the $47 million. That speaks to the current MOX procedure and process. The blending down, you have correctly analyzed the problem there because it doesn't take into account the full cost, and then you have still got to dispose of this stuff someplace.
There is also the vitrification of it, which is blending down, putting it into a glass container, and then storing that. Those have problems.
There is another option that will be analyzed and is coming out later in this year, in September, and that is the use of a fast reactor to actually burn the plutonium and, thereby, make it unusable for weapons. It also would generate a significant amount of energy, which could produce steam and electrical energy along the way. That study is coming out later this year.
In the meantime, we ought to do what you are doing here, and that is, just slow down, take a look at this.
And for those who are concerned about the jobs in the Savannah River area, a lot of this work can be done there in any one of these options. Just don't do something that doesn't work, which is the current process underway. So you could do a fast reactor there. Use that as a method of consuming the plutonium and rendering it unuseful.
There are many different ways to do it. But we are headed down a rathole. Slow down. Stop.
I commend both the gentleman from Nebraska and the gentleman from Idaho for where they are going on this. Carry on.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Mr. Chairman, I want to raise an issue along the lines of my earlier discussion and part of what we just heard in the previous discussion. That is, where are we going with the nuclear enterprise? What is it all about? Where will it take us?
My personal view is that we are in the first quarter of a new nuclear arms race. This amendment deals with a critical part of that effort to rebuild the nuclear weapons systems of the United States.
We currently have maybe 10,000 unused nuclear plutonium pits. This is the heart of a nuclear bomb. It is pure plutonium, and it is the heart of the bomb.
The 10,000 that are not used came out of nuclear weapons that have been dismantled as a result of the various arms control treaties that have been in place over the last 30 years, all to the good. The MOX facility deals with that unused excess plutonium and others. But this amendment deals with the notion of rebuilding and increasing the capacity of the United States to produce new plutonium pits.
We presently have the capacity to produce somewhere between 5 and 10 plutonium pits, again, the heart of a nuclear weapon, in the existing facilities. We are going to spend a few billion dollars--unknown--but somewhere probably between $1 billion and $2 billion or $3 billion building the facilities to increase the capacity to manufacture these plutonium pits to 50 to 80 a year.
Now, testimony that we have received in the Strategic Forces Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee indicates that nobody knows what you are going to do with them or whether you even need the pits, but they want to build the facility just in case.
You go: Wait a minute, you have 10,000 out there; what are you going to do? Why are you doing this?
It has never been answered other than: Well, we might need it some day.
Well, God willing, we will never need it some day. Five to 10 a year, more than we need, 50 to 80, the military doesn't know what to do with it; the NNSA doesn't know what to do with it, but they want to build the manufacturing facility even so.
This amendment simply says let's take $125 million of that and apply it to something useful like cleaning up what is going on out there. Just keep in mind that we are talking about an enormous amount of money here for the production or the manufacturing facilities of these pits.
It is not just the facility for the plutonium, but it is also for the rest of the bombs, so it is probably going to be well over $10 billion by the time we finish, and then you have the operating costs, if we ever operate at all. Be careful here. We are into a massive expenditure of over $1 trillion over the next 20 to 25 years.
I have asked the military: Tell us how we are going to spend that.
They say: Well, we really don't know.
They gave me a document that is a bunch of equations with no explanation of what the factors are. I am asking for information. I was shut down in committee yesterday, but we all ought to demand information.
What is going on here? What are we talking about? A new long-range stealth bomber to replace the B-2, new cruise missiles, new submarines, new missiles for land and sea, and new warheads to go on top of it; and, all the while, other countries are trying to match us. It is a nuclear arms race well underway.
Are we causing it? We are clearly part of it. Russia and China are also involved in this and matching technology, spending a vast amount of money. Just think what we could do if we took one-quarter of that and spent it on education. What could we do for the American people? I think I hear the knock-knock of time having run out, and that frightens me because time is running out on this issue, and we need to pay attention here.
Mr. Chairman, I thank Mr. Simpson and his committee for paying attention to all of this.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. I am addressing the facilities, the nuclear pit facilities, the plutonium pit facilities. It is $125 million. The MOX was my colleague from Nebraska's amendment. That was his amendment.
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Mr. GARAMENDI. Quite correct, there was an error on my part.
This is the question of the MOX facility, $125 million to be applied to other cleanup programs across the Nation. That is it. I spoke on a different issue, and the MOX facility came up earlier.
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