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| Wilson Statement Opposing Radical Shift in Nuclear Policy |
June 19, 2007 |
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Washington, DC - Congresswoman Heather Wilson, Ranking Republican of the House Subcommittee on Technical and Tactical Intelligence, today argued against the Energy and Water Appropriations bill in remarks on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives.
See her speech here:
Read her remarks here:
“I want to bring to the attention of this House something that is being done in this bill that I think has received insufficient discussion and debate.
“This energy and water appropriations bill includes in it the most radical shift in US policy on nuclear weapons that I`ve seen at least since the mid-1990s.
The decisions imbedded in this legislation will lead us either to return to nuclear testing, or to abandon nuclear deterrence because we will stop maintaining the stockpile.
Without any debate, we`ve made a drastic change that`s devastating to American nuclear weapons capabilities, taking a giant step toward fundamental change of our policy on nuclear weapons - without any discussion at all on the wisdom or consequences of this new course.
“In 1992, the United States stopped nuclear testing. In 1996, we joined the moratorium on nuclear testing and said we will continue to maintain the stockpile through something called Science Based Stockpile Stewardship.
“Science based stockpile stewardship is best explained by anaology. If you had a car designed and built in the 1970s or 1980s, this program would, through advanced science and engineering, maintain the car and, without ever turning it on, certify to the President that it is safe and would turn on if you did turn the key. That`s hard to do and gets harder with every year that passes.
“This bill devastates that capability to certify that our nuclear weapons are safe, secure and reliable without testing.
The bill has a 20 percent reduction in one year in the nuclear weapons program at the engineering laboratory that is solely responsible for over 6,000 parts in our nuclear weapons.
It includes a 40 percent reduction at Los Alamos National Labs nuclear weapons program.
80 percent of the existing deployed stockpile is designed by Los Alamos National Laboratory. They are responsible for being able to tell us if these weapons are safe secure and reliable.
“What is the impact of this radical change? It means we will not be able to achieve the stockpile reductions we`re trying to achieve because our confidence in the reliability of our weapons will decline.
“Second, we are increasing the likelihood of the need to go back to underground testing. It will be more likely that, at some point, the lab directors will detect a problem -- anomalies or questions are not unusual -- and they won`t have the tools to be able to assess that problem without nuclear testing.
“And third, you`re undermining allied confidence in the American nuclear umbrella. There are countries that have the capacity to have a nuclear weapons program which have foregone that course because they are protected as allies of America. The existence of reliable American nuclear umbrella has been an important part of our policy to discourage the spread of nuclear weapons.
Mr. Obey, my colleague from Wisconsin, said they`re proposing to cut these funds because, "there`s been no strategy for post-Cold War nuclear weapons." That is a complete fallacy, a convenient talking point to hide the profound change in direction in this bill without justifying it.
We signed the Moscow treaty to reduce the size of our deployed stockpile. In the 1990s, we suspended nuclear testing and, in its place, established the stockpile stewardsdhip program.
In the 1970s and 1980s, prominent Democrats urged a nuclear freeze and argued for unilateral disarmament. Today, without any substantial debate whatsoever, the Democrat majority is moving us in that direction again by cutting the funds to maintain our weapons without testing. I believe that course is unwise.
“And I would urge my colleagues to oppose this bill.”
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