Pete Domenici: “I acknowledge upfront the very astute and academically sound argument of my colleague from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman.…”

“I acknowledge upfront the very astute and academically sound argument of my colleague from New Mexico, Mr. Bingaman. While I have been working in this field for the last 25 to 26 years in particular, and the last 10 with more emphasis, this has occurred in the last period of time. My work has come as the United States has prepared its great nuclear weapons laboratories to use new kinds of science to determine the viability and credibility of the existing warheads without underground testing. As everyone recalls, this body passed an amendment, rather overwhelmingly, saying we should not use underground testing for our weapons. I have learned since then how little we knew about that proposition when we cast that vote. Nonetheless, it is the law of the land. It has cost the American taxpayer, in my way of looking at it, billions of dollars. Frankly, as I look at the risk in the world, I do not think it has saved the world from nuclear weapons as people had thought. Already with that ban, there are new countries with new nuclear weapons, and they did not need underground testing. At least they did not need it as we had assumed they would need it when we stopped ourselves from doing it. Yet we have the greatest scientific community of men and women in the world, believe it or not, accumulated in three laboratories, and about 85 percent of their work goes to that one item.”