Political Quotes

“Mr. President, this amendment has to do with the modernization of our nuclear weapons enterprise. It is a subject with which we began this debate. As we get toward the end of the debate, it remains a piece of unfinished business with which I think we need to deal. Remember, the nuclear enterprise we are talking about consists primarily of the facilities that are used to work on our nuclear weapons, as well as the weapons and importantly the scientists who work in those facilities. They represent our National Laboratories, as well as other production facilities and related facilities. The point I think is important for people to remember is that unlike all of the other nuclear powers in the world today, the United States does not have an active modernization program for our nuclear deterrent, a program which enables us, for example, to remanufacture a component of a weapon and replace an existing weapon with that. The need for this has been made very clear by all of the people in the administration who have considered this, including Secretary of Defense Gates. The Secretary, remember, is, in effect, the customer for the Department of Energy, which is the Department responsible for producing these weapons. The budget we talk about is a Department of Energy budget, but it is really to produce weapons for use by the Secretary of Defense.…”