Adam Schiff: “in January 2001, a well-respected and bipartisan task force looked at the threats facing the United States and…”

“in January 2001, a well-respected and bipartisan task force looked at the threats facing the United States and recommended increasing nonproliferation funding under the Department of Energy to $3 billion per year for the next 10 years. As they stated in their report, the most urgent unmet national security threat to the United States today is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable materiel in Russia could be stolen and sold to terrorists or hostile nation-states and used against American troops abroad or citizens at home. This year, now, 3 years after that report, the Department of Energy and Department of Defense nonproliferation budgets only contained $1.8 billion combined for nuclear nonproliferation. This is simply not enough. I offered an amendment that would increase the amount of funding for nonproliferation by a combined $200 million, bringing the total for nonproliferation to $2 billion this year. Regrettably, this amendment was not made in order. On the Defense Department side, our amendment would have added $50 million for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, or Nunn-Lugar. The goal of Nunn-Lugar is to lessen the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction, to deactivate and destroy these weapons and to help scientists, formerly engaged in the production of such weapons, start working for peace. To date, Nunn-Lugar has reportedly helped destroy over 6,000 warheads.…”