Political Quotes

“I rise today in support of Senator Reed's amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act. The Reed amendment would restore congressional oversight of the development of new, low-yield nuclear weapons. Since 1994, Congress has limited the Department of Energy's work on low-yield weapons. We have done so for two reasons. First, many of us believe the true purpose of low-yield nuclear weapons is not to deter nuclear attack, but rather to fight unwinnable nuclear wars. We are only fooling ourselves if we believe nuclear wars can be won. Second, we already have sufficient low-yield capabilities. They include nuclear cruise missiles and the B-61 gravity bomb. In fact, today, we are modernizing both. We are developing the LRSO, a nuclear cruise missile, at a cost of nearly $20 billion, and we are modernizing the B-61 gravity bomb at a cost of $8 billion. That is nearly $30 billion toward new, low-yield capabilities; yet some in this body would go further. During the Senate Armed Services Committee's markup of the NDAA, Senator Cotton offered an amendment to eliminate all existing restrictions on the development of new, low-yield weapons. His amendment, which passed on a party line vote, would allow the Secretary of Energy to develop new weapons simply by requesting funding to do so. That is an abdication of our constitutional responsibility to oversee spending on the world's most dangerous weapons.…”