Political Quotes

“That might be sufficient, Mr. Chairman, although I doubt I will persuade the worthy chairman with whom we have had this little tussle back and forth. The fact of the matter is that there are two accounts to deal with this issue of the nuclear sites and the maintenance of them. {time} 2145 One is a maintenance facility, which is plussed-up and sufficient to maintain and upgrade the existing facilities, particularly the plutonium pit, the metallurgical facility, as well as continue the construction of the highly enriched uranium facilities. Those are already available and that money is in those accounts. It turns out that this money for recapitalization is for the construction of a new pit production facility. The NNSA claims that it needs that facility to build additional pits beyond the 20 to 30 that could be constructed in the refurbished existing pit. The need for the new pit production facility is specifically for the interoperable nuclear warhead, which is not likely to be needed. And should it be decided at a future date to be needed, there is plenty of time to build the facility and construct the additional nuclear plutonium pits. The bottom line is that this money is not needed now for that facility. Could the money be used in the nonproliferation? It could. Why were those agreements delayed? Because of many different reasons, but the fact of the matter is that those agreements are going to be going forward.…”