John Garamendi: “The United States, Russia, and China are aggressively engaged in a new nuclear arms race. The rapid development by all…”

“The United States, Russia, and China are aggressively engaged in a new nuclear arms race. The rapid development by all three nations of new bombs, new stealth delivery systems, and near total reliance on space for observation and communications makes this new nuclear arms race far more dangerous than the previous arms race. Therefore, in an effort to slow the pace and to create time for arms control negotiations to move forward, I rise to offer an amendment to the fiscal year 2022 National Defense Authorization Act that pauses the development and prohibits the funding for the Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, the GBSD, program and the associated W87-1 nuclear warhead for the fiscal year 2022. This amendment also extends the service life of the Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, which is in place today, the current missile system that the GBSD is slated to replace, until at least 2040. My amendment also requires the use of nondestructive testing methods and technologies similar to those used by the Navy for the Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles. There has been much debate over the ground-based leg of the nuclear triad recently. I have frequently argued for a longer pause for the GBSD program to help defer the cost of over $240 billion that will occur in the next 20 years for not only this, but the remaining nuclear enterprise monitorization initiatives and to slow the pace of the ongoing arms race with Russia and China.…”