Mike Levin: “We should stay the course. We have to address the threats that we know are the major threats. We are not doing that. The…”

“We should stay the course. We have to address the threats that we know are the major threats. We are not doing that. The loose nuke threat in this world is the No. 1 threat against us. That is what we all believe. Yet a $450 million program to address those loose nukes is not funded in this budget. There is not a dollar for that program in this budget. We are told now that the Department of Energy will reprogram $450 million. I would like to see that request come in from the Department of Energy. But we do not have that request, either. What we do have, what we do know, is that the major threat we face is the loose nuke threat. That is what the experts at the Department of Energy tell us. We surely have to address the less likely threats. I could not agree with that more. We should address threats that are not as likely. But, my heavens, to put nothing in this budget when we have adopted the Domenici-Feinstein amendment which says we will have this global program--there is no money authorized behind it in this budget. We have adopted the Domenici amendment. Senator Domenici is exactly right. This is the greatest threat we face, loose nukes. Loose nukes globally are the greatest threat we face. What he said is someday we have to put the funds behind it. That someday is now. We have to compare that threat which we all believe is the most certain threat against the less likely threat identified by the CIA, which is a missile attack.”