Mike Thompson: “We introduced this bill last May because, as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, the committee that has…”

“We introduced this bill last May because, as chairman of the Governmental Affairs Committee, the committee that has jurisdiction on proliferation matters under the statute, we receive briefings, as a few committees do, on proliferation developments, for example. In that position, we have had numerous hearings and have been told there is a longstanding and growing threat because of proliferation of China, primarily, and Russia and North Korea. We haven't had a lot of attention with regard to that, or a whole lot of interest, until we started discussing it in the context of trade. Trade interests everybody because there is money to be made. That is understandable. I am all for it. We introduced this bill because we were told by our intelligence people that there was a threat to this country. I can't think of anything more serious that we could possibly be dealing with than a nuclear, biological, or chemical threat, and the fact that rogue nations are rapidly developing the capability to hit this country with all three of those. Let that sink in for a little bit.”