Bill Nelson: “this amendment brings symmetry to the bill by our action earlier this morning. Senator Warner had an amendment agreed to…”

“this amendment brings symmetry to the bill by our action earlier this morning. Senator Warner had an amendment agreed to which said the Congress should authorize the production of a low-yield nuclear weapon. In other words, the Congress was going to have to step in if we were going to make a major step in the production of a new nuclear weapon from our present policy of years standing and of not producing any new kinds of nuclear weapons. That was agreed to earlier with regard to a low-yield nuclear weapon under the philosophy recognizing that the United States is trying to keep proliferation of nuclear weapons down, and that once you start letting that nuclear genie out of the bottle, it is very hard to reverse. That was the theory upon which the earlier amendment was agreed to. So, too, the amendment I sent to the desk, cosponsored by the two leaders of our committee, will require the Congress to authorize any production of a robust nuclear earth penetrator. A nuclear weapon would have to be modified to go into this new robust earth penetrator. That is a decision reserved to the Congress and its authorization for such a weapon to go from the research stage to the production stage. I urge adoption of the amendment.”