John Joseph Moakley: “there are many reasons to oppose this bill. It undermines the ability of the U.S. Government to conduct foreign policy.…”

“there are many reasons to oppose this bill. It undermines the ability of the U.S. Government to conduct foreign policy. It abdicates U.S. leadership worldwide. It wastes our resources on moving boxes when the challenges of the post-cold-war world demand our attention, and it ties the President's hands and eliminates many of the tools at his disposal. National Security Advisor Tony Lake rightly calls it the ``unilateral disarmament'' of American foreign policy. Under the reorganization provisions of this bill, we stand to lose a foreign policy tool which is vital to our national security. The Arms Control and Disarmament Agency is charged with solving the nuclear, chemical, biological, missile technology and conventional arms proliferation problems of our day. ACDA is a small, lean agency with a budget of only $50 million. Yet the U.S. Strategic Command tells us that the strategic arms treaties ACDA administers save the nation's taxpayers about $100 billion. In its present form, ACDA's Director has an independent voice and direct access to the President, the National Security Council and the Secretary of States. But this bill buries the director under three levels of bureaucracy.”