Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Chairman, our country's intercontinental ballistic missiles make the world safer. They are an integral part of the nuclear triad that advances the cause of peace and promotes our national security interests around the world. The Defense Department recently put forward a nuclear force structure plan under the New START Treaty. It is committed to maintaining 450 nuclear launchers in at least a warm status. In doing so, the Pentagon recognized the strategic value of preserving our robust nuclear deterrent capability. The base bill would sunset the warm status requirement in 2021. I believe this is unwise and it is premature. First and foremost, we don't know what the future holds and whether it will be in our strategic and security interests to shut down some of our silos 7 years from now. On the other hand, what we do know is that maintaining our nuclear launchers provides our commanders with maximum flexibility to respond to potential nuclear threats against the American people and our allies. And we know that preserving this capability complicates our adversaries' ability to target our nuclear assets. Further, we know that maintaining our current silos is in the best interest of taxpayers because rebuilding them would be very expensive. In short, there is simply no justification for deciding today how many silos will be needed to safeguard our security interests in 2021.…”