Steven Holt: “there is much that is good in this bill, and I would commend the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) and the gentleman…”

“there is much that is good in this bill, and I would commend the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Callahan) and the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Visclosky) for a good bipartisan effort. But I would like to draw attention to a serious shortcoming in the bill. This bill provides $69 million less than in fiscal year 2001 for nonproliferation programs to stop the development of nuclear weapons and to stop the spread of nuclear materials around the world. Is there a person in America who thinks we should be doing less this next year than this year to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists? There are at least 14 documented instances over recent years of diversion of nuclear materials from the Soviet Union. We think we have caught most of them. On the front page of the New York Times on September 11 was an article about attempts to smuggle nuclear materials out of the Soviet Union. This is a real threat. Right now, because of new access and good agreements with the Soviet Union, we have a particularly good window of opportunity to put in place antiterrorist safeguards at numerous nuclear sites in Russia and the former Soviet Union. I do not see how we can look Americans in the face and say that we are going to shortchange this important program. I would like to see the bill returned to committee so that we could make these very important changes.”