Roy Cooper: “Reclaiming my time, I would call this amendment by my friend from Colorado the boomerang amendment because it does not…”

“Reclaiming my time, I would call this amendment by my friend from Colorado the boomerang amendment because it does not hit the intended target. Instead, it comes back and hits us. How does it do this? His amendment, as proposed, would amount to a unilateral U.S. treaty violation. This would effectively blind the United States when it comes to looking at things like the number of Russian nuclear weapons on deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, the number of deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, counting nuclear weapons onboard or attached to deployed heavy bombers, and confirming weapons systems conversions. These are the things that the New START treaty allows us to do with Russia. We need the continued ability to look at those Russian weapons systems. By cutting off funding for these essential national security activities, the gentleman has hit the wrong target here. That is why this is the boomerang amendment. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman pointed out that Russia is despicable in so many ways. They probably violated the INF Treaty, the CFE Treaty, and the Budapest Treaty. But the gentleman is using the New START treaty to get back at those violations. He has picked the wrong target. So I have the highest regard for the gentleman, but he proposed this last year, and it was dropped in conference. Instead, it was substituted.…”