J. Exon: “The way this came out of the committee it attacks the limits of the Nunn-Lugar proposal that has been responsible for…”

“The way this came out of the committee it attacks the limits of the Nunn-Lugar proposal that has been responsible for the safe and accountable disarming of over 2,500 former Soviet Union warheads. It cuts the Energy Department nonproliferation arms control and verification funding. It recommends reconstituting our nuclear weapons manufacturing complex at untold billions of dollars, while at the same time advocating the resumption of U.S. nuclear weapons testing. This last committee initiative is contrary to U.S. policy, and it is designed to scuttle ongoing comprehensive test ban negotiations and any prospect of reaching a treaty agreement. I will have some more to say about this later on as we go into other particular issues under consideration in this bill. Let me simply say, though, I am concerned with the tone and the substance of the bill and the level of micromanagement placed on the Pentagon and the Department of Energy is unprecedented and harmful to our Nation's standing in the international community. Many of the committee initiatives are driven by a desire to defend against a superpower threat to U.S. security that simply does not exist.”