On the recordMay 20, 2014
I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Chairman, the centerpiece of our national security is our nuclear deterrent, and we have neglected it terribly for years, both in the administration and in Congress, and we have got a lot of catching up to do. So as the gentleman from Ohio said and the administration itself says, we have a $3.5 billion maintenance backlog on our facilities. Thirty percent of the facilities we are using were built during the Manhattan Project, and 50 percent of the facilities we are using are more than 40 years old. Now, we are fortunate that we have got some engineers and other highly skilled workers who are willing to work in those conditions, but they are not going to be willing to work in it forever. And so this bill doesn't solve that problem by any stretch of the imagination, but at least this extra $39 billion helps it from getting too much worse. It takes a step in the right direction. These nuclear weapons are aging machines, just like the facilities are aging machines, and they require care and trading out parts if the people who have to work around them are going to be safe. That is why it is a mistake to take away from this central element of our facility.
