Political Quotes

“This amendment would restore funding for commonsense nuclear weapons reductions that have already been approved with the advice and consent of the Senate and that the Navy and the Air Force have planned for fiscal year 2014. The $70 million cut in the bill keeps nuclear weapons at Cold War levels, and denying fiscal year '14 funding risks the United States missing the deadline for treaty compliance as there will be insufficient lead time for procurement and installation to support conversion efforts to implement the reductions required by 2018, the date of entry into force. This amendment is funded by an offset of $50 million from DARPA's space technology program due to the recently terminated System F6, which was aimed to distribute functions of big satellites into several small ones orbiting in tight formation--so this funding is available-- and $20 million from the $2.1 billion in the Office of the Secretary of Defense O&M funds which pays OSD staff. This is a 1 percent cut with minimal impact, as the Secretary of Defense has indicated that he intends to make cuts to overhead. So I urge my colleagues to support this amendment. With that, I reserve the balance of my time.”