Jim Inhofe

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I object.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, in these brief moments, 5 minutes for each Senator--I think it is probably not a bad idea because we have had so many hours and hours and hours of debate on this it is becoming redundant now--I would like to use this brief period of time only to bring out a couple of things that need to be reemphasized. First of all, mistakenly--certainly not intentionally--some of the Members have stood on this floor and have implied that the Directors of our labs are in support of this treaty. I think it is very important to hear a quote from one of the Directors, C. Paul Robinson, Dr. Robinson, from Sandia National Lab, speaking in behalf of all three of the Directors. He said: I and others [that's the other three] who are or have been responsible for the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons have testified to this obvious conclusion many times in the past. To forgo that validation through testing is, in short, to live with uncertainty. He goes on to say: If the United States scrupulously restricts itself to zero yield while other nations may conduct experiments up to the threshold of international detectability, we will be at an intolerable disadvantage. I can't think of anything worse than to be at an intolerable disadvantage. Second, it has been implied that all these Presidents have been for it in the past, Eisenhower and Bush, and everyone has been for this treaty. In fact, this is not true. I am sure those who stated it thought it was true, but it is not true. Only President Clinton has come forth with a treaty that is a zero-yield treaty--that is no testing at all--that is unlimited in duration--not 10 years as it was in the case of Eisenhower--and unverifiable. So this is the first time. It would be unprecedented if this were to happen. Third, I hear so many objections as to the unfairness. It doesn't really matter how much time there has been devoted for the debate on this. Everyone out there, Democrats or Republicans, any one person could have stopped this. This was a unanimous consent. It is true we had three times the time that was allocated for debate on the CFE treaty, twice the time on the START I, three times the time that was allocated on START II. That is important, of course. It shows that we did give adequate time. But the point is, any Senator could have objected. That means every Senator endorsed this schedule by which this was going to be handled. With the remaining minute that I have, let me just say, as chairman of the readiness committee, I have a very serious concern. We have stood on the floor of this Senate and have tried to stop the President of the United States, this President, Bill Clinton, from vetoing our defense authorization bills going back to and including 1993, stating in his veto message that he doesn't want any money for a National Missile Defense System. He has fought us all the way. We would have had one deployed by fiscal year 1998 except for his vetoes. But he has vetoed it. That means that there is no deterrent left except a nuclear deterrent. That means if a missile comes over, we can't knock the missile down so we have to rely on our ability to have a nuclear deterrent in our stockpile that works. And all the experts have said they don't work now. We can't tell for sure whether they work now. We have stood on the floor of this Senate with a chart that shows, on all nine of the nuclear weapons, as to whether or not they are working today. We do not really know because we haven't tested in 7 years. Testing is necessary. We would be putting ourselves in a position where we have no missile defense so we have to rely on a nuclear deterrent. We don't know whether or not that nuclear deterrent works. Last, I would say I wasn't real sure what the minority leader was talking about when he talked about article 18 of the Vienna Convention. I will just read it one more time so we know if we do not kill this and kill it now, we are going to have to live under it. It states: A State is obliged to refrain from arguments which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intentions clear not to become a party to the treaty. That is what this is all about. We are the Senate that is going to reject this treaty.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield on that point.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield further?

Mr. INHOFE. I think it is very significant because this subject has come up during 14 hearings before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. We have over 130 pages of testimony on this. We have discussed it for hours and hours over the last 2 days. Again, any Senator could have objected to this and apparently believed it was not necessary. But I have to ask you this question. You talked about only two countries having these weapons.

Mr. INHOFE. There was a time when that was true. During the cold war that was a valid argument. It is no longer true. Virtually every country has weapons of mass destruction. Now it is a matter of which countries have missiles that could deliver them, of which now we know of North Korea and Russia and China--and whoever else we don't know because they have been trading technology with countries like Iraq and Iran, and other countries.

Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield on that?

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield further?

Mr. INHOFE. If the Senator will yield for a response.

Mr. INHOFE. Absolutely, if the Senator will yield.

Mr. INHOFE. I ask the Senator, if it should not have been brought up for the purpose he just articulated, why did this Senator not object to the unanimous consent request to have a vote on it?

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I will take a few minutes to share with the Senate something that has not been mentioned yet in this whole CTBT debate. First of all, let me respond to a couple of things that were said by the last speaker who spoke in favor of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. I hate to be redundant, but I cannot let these things continue to go by. People will actually believe them when, in fact, they are not true. The statement was made by one of the Senators that the Directors of the labs--the three energy labs--were in favor of this treaty. I listened to this, and yet we had them before our committee which I chair. They were very emphatic about their feelings. I am going to read to make sure the record reflects this. Dr. Paul Robinson, one of the Directors, said: The Treaty bans any ``nuclear explosion,'' but unfortunately, compliance with a zero-yield requirement is unverifiable. The limitations of verifiability introduce the possibility of inconsistent observance of the ban under the threshold of detectability. The threshold of detectability is something that is there. What that means is, no matter what equipment we use, we are unable to detect certain tests that are underground under certain yields. This is a zero-yield test. We kept hearing from the same individual yesterday that they can get onsite inspections. Onsite inspections are not assured. Under this treaty, it is very specific. Going back to Paul Robinson, the Director of Sandia Lab: The decision to approve a request for an onsite inspection must be made by an affirmative vote of at least 30 of the 51 members of the treaty organization's Executive Council. I know there is supposedly some informal agreement that we in the United States would be a member of that executive council. I do not see anything in this treaty that says we are. We are putting our fate in the hands of some 30 nations, and we do not know at this point who those 30 nations will be. I will quote further to get my point across, although the Senator was well meaning yesterday in making the comment this was endorsed by the Directors of the labs. I will quote Dr. Paul Robinson again. He was referring to himself and the Directors of the other two labs. I am talking about all three labs: I and others who are or have been responsible for the safety and reliability of the U.S. stockpile of nuclear weapons have testified to this obvious conclusion many times in the past. To forego that validation through testing is, in short, to live with uncertainty. He goes on to say: If the United States scrupulously restricts itself to zero yield while other nations may conduct experiments up to the threshold of international detectability-- The one I just talked about-- we will be at an intolerable disadvantage. We have to read that over and over because people are not getting that message. The second thing he said was, what is the rush? This morning, I heard the President in his press conference of yesterday talk about the rush. Here is the President who has been saying over and over that he demands this come before this Senate and be acted upon by November of this year. Here it is. That is next month. We are doing exactly what he wanted. Yet now he wants to withdraw this treaty because he does not believe he has the votes for the ratification. I agree. He does not have the votes. It would shock me if he had the votes. Yet we have had a chance for a very deliberative session. We have talked for hours and hours, some 22 hours of debate and committee activity on this subject. We are all very familiar with it. I also suggest that any Member of the Senate who stands up now and says we should not be doing this and how unconscionable that we are considering something of this magnitude right now, any one of those Senators saying that had the opportunity, as the Senator from Illinois would have had the opportunity, to object to bringing it up because it was done so by unanimous consent. The third thing they were talking about is how everyone is a strong supporter of this treaty. For the record, one more time, we have 6 former Secretaries of Defense and several former Directors of Central Intelligence, as well as some 13 former commanding generals, all of whom are in the Record right now, and I do not need to put it in again, I have already put that in the Record; also, the statement by Bill Cohen. There is no one for whom I have greater respect than my former colleague on the Senate Armed Services Committee, the former Senator Bill Cohen, now Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen. But I had to remind him, during our committee meeting, that maybe now his attitude is different on some of these critical things because he is now working for the President. But what he said in September of 1992--and I remember when he said it when he was leading the fight to stop this type of a treaty; in fact, it is the same provisions--he said: . . . [W]hat remains relevant is the fact that many of these nuclear weapons which we intend to keep in our stockpile for the indefinite future are dangerously unsafe. Equally relevant is the fact that we can make these weapons much safer if limited testing is allowed to be conducted. So, when crafting our policy regarding nuclear testing, this should be our principal objective: To make the weapons we retain safe. . . . The amendment that was adopted last week . . . This is back in 1992, but this is the same language we are talking about today-- does not meet this test . . . [because] it would not permit the Department of Energy to conduct the necessary testing to make our weapons safe. Here is the same Secretary of Defense, back when he was in the Senate, talking about the fact that our weapons are not safe. By the way, we had a chart that we showed of information that came from all three of the Energy labs which is in the Cloakroom right now, but we have used on the floor several times, showing specifically not one of the nine weapons in that arsenal meet the safety tests today. In other words, we have gone 7 years now without testing, and it has now taken its toll. We are having a problem. So anyway, that is very significant to remember those words of Secretary Cohen. I have been asked the question by a number of people as to why I am so adamant about objecting to the unanimous consent request--and I do not care who makes it--to take this from the calendar and put it back into the Foreign Relations Committee. I do so because there is something that has not even been discussed on this floor yet; and that is, unless we kill it and actually reject this treaty by a formal action, the provisions of this treaty are going to remain somewhat in effect. In other words, we are going to have to comply with this treaty that has been signed--going back to a document of the Vienna Convention that was actually signed on May 23, 1969, but it did not become a part of the international law until January of 1980. Article 18--and this is in effect today--says: Obligation not to defeat the object and purpose of a treaty prior to its entry into force. A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: (a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty. . . What that means is, we have this flawed treaty, this treaty that allows our adversaries to conduct underground tests. Yet while we cannot do it, we have to comply with this treaty, if we merely send it back to committee. So I just want to make sure--I am going to read that again. This is from the Vienna Convention. This is something that we are a party to. It says--I will take out some of the other language-- A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: (a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty . . . What that means is, we have this flawed treaty, this treaty that allows our adversaries to conduct underground tests; yet while we cannot do it, we have to comply with this treaty, if we merely send it back to committee. So I just want to make sure--I am going to read that again. This is from the Vienna Convention. This is something that we are a party to. It says--I will take out some of the other language-- A State is obliged to refrain from acts which would defeat the object and purpose of a treaty when: (a) it has signed the treaty or has exchanged instruments constituting the treaty subject to ratification, acceptance or approval, until it shall have made its intention clear not to become a party to the treaty . . . How do you make your intentions clear? Under the Vienna Convention language, not to be a party to this treaty you have to vote it down. You have to bring this up for ratification and reject it formally on the floor of this Senate. To do anything other than that is to leave it alive and to force us to comply with this flawed treaty, which is a great threat to our safety in this country. I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I am not going to take much time. I certainly hope the Senator from Minnesota did not cut his remarks short because he certainly is articulating something in which we are all very interested. I would do what I could to protect his rights to get a vote if he needed a vote, the same as I ask my rights be protected to either get a vote or to object to a unanimous consent request, which I have been doing with regularity in the last few days.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that I be allowed to speak as in morning business.

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Chair and thank the Senator from Arizona for giving me this valuable time because we do not have a lot of time. First of all, let me say I respect the Senator from Nebraska so much, and yet I have to disagree with him. I respect certainly the senior Senator from New York as well as the Senator from Delaware. But the reason I disagree with them is, it is not as if this came up all of a sudden and we did not have any time to look at it. This treaty has been here for 2 years. We could read it. We could study it. We could prepare amendments. We could spend time evaluating it, talk to the experts. I have been doing this. I assume many of my colleagues have been doing this. So procedurally let me just explain, so there is no misunderstanding where we are, what my position is. We had a unanimous-consent request propounded--it was agreed to a few days ago--that said we were going to have possibly up to two amendments, not necessarily, but if we did, it would be 4 hours of debate equally divided. Then we would have a vote on the treaty. There would be 14 hours of debate, which we are in the process of having right now. This was done by unanimous consent. That means any one of these Senators we have been listening to this morning could have objected to that unanimous-consent request. Certainly, the senior Senator from New York could have done it, the Senator from Nebraska, the Senator from Delaware. Anyone could have done it. Only one Senator has said he would not have done it if he had been on the floor or if he had been aware of it. That was the Senator from West Virginia, Mr. Byrd. That is the way the Senate is run. It is run by unanimous consent. So anyone could have stopped it. And they did not do it. But they could have. It takes unanimous consent to vitiate that unanimous consent agreement. If this happens, I made an announcement yesterday and the day before, sitting on the Armed Services Committee--with such distinguished witnesses as our Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen; as General Shelton, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; as the Directors of all the labs, all three of them--and I said in the event someone asks for a unanimous-consent agreement to delay this vote, I will object. I want everybody to know right now, I will object to that. There may be some parliamentary maneuvering where they can figure out a way to get around my objection. If they do, I am sure it will have to be passed on by the Parliamentarian. And that might happen. I might lose this thing. But we have been looking at this right now for over 2 years. Certainly we have had ample time to study it and digest it. It is not something that just jumped up. Any Senator, of 100 Senators, could have stopped the vote that is supposed to take place on Tuesday or Wednesday when the debate time expires. So let me just serve notice I will be here to object to that, so we get down to it. The reason is, we do not need to keep delaying and delaying this thing. The President has been yelling for 2 years: Bring it up. Bring it up. We want to bring this up for a vote. Yet now that it is up and he knows--he suspects; he does not know--he suspects he does not have the votes for ratification, he wants to bring it back. So anyway, that is where we are today. Let me just respond to a few of the comments that have been made on the floor. The distinguished Senator from Delaware talked about the distinguished list of supporters of this test ban treaty. I would like to submit for the Record a list of those who are opposed to the ratification of this treaty. They include six former Secretaries of Defense--Schlesinger, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Laird, Carlucci, Weinberger-- and several former Directors of Central Intelligence; 13 generals, commanding generals, who are now retired. In fact, I would suggest--I might be challenged on this so I will say probably most of the military officials who are supporting the ratification of this treaty now are serving in the capacity in which they are serving at the will of the President. So I ask unanimous consent this distinguished list of some 33 leaders saying we should oppose and vote down this treaty be printed in the Record.

Mr. INHOFE. I will conclude in less time than that. I want to accommodate the wishes of others who want to be heard. As I look at this, if we allow ourselves to be put in a situation where we do not know whether we have a nuclear deterrent, that is nothing short of unilateral disarmament. I know there are differing philosophies around here. I believe in the White House they honestly believe that if we all stand in a circle and hold hands and disarm, everybody is going to be happy. But I am not at all satisfied with that. I believe we need to have a nuclear deterrent. Right now, we are faced with a situation where, because of the vetoes of this President, we don't have a national missile defense system. That is to say, if they should deploy one of these missiles from North Korea, China, or Russia, which takes 35 minutes to get here, we have no way of knocking it down. We would be dependent upon a nuclear stockpile to have something to send back that is more significant. And not knowing whether or not those weapons would work would be worse than knowing they would not work. So the time is here to do it. I have applied this to my ``wife test,'' which I often apply to things. I asked, ``Can we take a chance on not being able to fire missiles?'' She agrees with me, and she is never wrong. Seeing the junior Senator from Texas, I recall something the senior Senator from Texas has said many times, which I think is very appropriate to quote at this time: We have to remain strong. We all wish for the day and hope for the day when the lion and the lamb can lie down together. But when that day comes, I want to make sure we are the lion.

Mr. INHOFE. About 4 minutes should be enough.

Mr. INHOFE. Secondly, the Senator from Delaware is talking about our allies--I am very sensitive to our allies--and our allies have signed this treaty, so if our allies have signed this treaty, we have to do it. Frankly, I am not concerned about our allies. I am concerned about our adversaries. I am not at all concerned that Great Britain is going to send a missile over to the United States. I am concerned about China and Russia and now North Korea. Right now, as we speak, the President is sending money and making promises to North Korea so they will not test a missile they have called a Taepo Dong 2 that will reach Washington, DC, from anyplace in the world, take 35 minutes to get over here, and we do not have any defense against this thing. So those are the ones about whom I am concerned. Have they ratified this treaty? No, certainly not China, not Russia, not North Korea. North Korea hasn't even signed it. Those are the ones about whom I am concerned. Thirdly, certification. Certification doesn't mean we have weapons we know will be operative at any point in the future. It merely says we don't know that they won't be; we don't know of any. We can certify we don't know of any problems. How can they know of problems, if they are not testing them? I think that is a very weak argument. Lastly, I would like to address the reference made by the Senator from Delaware to Dr. Paul Robinson. He is the Director of the Sandia Laboratory. He is the one the Senator from Delaware talked about as being, apparently, a credible source, or he would not have mentioned his name in his opening statement. Dr. Robinson says: We know today that a test ban cannot prevent states from acquiring nuclear weapons if they are determined to do so. Credible nuclear weapons can be constructed without nuclear testing, as several nations, including South Africa, have demonstrated. The underground nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998 are another example. These events were not developmental tests. They were demonstrations of nuclear capability that had been developed much earlier with little or no testing. Those who claim that by ending nuclear testing we will close off the threat of terrorist development and use of nuclear explosives mislead themselves. Congress should not accept such arguments as a basis for endorsing the test ban. Further, Dr. Paul Robinson said: It is indeed correct that the United States would be ill- advised to place a sophisticated nuclear explosive design into the stockpile that had not been previously tested and validated. There is no question that actual testing of designs to confirm their performance is the desired regimen of any high technology device, from cars and airplanes to medical equipment and computers. For a device as highly consequential as a nuclear weapon, testing of the complete system, both when it is first developed and periodically throughout its lifetime to ensure that aging effects do not invalidate its performance, is also the preferred methodology. I and others who are or have been responsible for the safety and reliability of the United States stockpile for nuclear weapons have testified to this obvious conclusion many times in the past. To forgo that validation through testing is, in short, to live with uncertainty. I don't want to live with uncertainty. There is no way of knowing that we have a nuclear deterrent if we have to live with uncertainty. There is no one I respect more highly than Secretary Bill Cohen, our Secretary of Defense. I served with him on the Armed Services Committee of the Senate, and he is certainly a most knowledgeable individual. I do have to say this: He has certainly changed his story since he was in the Senate. I am going to quote what Secretary Cohen said in 1992, when at that time he was the most vigorous opponent of a ban on nuclear testing we had in the Senate. This is Secretary Bill Cohen when he was a Senator: Many of these nuclear weapons which we intend to keep in our stockpile for the indefinite future are dangerously unsafe. Equally relevant is the fact that we can make these weapons much safer if limited testing is allowed to be conducted. So when crafting our policy regarding nuclear testing, this should be our principal objective--to make the weapons we retain safe. The amendment that was adopted last week [speaking of 1992] does not meet this test, because it would not permit the Department of Energy to conduct the necessary testing to make our weapons safe. When I asked that question, there was some suggestion that maybe we are talking about different weapons. We are not talking about different weapons. These are the nine weapons we are talking about today. These same nine weapons were there in 1992, the same ones to which Secretary Cohen alluded. This chart tells us that there are five tests for safety features. These are the five tests. The most significant ones are the intensive high explosive and the fire resistance pit. That is to make sure they don't inadvertently explode during use or during storage; the same with the fire. If we look right here, we see that only one of these weapons--that is the W84--has any type of safety. I guess all five of the hazards are listed. The W62 has none. So this was true in 1992. It is true again today. Some people have said, well, in the worst-case scenario, if something happens to the safety of this thing, we have a way of getting out of this thing. It is called safeguard F. Safeguard F is one sentence in the treaty. That sentence says that there is a way out in the event that it becomes a supreme national interest to get out. So that would be interpreted by our Commander in Chief or President, whoever is President at that time. I have often said--I don't think anyone is going to refute it--that we have a President who has a very difficult time telling the truth. Let us assume he is telling the truth. This is what he said his interpretation would be in his application of safeguard F: In the event that I were informed by the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Energy, advised by the Nuclear Weapons Council, the directors of the Energy Department's nuclear weapons labs and the commander of the U.S. Strategic Command that a high level of confidence in the safety or reliability of a nuclear weapons type, which the two Secretaries consider to be critical to our nuclear deterrent, could no longer be certified, I would be prepared, in consultation with Congress, to exercise the supreme national interest under the CTBT in order to conduct whatever testing might be required. He is saying, even if these five people; that is, everyone who has anything to do with or any knowledge of these nuclear weapons, even if all of them insist on it, he didn't say he would do it. He said he would be prepared to do it. That is a very weak statement. It doesn't mean he would do it at all. I don't find any comfort at all in what he stated. Coming close to the end of my time, let me share a couple other thoughts about which I do have strong feelings. We had all three Directors of our three labs before our committee yesterday. All three of them testified that we have to test these nuclear weapons in order to make sure they will continue to work if called upon. These are the ones who are responsible for doing that. Verification has to be talked about. It is kind of interesting. I will read an article in the paper a couple of days ago. It was an article in the Washington Post by Robert Suro, entitled ``CIA Unable to Precisely Track Testing.'' This was last Sunday, I believe, talking about something that might have occurred on Saturday, less than a week ago right now. Again, it was entitled ``CIA Unable to Precisely Track Testing.'' Among the troubling facts uncovered: According to senior officials, the CIA has concluded that it cannot monitor low-level nuclear tests by Russia precisely enough to ensure compliance with the CTBT. . . . Twice last month, the Russians carried out what might have been nuclear explosions at its Novaya Zemlya testing site in the Arctic. The CIA found that the data from the seismic sensors and other monitoring equipment were insufficient to allow analysts to reach a firm conclusion about the nature of the events. Having read that and then having had Gen. Henry Shelton and Secretary Cohen on the same panel, I asked them the question: Can you sit here and tell us that the Russians did not conduct those tests just a few months ago referred to in the article in last Sunday's Washington Post? They said: No, we can't. We asked the same question of the Directors of the lab. They said: No, there is no way of knowing it. Verification has always been a real serious problem with me. Mr. President, I ask for 5 more minutes. I think that will be acceptable. The time I am asking for is from our side.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I have a few brief comments to make in response to the very eloquent remarks from the Senator from West Virginia, in which I thought he covered it quite well. He had a concern for whether the intelligence estimate was going to be forthcoming. I would suggest, and get into the Record at this time, that back in December of 1995 we were waiting for the NEI report to come out. And it came out. That report said we would not have to defend ourselves in the United States of America for a limited attack in terms of--the discussion, of course, was the national missile defense--until approximately 15 years, not any less than 15 years. We found out later that was actually imminent at that time. I can recall so well writing the Chairman and Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Shelton, on the 24th of August of this last year--1998--and asking him to be specific in terms of taking the national intelligence estimate and all the information that he could garner and tell me at approximately what date North Korea would be able to fire a missile, a multiple-stage rocket. He came back and said it would be more than 5 years. Seven days later--on the 31st of August, 1998--they fired one. I think we all know right now that they have another type of missile that can reach Washington, DC, from anyplace in the world in about 35 minutes, and we don't have any defense against that. I don't think, if we are going to rely on the NEI information, we are relying on something that is going to be in the best interests of defending our country. The Senator from West Virginia also talked about the ratification process and about needing more time. We hear over and over again from every single person who stood up to defend the CTBT we need more time, we have to have more time. Yet if one reads what those same individuals are saying, the President of the United States said on the 16th of May, 1998: Now it's all the more important that the Senate act quickly, this year, so we can increase the pressure on, and isolation of, other nations that may be considering their own nuclear test explosions. Also the President said: . . . I ask the Senate to approve it [CTBT] this year. That was 1998--last year; here it is 1999. Vice President Al Gore said the same thing: The U.S. Congress should act now to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. That is July of 1998. Secretary Albright said: We need this Treaty now. That was on September 23, a few days ago, this year. She said, further: For American leadership, for our future, the time has come to ratify CTBT--this year, this session, now. I could go on and on; the leaders have said we have to do it now. As far as taking up this treaty, knowing what is in it, the treaty has been there for 2 years. We have all had an opportunity. Have I read the entire treaty? No, but I read the areas that concern me on verification, on zero-yield thresholds, things where I know we cannot verify what would be done. Verification is not there. I remind Members, every Senator, including the illustrious Senator from Delaware, had the opportunity to object to the unanimous consent request propounded and agreed to a few days ago calling for the vote to take place after the 14 hours of debate which should be some time on Tuesday or Wednesday. The only Senator from that side who is not openly supporting this yet is the Senator from West Virginia who said, by his own mistake, he was not able to get down in time to object to the unanimous consent request. We had an opportunity for every Senator to have slowed this train down so they wouldn't have to vote on it and they elected not to do it. I think it is very important we all keep that in mind. This is significant. It is something we have reviewed over a long period of time. It is something we understand. We have heard the professional testimony. We have attended many meetings. I along with the Presiding Officer, have sat through hours of committee meetings and subcommittee meetings that I have held in my committee on this very subject. I think we understand it and I agree with the statements of all of those, including the President, Vice President, and the Secretary of State, who I quoted. We need to do it now. I will be here to object to any unanimous consent that would in some way vitiate the vote that we believe should be imminent next week. I yield the floor.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, reserving the right to object, for what purpose would the Senator be yielding to the Senator from Florida? Are we back on the judicial nominations?

Mr. INHOFE. No objection.

Mr. INHOFE. Is this on the nomination?

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce the Disaster Mitigation Act of 1999. As the chairman of the Senate Subcommittee with jurisdiction over FEMA, I have been working on this legislation for the last couple of years. I am joined in the introduction today with my ranking member Senator Bob Graham. I appreciate his commitment to this legislation and I look forward to working with him to shepherd this Bill through the process. We have been witness to several major natural disasters already this year. And, we have three more months to go. We have seen devastating tornadoes ravage Oklahoma City and Salt Lake City. We have also seen the destruction brought on the East Coast by hurricanes Dennis and Floyd. Our hearts go out to the victims of these natural disasters. I was in Oklahoma City the morning of May 4, the day after the tornadoes moved through the Oklahoma City metro area. I have never seen destruction like that any place in the world. I was moved by the stories I heard and saw as we traveled through the remains of entire neighborhoods. Now a few months later, I see and hear stories of the destruction brought by the flooding in North Carolina and I know the problems that lie ahead as they begin to recover. As the recovery effort begin, our hearts and our prayers go out to the people of North Carolina. The Federal government, through FEMA, has been there to help people and their communities deal with the aftermath of disasters for over a generation. As chairman of the oversight Subcommittee I want to ensure that FEMA will continue to respond and help people in need for generations to come. Unfortunately, the costs of disaster recovery have spiraled out of control. For every major disaster Congress is forced to appropriate additional funds through Supplemental Emergency Spending Bills. This not only plays havoc with the budget and forces us to spend funds which would have gone to other pressing needs, but sets up unrealistic expectations of what the federal government can and should do after a disaster. For instance, following the Oklahoma City tornadoes, there was an estimated $900 million in damage, with a large portion of that in federal disaster assistance. Now, in the aftermath of hurricane Floyd in North Carolina, estimates of $1 billion or more in damages are being discussed. This problem is not just isolated to Oklahoma City or North Carolina. In the period between fiscal years 1994 and 1998, FEMA disaster assistance and relief costs grew from $8.7 billion to $19 billion. That marks a $10.3 billion increase in disaster assistance in just five years. To finance these expenditures, we have been forced to find over $12 billion in rescissions. The Bill I am introducing today will address this problem from two different directions. First, it authorizes a Predisaster Hazard Mitigation Program, which assists people in preparing for disasters before they happen. Second, it provides a number of cost-saving measures to help control the costs of disaster assistance. In our bill, we are authorizing PROJECT IMPACT, FEMA's natural disaster mitigation program. PROJECT IMPACT authorizes the use of small grants to local communities to give them funds and technical assistance to mitigate against disasters before they occur. Too often, we think of disaster assistance only after a disaster has occurred. For the very first time, we are authorizing a program to think about preventing disaster-related damage prior to the disaster. We believe that by spending these small amounts in advance of a disaster, we will save the federal government money in the long-term. However, it is important to note that we are not authorizing this program in perpetuity. The program, as drafted, is set to expire in 2003. If PROJECT IMPACT is successful, we will have the appropriate opportunity to review its work and make a determination on whether to continue program. We are also proposing to allow states to keep a larger percentage of their federal disaster funds to be used on state mitigation projects. In Oklahoma, the state is using its share of disaster funds to provide a tax rebate to the victims of the May 3 tornadoes who, when rebuilding their homes, build a ``safe room'' into their home. Because of limited funding, this assistance is only available to those who were unfortunate enough to lose everything they owned. We seek to give states more flexibility in determining their own mitigation priorities and giving them the financial assistance to follow through with their plans. While we are attempting to re-define the way in which we respond to natural disasters, we must also look to curb the rising cost of post- disaster related assistance. The intent of the original Stafford Act was to provide federal assistance after States and local communities had exhausted all their existing resources. As I said earlier, we have lost sight of this intent. To meet our cost saving goal, we are making significant changes to FEMA's Public Assistance program. One of the most significant changes in the PA program focuses on the use of insurance. FEMA is currently developing an insurance role to require States and local government to maintain private or self-insurance in order to qualify for the PA program. We applaud their efforts and are providing them with some parameters we expect them to follow in developing any insurance rule. Second, we are providing FEMA with the ability to estimate the cost of repairing or rebuilding projects. Under current law, FEMA is required to stay in the field and monitor the rebuilding of public structures. By requiring FEMA to stay afield for years after the disaster, we run up the administrative cost of projects. Allowing them to estimate the cost of repairs and close out the project will bring immediate assistance to the State or local community and save the Federal government money. We have spent months working closely with FEMA, the States, local communities, and other stakeholders to produce a bill that gives FEMA the increased ability to respond to disasters, while assuring States and local communities that the federal government will continue to meet its commitments. In closing, I want to thank Senator Graham for his help and the leadership he has taken on this important issue. Without his help, input, and insight, this legislation would be little more than an idea. As we continue to move this bill forward in the process, I look forward to continuing to work with him to make this legislation a reality.

Mr. INHOFE

Mr. INHOFE. Madam President, I ask for the yeas and nays.