Ted Kennedy

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Yes, I yield.

Mr. KENNEDY. I don't expect we will have numerous speakers, but it could happen that all the time will be taken up by people using 10 minutes. So as I understand what the Senator is saying, those who want to speak may speak up to 10 minutes, but within the general timeframe the total time is divided.

Mr. KENNEDY. I ask that interlude not be charged against my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. As with acts of terrorism, hate crimes have an impact far greater than the impact on the individual victims and their families. They are crimes against entire communities, against the whole Nation, and against the fundamental ideals of liberty and justice for all on which America was founded. As Attorney General Ashcroft has said, criminal acts of hate run counter to what is best in America, our belief in equality and freedom. According to the surveys conducted by the Department of Justice, 85 percent of law enforcement officials believe hate-motivated violent crimes are more serious than similar crimes not motivated by bias. One need look no further than the current conflict in the Middle East or recall the ethnic cleansing campaigns in Bosnia, Rwanda, what is happening in the Sudan today, study the Holocaust itself, to understand that violence motivated by hate is different and is more destructive. Or consider the hate crimes committed in America. Most of them are committed by multiple offenders against a single victim. Because the victims are attacked simply because of who they are, there is little that can be done to avoid being a victim of a hate crime. Hate crimes are twice as likely as other crimes to involve injury to the victim and four times as likely to require hospitalization. In the 1993 decision in Wisconsin v. Mitchell, a unanimous Supreme Court recognized that bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest. A hate crime against one member of a group sends a strong message to the other members that you are next, that certain parts of the country aren't safe for you to work or travel or live in, that you better watch your step. This is domestic terrorism, plain and simple, and it is unacceptable. Centuries ago, Blackstone commented it was unreasonable that among crimes of a different nature, those should be most severely punished, which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness. The simple fact is that hate crimes are different. They are more destructive than other crimes. The Federal Government has a responsibility to send a clear and unambiguous message that hate- motivated violence in any form from any source will not be tolerated. Congress recognized the special harm caused by hate-motivated bias when it passed the current hate crimes law following the assassination of Dr. King in 1968, when it passed the Hate Crimes Statistics Act of 1990, and when it passed the Hate Crimes Sentencing Enhancement Act of 1994. Now it is time for Congress to take the next step toward protecting all Americans from the problems of hate-motivated violence, by passing the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act to address the obvious deficiencies in the current Federal hate crimes law. As we mentioned, we are going to have our time. We hope those who might be in opposition would come over to the Chamber to debate us. I think before I yielded myself 7 minutes. Do I still have a little time left on that?

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 additional minutes. First of all, I know the Senator from Oregon, Mr. Smith, has described this amendment, but what this amendment does is it authorizes the Justice Department to assist State and local authorities in hate crimes cases. It authorizes Federal prosecutions only when a State does not have jurisdiction or when a State asks the Federal Government to take jurisdiction or when a State fails to act against hate-motivated violence. In other words, the amendment establishes an appropriate backup for State and local law enforcement to deal with hate crimes in cases where States request assistance or cases that would not otherwise be effectively investigated and prosecuted. So this is very limited and targeted. I want to remind the Senate that the original hate crimes preventive legislation was introduced in 1997 in the 105th Congress. The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings in the 105th Congress and the 106th Congress. We had testimony from State and local law enforcement, the Justice Department, victims and families, and respected constitutional lawyers alike. Our hate crimes bill has passed the Senate twice. In July of 1999, we passed it as an amendment to the Commerce-Justice-State appropriations bill. The amendment was stripped out in conference. In June of 2000, the bill was passed as an amendment to the Department of Defense authorization bill by a vote of 57 to 42. So there is precedent for this action. We had good bipartisan support. Several months later, the House of Representatives voted 232 to 192 to instruct the conferees to accept the hate crimes bill. Again, however, the bill was stripped in conference. In the 107th Congress, the Local Law Enforcement Act was introduced with 51 original cosponsors and favorably reported out of the Judiciary Committee by a vote of 12 to 7. In June of 2000, the Senate failed to invoke cloture on it with a vote of 54 to 43, with a clear majority supporting it. So this issue has been studied. We have had extensive hearings. We have listened to the constitutional authorities. We have listened to local, State, and Federal officials with regard to this issue. We have also read the newspapers of this country and have studied what has been happening in the growth of hate crimes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I thank the Senator for raising this issue because this is enormously important. The Senator from Oregon, in terms of protection of the first amendment, has reviewed the holding in the Wisconsin case. As the Senator remembers, this principle was reaffirmed this last year by the Supreme Court in the cross burning decision in Virginia v. Black. As we know, as it has been interpreted, this act punishes violence, not speech. It covers only violent acts that result in death or bodily injury. It does not prohibit or punish speech, expression, or association in any way, even hate speech--even hate speech. Those great lines of Oliver Wendell Holmes: If there is any principle of the Constitution that more imperatively calls for attachment than any other it is the principle of free thought--not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the thought that we hate. We ensure that even the hate speech is not affected in this. It is the violence, the physical violence that we are addressing, and it is enormously important that our colleagues understand that. Mr. President, I withhold the remainder of the time. I suggest that we have the quorum call, and I suggest that we have it on the opponents' time until it reaches where we are, and then we will charge it to both of us if that is acceptable.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 2 minutes. I will put more information in the Record, but I want to point out to our colleagues the growth of hate crimes in this country, what the Southern Law Poverty Center has said has taken place. That is the authoritative group, more so than even the Justice Department. The number of hate groups in America has expanded exponentially ever since 9/11. The figures we have here are basically dated figures, because they don't go in until after 9/11, but what we do see is the total number of hate crimes statistics during the period of the 1990s have been going higher and higher. Hate crimes based on sexual orientation have gone up significantly over the last several years. The venom and the hate against gays and lesbians has increased dramatically. The backlash since 9/11 has been dramatic with regard to hate crimes against Muslims. This chart shows the dramatic increase and it is continuing to go up at an extraordinary level. Hate crimes against Arab Americans and hate crimes against Arabs have gone up dramatically in the last 2 years. Beyond that, hate crimes against Jews in the country and society have gone up exponentially as well. For all of these groups, I will include accurate information. But this is a real problem. There is the possibility of not having a universal solution, and we don't suggest that with the passage of this amendment all of these problems are going to go away. But what we are going to say is, we ought to be battling this with the full force of the U.S. Government. When we guarantee the kinds of rights and liberties in this country that are in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we ought to make sure they are going to be enforced with the full power and authority of the United States. That is what our legislation does in dealing with the issue of hate crimes. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Akaka be added as a cosponsor of the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment No. 3263.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I understand we have a time allocation of 50 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. On our side, the Senator from Michigan, our ranking member, has been allocated 10 minutes.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 12 minutes. We face many different issues in foreign policy, national defense, and the war on terrorism. But one issue is crystal clear: America should not launch a new nuclear arms race. We want our children and grandchildren to live in a world that is less dangerous, not more dangerous--with fewer nuclear weapons, not more. But that is not the course that the Bush administration is taking. Even as we try to persuade North Korea to pull back from the brink--even as we try to persuade Iran to end its nuclear weapons program--even as we urge the nations of the former Soviet Union to secure their nuclear materials and arsenals from terrorists--the Bush administration now wants to escalate the nuclear threat by developing two new kinds of nuclear weapons for the United States--mini-nukes that can be used more easily on the battlefield, and bunker busters to attack sites buried deeply underground. As President Reagan would say, ``There you go again''--another major blunder in foreign policy. Our goal is to prevent nuclear proliferation. How does it help for us to start developing a new generation of nuclear weapons? It's a shameful double standard. As Mohammed El Baradei, the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an address to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York City said last month, ``there are some who have continued to dangle a cigarette from their mouth and tell everybody else not to smoke.'' The specter of nuclear war looms even larger with the ominous statements of senior officials in the Bush administration that they in fact consider these new weapons more ``usable.'' If the Bush administration has its way, the next war could very well be a nuclear war, started by a nuclear first strike by the United States. It is hard to imagine a dumber idea. The amendment that the Senator from California and I are offering will put a halt to the Bush administration's plan to develop these new nuclear weapons. Just as ``lite'' cigarettes still cause deadly cancer, lower yield nuclear weapons will still cause massive death and destruction. No matter what you call them, a nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. They still incinerate everything in their path. They still kill and injure hundreds of thousands of people. They still scatter dangerous fallout over hundreds of miles. They still leave vast areas that are radioactive and uninhabitable for years to come. There are few more vivid examples of the misguided priorities of the Bush administration. For the past 15 months, our troops in Iraq have been under fire every day. They were sent into battle without the latest and best bulletproof vests and without armored Humvees. They were placed at greater risk, denied the basic equipment they needed to protect themselves and do their jobs. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is urging Congress to provide hundreds of millions of dollars for new nuclear weapons. The mini-nuke has a yield of five kilotons or less. That's still half the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima that killed more than 100,000 people--at least a third of the city's population. Is it somehow more acceptable to produce a modern nuclear bomb that kills only tens of thousands instead of a hundred thousand? The Bush administration also has extensive plans to develop the ``bunker buster,'' or, as the administration calls it, the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. It would carry a nuclear warhead of around 100 kilotons--ten times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It would be placed in a hardened cone capable of burrowing deep underground before exploding. Even with today's advanced technology, they would still spew thousands of tons of radioactive ash into the atmosphere. There are more effective ways to disable underground bunkers. Using today's highly accurate conventional weapons, we can destroy the intake valves for air and water. We can knock out their electricity. And we can destroy the entrances, preventing people and supplies from going in or getting out. In fact, by rushing to develop these weapons, the Bush administration misses the point. The challenge of destroying deep underground bunkers is not solved with nuclear weapons. It will be solved by developing missile cones that can penetrate deeper into the earth without being destroyed on impact. The bill before us authorizes a study of these two new nuclear weapons systems. It provides $9 million for the development of advanced concepts for nuclear weapons, the so-called ``mini-nukes,'' and more than $27 million for the robust nuclear earth penetrator, the so-called bunker busters. Those who support the development of these weapons suggest that it is only research and that the research will have little effect on the rest of the world. The supporters of these weapons argue that since the funds are limited to research, the administration will not go on to produce these weapons without congressional approval. That is what Secretary Rumsfeld claimed when he testified before the House Appropriations Committee in February. He said that what has been proposed is some funds be used to study and determine the extent to which a deep earth penetrator conceivably could be developed, what it would look like, and whether it makes sense to do it. There are no funds in here to do it. There are no funds in here to deploy it since it does not exist. The administration's own budget contradicts that statement. Its budget assumes we will spend $485 million on these weapons over the next 5 years. It has a detailed plan for their development and production. I have in my hand their projection by the Congressional Budget Office of the development of this program for some $485 million from now through 2009, and it anticipates the completion of the development phase in fiscal year 2007. We can see it right in their proposals. Then it has the continued development of the program itself. This is the clear indication of what the administration is intending. It is in their budget. It is $485 million, and it is right there just with regard to the bunker buster just as it is with regard to the nuke. We will see that it goes on through fiscal year 2009 as well. So if we do not adopt this amendment, we can be confident that the administration will build them. After that, as the administration's own nuclear experts have said, they will ultimately deploy them and use them. In fact, in our debate 2 weeks ago, my colleague from Arizona described a situation in which he believed they should be used. He claimed conventional bunker busters were incapable of knocking out Saddam Hussein in those early days of the war and that only nuclear weapons could have destroyed his deeply buried hardened bunkers. If that is the plan for these weapons, then the prospect is even more frightening for our troops, for America, and for the world. Is the Senator from Arizona truly suggesting we should have used a nuclear weapon to hit Saddam Hussein's bunkers last May? Baghdad is a city of over 5 million Iraqis. We would have killed hundreds of thousands of people, including American aid workers and journalists. We would have turned the entire area into a radioactive wasteland. And all to capture the person we captured with conventional means a few months later? Using a nuclear weapon to strike Saddam Hussein would have inflamed the hatred of America in Iraq and the Arab world far beyond anything we have seen in response to the prison scandal at Abu Ghraib. It would have poisoned our relations with the rest of the world and turned us into an international pariah for generations to come. The President told us this winter that there is a consensus among nations that proliferation cannot be tolerated. He added that this consensus means little unless it is translated into action. But the administration's idea of action is preposterous. It only encourages a dangerous new arms race and promotes proliferation. By building new nuclear weapons, the President would be rekindling the nuclear arms race that should have ended with the end of the cold war. He has given inadequate support to nonproliferation efforts with Russia. With the Moscow treaty, the deep cuts in our nuclear arsenals would not be permanent since we could keep a large number of such weapons in storage, capable of being activated and used in the future. In January 2002, the Pentagon released a document called the Nuclear Posture Review, and despite subsequent efforts to downplay its significance, its tone of recommendations revealed the dangerous new direction in our nuclear policy. The double standard is clear. The rest of the world must abandon the development of nuclear weapons, but the United States can continue to build new weapons. As is pointed out in the Nuclear Posture Review, it talks about the second principal finding is the United States requires a much smaller nuclear arsenal under the present circumstances, but first the nuclear weapons are playing a smaller role in U.S. security than at any other time in the nuclear age. Then it goes on to talk about the alternatives that are being developed with the smaller nuclear weapons. The Bush administration thinks the United States can move the world in one direction while we move in another; that we can continue to prevail on other countries not to develop nuclear weapons while we develop new tactical applications for these weapons and possibly resume nuclear testing.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield myself 2 additional minutes. The decision the administration has made on nuclear posture reverses 50 years of bipartisan commitment to arms control. Over the past 50 years, we have halted and reversed the nuclear arms race, and now we are starting to escalate it again. It makes no sense to undermine half a century of progress on nuclear arms control and start going backward. And all for what? To deal with emerging threats we can already handle with conventional weapons. Even the House Republicans have acknowledged the flaw in the administration's plan. Chairman Hobson eliminated all funding for these mini-nukes and bunker busters, saying that the National Nuclear Security Administration needs to take a time out on new initiatives until it completes a review of its weapons complex in relation to security needs and budget constraints, and the administration's own new plan to eliminate half of our stockpiled warheads. That is the conclusion of the House of Representatives after extensive hearings. The Bush administration is asking Congress to buy something that we do not need and we will never use, that makes our goals for a peaceful world much more difficult to achieve, and that endangers us by its mere existence. Over the period of this last half century, Democrats and Republicans have pursued sensible arms control, engaged the world in nearly a global commitment to nonproliferation, and demonstrated the will of the United States to pursue counterproliferation when diplomacy failed to stop illicit flows of weapons of mass destruction. President Kennedy started the process that would lead to the nonproliferation treaty, but he could not finish it. President Johnson picked up where he left off and signed it, but he did not have time to ratify it before his term ended. President Nixon ratified it. Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan negotiated SALT and START. President Bush signed START I and START II. President Clinton signed START III and led America through the massive post-cold-war reduction in its nuclear arsenal. That is the record: Democrat and Republican alike moving us away from nuclear escalation, and that is what this amendment will continue. I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 5 minutes to the Senator from North Dakota.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I yield myself 3 minutes. As I mentioned before, we have a very proud tradition of moving the United States away from nuclear confrontation. I mentioned the start of that effort by President Kennedy beginning the process of nonproliferation. President Johnson picked up where he left off, although he did not have sufficient time. But President Nixon ratified it. Presidents Ford, Carter, and Reagan negotiated SALT and START. President Bush signed START and START II and President Clinton START III. What do they know that this President does not know? Why do we have Republicans and Democrats moving away from the brink of nuclear escalation? What are we talking about? Five kilotons would cause 280,000 casualities, 230,000 fatalities. That is what we are talking about with small nuclear weapons. This is not just modernization. The Senator from Colorado knows we have a very active program now being reviewed by scientists to make sure we have an adequate deterrent. What is the effect if you dropped a 5-kiloton nuclear weapon on Damascus: 280,000 casualties, 230,000 fatalities. Just before the first gulf war, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, commissioned a study of the possibility of the use of small nuclear weapons on the battlefield. He rejected all of them because, he said, ``they have no battlefield utility.'' If the Senator from Colorado can show us where we had any hearings, where any of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have testified they want this kind of weapon, I am interested. He cannot because we have not had any hearings. This is a statement from the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration in response to a question on April 8, 2003: I have a bias in favor of the lowest usable yield. I have a bias in favor of things that might be usable. There it is, a statement from the No. 1 person in the administration. We have in the Record the 5-year program in terms of the development of these weapons, $485 million. We have in the Record the costs of the small nukes, $82 million. Why are we being asked to go ahead and walk down this path where we have Republican and Democrats and the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff saying this is a mistake? What in the world does the Senator from Colorado know that these Presidents did not know? Where is the testimony before our Armed Services Committee showing these will be usable? I withhold the remainder of my time.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will the Senator yield?

Mr. KENNEDY. I yield 15 minutes to the Senator from California.

Mr. KENNEDY. Finally, Mr. President, my friend from Texas does not state our amendment correctly. We are only dealing with the mini nuke and the bunker buster, not the safety of the stockpile or the study of information that happens in other countries. The fact of the matter is, this administration does have a plan for the development of the bunker buster and the small nuclear weapon. There is no doubt about it. It says so in its Nuclear Posture Review. It puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear offensive forces in our deterrent strategy and presents a blueprint for transforming our strategic posture. That is the beginning of a new arms race. It is not what I say; it is in their budget request that goes on for 5 or 7 years and asks for $485 million for the bunker buster and $84 million for the small nukes. That is what the administration basically wants. This is what their principal responsible officials in the administration have said. Linton Brooks: I have a bias in favor of things that might be usable. I think that's just an inherent part of deterrence. Fred Celec, former deputy assistant to the Secretary of Defense: If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully designed to survive a crash through hard rock or concrete and still explode, ``It will ultimately get fielded.'' There it is. That is what we are dealing with. We believe, if we go this route, it is going to make it more difficult to achieve arms control in the area of nuclear arms. It is going to make our goals harder to realize and make the possibility of nuclear war more likely. Interestingly, the House of Representatives, in their conclusions on this same issue, provides no funds for advanced concepts research and the robust nuclear earth penetrator. Our bill does provide a significant increase in weapons dismantlement, and for security upgrades in the weapons complex for nuclear nonproliferation, the committee provides the request for $1.3 billion. We spend the resources on other high-priority nonproliferation needs. That is the conclusion of the Republican House of Representatives. They seem to get it. Rather than start into a new arms race with nuclear weapons, let us accept our amendment and rely on what we have relied on, which the Secretary of State, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, recognized--that these were not small nukes and were not battlefield weapons. They did not have a place in our military. That is what the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said. No one is suggesting that he hasn't had a life and career in terms of security of this country. We have the best in terms of conventional forces. Why go ahead and see nuclear proliferation in terms of weapons that will create increased dangers for the American people? I yield the remaining time.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. I move to reconsider the vote.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Given that the one concern identified by OMB in its SAP has been addressed in the amendment, would the Senator anticipate that the amendment will be included in the conference report?

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle in paying tribute to Ronald Reagan. As all of us who had the privilege of working with him know, he brought a special grace to the White House and the country in everything he did. We often disagreed on specific issues, but he had an undeniably unique capacity to inspire and move the Nation. The warmth of his personality always shone through, and his infectious optimism made us all feel that it really was ``morning in America.'' It was impossible not to respect and admire the way he revived the spirit of the Nation in that era, restored the power and vitality of the Presidency, and made it a vigorous and purposeful place of effective national and international leadership. It was no coincidence that he opened his 1984 re-election campaign year by citing two Democratic Presidents, John F. Kennedy and Franklin D. Roosevelt, in his State of the Union address. Nor was it a coincidence that at the Republican Convention that year, not the Democratic Convention, the band played ``Happy Days Are Here Again.'' He governed as a conservative Republican, often very conservative. But he had a special genius for reaching out to all Americans. Somehow, the hard edges of his policies always seemed smoother when he discussed and defended them. He was willing to step back from them when necessary, such as when it proved impossible to cut taxes, increasing spending for defense, and balance the budget at the same time. He was an intense competitor who wanted to win, not just for himself but for his beliefs. But his goal was to defeat his opponents, not destroy them. He taught us that even though the battle would inevitably resume the next morning, at the end of each day we could put aside the divisions and debates. We could sit down together and laugh together, especially at his endless stream of stories. He took issues seriously, but he had a sense of perspective that never let him or us take ourselves too seriously. As a leader, he was a President of large principles, not small details. Some criticized him for that, but it was often the source of his strength. On foreign policy, he will be honored as the President who won the cold war, and his famous words ``Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall'' will be linked in history with President Kennedy's ``Ich bin ein Berliner.'' He came to office convinced that we could not trust the Communists, or perhaps even negotiate with them, and his commitment to a strong national defense was never doubted by Soviet leaders. But he also understood the importance of working with our allies to protect our security, and he also understood the madness of ``mutually assured destruction.'' He had an instinct that Michail Gorbachev might be different, and was quick to respond when I learned on a visit to Moscow in 1986 that President Gorbachev was prepared to negotiate a separate arms control treaty on the critical issue of nuclear missiles, in Europe. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear-Force Treaty they negotiated the following year eased tensions in Europe, and became the needed breakthrough in U.S.-Soviet relations that made it possible to see light at the end of the long dangerous tunnel of the cold war. President Reagan was never afraid to be controversial, to confront when he had to, and lead where he believed. There were intense disagreements with many of his policies, then and now. But beyond all that was a defining reality. He came to power at a time of self- fulfilling pessimism, a pervasive belief that public policy could barely move molehills, let alone mountains. The true achievement of the Reagan Revolution was the renewal of America's faith in itself. It was more than the fact that he was a superb communicator. Some attributed at least part of his success to the fact that he had been an actor. But his deepest convictions were matters of heart and mind and spirit, and on them, he was no actor at all. He was very generous to the Kennedy family on many public and private occasions. Caroline and John went to see him in the White Hose early in 1985 to ask if he might be willing to participate in some way in a dinner we were planning at my home in support of my brother's presidential library. He was delighted to attend. ``Of course I'll help you,'' he said. ``You don't have a father to help.'' At the dinner a few weeks later, he stood with us in the receiving line and shook the hand of every guest. He was quick to mention that he had not supported President Kennedy in 1960. ``I was for the other fellow,'' he told us. ``But you know, it's true, when the battle's over and the ground cooled, well, it's then that you see the opposing general's valor.'' He proceeded to give one of the finest tributes that my brother ever received. As he said of Jack, ``He seemed to grasp from the beginning that life is one fast-moving train, and you have to jump aboard and hold on to your hat and relish the sweep of the winds as it rushes by.'' He summed it up by saying of my brother, ``You have to enjoy the journey. . . . I think that's how his country remembers him, in his joy, and it was a joy he knew how to communicate.'' That's how America remembers Ronald Reagan, too.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome this opportunity to pay tribute to the distinguished president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Edward Parrish, as he nears his retirement this year. Ed Parrish came to WPI as president in 1995 after an impressive career in engineering at NASA and in teaching and academic research. From the University of Virginia to Vanderbilt and finally to WPI, he was widely recognized for his skill and dedication in engineering and engineering education. He has led regional and national efforts to expand the recruitment of students and the scope of engineering programs, and he has demonstrated his commitment to the future in these fields by joining in the management of a magnet school for the sciences with the Worcester public schools. He has been a pioneer in improving the quality of education, and expanded the program at WPI to include more integrated projects, cross- science working groups, and problem-solving education. He has created new opportunities for faculty and students to participate in research and international study. By modernizing the infrastructure of the university, he made it one of the earliest and best-wired campuses in the Nation. Since its founding in 1865, WPI has been a unique institution widely recognized as a pioneer in technology and higher education. Ed Parrish has led a world-class university into the 21st century, expanding both the number and the knowledge of undergraduate and graduate students by offering opportunities to work with professionals in real situations on campus, in Massachusetts, and around the world, solving real problems that have an immediate impact on society. Fortunately, Ed has agreed to serve on the Goldwater commission to provide a continuing source of scientists by awarding scholarships to college students, so that his experience and talent will continue to benefit the lives of students and the life of the Nation in the years ahead. His 9 years at WPI have been a time of growth and expansion for the university, and all of us in Massachusetts have much to thank him for as he enters this next chapter of his outstanding career. Ed and his family have my best wishes for the future, and I look forward to many opportunities to work with him and learn from him in the future.

Mr. KENNEDY

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I see my friend and colleague, who offered this amendment on a previous occasion, in the Chamber. We have worked closely together. Because of the necessities of time, I hope the Chair will recognize her to make remarks, and then I will try to gain recognition. I yield the floor.

Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I welcome the opportunity to join with my colleague and friend, the Senator from California, offering this amendment with my other colleagues. Just to summarize very briefly, the development of these nuclear weapons signals a dangerous direction in our nuclear policy. It weakens our ability to ask other countries to give up their nuclear programs. If we build these nuclear weapons, the costs are clear. No one will believe we are serious about nuclear nonproliferation. Developing new nuclear weapons sends a mixed message that undermines all of our calls for nonproliferation. When we criticize Iran and North Korea for their nuclear weapons development, they point back to ours. There is little doubt that we would be starting a new arms race. Although it is too soon to tell who will follow suit, few developments in the quantity or quality of nuclear weapons have gone unmatched by other powers. To start a costly new arms race for these weapons of little utility is, I believe, a mistake. At the same time, the benefits are not clear. Opponents will just build deeper bunkers, out of the range of new weapons. We will build weapons with deeper range and our enemies will again build deeper bunkers. But even more compelling is the fact that conventional weapons will do the job against deeply buried targets. All bunkers must have air intakes, energy sources, and entries; and secure those through conventional means and you have essentially secured the bunker, making these new nuclear weapons programs effectively useless. In the end, the Department of Energy would like us to buy something that we do not need, that we will never use, that endangers us by its mere existence, and that makes our important diplomatic goals much more difficult to achieve. I hope we will have the acceptance of our amendment. Mr. President, having outlined what I believe to be the principal reasons for the amendment, I am going to take a few moments to go into some detail now about what is at risk. As I mentioned, we are on the threshold of a new nuclear arms race. Instead of curbing the spread and the development of nuclear arms, the Bush administration wants us to build a new generation of nuclear weapons. I believe this is a dangerous and reckless policy that will put Americans at even greater risk in an increasingly dangerous world. The nuclear weapons the administration is developing go by such terms as ``mini-nukes'' and ``bunker busters.'' They may not possess the yield of the nuclear warheads of the cold war era, but a mushroom cloud is still a mushroom cloud. They can still cause monumental destruction, massive casualties, and long-term environmental damage to entire regions of the world. They will encourage other countries to follow our example and produce a new generation of nuclear weapons of their own. Their existence makes it even more likely that nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. On issue after issue, the Bush administration has arrogantly abandoned cooperation of the allies in favor of ``my way or the highway'' policies that alienate us from the world, from its rejection of the Kyoto Treaty against global warming to misguided occupation of Iraq. This administration's policies have made the world more dangerous for Americans, and the development of a new generation of nuclear arms is another such policy. These nuclear weapons programs must be stopped. The administration requested a total of $34.2 million for the development of these new nuclear weapons. Our amendment would stop this money from going toward these new nuclear weapons and would direct the money toward other priorities such as increasing the safety of our existing stockpile, or environmental cleanup of nuclear materials. The administration's funding request for these programs is a continuation of the dangerous new direction this administration is taking in our nuclear weapons policy. The administration's Nuclear Posture Review acknowledged this, stating it ``puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear''--this is in the Nuclear Posture Review, 8 January 2002. Building on the QDR--the overall review of our defense capability--the Nuclear Posture Review ``puts in motion a major change in our approach to the role of nuclear offensive forces in our deterrent strategy and presents the blueprint for transforming our strategic posture.'' Why? Because the administration intends to go ahead not only in the research but in the development of these weapons systems. We will hear from the other side: ``Oh, no, we aren't, Senator.'' All you have to do is look in the legislation itself. There it is on page 378--the limitation of availability of funds for advanced nuclear weapons concept limitation. Under the funds authorized to be appropriated this year, they may be obligated or expended for the purpose of additional or exploratory studies under an advanced nuclear weapons concept initiative until 30 days after the date on which the Administrator for Nuclear Security submits to the congressional defense committees a detailed report on the activities for such studies on the initiatives that are planned for 2005. There it is. Is that what the administration and is that what the Senate is relying on to say they are going to have to come back here for another action in terms of the development and the testing of nuclear weapons? Look at what the language says--until 30 days after the date on which a report goes to the committee. They can go ahead. Let us see what they are intending. This is a pass. Those who rely on that language said, ``Senator Kennedy, Senator Feinstein, we have effectively addressed your needs.'' They cannot go ahead in terms of development or testing because we have language in there to prohibit it. That is not accurate. That is not accurate. I have read the operative language in the Defense authorization bill for this year's funding. They can do anything they want after they give notification. That isn't any prohibition for this year. We can ask, What do they mean? What do they intend? Let us look at what Linton Brooks, Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, says. He is the top person on nuclear weapons. He says on December 5, 2003: ``On behalf of the administration, I would like to thank you''-- This was a memoranda to the directors of some of the laboratories. I will include the page in the Record. ``On behalf of the administration, I would like to thank you and your staff for helping us to support this important effort. We are now free to explore a range of technical options.'' This is after Congress repealed the amendment which prohibited mini- nukes. That was in the law. And the last Congress repealed that action. Here is the head of the National Nuclear Security Administration: ``We are now free to explore a range of technical options. We should not fail to take advantage of this opportunity.'' Look what else Linton Brooks said: ``I have a bias in favor of things that might be usable. I think that's just an inherent part of deterrence. If it is usable, they can be developed, and we ought to use it.'' You can ask, How do we know the administration is serious in pursuing the bunker buster? How do we know that? All we have to do is look at the 5-year budget the administration has submitted. As it moves on through in the development of the bunker buster, you will find as it increases--it has a total appropriations for this whole project of some $484 million over the next 5 years. For studies? For technical research? That is for the robust nuclear penetrator. Research is $484 million and $82 million for the small nuke. If you look in their budget, that is what it has. Look in the details of what they expect each year. And when you come to 2007, you will find it is planning development in 2007. It has the technical language. If I am wrong, I hope those on the other side will correct me. If this language does not mean development, correct me. If applicable, RNEP will move to level 6.3 authority, given the appropriate authorization--that means effectively the development in 2007 and the testing in 2009. It is in the 5-year program. This is what they are intending to do. That is why this amendment is so important. It is very clear what the intention of the budget proposal is from the statement of the key administration officials who are dealing with the development of nuclear weapons and by the statement of the Nuclear Posture Review in and of itself. That is the direction we are going. We believe we should say we are not going to go in this direction. We do not want to have another nuclear arms race. One of the great successes of Democratic and Republican Presidents over the period since the end of World War II was being able to contain the nuclear arms race. We came dangerously close during the Cuban missile crisis of a nuclear exchange. But we have been able to avoid it, and we have seen progress made with the different arms control agreements which have been signed and supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. Why in the world, when we are trying to contain the nuclear capability of North Korea and Iran, are we going out and beginning to have another nuclear arms race when we have the most feared military in the world right now? That is the argument that must be addressed on the other side to those who want to support this particular program. Development of these nuclear weapons is part of that ill-advised transformation. It returns us to the dangerous dynamics of the world when our nuclear scientists competed with our rivals to develop the latest technology, our arsenals were on highest alert, and we were only minutes away from nuclear attack. The administration's nuclear posture review directs the Department of Defense to look into the possible modification to existing weapons to provide additional yield flexibility in the stockpile and improve the earth-penetrating weapons to counter the increased use of potential adversaries of hardened and deeply buried facilities, referring to the bunker buster. In addition, the nation's nuclear weapons laboratories were to look into the weapons that reduce collateral damage, the so- called mini-nukes. Last year, the House Energy and Water Subcommittee raised serious concerns about our Nation's nuclear weapons program. They had extensive hearings on this. The Department of Energy is proposing, and this is their conclusion of the House committee report: The Department [of Energy] is proposing to rebuild, restart, and redo and otherwise exercise every capability that was used over the last forty years of the Cold War and at the same time prepare for a future with an expanded mission for nuclear weapons. That is what the Republican House committee concluded, after extensive hearings on this particular issue. The House Energy and Water Subcommittee thought the pursuit of a broad range of new initiatives was premature until the Department of Energy could demonstrate that it could adequately care for the nuclear weapons we already have, which makes sense. The committee cut the funding for the mini-nukes program, refusing to ``support redirecting the management resources and attention to a series of new initiatives.'' Chairman Hobson's criticisms ring just as true today. Our amendment would similarly cut the funding for new nuclear weapons programs. The President's budget for fiscal year 2005 contains $9 million for the Advanced Concepts Initiative, which funds research into the programs. This is an increase of 50 percent from last year's level of $6 million. The low-yield nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons with a yield up to 5 kilotons. But these mininukes are very deadly. A 5-kiloton bomb is half the size of the bomb we dropped on Hiroshima, capable of killing hundreds of thousands of people and making the target radioactive for decades to come. Based on questions about their battlefield utility, Congress banned the research and development of these weapons for over 10 years. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the first gulf war, Colin Powell asked for a review of options for using tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. He rejected all of them. Colin Powell rejected all of them because he concluded they have no usefulness on the battlefield. Unfortunately, last year, at the administration's request, Congress repealed the ban and allowed research into these weapons to go forward. I disagreed with that action and joined with my colleague from California in an amendment to retain the ban. Many supported repealing the ban because they believed the administration would not field these new weapons. This is simply not true. The administrator's nuclear weapons chief, Linton Brooks, says, as I mentioned: ``I have a bias in favor of the lowest useable yield because I have a bias in favor of . . . things that might be useable.'' That is a clear intention of what a leading person for the administration believes and feels about the usability of small nuclear weapons. The administration wants these weapons because it believes our existing nuclear weapons are too large to be used. It wants to develop a generation of more useable nuclear weapons. In creating a more useable nuclear weapon, the administration is making it more likely that the United States would use such a weapon, increasing the risks of escalation and nuclear war. This chart shows a detonation outside of Damascus. This would be a 5- kiloton bomb that was detonated in a hypothetical bunker in the Middle East, in Damascus, on a typical day. Over half a million people would be wounded or killed from such explosion, and the fallout pattern would extend from Damascus into the Mediterranean Sea. The detonation of even a 1-kiloton nuclear weapon at a depth of less than 50 feet will create a crater larger than the World Trade Center and spew a million cubic feet of radioactive dust into the atmosphere. According to Michael May, the former Director of Lawrence Livermore Nuclear Laboratory, one of our premier research labs, ``Scientists say even a low-yield nuclear strike on a bio-warfare storage bunker will dig a large, hot crater and blast a witches's brew of weaponized germs and radioactive fallout into the air.'' This next chart gives some idea about what that might look like. We can realize the size of the hole only if we can see the observation post that allegedly can hold 20 people. They are right on the edge of that very substantial crater for the 1-kiloton bomb, with the thousands of tons of radioactive material which comes from that. For those who argue that the advanced weapons concepts program is necessary to preserve the intellectual base of nuclear weapons scientists, one of the prime reasons being recommended before our committee is because we want to keep occupied our nuclear scientists so they will be energized in their work. This amendment would not stifle their ability to study nuclear weapons. There is plenty of work to be done on stockpile security, on the nuclear weapons capability of other nations. This amendment would leave the money available for research in the nuclear weapons field but would prevent it from being spent on nuclear weapons research. The robust nuclear earth-penetrator, the so-called bunker buster, is a nuclear weapon that will burrow into the ground 10 to 50 feet before detonating. The administration is currently studying the feasibility of putting existing nuclear weapons with yields up to 300 kilotons into an earth-penetrating casing. The bunker buster is designed to strike deeply buried, hardened bunkers, which could be fortified below 100 to 300 feet of concrete. Earth-penetrating weapons would spray millions of tons of radioactive waste into the atmosphere, creating a plume of deadly fallout, according to nuclear physicists. Robert Peurifoy, the retired vice president of Sandia National Laboratories, another premier nuclear weapons laboratory, had this to say: ``If you can find somebody in a uniform in the Defense Department who can talk about the need for nuclear bunker busters without laughing, I'll buy him a cup of coffee. It's outlandish. It's stupid. It is an effort to maintain a payroll at the weapons labs.'' Opponents will argue that we are simply funding a study, that there is no intent to go any further. But last year Fred Celec, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters in the Bush administration, was asked about these bunker busters and he stated that if a hydrogen bomb can be successfully designed to survive a crash through hard rock or concrete and still explode, ``it will ultimately get fielded.'' In May 2003, Secretary Rumsfeld said the bunker buster ``is a study. It is nothing more and nothing less.'' This study was planned to cost $15 million for fiscal years 2003 to 2005. In fiscal year 2004, based on concerns about the program, Congress cut the appropriations to $7.5 million. But this year, the President's fiscal year 2005 budget request challenged that and the administration requested $27.6 million for the study and revealed that it planned to spend $485 million over the next 5 years. Surely an investment of that magnitude is not just a study but a quantum leap towards deployment of this dangerous weapon. In fact, in that plan the administration stated its intent to move in a development stage. Whatever their size, current deployed nuclear weapons must be detonated close to the ground in order to kill chemical or biological agents, creating a great deal of nuclear fallout. If the detonation is underground, all the debris becomes radioactive and disperses through the air. Fallout can be reduced by detonating the weapons at a higher altitude, but that reduces their effectiveness against chemical or biological weapons. Bunker busters require pinpoint accuracy to hit deeply buried, hardened bunkers that may contain chemical or biological weapons. They require precise intelligence on the location of the target because even an enhanced radiation weapon has a very short range of effectiveness to neutralize a biological agent. If the bomb is even slightly off target, the detonation may cause the spread of chemical bioagents in addition to the radioactive fallout instead of vaporizing the agent. In fact, the administration's own Nuclear Posture Review acknowledges that ``significant capability shortfalls currently exist in: finding and tracking mobile relocatable targets and WMD sites'' as well as ``locating, identifying, and characterizing hard and deeply buried targets.'' Given our current failure to locate WMD in Iraq, do we have sufficient confidence to drop a nuclear bomb on a suspected hardened, deeply buried bunker? According to noted Stanford physicist Sidney Drell, the blast effects of such a weapon ``extend beyond the area of very high temperatures and radiation they create for destroying such agents.'' The consequences of using such a weapon extend far beyond the limited area of a suspected bunker. In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, the administration refused to rule out--isn't this interesting--in the months leading up to the war in Iraq, the administration refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons. If we had mininukes last spring, would we have used them against suspected chemical or biological bunkers, bunkers which turned out not to have existed? Using a low-yield nuclear weapon against a suspected bunker around Baghdad could have killed a half a million people or more. Imagine the geometric increase in the resentment of the Iraqi people to our occupation, what it would have been had we done so. Couple the administration's interest in these weapons with its newly declared preventive war doctrine and we face the potential of a nuclear first strike against a nonnuclear nation. This would violate our obligations under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Use of a nuclear weapon against a country preemptively would instantly transform America from the great beacon of hope in the world to a pariah. So, as I mentioned, the development of these new weapons signals a dangerous direction in our nuclear policy. It weakens our ability to ask other countries to give up their nuclear programs. And the costs are clear. No one will believe we are serious about nuclear nonproliferation. Developing the new nuclear weapon sends a mixed message that undermines all of our calls for nonproliferation. When we criticize Iran and North Korea for their nuclear weapons development, they point back to ours. There is little doubt that we would be starting a new arms race. Though it is too soon to tell who will follow suit, few developments in the quantity or quality of nuclear weapons have gone unmatched by other powers. To start an arms race with these weapons of little utility is a mistake. Opponents, as mentioned, will just build deeper bunkers, but even more compelling is the fact that conventional weapons will do the job against deeply buried targets. We have not heard on the Armed Services Committee testimony that we do not have the capacity or capability to deal with the deep bunkers with conventional weapons today. I will wait for those who are opposed to this amendment to justify that position. So this is a matter of enormous importance and consequence. The materials I mentioned are here on my desk. It is quite clear the direction this administration is intending to go. It is clear not only from the statements of those who have the prime responsibility for the development of nuclear weapons, it is clear in their statement for their 5-year proposal. You cannot read that proposal and not see where they are looking for development and testing. It is all out there for everyone to see. For those to suggest on the floor of the Senate that under the existing Defense authorization bill we have effectively prohibited that kind of conduct in terms of the testing and the development defies the language I have read previously. The only hindrance would be the fact that the Department of Defense is required to send studies here to the appropriate Defense committees and then, after 30 days, is free this year to take whatever action they want. That is not the way for us to move into another nuclear arms race. That is what this amendment is meant to address. That is why I hope it will be accepted. Mr. President, I yield the floor.