Jon Kyl

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. The answer is that while they have the right to do anything--

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I say to Senator Kerry, you have asked me a serious question, which requires more than just a yes or no answer.

Mr. KYL. The answer is, under the terms of the treaty, they have a right to characterize something as an extraordinary event which qualifies under the terms of the contract between the two parties to withdraw. And it is also true that, technically speaking, that is not a decision which we can countermand in any way. In that sense, it is true that they can withdraw. But it is also true that this treaty, like any other contract, sets up terms of reference. One of the terms of reference is the supreme national interest clause or the extraordinary circumstance clause. We both agree that clause has to be satisfied in order for a party to be proper or to be--or to properly withdraw from the treaty. When the START treaty--excuse me, if I could finish. When START was ratified, we pushed back against the Russians when they said: Well, this gives us a right to withdraw from the treaty. We said: No, it doesn't. We made it clear to them they shouldn't withdraw under that circumstance. Here, by being silent, in effect, on it, we are tacitly agreeing with their interpretation, and that is dangerous because I would assume we don't want them to withdraw from the treaty, but they have set up a circumstance which is virtually inevitable because we planned to do the very thing they say will give them the right to withdraw from the treaty.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, in a technical legal sense, I believe that is the way it is interpreted. I might also make another point, just to correct something--and we can have this debate later if you want to-- but it is not true that no changes qualitatively or quantitatively in U.S. missile defenses will occur until after the 10 years that this treaty will be enforced. In fact, one of the most critical questions is whether the GBI systems we have deployed in Alaska and California will be available to be deployed in Europe or on the East Coast or somewhere else in 2015 or whether that will be delayed until 2017. So, clearly, there are--and those are the systems that would be potentially effective against a Russian ICBM.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, the answer to the question is, if the Senate, which is supposed to provide its advice and consent--in other words, it is the other half of the equation to the Presidency, and if we are not to be a rubberstamp, and presumably we can take seriously our responsibility to make changes in the treaty or the preamble--if that is our judgment and if we do that, if we eliminate these words in the McCain-Barrasso amendment from the preamble, then the Russians would have to decide either to accept that change or they would negotiate something with the administration that would then be resubmitted, that is correct, and/or there also could be a side agreement that would be entered into.

Mr. KYL. I am not questioning the President's sincerity or his honesty or his current intentions. But nobody can predict the future. President Obama is smart, but he can't predict out into the future the kinds of things that could be implicated as a result of the agreements that are reached. To finish my point, the whole problem with this is that the Russians are attempting to create a ground for claiming the legal right, as both of us interpret the term in the treaty, to withdraw from the treaty. Why? For only one reason. It is not to create flexibility, as the Senator said. They have the flexibility. It is to create the pressure to apply on this President, or a future President, not to do what we may want to do because of the concern by the Russians as to how that will affect them. I don't think one can deny the significance and importance of that kind of diplomatic pressure. When we are asking the Russians to help us with the Iranians or North Korea or some other situation, they can say: That's fine except you are trying to do something we don't like in missile defense and then the President doesn't want to have them withdraw from the treaty and would like their cooperation on something else. These things matter. In the area of diplomacy, you cannot ignore words in a preamble, though it may not be legally binding. Even as my colleague says, they are so important they could be a treaty killer. Incidentally, I would like to correct something else. I think I am right on this issue. If we modify the treaty in this regard, I think the question to the Duma is, Do you want to accept this? It is not that we have to go back to negotiations. As a practical matter, we might well do that in order to smooth the relationships. But I think the treaty is sent to the Duma with whatever understandings or amendments we attach to it.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, do I have the time?

Mr. KYL. Let me jump in on a couple of points. First of all, it is in my opinion it is incorrect to suggest that the phased adaptive approach is superior to the ground-based or GBI approach. I know there are people in the military who came up here and testified that it was a good idea to do that. Secretary Gates himself said that. I believe, however, if one understood the debate fully, one would appreciate that this was also a political decision made by the President and influenced by other considerations. This administration has never liked the GBI that the Bush administration developed. It is my opinion that the GBI is more effective than the phased adaptive approach, especially since the administration is not talking about deploying but merely having available the fourth stage. But GBI is a more effective system. We could have that debate, and I am happy to have that at another time. All I was trying to suggest is that the decision to remove GBI from the plan for Poland and substitute this other approach that is available at a later time, and, in my view, less effective, and also not have the GBI as a contingent backup until 2017, rather than 2015, were mistakes on our part at least, and at worst were decisions made to placate the Russians. That would not be a good thing. I am simply trying to illustrate the fact that some believe that already in an effort to try to placate the Russians--maybe that is not the right word--try to act in concert with their wishes--choose to characterize it however you wish--the United States has pulled its punches on missile defense. I don't want that to happen. With this construct, I am afraid that is the kind of influence they would bring to bear. I will ask my colleague a question. Do I understand the Senator to say that if the United States, for example, attaches understandings and conditions to this treaty, if the Senate were to ratify it, and if we make a change in the preamble, that the treaty does not go to the Russian Duma with those conditions or understandings and the change in the preamble but, rather, has to go back to some negotiating process? I thought the process was that the Russian Duma could add its own conditions or understandings and could either accept or reject the treaty as it came to them from the Senate.

Mr. KYL. I appreciate that clarification. I hope my colleague is not suggesting that, under no circumstances, should the Senate ever change a treaty so that the other party to the treaty would have to, in effect--well, the Senate would never be able to change a treaty. Put it that way.

Mr. KYL. That is my point exactly. If it is no more than that, I cannot imagine that it would be a treaty killer for the Russians unless there was something else afoot. And that something else--they deem it very important. Why? This is the legal grounds for them to withdraw from the treaty. That is the point. This is precisely what Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, said. Linkage to missile defense is clearly spelled out in the accord and is legally binding and they talked about their ability to withdraw under article XIV based upon the U.S. improvement of our missile defense qualitatively or quantitatively. That is why it is so important to the Russians. I don't know if it is a treaty killer because I think there is so much else in this treaty the Russians want, they are not likely to walk away from this if that language is eliminated. But I do think it is important to them because they are trying--this is the first time they have been able to get their foot in the door and establish that linkage, even though in the preamble--not in the body, although they did put article V in there, which also confirms the linkage. It is so important to them that it may be a problem for ratification on their side because then they would not have established this binding legal right to withdraw from the treaty. Again, as Senator Kerry has pointed out, either side can make up a reason to withdraw from the treaty. But it is difficult for either side not to have a pretext, a legal pretext, and that is what they are creating here. The legal pretext is the United States developing a missile defense system that goes beyond what the Russians think it should vis-a-vis their strategic offensive capability. That is the whole point, and that is the reason for the amendment.

Mr. KYL. I have taken the time here, so I will yield the floor to Senators Sessions and Kerry, if they want to continue.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I plan to speak for about an hour for the benefit of scheduling, although I will only scratch the surface of what I will have to say about this treaty. Let me begin by talking about 14 or 15 specific things I intend to cover at some point when we have time during this debate and note that there will be amendments proposed that deal with many of the items I am going to be mentioning. First, I think it is important for us to lay out what some of the concerns are. This morning when I talked about the fact that the Senate is going to have to deal with the funding of the U.S. Government which expires on midnight on Saturday, I noted the fact that the process the majority leader has invoked, to dual-track or consider the START treaty along with the Omnibus appropriations bill, is not a process that allows adequate consideration of either, and the American people sent a signal in the last election that they didn't want us to continue this wasteful Washington spending spree we have been on. Yet the Omnibus appropriations bill, which I am not sure I could lift, will do exactly that. We ought to be focused on a process by which that can actually be considered with amendments. Under the way the majority leader has outlined our schedule, that does not appear to be possible. The first concern I have with respect to going to the START treaty at this time is that we are putting the cart before the horse. Our first job needs to be to ensure that the Federal Government doesn't run out of money at midnight on Saturday. Yet the majority leader has turned to the START treaty. Why? I think the obvious--at least one--answer is to divert attention from this big pile of spending that I am pointing to, 6,700 earmarks. If we are talking about the START treaty, we are not talking about the Omnibus appropriations bill. But the American people are talking about government spending. That is what we should be focusing our attention on. The problem now is that we are on the START treaty, and those of us who want to talk about this and want to amend it and believe we will be denied the opportunity to do so will be accused of not wanting to talk about the START treaty because that is what the majority leader has put on the Senate floor. And he will say: Gee, you have had all this time to talk about it. Why aren't you talking about it? That is part of what is wrong with the process. That is one of the reasons I have been saying you cannot do all these things and do them right. In addition, the majority leader said this morning we have other things he wants to consider before Christmas as well. There is no earthly way to do all this within the time we have. Let me mention some of the concerns I will be discussing with respect to the START treaty. I think one thing you have to talk about, first of all, is whether we are going to have sufficient time in order to do what needs to be done to both amend the treaty as well as the resolution of ratification and debate some of the issues, including the issue that my colleague from Massachusetts was just talking about. Secondly, what were the benefits of the treaty for the United States vis-a-vis Russia? What were the concessions we made to Russia? What do they get out of it? What do we get out of it? My own view is, they got virtually everything out of it, and I do not know what we got out of it, except for the President to say he made another arms control deal with Russia. Third, where will this treaty leave our nuclear forces, our delivery vehicles, and our warheads in terms of the deterrent capability not only for the United States but the 31 allies who rely on the U.S. nuclear umbrella? We will have cut our forces to the bone. Yet, interestingly, Russia will not be forced to make any reductions at all in these delivery vehicles for the nuclear warheads. Fourth--and there has been quite a bit of discussion in the media about my work on modernization--where does the administration's modernization plan end up relative to START? The point here is, if you are going to bring your nuclear warheads down to a bare minimum number or below that you have to make darn sure every single one of them is safe, secure and reliable and they will do what they are supposed to do and everybody needs to know that. But all the experts agree the facilities we have for taking care of our warheads and maintaining them are inadequate for that purpose, and they have to be modernized. Is the process and the amount of money that has been set aside for that adequate? I will discuss my views on that and the questions that remain about critical funding for the modernization of both our nuclear weapons and the complex necessary to sustain them. Fifth is the administration's uncertain commitment to the nuclear triad. This I find troubling because while they have committed to a modernization program, they have not yet committed to a program for the modernization of the three legs of the nuclear triad: the delivery systems, the ICBM force, the bomber force, accompanied by cruise missiles and our submarine force. I will be discussing the areas in which I think the commitments in that regard are insufficient and dangerous. Probably most interesting to a lot of people in this country, and certainly to a lot of our colleagues, is the question of what has occurred with respect to the relinking of strategic offense and defense capabilities. This is the missile defense concern. There is significantly divergent views between the United States and Russia on this question of what the treaty does or does not do with respect to missile defense. Both explicitly and impliedly, there are limitations on U.S. missile defense activities in the treaty. On the one hand, the Department of Defense has said the United States has plans for developing and deploying missile defense systems that will have adequate capability against ICBMs coming, for example, from Iran. If they have capability against those missiles, they also have capability against Russian missiles. On the other hand, the U.S. official policy statement that accompanied the treaty and subsequent briefings from the State Department assures the Russians that the United States will not deploy defenses that are capable of undermining the Russian deterrent. That is important because of the way the Russians interpret the preamble and other features of the treaty. Misunderstanding and conflict between the parties is thus built into the treaty if the United States intends to deploy more capable missiles either to defend Europe or the United States, which it is our stated policy to do. So are we to believe the administration will ever put this treaty at risk over future missile defense plans? That is a subject we will be exploring in-depth. Seventh, the Senate gave advice to the administration not to limit missile defense or conventional prompt global strike, which is a capability that would permit us to deliver over long ranges, intercontinental ranges, a warhead that is not a nuclear warhead, something which this administration and I think are very important for our future ability to deal with rogue states, for example. Nevertheless, contrary to Congress's instructions, the administration has subjected advanced U.S. conventional military capabilities to limitations in this treaty, and we will discuss that. Eight is something else. There are people who say there is nothing that stands between us and a nuclear-free world. It is called zero nuclear, the President's stated goal of a world without nuclear weapons. Some say this treaty needs to be adopted, ratified in order to permit us then to take the next step, which is to achieve that great goal. I submit that goal is neither feasible nor desirable, and that to the extent this treaty is deemed as a stepping stone toward that, it is a bad step to take. Moreover, it is an unwelcome distraction from addressing the true nuclear dangers the President has made very clear are his top priorities; that is, the dangers of proliferation and terrorism. Ninth is a question about verification, something Senator Bond has talked a great deal about and I am going to be speaking some about because of issues that arose during my trip with Senator Feinstein to Geneva during the time our negotiators were working on this treaty with their Russian counterparts. It is very clear that with lower force levels, we need better verification. But this New START treaty has substantially weaker verification provisions than its predecessor, START I. Of course, Russia has a history of cheating on every arms control treaty we have ever entered into with them, which amplifies the concern. There are some comparisons, and I would suggest they are false comparisons, to the SORT treaty, which is the 2002 treaty. It is called the Moscow Treaty; that is, the treaty that deals with our strategic offensive weapons after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the fall of the Soviet Union, and the determination by the United States and Russia both to simply bring down our nuclear forces. We did not need anymore the nuclear forces that existed during the Cold War. There are some false comparisons there that I think are very important for us to talk about as it relates to this treaty before us. I think we also need to talk about the New START and Russian reset. I will talk about that a little bit when I begin discussing the reasons for trying to act so quickly here. But I think it also requires some further discussion because, frankly, Russia is threatening a new arms race if the Senate does not ratify this treaty. Is that the reset the President is so fond of talking about, this new wonderful relationship with the Russian Federation? Twelfth, I think we need to talk about tactical nuclear weapons. The treaty did not deal with tactical nuclear weapons, and respected Members of this body, including the Vice President of the United States, then a Senator, made clear that after the last treaty the next item on the agenda had to be to deal with tactical nuclear weapons. It should have been, but it was not done here. Thirteenth--and this deals with some of the amendments that are going to be necessary--there is a Commission in here that somewhat like previous treaty commissions--it is called the Bilateral Consultative Commission--and the treaty delegates to this Commission the ability, even in secret, to modify terms of the treaty--a group of Russians and a group of U.S. negotiators. There is some reference in the committee's resolution of ratification, but, in my view, it is inadequate for the Senate to be able to react in time to notification by that Commission of things it is intending to do in time for the Senate to provide its advice and consent, if those are necessary. Then, as I mentioned, it is also important for us to determine how this treaty is distracting attention from what the President has said, and I agree, is our top priority; that is, dealing with proliferation and terrorism. This treaty does not do anything to advance our goals in that respect, and I think it would be much better if we could have spent part of the last 2 years better focusing on the illegal nuclear weapons programs of Iran and North Korea and why that should be our top agenda item right now. Those are some of the things I am going to be talking about. I will not have time to deal with all of them during this first hour. But let me at least briefly talk about the question of adequate time. I do not think Senators are quite aware of some of the procedures that exist with respect to treaty ratification. Because of precedent in the Senate, when cloture is filed, it will close off debate both on amendments to the treaty and the preamble, as well as amendments to the resolution of ratification. I think it is important to note there are amendments that Members, at least on our side, have that go both to the treaty and preamble and also amendments that deal with the resolution of ratification. In fact, I think there are many more that deal with the latter subject. We are going to have to be able to deal with both of those subject matters. So when Members talk about filing cloture, I think it is important to realize that would cut off debate on every additional change, even if we have not been able to complete work on the amendments to the resolution of ratification. Also, I think it should be clear that there have been numerous letters sent to our leadership in the Senate and to the committee leadership from Republican Members of the Foreign Relations Committee, other Republican Senators, the 10 Republican Senators- elect, Representatives from the House Armed Services Committee, and others, indicating this is not the appropriate time or way to deal with this treaty. Incidentally, I happened to be watching Chris Matthews the other night--a television program--and Lawrence Eagleburger, one of the people who support the treaty, was asked by Matthews what the fuss was about getting it done now and, among other things, this is what Lawrence Eagleburger, former Secretary of State, said: They want to do it before these lame duckers are out there. That's not the way to move on this issue. I agree with that. There are a lot of serious things to consider, and the rush to do all the business this lameduck session has is not the best way to get that done. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday expressed the view that we had plenty of time to do this, comparing the work we have here to the START I treaty. The START I treaty is the predecessor to this New START treaty, though there was the intervening 2002 Moscow Treaty I mentioned before. But just to make two quick points on this: When we dealt with START I, we did not have all the competing considerations, the dual tracking with an Omnibus appropriations bill and the votes we are going to have to take on that, as well as the other items the majority leader has mentioned. Secondly, if we are to talk about an analogous treaty, the START treaty was not considered by the Senate until September of 1992, and the analogy would be that this treaty before us now would be appropriate to bring to the Senate next May, May of 2011. That is how much time elapsed between the two. I am not suggesting we need that much more time, but I am simply pointing out the fact that it is not analogous. Probably a better analogy would be the INF Treaty. That is a treaty that took the Senate 9 days of floor time. We had no intervening business of any kind. There were 20 votes on amendments and plenty of time to work out consideration of other amendments. So the idea that, well, some treaties have not taken that long, therefore, why can't we do this one, is a specious argument, and I think when we see the serious issues that need to be considered, our colleagues will appreciate the need to take adequate time on this agreement. One of the curious arguments is, we have to do this quickly because the verification provisions of the predecessor START I treaty have lapsed and, as a result, we have a situation that is untenable. As a matter of fact, Robert Gibbs, the Press Secretary, believing that the Senate yesterday was reading the treaty, which did not happen, nevertheless put out a statement, obviously prematurely, and one of the things he said was: Every minute that the START Treaty is being read on the Senate floor increases the time that we lack verification of Russia's nuclear arsenal. Well, apart from the fact that he was wrong about the reading of the treaty, he is also wrong about the urgency because of the lack of verification of the Russians. First of all, I am confused by the two main arguments to support the treaty. No. 1, we have this wonderful relationship with the Russians that has been reset and we are cooperating on all of these things. By the way, we can't trust those guys so we quickly have to put these verification measures in place. There is something that doesn't quite connect there as far as I am concerned. But I go back to why we don't have verification right now. This story reminds me a little bit about the trial of a fellow who killed both of his parents and then pled for mercy from the court because he was an orphan. This problem of verification was created by the administration. It has nothing to do with action by the Senate, and they have nothing but themselves to blame for whatever verification procedures are not in place. How did that come about? Well, the START treaty had perfectly good verification provisions in it that could have been continued for another 5 years if the United States had taken the view with Russia that that is what we should do. But the administration said, no, we are going to deliver the START treaty on time so there won't be any hiatus there, so we don't need to continue the verification provisions of START I. Here is what was said in a joint statement between President Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, on April 1 of 2009: The United States and the Russian Federation intend to conclude this agreement before the treaty expires in December. Originally, we had nothing to worry about because the new treaty would be done by then. It soon became evident that wasn't going to happen, the negotiations were dragging, and the treaty would expire. Did this administration decide to try to continue the existing treaty-- which it could have done? It just takes the United States and Russia agreeing to do it, no Senate action required. No, it didn't do that. Several of us began to express concerns about this. The Republican ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even introduced legislation to provide the necessary legal framework for verification to continue even though the two treaties had lapsed, and I cosponsored that legislation. The administration said, well, what we are going to do is get a bridging agreement with Russia that will bridge the time between the time START lapses and the time the new treaty is ratified. Michael McFaul, the NSC adviser for Russia, in a press briefing on November 15 of 2009 made that point. He said: It does expire on December 5 and in parallel, we have a bridging agreement that we are also working on with the Russians, so there is no interruption. The key thing here is verification. We just want to preserve the verification. So that was the intention. Those of us who expressed concerns about this were at least, I think, somewhat mollified, except that when I went to Geneva, what we found was there had been no conversations whatsoever, and it appeared to me--I came back to the floor and actually called it malpractice--that our negotiators and the Russian negotiators had not thought about, let alone begun, to negotiate what kind of agreement would be put in place in the event the treaty expired and nothing else was in place to provide for verification. But at least they promised we would have this bridging agreement. Then the administration said--when the treaty was signed and the two Presidents spoke to the issue--that we would continue in the spirit of the previous treaty so there would be no difference in action between the two countries in whatever time period it took for the ratification of the treaty to occur by the two countries' bodies. This is a quotation from the statement of Presidents Medvedev and Obama: We express our commitment as a matter of principle to continue to work together in the spirit of the START Treaty following its expiration, as well as our firm intention to ensure that a New START Treaty and strategic arms enter into force at the earliest possible date. It is a complete mystery as to what happened. What happened to the bridging agreement? What happened to this spirit of cooperation we were going to continue in the spirit of the previous treaty? We are now told it is an absolute emergency for the Senate to hurry up and ratify this treaty because the Russians might cheat. Nobody has explained what happened here and nobody has explained why it was important before, but it never got done, and now we have the emergency. There were documents that trickled in over time, but one of the things we have asked for to try to explain what happened and what this spirit is that the Presidents both talked about was the negotiating record. We have absolutely been denied access to that negotiating record. The Russians know what we said and what they said. The State Department knows what we said and what they said, but Senators who are asked to give their advice and consent can't be trusted, I guess, to know what was said between the Russian and U.S. negotiators. Numerous officials of the administration have said there is an urgency to ratify the treaty because we lack verification measures with Russia. That was the statement Senator Clinton made back in August and others have said the same thing. Of course, we do have some verification, but I don't want to get into in open session the national technical means we have. We can discuss that in executive session. But apart from the mystery about this bridging agreement and the commitment of the two Presidents, this urgency is irrational if we are to believe that we really reset this relationship with Russia. In fact, administration officials have actually denied that the emergency exists, a point that has been made by others. Gary Samore, who is special assistant to the President, said: I am not particularly worried near term, but over time as the Russians are modernizing their systems and starting to deploy new systems, the lack of inspections will create much more uncertainty. Absolutely true. I agree with that. But he is not worried in the near term; that is to say, within the next few months. The Washington Post I thought put it well. In an editorial they said: But no calamity will befall the United States if the Senate does not act this year. The Cold War threat of the nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow is, for now, almost nonexistent. So I don't think it is a valid argument to rush this treaty through in the week before Christmas, that somehow this is an urgent need and that our national security is threatened if we don't do that. I also reject the argument that the only choice for us is this treaty or no treaty. Obviously, there are other choices. When it comes to verification, both countries have the ability to have agreements with each other that provide for the kind of inspection regimes that would be appropriate. Let me conclude at this point. Ian Kelly, who is a State Department spokesman, made a comment that I think sums it up. He said: Both sides pledge not to take any measures that would undermine the strategic stability that the START has provided during this period between the expiration of the START treaty and entering into the force of the new treaty, which will take some months. He is right. But I think the argument that the Senate has to act now--right now--or else our national security is going to be jeopardized by lack of verification is specious, and it certainly raises questions if we are to examine what the real basis is and what the result of this new reset relationship with Russia is. That is the argument: We have to do this now, because otherwise we won't be able to verify what the Russians are doing. The other argument is that we reset our relationship with Russia and, therefore, if we don't do this, it will make the Russians mad and they will not continue to cooperate with us on important matters they have cooperated with us on. I think it is important to both examine that allegation as well as the question of what the two countries got out of this treaty. Let me speak for a moment about what the Russians got out of the treaty and what the United States purportedly gets out of the treaty, most of it characterized in this reset language. Russian politician Sergei Kurginyan said: Russia could not have an easier partner on the topic of nuclear arms than Obama. He is referring to President Obama. What exactly did the Russians get out of this? Some said, Well, even though they are no longer a powerful nation they need the superpower status, and entering into a treaty such as this, such as the kinds of treaties that used to be entered into during the Cold War, gives them a feeling of superpower status along with the United States. So it is important for us to do that. First of all, I am not sure you treat a serious reset partner that way, but apart from that, obviously, the Russians felt that if they could negotiate a good treaty with the United States, it would be to their benefit, and I don't question their intentions in doing that. But what we got out of this in terms of the primary feature of the treaty is to reduce the nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles. The delivery vehicles are the most important thing, in my view. But only the United States reduces its strategic delivery vehicles under this New START treaty. The Russians don't. They currently have about 560 delivery vehicles. These are ICBMs, bomber capability, and submarine capability. The United States has 856. The treaty takes you down to 700 of deployed delivery vehicles. So even under the treaty, Russia can build up to that level by adding 140 launchers they don't currently have, while the United States must cut our forces by 156. One says, Well, why shouldn't it be exactly equal? The United States has obligations beyond those of Russia. Russia has a need to defend its territory. The United States has 31 other countries relying on the U.S. nuclear umbrella. Therefore, the targets we must hold at risk and the concerns we have about adequate delivery vehicles are much different than Russia's. Nonetheless, we have agreed to a parity number here of 700. So they can build up to that number; we have to build down. That is not exactly a great victory, in my view. In fact, it is the first time since the very disastrous Washington naval treaties with Germany and Japan before World War II that the United States has agreed to one- sided reductions in military might. I mentioned the bridging agreement before. Where that fell through the cracks, I don't know. The administration was apparently pushing for it. It didn't get it. We still don't know what happened because we haven't been given the record. On mobile missiles, this is a matter that exercised the Russians when the committee dealt with it in a very modest way in its resolution of ratification. You see, the Russians have had rail mobile missile plans and don't know exactly what they are going to do in the future with rail mobile, but when the committee deigned to speak to this, the Russians reacted like a scalded dog: Well, we recommend the Duma not approve the treaty if we are going to be talking about rail mobile missiles. What about the United States in contention? We shouldn't be talking about U.S. missile defense. No, that is OK, but we don't want to talk about rail mobile missiles. So the Russians successfully prevented any revisions on that and there is maybe a concern now that we made a mistake in not including that. Obviously, the concession makes it much harder to monitor their forces if they go with rail mobile forces. In addition, we limited the monitors of missile production at Votkinsk. Votkinsk was the missile production facility in Russia that produced many of the missiles the Russians used and this was required by the START I treaty. The Russians didn't want this anymore. I can understand why. If we are going to understand what they are producing in their factory and see what happens when they roll them outside the factory, then we will have a better idea of whether they are cheating. The Russians said from the very beginning, We are not going to let you do that anymore. So they got something very important with regard to verification. Again, the argument is we have to do verification. Understand that verification in this treaty is much weaker than the verification that existed under START I and that could have been continued for another 5 years if the administration had taken that position. Very troublesome is a reverse in course by the United States and Russia both with regard to MIRVing of ICBMs. We have been working against MIRVing for a long time and finally achieved in the last treaty a recognition of the fact that MIRVed missiles; that is to say, missiles that have numerous warheads on top, are very destabilizing because it creates a situation where you basically have to use them or you lose them. If we attack a missile silo and kill eight warheads all at once with one strike, that is a major loss. So the idea is that strategic offensive weapons with those MIRVs on them need to get off before they are hit by an incoming missile. Very destabilizing. So both countries agreed we would move toward a single warhead missile. Well, in this treaty, that all goes by the boards. The United States is going to continue to provide for single warheads, but not Russia. In fact, it is believed that 80 percent of the Russian ICBM force in the future will consist of MIRVed ICBMs. I don't know why the administration walked back from that. Again, we don't know because we don't have the negotiating record. The SLCM is the submerged launch cruise missile. Now, the START I treaty had a side agreement that limited submerged launch cruise missiles. But this new START treaty ends that side agreement and says even though the United States is retiring our submerged launch cruise missiles, as we intended to do under START I, it appears that Russia is developing a new version of such a missile, with a range of up to approximately 5,000 kilometers, which is a longer range than some ballistic missiles covered by the treaty. Again, why do we allow a relinkage of a subject as important to us as missile defense with strategic arms limitations and yet not limit rail mobile, SLCMs, and so on? It is a very lopsided result in the negotiations, it seems to me. I mentioned missile defense. Russia not only achieved a recognition of its position that missile defense is related to strategic offensive systems in the preamble of this treaty, but it negotiated limitations on U.S. missile defense in article V. Importantly, it added some what I will call ``bullying'' language in the unilateral statement accompanying the treaty. These achievements came after the U.S. gave away ground-based European systems and promised the Senate there would be no treaty limitations on defensive missiles. Missile defense targets is another area in which the U.S. gave ground. There is ambiguous treaty language which I believe will constrain U.S. ability to maximize the affordability of our missile defense targets. We are not going to be able to reuse old targets. Telemetry is a big issue the U.S. fought hard on but apparently caved on. We don't have the record, so we don't know what kind of quid pro quo could have been gotten for this. Under START I, one of the most valuable collection methods was the unencrypted telemetry from missile tests by the Russians. They got that from our missile tests. We both knew the capability of each other's missiles. In a sense, that is stabilizing. But under New START, which is supposed to be improving the situation with regard to certainty, unencrypted data from almost every ballistic missile flight will be not subject to sharing with the other side. At best, five flights a year will be shared. But Russia can choose to never share flight test data from new missiles they are currently developing and testing. They can say here is data from five tests of old missiles, but they don't have to share data as to any of their new missiles. None of our intelligence people will tell you that is an improvement or a good situation. Here is another disparity in the treaty: conventional prompt global strike. Remember I mentioned the Russian potential plans for rail mobile or cruise missile submarine launch. I think the United States has a very good idea about moving forward with something we call conventional prompt global strike. It is not even a nuclear program. It is a sensible way to deal with some of the emerging threats around the world today, where we may have a need, in a very quick time and over a long distance, to send a conventional warhead to a country. We may not want to have to send a nuclear warhead--Heaven knows what that would start--but it makes sense to have a conventional capability to do this. The Russians have fought that. It is a little unclear why, since it would totally be aimed at other countries, certainly not Russia. In a treaty nominally about nuclear weapons, we have a specific limitation on the U.S. plans for conventional prompt global strike. It would limit the capability we are seeking to address WMD and terrorist threats by requiring that any such missiles be counted against the already-too-low limit of 700 missiles for delivery of nuclear warheads. Let's say we were going to deploy 24 of these missiles--to decide a number. That means you have to reduce the 700 by 24. That provides a huge disincentive to deploying these conventional prompt global strike missiles and a dangerous reduction from a negotiated 700 launcher limit in the treaty. I am not going to get deeply into inspections and verifications. That will have to be dealt with in executive closed session where we can discuss classified matters. Suffice it to say here, in discussing the disparity between what the Russians got and what we got, in a number of inspections this new treaty cuts the number of inspections by more than half compared to START I. Part of the problem is that none of the inspections that are permitted will ever enable us to have a good sense of the total number of warheads. So that is different from the START I treaty. We are never going to be able to monitor, under this treaty, whether the Russians are complying with the overall limit on warheads. Again, we will have to get more into that in executive session. I talked about tactical nukes. I mentioned the fact that when he was a Senator, Vice President Biden made remarks during ratification of the 2002 Moscow Treaty. He said: After entry into force of the Moscow Treaty, getting a handle on Russian tactical nuclear weapons must be a top arms control and nonproliferation objective of the United States Government. Well, here it is 8 years later, and not only is there no further progress toward that--and I agree with the Vice President--but this treaty, at the insistence of the Russians, has not one word about tactical nuclear weapons. I will be discussing that in more detail later on. I just mention it here to illustrate yet another area where it seems to me there is a great disparity. I didn't count up all of these things, but there have to be 10 or 12 areas in which the Russians have gotten very much what they bargained for. The question is, What did we get? We are told that we benefit for the following reasons: We can resume inspections in Russia. As I said, we could have done that by extending the START I treaty. That is a problem of our own making. By allowing that to expire and not renewing or putting into place a bridging agreement or enforcing the joint statement the two Presidents put together in working together in the spirit of START I, the inspections are significantly weaker, as I said. I will quote Senator Bond. He said: The administration's new START Treaty has been oversold and overhyped. If we cannot verify that the Russians are complying with each of the treaty's three central limits, then we have no way of knowing whether we are more secure or not. There is no doubt in my mind that the United States cannot reliably verify the treaty's 1,550 limit on deployed warheads. Senator Bond is exactly right. We will discuss some of that in open session and the rest of it in closed session. I will conclude this point by noting that the Vice President and others have also suggested that this treaty is important for the United States because it is a valuable part of the so-called reset relationship with the Russians. I have to ask several questions about this. Why have we assumed this has been such a great success? My colleague, Senator Durbin, for example, stated a couple of weeks ago that we need Russia's help in dealing with Iran because that nation is about to bring online a new nuclear powerplant. I remind everybody that Russia built and fueled that powerplant for Iran. So that is a great benefit to this reset relationship. We will have more to say about that as well. I will conclude this part by quoting from Dr. Henry Kissinger, who believes the treaty should be ratified. He said: The argument for this treaty is not to placate Russia. That is not the reason to approve this treaty. Under no condition should a treaty be made as a favor to another country, or to make another country feel better. It has to be perceived to be in the American national interest. So what are the two big arguments for the treaty? We have to get this verification regime in place because the Russians may cheat. Well, I guess they are our new best friends and we have to keep it that way or else they will get mad. Dr. Kissinger wrote before about this matter of what should motivate us to do an arms control treaty. He said every arms control treaty has to be justified within its own four corners. You can never say a reason to do it is to make the other country feel better or to gain some kind of leverage with the other country or to gain its cooperation in some way. A, it is illegitimate; and, B, it doesn't work. He made that point precisely with respect to this. He is saying that is not a reason to endorse this treaty. I conclude that the two big arguments are not arguments at all, and, in point of fact, the Russians got a lot more out of this treaty than the United States ever would. I spoke a little bit about the treaty limits because this is the central idea of the treaty--to reduce the number of warheads and delivery vehicles. I wanted to discuss that in this context because there are a lot of people who believe--and I certainly understand the argument--that it seems like a good idea if both countries are reducing nuclear weapons forces and warheads. That was exactly the theory under the Moscow Treaty of 2002. We didn't need that many warheads and delivery vehicles. The United States said: We are just going to reduce ours; and Russia said: We have to reduce ours, too, so why don't we have a treaty. The United States said: We can have one, but we don't need one; we are going to do this out of our own best interests because it costs a lot of money. As a favor to Russia, we said: If you want to do a treaty, fine, but we will not make any concessions to do it. Now we are cutting into the bone and getting the level of delivery vehicles down to 700 could jeopardize our ability to carry out our missions. That is my assertion. There are experts in the administration who have briefed us, who can show exactly where the targets are, where our missiles are, how many we would need, and so on. They say actually we still have enough to do the job. I am willing to accept their, first of all, patriotic motivations, expertise, and judgment on this issue. But I also note that when you read all of the statements that all of them made, they appreciate that this is it--this is the limit beyond which we don't dare go. It rests upon several assumptions, including the assumptions that the Russians are never going to break out or cheat. It rests on the assumption that we don't have new targets that we have to worry about. I suggest, especially with respect to the Chinese development and modernization of its nuclear force, and the role it is beginning to play in the world militarily, it is not necessarily a valid assumption that the targets that existed during the Cold War are all that we will ever have to worry about. Let me talk briefly about this matter of how we have brought down the number of warheads and missiles, and why it is not necessarily the great thing that the proponents are cracking it up to be. The first point I will reiterate: We did all the giving; they did the taking. We have to reduce the number of our delivery vehicles, and they can actually build up theirs. At the signing of the treaty, Russia had a total of 640 strategic delivery vehicles, with only 571 of them deployed. That is according to the Moscow defense briefing in 2010 about their missiles and delivery vehicles. Aleksey Arbatov, a former deputy chairman of the Duma Defense Committee said: The new treaty is an agreement reducing the American and not the Russian strategic nuclear forces. In fact, the latter will be reduced in any case because of the mass removal from the order of battle of obsolete arms and the one-time introduction of new systems. We believe his statement is correct. I am worried that we have gotten very close to the line. Nothing has changed since 2008 except that the Chinese have been working hard at their modernization. That is when the Bush administration testified that the current level--the levels we have today, not the levels we are going down to--were necessary for deterrence. I could quote from Secretary Bodman and Secretary Gates who spoke to that issue in September of 2008 to make that point. General Cartwright, Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, who supports the treaty, testified that in 2009 he would be concerned about having fewer than 800 delivery vehicles. I am quoting: From about 1,100 down to about 500--500 being principally where the Russians would like to be, and 1,100 being principally where we would like to be, now the negotiation starts. I would be very concerned if we got down below those levels, about midpoint. Secretary Schlesinger said: As to the stated context of strategic nuclear weapons, the numbers specified are adequate, though barely so. Those are the views of experts. Dr. Kissinger, who testified in support of the treaty, said this: [T]he numbers of American and Russian strategic warheads and delivery systems have been radically reduced and are approaching levels where the arsenals of other countries will bear on a strategic balance, as will tactical nuclear weapons, particularly given the great asymmetry in their numbers in Russia's favor. There are two things he is talking about. First, as Russia and the United States bring our forces down, there is a certain point--I am not suggesting we are there yet, but there is a certain point that countries, such as China, for example, can say: Wait a minute, there is now not that much difference between where Russia and China are--Russia and the United States are and where we are, and therefore, if we just build ours up somewhat, we can be at virtual parity with Russia and the United States, and, voila, instead of having two powers with a large number of nuclear warheads, you then have three. So there is an incentive for countries like that to build up once we get down to a certain point. The other point he makes is with respect to tactical weapons. Tactical does not really relate to the amount of boom the weapon makes, its destructive capabilities, so much as the delivery vehicle it is on. The Russians have a significant advantage in that, as Secretary Kissinger pointed out. So there is an asymmetry that exists both with respect to warheads and delivery vehicles. General Chilton, when he talked about support for New START, predicated it on no Russian cheating or changes in the geopolitical environment. I would like to read his quotation. He said: It was decided . . . we would just fix that [Presidential guidance] for our analysis of the force structure for the START negotiations. And so that's how we moved forward. . . . The only assumptions we had to make with regard to the new NPR, which was, of course, in development in parallel at the time [with the START treaty] was that there would be no request for increase in forces. And there was also an assumption that I think is valid, and that is that the Russians in the post-negotiation time period would be compliant with the treaty. He assumes they are going to be, in other words. But those are the two assumptions on which we had to base a reduction down to this level. I think Senators should ask themselves whether they agree with these assessments in light of the facts that Russia does continue to modernize its force, as does China; that more nuclear forces in those countries necessarily means more potential targets for the United States to hold at risk; and that Russia has violated practically every arms control treaty it signed with the United States; and taking into account what hangs in the balance--the commitment of the United States not only to our 31 allies and the nuclear umbrella we have but also the protection of the United States with our nuclear deterrent. We have little to gain and much to lose if we can't be certain the numbers in New START are adequate. Let me conclude this point by talking about some counting rules. This is a little esoteric and gets down into the weeds, but it is important to understand in the context of what I am talking about. Under the treaty, strategic stability may be weakened because there is not a specified loadout of reentry vehicles per missile. That is what we used to have. The counting rules in the treaty present opportunities for allowable cheating that the United States is not likely to pursue--in fact, I would say we will not pursue--but which could give Russia an advantage. While the United States improves stability in our ICBM force by eliminating the MIRVing I talked about before, Russia will become more reliant on MIRVed ICBMs, and, again, that is destabilizing because it encourages first-strike planning for fixed silo weapons--the ``use it or lose it'' problem. The Chairman of our Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mullen, said: The United States will ``de-MIRV'' the Minuteman III ICBM force to a single warhead to enhance the stability of the nuclear balance. So why would we, then, encourage the Russians to go exactly the opposite direction in this treaty? Let me quote again. This is from a Russian forces blog, November 30, 2010: The commander of the Strategic Rocket Forces, Lt.-General Sergei Karakayev, announced today that all new mobile Topol-M missiles will carry multiple warheads. This modification of the missile is officially known as the Yars or RS-24. The first three RS-24 missiles were deployed in Teykovo earlier this year. That is what I was referring to before, and that promotes strategic instability, not stability. Finally, due to the bomber accounting rules, at least one Russian military commentator has noted: Under the treaty, one nuclear warhead will be counted for each deployed heavy bomber which can carry 12 to 234 missiles or bombs depending on its type. Consequently, Russia will retain 2,100 warheads. Might I inquire how close I am to using the 60 minutes I had intended to speak?

Mr. KYL. I appreciate that there is no time limit on my speaking and I appreciate there is no time limit on my time, but I have an engagement at noon and, second, I did not want to be out here on the floor talking for too long.

Mr. KYL. I will be happy to respond. Part of the business of the Senate on the treaty is to expose its flaws and to have a robust debate about those flaws, which can provide the foundation for amendments which we intend to offer. I was struck by the seriousness and importance, at least in my mind, of the two-page list of amendments my staff acquired from colleagues. As my colleague knows, we actually shared a list of 10 or 12 amendments that I had thought about, and actually some of my colleagues--in fact, we had a couple-of-hour conversation about that one morning to see if we could reach agreement on any of them, which we were not able to do. But there are some very serious amendments, most of which go to the resolution of ratification, and a few go to the treaty or the preamble itself. I note that yesterday my colleague said--I think I am quoting him correctly--``Make no mistake, we will not allow an amendment to the treaty or the preamble.'' Maybe there are the votes to not allow that. But I do think it is important for us, in this discussion, before offering such an amendment, to appreciate why we believe such an amendment would be important. As my colleague well knows, there is a great deal that can be said about this. I am trying to say it in as succinct a form as I can.

Mr. KYL. But there is a great deal of discussion that needs to occur for a predicate for the amendments we intend to offer.

Mr. KYL. I appreciate my colleague's comment. I note that I think the reason the Russians are going to MIRVing is--at least the primary reason is exactly as Senator Kerry has stated. They have financial limitations on what they can do here, but I don't think one can deny that the result of it is strategic instability compared to moving toward a single warhead missile, such as the United States has been doing and will continue to do. What I wanted to do in this segment of my remarks before I conclude-- and I will advise my colleagues that the next thing I intend to be talking about is the administration's commitment to the nuclear triad, but I don't think I am going to have time to get to that. I would like to conclude now with some comments about modernization. It has been well known that I have been involved in negotiations with the administration regarding modernization. My colleague and friend, Senator Kerry, has been very helpful, I might say, in occasionally restarting those conversations when they got bogged down a little bit and was helpful--and I specifically have complimented him before and will do it again--in ensuring that the President's increase in the budget for our nuclear modernization program that was in his budget this year will actually be carried out in the funding the Congress does. We had to do a continuing resolution back in September, and I think it was largely due to Senator Kerry's efforts that that funding was included. I just note that we have had a lot of concern back and forth about whether there is a real commitment to get that done over the years. Obviously, both of us appreciate the fact that no one can guarantee anything, but there is a certain amount of good will and commitment involved here, and certainly the administration needs to be very actively involved in ensuring that the funding required for its modernization program actually comes to pass. I note that the continuing resolution as passed by the House of Representatives unfortunately conditioned this funding Senator Kerry and I were responsible for--conditioned it on the ratification of the START treaty, saying: If you don't ratify the treaty, you are not going to get the money. Thankfully, a couple of administration officials relatively quickly pushed back on that and said: No, that is not right. The treaty stands on its own, and the modernization program stands on its own, and this funding is necessary. That is the kind of pushback on what might otherwise be rather petty politics that is going to be required by all of us who understand that modernization is critical in the future. With that belief predicate, let me state what the problem has been and generally how we went about trying to correct or solve the problem. The United States, believe it or not--and this is the fault of Republican and Democratic administrations and Republican and Democratic Members of Congress--it is a negligence, I would say a gross negligence on all of our parts. I take some of the blame for not having yelled about this more than I have. But at the same time that every other nuclear power is modernizing its forces, both its facilities and its capability to maintain its weapons, its weapons, and, in the case of the Russians and the Chinese, their delivery systems as well--while every one of them has a capacity to do that, to actually produce a warhead to put back into production when one comes out of production, the United States does not. The country that literally invented these weapons with the Manhattan Project is still using Manhattan Project-- that is 1942, in case you have forgotten--era buildings to take care of these most sophisticated weapons. If you were to liken it to a car, it would be like a Ferrari race car or Formula 1 race car, highly technical--I don't think you would want to refurbish those in somebody's old backyard garage. The bottom line is that these facilities have to be brought up to modern standards to be able to modernize our weapons over time. Why do the weapons have to be modernized? Generally speaking, these are weapons that were designed in the 1970s, built in the 1980s, and built to last 10 years. Do the math. We are still relying on those weapons. What we found, even though we have cut way back on the funding for what we call surveillance--that is to say, taking a look at several of these weapons every year, taking the skin off, looking down inside, seeing what is rusty and what is loose and so on, to use an analogy to a car maybe--what we found is that there are significant issues with these weapons that need to be addressed if our commanders and labs are to continue to be able to secure them as safe, secure, and reliable, as they must. So we need the facilities in which to bring these sophisticated weapons in, take them apart, make sure they are put back together properly with all the requisite either new parts or reused parts or whatever is necessary to continue to allow them to work and get them back into production. The timeline on this is more than critical. Suffice it to say in this open session of Congress that we dare not waste any more time at all. I think that is one of the reasons why the President's advisers from the laboratories and the Department of Defense and Energy presented this to the President and his nuclear posture review. In the modernization plan he developed, there is a very firm commitment on his part to move forward with this, because no time can be wasted. To give you one illustration, when we left one of the facilities we had examined--we have been to each of these facilities and we have talked to the people there, and we were given a little souvenir from one of them. It is encased in plastic, a little vacuum tube. It is a vacuum tube such as those that came out of our black-and-white TVs back in the 1960s, I guess. It is still being used in a component of one of our weapons, and they are replacing it with circuit boards, of course. That is the kind of thing that needs to be modernized in these weapons. So what is it going to take to do it? Well, the Congress, understanding that we had to get about this, in the last Defense bill put in a requirement that the President prepare a plan. It is named after the section of the bill, which was 1251. That section of the bill now is the nomenclature for the plan, the 1251 plan for modernizing our forces. This followed a speech Secretary Gates made. Let me quote from the speech and then get into a little bit of the detail here. He said: To be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program. That was pretty much the genesis, that and the so-called Perry- Schlesinger Commission, which ran the red flag up the flagpole to get this program moving. So in fiscal year 2010, the Obama administration devoted $6.4 billion to nuclear weapon activities, but it has acknowledged that that is a loss of purchasing power of about 20 percent, from 2005--this is by the administration's own calculations. So we knew from the very beginning there was not enough money in the plan to get the job done. In December, a year ago, 41 Senators--this is before Scott Brown, I might add, joined us--wrote a letter to the President stating: Funding for such a modernization program beginning in earnest in your FY 11 budget is needed as the U.S. considers the further nuclear weapon reductions proposed in the START follow-on negotiations. To make a long story short, the administration had a 10-year plan in place that was becoming pretty apparent would not be adequate. That 10- year plan called for about $7 billion a year over 10 years, to basically operate the facilities. I have said, it is like the money to keep the lights on, but not money for this new modernization of our nuclear warheads or most of it would not have gone to that. They realized they needed about $10 billion, at least according to their initial calculations. They got about half of that from the Defense Department, the other half they figured they would get from savings from recalculating interest costs in the latter years of the budget. So they added a $10 billion slug onto the $70 billion that was already budgeted for general operation of the system, and said that is our $80 billion modernization program. But based upon work that had done by laboratories earlier, by other study groups and so on, a lot of experts agreed, including all of the former lab directors, that that slug of $10 billion would never be adequate for the costly items that needed to be performed over the next decade. Most of us estimated it to be about double that cost or about $20 billion. I think that is essentially where we are going to end up, by the way. In any event, the two biggest drivers are two new buildings, facilities that have to be built, one for plutonium work at Los Alamos Lab in New Mexico, the other for uranium work at the so-called Y-12 plant at Oak Ridge, TN. Those two buildings alone could end up costing over $10 billion. As a result, as I said, we went to the administration and said, we appreciate this modernization plan, but you need to update the plan and incorporate a lot of new costs. We showed them a lot of areas in which there were deficiencies, including deferred maintenance that had to be performed. We even pointed out there was a billion-dollar unfunded pension liability that would have to be dealt with in order for the scientists to continue to work. I will not go into the quotations here. Vice President Biden acknowledged the same thing in a statement he made. I appreciate the fact that, by the way, they complimented our work and our staff for pointing out a lot of these things, which were the bases then for the administration coming back and doing an update to the 1251 plan, which at least incorporated funding for some of the items we had talked about. There has been some talk about an additional $4.1 billion, and I know Senator Kerry will confirm this. It grates on me, and I am sure it does on him as well, to hear people referring to this in negotiation terms: Well, they gave Kyl another $4.1 billion. That should be enough. That is not the point here. This is an ongoing, evolving process. The administration has also identified about another $2 billion likely to have to be spent within 6 years, but they were only looking at a 5-year process, so that $4 billion pertains to 5 years. My guess is, there will be another $6 billion over the last 5 years, and we will ultimately look at about $20 billion, more or less. The point is, I did not believe the administration had been sufficiently careful in defining the requirements and identifying the amount of money that would be needed. I have said to many people, including my colleague Senator Kerry, we better not underestimate this for the appropriations Members of Congress. We better let them know upfront, this is going to be pretty costly, and get that out on the table. To their credit, the administration has now put out new figures. As I will discuss in more detail later, but to summarize here, while that is a big step forward and very welcome, and I will support it all, there are other things that need to be done. One of the biggest concerns I have is that it achieves this objective in part by simply extending the date to complete these two big facilities I mentioned by another 2 years. They would not be complete until 2023 for one and 2024 for the other one. That has the advantage of getting them outside the 10-year budget window, so you do not count any new money, but it extends the time by which these facilities can be done. And every year we were told it is about a $200 million expense to keep the existing facilities operating. So we are losing a lot of money every year that we do not get these two new buildings constructed so we can move into them and get the modernization done. That is the biggest concern I have. I will talk about some others later. But let me conclude here with a couple of quotations that I think illustrate the importance of doing what we need to do here. Tom D'Agostino, who is the Deputy NNSA Administrator said: Our plans for investment in and modernization of the modern security enterprise are essential, irrespective of whether or not the START treaty is ratified. He and I think all of us agree, it is even more important if we go down to the lower numbers in the START treaty. But this is important either way. I note that former Energy Secretary Spence Abraham wrote a column in Weekly Standard recently that made the same point, that regardless of what is done on the START treaty, this modernization needs to move forward. I made the point earlier about how the House Democrats conditioned the funding on ratification of START. I hope in the comments that are made on the floor here, it may be the subject of an--in fact, it probably will be the subject of at least one amendment to the resolution of ratification. But this is a place where the debate we have, the comments we make, may be as important as an amendment, because it is a statement of our intention as Senators. I think you will find that republican Senators who support the START treaty, and I am sure Democratic Senators who support the START treaty, will all say, one of the things that has to happen is the modernization of our facilities, along the lines of this updated 1251 plan, and the statements that the administration, as well as we, have made.

Mr. KYL. I will yield.

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I appreciate my colleague's comments. Rather than read the remainder of this, I ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks here there will be additional quotations on the need for modernization by former lab directors Dr. Miller, Secretary Schlesinger, and several others. I would conclude by emphasizing what the lab directors also emphasized in this correspondence. ``As we emphasized in our testimonies, implementation of the future vision of the nuclear deterrent will require sustained attention and continued refinement.'' The outyears are very important. That is why the record we create in this debate is important to ensuring that those who come after us will appreciate our intentions as we move forward here that we never again take our eye off the ball and allow the deterioration in our nuclear forces to occur, as we have, so we can continue to support them as called for in this modernization plan. I will ask unanimous consent to have those printed in the Record at this point, and then make the remainder of the statement at another time when I have not taken up all of my colleagues' time.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Madam President, I join Senator McConnell in a tribute to my friend and colleague, Jim Bunning. Jim and I came into the House of Representatives at the same time as parts of the 100th class. I have enjoyed being with him as well in the Senate. Jim and Mary are counted as among the best friends my wife Carol and I have. I agree with Senator McConnell that while people may disagree with Jim Bunning, no one has ever doubted his courage, his sincerity, his love for this country, his desire to do what is right, and his commitment to all those efforts. So I will greatly miss Jim when he is no longer part of the Senate. I think it is probably time for Jim and Mary to have a little bit of time to spend with all those children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Obviously, we all wish them both well. omnibus appropriations Madam President, I will speak for a few moments about the matter Senator McConnell brought to our attention; namely, this almost 2,000- page Omnibus appropriations bill. I know the majority leader has turned to the START treaty, and I think it is fairly obvious why. The American people are focused like a laser beam on this spending bill. I can't turn on the TV without hearing comments by both the commentators as well as people in public life about what this spending bill will do for this country's future. I think it is time we devote some attention to this spending bill, rather than put it under the table and talk about the START treaty instead, which, after all, we could accomplish at any time. As the majority leader said, spending for the U.S. Government runs out at midnight Saturday night. I can hear the cries at that time: We have an emergency on our hands. You don't want to shut down the Federal Government, do you? We have to do something. Well, the something is apparently this 2,000-page, over $1 trillion bill, which will not have had adequate time for debate or exposure to the American people. Apparently, under the schedule, as it now is, it would not even entitle us to try to amend it. Think about that for a moment. That which is most important to the American people and the subject of the message conveyed in this last election--to stop the wasteful Washington spending--we are not even going to be able to amend the $1 trillion-plus bill that has been laid before us. I know--and I think most people in this body know--how important international relations and treaties are, including the START treaty. But I also agree with the colorful comment by James Carville, a former adviser to President Clinton, who has a way with words. He said the American people don't give a pig's patooty about the START treaty. Obviously, those of us in the Senate do. We understand its importance. But at this moment, the most important thing on the minds of the American people is how we are going to fund the Federal Government without continuing to waste billions of dollars of their money. That is what we ought to be focusing on in the last few hours we have. Let me address a little bit about what we have found so far is in this bill and why so many of us are so concerned about it. The first point I will make is, I don't think ever in the history of the modern Congress that Congress has failed or the Senate has failed to pass a single appropriations bill. The American people should understand that, ordinarily, Congress passes a budget and we each--both bodies--pass about 12, sometimes 13 bills, to fund the different agencies and departments and functions of the U.S. Government. We didn't do that this year. We didn't pass a single one. We didn't pass a budget. So now the emergency that occurs, because we will run out of funding on Saturday, obviously, is laid at the feet of the majority, which didn't do its work earlier in the year, and that forces us into the position of having to act in this emergency way. As the Republican leader said, ironically, this is at the same time we were considering the health care legislation last year, the week before Christmas, in a situation in which Members have very little time and ability to change the legislation that is before us, a bill that will cost more than $1 trillion. Very few Members will have time to analyze it, let alone read it. Funding of the government, of course, is one of the most important responsibilities that we as Senators have. But as I said, this bill is going to get short shrift on the floor because it appears we will not even have an opportunity to amend it, if the majority leader's schedule holds. Let's talk about some of the specifics in it. As I said, it costs more than $1 trillion. There is nearly $18 billion more spending in this legislation than in the temporary continuing resolution that was enacted last September. In other words, at that time, we understood we needed to begin the process of funding the government, even though not a single appropriations bill had been passed. So we passed legislation that, over a 12-month period, was $18 billion less than the bill that comes before us now. I don't think this is responsible, and I think most Americans who have had to trim their budgets would agree it is not responsible. The bill contains more than 6,700 earmarks. Think about that for a moment. There are only 535 Members of Congress. Most of us don't have earmarks in this bill. So at 6,700 earmarks, you are talking about some legislators in the House and Senate having numerous earmarks. The total is $8 billion worth of earmarks. There is a debate about whether earmarks are good or bad, and some who believe they are OK say it is not that much money. But $8 billion is a lot of money no matter who is doing the counting--even in the Federal Government. It includes things--and I don't like to make fun of these things because they all have some purpose--like $247,000 for virus-free wine grapes in Washington. I am sure it is important to have virus-free wine grapes, but the last time I checked, the people who grow grapes are doing fairly well financially and could probably afford, if all the wine growers pool their resources, to come up with $200,000 to try to make sure their grapes are free of virus. There is a $100,000 appropriation for the Edgar Allan Poe Visitor Center in New York. Edgar Allan Poe is certainly an iconic American literary figure, but for the Federal Government--I mean the taxpayers in Arizona probably don't appreciate the need to pony up money for the Edgar Allan Poe Visitor Center in New York. The omnibus bill contains upward of a $1 billion increase in spending for the vastly unpopular health care bill Americans said they didn't want and continue to strongly oppose. Here are a couple of the details on that. There is an allocation of $750 million for the Prevention and Public Health Fund slush fund for a variety of programs--not named; a $175.9 million adjustment in the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services program management account to implement the massive Medicaid expansion, as well as cuts to Medicare Advantage--something my constituents strongly objected to; an $80.7 million adjustment for HHS program management, on and on. There are millions included for implementation of the very controversial Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, including a Securities and Exchange Commission funding increase of $189 million. That is 17 percent more than last year; a Commodity Futures Trading Commission funding increase of $117.2 million or a 69-percent increase over last year's funding; Treasury gets increase of $32.35 million or a 10- percent increase. It goes on and on. The omnibus also contains $790 million for an increase in education stimulus programs. A thorough examination of those programs reveals that, at least in some cases, they advance the cause of the teachers unions--at least in my view--more than the cause of educating American children. Some claim that at least you can say this bill's top line--its gross amount of spending is consistent with the budget proposal advocated by Senators Sessions, McCaskill, and many of the rest of us, including myself. But that is not true, as it turns out. It excludes numerous parts, such as multiyear spending caps, enforcement mechanisms, and limitations on emergency spending designations--something I will talk about in a second. In addition, the majority is using a budgetary sleight of hand to ostensibly meet the spending caps for 2011. This is what I was going to mention. They do this by a trick of retroactively declaring spending in last year's supplemental appropriations bill for Agent Orange claims as an emergency. So that money is spent. It was last year's funding. Now we are going to call that money emergency funding. What is the effect? It doesn't count and reduces the baseline and, like magic, by treating it as an emergency--to the tune of almost $3.5 billion--they have been able to secure a lower CBO score on the bill and, therefore, not exceed the spending caps. Without the gimmick, they obviously would have exceeded the spending caps proposed in the Sessions-McCaskill legislation. I will mention process briefly. This bill is being considered under a deeply flawed process, as the Republican leader said. Voters made a very clear statement, I think, last month. They do not like wasteful Washington spending. They want it to stop. They didn't like the health care bill. They do not want us--here, a week before Christmas--to rush very complex, very large bills through the Congress without time for their representatives to read them, to study them and have an opportunity, potentially, to amend them. But under the schedule laid out, as I said, an open amendment process for this bill would be impossible. At the very least, one would think Republicans should be entitled to 1 or 2 amendments to each of the 12 appropriations bills that are included within this giant Omnibus appropriations package. Under regular order, each of these bills would take at least several days of floor time and we would consider numerous amendments. That is not going to happen with this bill. Instead, we will do the equivalent of more than a month's work of floor time in a couple of days, with no amendments. And some wonder why Congress' approval rating has fallen to 13 percent. Someone said: Who is the 13 percent? And the answer was: Well, it is our staff and our families. Maybe. Let me conclude here with a little bit about jobs and energy prices. This bill will raise energy prices in the United States and destroy energy jobs through and including some of the following provisions: There is a ban on shallow water drilling. I thought the whole idea-- especially after the gulf, where we had deepwater drilling problems-- was to encourage drilling in shallow waters to make up for that other loss of production. The bill changes the law to triple the time for the Department of the Interior to approve exploration plans for offshore operators from 30 to 90 days. This provision could lead to huge financial penalties to the government, breach of contracts, and add further impediments to creating jobs and energy here at home. The bill reduces the State's share of Federal onshore oil and gas production revenues to 48 percent, down from the 50-50 split required under current law, and it raises fees for onshore and offshore oil and gas production on Federal lands. These fees amount to a tax that will make domestic energy production more expensive to produce, especially for the small businesses that do so. There is much more--much more the American people should know--but we are supposed to be talking about an arms control treaty with Russia instead. I want to remind everyone that we are in a lameduck Congress, and my view is that trying to enact such a huge and complex bill within the narrow postelection timeframe shows disrespect for the democratic process. For that reason and the others I have discussed, I urge my colleagues to oppose cloture on this bill and to pass a sensible continuing resolution of the kind the Republican leader has introduced. I want to leave no doubt about this final point. Those who are watching this process carefully and who understand how the process works understand that the important vote here is on cloture. It is the first vote. It is, in effect, the vote to consider this omnibus bill. Our constituents will not be fooled by Senators who vote ``yes'' on cloture to go to this bill--ensuring it will be considered under this rushed process without amendment--but then who vote ``no'' on final passage, after it is too late to stop the flawed process and say, well, I voted ``no'' on the bill. Well, of course, they voted ``no'' on the bill, but then it was too late. The key vote is on the cloture vote, whenever that might occur, and I am told it might occur at actually 12:01 on Sunday morning--in other words, one minute after midnight. Well, that would be very reminiscent of last year's consideration of the health care bill, where through all the procedural gimmickry this body did not distinguish itself in adopting legislation under a process the American people saw through, objected to, and continue to criticize the legislation adopted as a result of the process as well as its substance. If we want to do the same thing with this legislation, then it will demonstrate in the very first act relating to spending after the election that this Senate did not get the message sent by the American people.

Mr. KYL

Mr. KYL. Thank you, Mr. President. It is a delight to see you in the chair. Mr. President, let me make a brief comment on the last comment from my colleague about the work schedule of the Senate because I have been one of those folks who have decried the fact that we are dual-tracking the START treaty and the Omnibus appropriations bill here with just a week left before Christmas. I do think it is an imposition on our families and our staff that we need to be working during this period of time. I do not think there is anybody in this body who works any harder than I do. I do not claim to be the hardest working, but I am no stranger to hard work, and I am happy to be here right up to Christmas Eve if that is what it takes. But my complaint is that this is a problem that has been brought on by the Democratic leadership. All year long, we had the opportunity to do a budget. Did we ever do a budget? No. All year long, we had the opportunity to pass appropriations bills. This is the first time in my memory that the Senate never passed a single appropriations bill--not one. So now here we are, with a week to go before Christmas, trying to cram everything into the same short period of time. We have to pass a bill to fund the operations of government which will cease on Saturday at midnight. We could have done that in the last 300 days of this year, but, no, we wait until the very last minute. We wait until the last minute to do the tax legislation that just passed out of the Senate and the House is considering this afternoon. In addition to that, we are trying to consider the START treaty. That is the concern a lot of us have. But let me return to where I was earlier today when I was talking about some of my concerns about the treaty, laying the predicate for some of the amendments we will have as soon as we are done with our comments, our opening statements about the treaty itself. I had last talked about the modernization program, and Senator Kerry and I had a brief conversation about that, agreeing that this was a very important part of the ability of the United States to have a credible nuclear deterrent. We were talking about the nuclear weapons part of that. There is a second part of our nuclear deterrent, and that is the delivery vehicles--the missiles, the submarines, the long-range bombers, the cruise missiles--those components of our so-called nuclear triad that enable us to effectively deliver the warheads in the event that should ever be required. The problem with this part of the modernization package is that we do not have the degree of certainty that I think we need to have the assurance that moving forward with an even lower number of warheads is a safe thing to do. Specifically, we have asked the administration for but have not received assurances with respect to the long-range bomber, the ICBM, and the Minuteman III. Let me just mention those two things. With regard to the long-range bomber, we have repeatedly asked: Will we have a nuclear capable long-range bomber? That is what the bomber leg of the triad is--a nuclear-capable bomber. Now, it could be a penetrating bomber, it could be a manned bomber, it could be a bomber that carries cruise missiles to get to the target, but it needs to be nuclear capable. We have no assurance. So while everybody in the administration continues to say: ``We believe in our nuclear triad, we must have a nuclear triad,'' we are not getting any satisfaction on the question, What about the bomber leg of the triad? Our current long-range bomber cruise missiles are due to be retired in 2025. Will there be a follow-on? Again, no reassurance. No funding has been provided in the 1251 plan that I spoke of earlier for replacement of an ICBM Minuteman III. There is some very troubling language in the 1251 update on a follow- on assessment study. I am going to quote what this assessment study will be predicated on. This is for the ICBM. It is a study that--and I am quoting--``will consider a range of deployment options, with the objective of defining a cost-effective approach for an ICBM follow-on that supports continued reductions in U.S. nuclear weapons while promoting stable deterrence.'' That supports continued reductions in the U.S. nuclear weapons. So the key criteria here is not to carry whatever weapons we think are necessary but, rather, an ICBM force that will be determined and sized in order to achieve those reductions. What I am wondering is whether that suggests that the administration might not maintain an ICBM capability so that it can pursue further reductions or that the ICBM follow-on system will be based on plans for reductions.

Mr. KYL. Let me just complete this thought, if I could. The administration's arms control agenda--my belief--should not be the key factor in determining the level of our ICBM capability. I will make a note here and allow my colleague to interrupt.

Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I will be happy to respond to that. Let me respond first by quoting two key officials from the Obama administration: Secretary Gates and Under Secretary of Defense Jim Miller. This is what I gather their decision is going to be based on. First, Secretary Gates: There are placeholders for each of the modernization programs because no decision has been made. They are basically to be decided, and along the lines that Admiral Mullen is just describing, those are decisions we are going to have to make over the next few years in terms of we are going to have to modernize these systems and we are going to have to figure out what we can afford. Deputy Under Secretary of Defense Jim Miller: We think the current ICBMs are extremely stable and stabilizing, particularly as we de-MIRV to one warhead each. I would interject, remember, we are doing that while the Russians are MIRVing, which, of course, creates more instability under this treaty. But to go on with the quotation: But we will look at concepts that would make them even more survivable over time, which would allow them to be part of a reserve force. My point in reading these two quotations is to suggest to my colleague that it is troubling that the administration is not willing to commit to making a decision, is not willing to commit to having a nuclear-capable bomber force, is not willing to say that the ICBM force will support the delivery of the warheads required for that leg of the triad but, rather, will be based on what we can afford and be based on our desire to continue to reduce U.S. nuclear weapons, and that perhaps we are developing them in order to be part of a reserve force. All of this suggests that the one quotation that was read by my colleague is a nice statement but does not reflect the reality of what the administration is actually planning on.

Mr. KYL. Yes.

Mr. KYL. If I could just interrupt my colleague, who interrupted me.

Mr. KYL. A viable triad at a minimum, per se, has to include nuclear capability or it is not part of our nuclear triad, right? And what I am saying here is that the administration is not assuring us that the long-range bomber will be nuclear capable. So maybe we have a dyad now, not a triad.