Carl Levin

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if the Senator from West Virginia would yield me 4 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. I wonder if he would yield me 2 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. No objection.

Mr. LEVIN. I move to lay that motion on the table. The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, how much time remains?

Mr. LEVIN. I yield myself an additional 5 minutes. Mr. President, the purpose of the initiative was to secure, consolidate, destroy, or return to the United States and Russia nuclear materials from around the world, concentrating on the least secure and the most dangerous materials first. Secretary Abraham committed the United States to dedicate more than $450 million to this effort. Well, there is no money in the 2005 budget for the effort. The words are there, the commitment is there, Lord knows the threat is there, but the money is not there. So in our bill, Senators Domenici, Feinstein, and others--and I was a cosponsor--offered an amendment which authorized this new initiative about which Senator Domenici said the following: Many of us have worked very hard to put together a program where we and other nations will go to work at ridding the world of proliferation of nuclear products from the nuclear age. We think it is an exciting approach. Eventually, we have to fund it and Presidents have to implement it. But the Senate would be saying today it is good policy to get the world concerned about getting rid of radioactive material from the nuclear age. This amendment today does what Senators Domenici and Feinstein said and this Senate said when we adopted their amendment, which is to fund the initiative. Not just to talk about it, not just to say words which are important, but to actually put dollars behind the words. As Senator Domenici said in offering the amendment, which we adopted, which added this provision in this bill which authorized the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, this amendment: [I]s aimed-- As his amendment was and is-- at expediting global cleanout of nuclear materials and equipment that could represent proliferation risks. He went on to say: Even though we are making progress, the focus on terrorism over the last few years has substantially amplified the level of our concern. In the process, we have learned more about the complicated routes through which important equipment technologies, such as enrichment capabilities, has moved to unfortunate destinations. Our focus on Russia was appropriate a decade ago. But it is very clear today that proliferation must be viewed as a global problem. We must broaden our programs so that they have a global impact, not only focused on the former Soviet Union. The increased threat of terrorism should encourage us to seek new ways to expedite the management, security, and disposition of materials that could be dangerous to our national security if they were to fall into the wrong hands. These materials include a range of fissile materials, with highly enriched uranium and plutonium being the ones of greatest concern. My amendment today would ensure that this real and immediate threat to our security is funded, that the money is there. The money is being transferred from these extra missiles, missiles which have not been tested. If we decide we are going to proceed to deploy 20 untested missiles, so be it, but 21 through 30, not discussed last year when the test bed of the of 20 was described, but added this year, those additional missiles do not come close to being as important to our security as trying to help get rid of fissile and nuclear material that can fall into the hands of terrorists. Secretary Abraham said, and the words were good: We will take these steps because we must. The circumstances of a dangerous world have thrust this responsibility on the shoulders of the civilized world. We don't have the luxury of sitting back and not taking action. We do not have that luxury, Mr. President. We do not have the luxury of not addressing that new global initiative that Secretary Abraham and the administration said was so important. We have a responsibility to look at how we allocate resources and to weigh the greater risks with the available resources. It seems so obvious to me that when we compare what is provided in an additional 10 missiles, not tested and not to be used as part of a test--we do not touch any test missiles. We do not touch the 20 missiles in the test bed in Alaska and California. When we compare the funding of $515 million for those additional 10 missiles, those extra 10 missiles not in the 20 silo test bed, with the critical need to obtain this fissile material and to secure it around the world before it falls into the hands of terrorists, it seems to me that the outcome should be very clear. We should put that $515 million into securing that material, to obtaining that material, to securing our ports, and to doing some of the other homeland defense needs that are provided for in my amendment. Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the amendment which I am offering does not touch the first 20 interceptors. They are fully funded. They are going to be deployed before they are independently tested. The Senate decided that last week in a number of debates and in a vote on an amendment, the Boxer amendment. Whether it was the right decision or the wrong decision, time will tell, but nonetheless it is the decision and was the decision of this Senate that those 20 interceptors be deployed in those silos in Alaska prior to their being independently tested. The question before us now is whether the added missiles--21 through 30, those interceptors that are paid for in this bill--are going to be provided or whether we will use that money, $515 million, for a much greater need, to address a much more immediate threat, and that is the threat of loose nukes, the threat of nuclear fissile material falling into the hands of terrorists, and also whether we will use at least some of that money to put more into the security of our borders, the security of our ports. I will start with a CIA assessment that was made not too many years ago. It was made after September 11. There was an unclassified assessment made by the CIA as to what our greatest threat was. They were comparing the missile threat to the nonmissile threat. ``Foreign Missile Developments and Ballistic Missile Threats Through 2015,'' was the title. They were looking at the missile threat. Here is the judgment: The Intelligence Community judges that U.S. territories are more likely to be attacked with WMD using non-missile means, primarily because such means, 1, are less expensive than developing and producing ICBMs; 2, can be covertly developed and employed; 3, the source of the weapon could be masked in an attempt to evade retaliation; 4, probably would be more reliable than ICBMs that have not completed rigorous testing and validation programs; 5, probably would be much more accurate than emerging ICBMs over the next 15 years; 6, probably would be more effective for disseminating a biological warfare agent than a ballistic missile; 7, would avoid missile defenses. For all of those reasons, we have an assessment that non-missile means of delivery are a more serious threat than a missile means of delivery. Now, the amendment I offered does not touch those 20 missiles that were part of that test bed announced last year. Last year, the chairman of our committee, Senator Warner, said this body is authorized in moving ahead on 20 test bed sites, 16 in Alaska and the balance in California. That was the decision that we made last year--a 20-silo test bed site in Alaska and in California. Now, this year, the administration said they want additional interceptors. It is those additional interceptors on which we are focusing. My amendment would take $515 million of the $1.7 billion proposed for fiscal year 2005 and say let's put that $515 million into far more needed, immediate purposes; in other words, to try to address this massive fissile material threat, the loose nuke threat, the dirty bomb threat, which everybody says is the most serious terrorist threat we face. That is what this $515 million should be spent on; also, security of our borders, security of our ports. Most of the containers coming into this country are still uninspected. We still do not have a means of determining what is an explosive material at a distance. We must, if we are going to stop terrorists from blowing up themselves and us, be able to identify explosive material at a distance. We don't have that technology. My amendment would add money for that technology. We had the near destruction of the USS Cole because a tiny boat was able to get next to it. If we could identify that explosive material at a distance before the explosion of the car bomb or the suicide bomb or the little boat that almost blew up the USS Cole, we would be making ourselves far more secure. That is the kind of expenditure my amendment would provide. It leaves, I emphasize, $1.2 billion in funding for interceptors, which is more than we have provided in any prior fiscal year. In 2002, we provided $1.1 billion. In fiscal year 2003, we provided $763 million. In 2004, we provided $1.1 billion for interceptors. If my amendment is adopted and we use this money to address the loose nuke issue and the other issues I have identified, we would still have $1.2 billion for interceptors. Now, would there be an effect on testing? No, for two reasons. No. 1, there is no effect of this amendment on the funding for interceptors which are dedicated to flight tests. The only interceptors affected by this amendment are the deployed interceptors, 21 through 30. Those interceptors are not planned for flight testing. We were told last night, many of you folks say you want testing, but then you cut interceptors that are going to be used for testing. Let me emphasize that none of the interceptors that we cut are going to be used for flight testing; they are not going to be launched. They are going to sit in those silos. They will not be launched. We just received that word, again, from the missile defense folks. We asked them: Is it still your plan not to launch those interceptors from the silos in Alaska? Their answer is: That is correct. That is not our plan for testing. We are not going to launch those interceptors. The interceptors used for testing will be used somewhere else. They are not going to be part of this test bed. We are not cutting those three test interceptor missiles that are going to be used for testing. When we are all done, if this amendment is adopted, there would still be more spent on missile defense than on any weapons system in the history of this country in any single year. So the idea that somehow or other this is a devastating blow to missile defense is simply not correct. It is 5 percent of the missile defense budget request for this year. It is less than one-third of the interceptors, and none of the test interceptors. These are the extra missiles that were not asked for last year when we were assured by Senator Warner that the test bed was for 20 silos in Alaska, mainly, and 4 in California. Now, we talk about the greatest threats that we face. It seems to me that it is almost a consensus that the greatest threats we face come from the loose nukes. As a matter of fact, this body just adopted a Domenici-Feinstein amendment, and that amendment said we ought to fund what is called the Global Threat Reduction Initiative, which has recently been announced by Secretary Abraham. Secretary Abraham, with great fanfare, announced the $450 million Global Threat Reduction Initiative on May 26. That is just a month ago--not even a month ago. Speaking to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Secretary Abraham said that this new effort, the $450 million Global Threat Reduction Initiative, aimed at the loose nukes, aimed at this fissile material that is distributed around the world--any few kilograms or pounds of which fell into the hands of a terrorist could blow up a city--this new effort, according to Secretary Abraham will ``comprehensively and more thoroughly address the challenges posed by nuclear and radiological materials and related equipment that require attention anywhere in the world, by ensuring that they will not fall into the hands of those with evil intentions.''

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I yield myself 10 minutes.

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair. I will yield myself 6 minutes. Mr. President, the threat we are talking about addressing in my amendment is not one of our domestic priorities. As important as those priorities are, it is not transferring money from missile defense to education or health care. It is transferring money from the next 10 missiles, untested, numbers 21 through 30, which were not stated to be part of that 20-silo test bed which was presented to us last year, instead taking that money and using that money not for my project but for the administration's stated project of trying to address the ``loose nuke'' issue. This is a program, this $450 million program, the administration announced a few weeks ago in Vienna. With great fanfare, Secretary Abraham said we have to address the loose nuke problem around the world. Agreements were signed to counter a nuclear threat; $450 million to prevent research materials going to terrorists as part of a global cleanup plan. But there is no money in this program. So the Senate comes along a few days ago, and Senator Domenici and Senator Feinstein, with the support, I believe, of most of us--surely mine--say we have to move in this direction. They authorize the program. But still no money. The words are there, but the money is not there. We are talking about the money for a global program, not cleanup in Russia. That money has already been identified. This is for nuclear material around the world that we and the Russians have to identify and secure. That is what that $450 million is. There is not a penny in this budget to secure that nuclear material. The Russia task force of the Secretary of Energy said that the most urgent unmet security threat to the United States is the danger that weapons of mass destruction or weapons-usable material could be sold to terrorists and used against us. That was the so-called Baker-Cutler task force. Then they said the funding that is provided in the Department of Energy budget falls short of what is required to adequately address the threat. We had the Harvard task force come forward and say the facts are that the amount of inadequately secured bomb material in the world today is enough to make thousands of nuclear weapons, that terrorists are actively seeking to get it, and that with such material in hand a capable and well-organized terrorist group plausibly could make, deliver, and detonate at least a crude nuclear bomb capable of incinerating the heart of any major city in the world. Securing the vast stockpiles of nuclear materials and weapons around the world is an essential priority for nonproliferation, for counterterrorism, and for homeland security. That is the issue we have to face. Are we going to fund this kind of program, or are we just going to talk about it? The hundreds of millions of dollars which were identified by Senator Allard have nothing to do with this effort to secure nuclear material around the world. The money he identified has to do with a program to try to secure plutonium between ourselves and Russia, a program which is currently stalemated. That is something which hopefully can be worked out between the Russians and the State Department. But the money we are talking about which was so widely proclaimed by Secretary Abraham as being forthcoming has not been forthcoming. There is no money in the budget for it. It is the loose nuke material that exists around the world that threatens us more than any other single threat, and we don't have any money for it in here. The question is whether we are going to do it or whether we are going to add another 10 interceptors, numbers 21 through 30, add them to the test bed. That is the issue we face. Which is a higher priority for us? Again, I emphasize this amendment does not touch those 20 interceptors which are part of that test bed. We do not touch that. That debate was last week. That is not this amendment. Last week, we decided we are going to deploy those interceptors. Even though they have not been independently tested, they will still be deployed. Maybe they will work, maybe they will not work, but they will be deployed. OK, that decision was made. We are talking now about Nos. 21 through 30 and whether that $550 million is better spent the way it is proposed in this budget, or to address the loose nuke problem around the world, to address our border security, to try to inspect the containers by the tens of thousands that come into this country, to put additional funds into new technologies to address how we can identify explosive material at a distance so we do not face a blowup of a ship like the USS Cole, a car bomber, or a suicide bomber. That is the issue, whether we are serious about the effort to address the greatest terrorist threats we face or whether we want to put another $500 million into another 10 interceptors which have not yet been tested. How much time remains?

Mr. LEVIN. I thank the Chair, and I reserve the remainder of that time.

Mr. LEVIN. That will be great. I thank my colleague.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the Washington Post editorial says: What's odd in these circumstances is the relative sluggishness with which the world has attacked the part of the nuclear menace that is relatively easier to deal with-- And they are comparing it to the North Korean transfer of technology; and that is the ``loose nukes'' and the materials that are needed to make them. The Post editorial says: . . . [T]his Bush administration is still giving this effort a fraction of the resources it is spending to deploy a missile defense system against a threat--a rogue state with an intercontinental missile--that does not currently exist. At the current rate of work, it will take 13 years to secure the remaining bomb-grade material in the former Soviet Union and more than a decade to collect it from other countries.

Mr. LEVIN. There is no funding. It is not just inadequate, we do not have funding for that $450 million amount.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I thank my good friend.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. Reserving the right to object, I assume that if we can work something out and amendments can be disposed of between now and 6:20, that would then be accomplished.

Mr. LEVIN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. LEVIN. Before we accept modifications, however, we would have to look at the modifications. They may be fine, by the way, but we need to look at them.

Mr. LEVIN. More than agreeable.

Mr. LEVIN. In accordance with the terms of the unanimous consent agreement, I call up the amendments contained in the list that I now send to the desk and ask they appear separately in the Record, that the reading of the amendments be waived. There are 31 amendments here out of a list of 77.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, I have been informed that the last item on this list, item No. 3242, may have already been agreed to, which in this case if it has already been agreed to, I ask it be deleted from the list.

Mr. LEVIN. Under that circumstance. And I ask these be ruled to be pending amendments.

Mr. LEVIN. Well, if the Senator from Virginia would yield, the only reason I made reference to that is that the Senator from Virginia had made reference to that fact, or that the Presiding Officer more accurately said the amendments of the Senator from Virginia were now pending. I just wanted the same ruling.

Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, if the Senator will yield, I fully agree with his proposed course of action. I am wondering if he might suggest what that period of time might be.

Mr. LEVIN. That would be fine with us.

Mr. LEVIN

Mr. LEVIN. We support these amendments, Mr. President. We move to reconsider.