A bill to amend title 10, United States Code, to provide for Department of Defense funding of continuation of health benefits plan coverage for certain Reserves called or ordered to active duty and their dependents, and for other purposes.

Madam President, I rise in support of the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment. First, we should explain the terminology better because there is a suggestion implicit in many of the comments today that a low-yield nuclear device is something akin to a big conventional weapon.

Nuclear weapons are sui generis, the most horrific weapon that man has ever developed. Under this bill we remove a ban on the research and development, and therefore testing and deployment of so-called low- yield weapons, 5 kilotons or less.

Let me put that in perspective. The weapon dropped on Hiroshima was 14 kilotons. The weapon dropped on Nagasaki was 21 kilotons. A 5- kiloton weapon, a 1-kiloton weapon, is a significant weapon causing significant damage.

When we talk about low-yield nuclear weapons, it is almost like talking about a small apocalypse because nuclear weapons have apocalyptic qualities in their destruction and in their fear.

As a result, for more than 50 years we have attempted to put them beyond use. This language in this bill lowers that threshold dramatically. It says we will begin after a 10-year prohibition not just research, but this bill takes away the prohibition on developing, engineering, testing, and deploying weapons. Low-yield weapons. But again, those low-yield weapons have fantastic power.

I heard some of my colleagues talk about the fact if we had such weapons

like this we surely would have gotten Saddam Hussein. Dropping a weapon, even a ``low-yield nuclear weapon,'' in an urban area will create incredible collateral damage. Not as much, of course, as a 400- kiloton weapon but the damage is huge. In fact, Sidney Drell, a physicist and arms control advocate, calculated that a 1-kiloton weapon penetrating at 40 feet, a penetrating type weapon, would create a crater larger than the impact area at the World Trade Center and put about 1 million cubic feet of radioactive material in the air. If we had dropped such a weapon on Baghdad, we would not be in Baghdad today. Our troops would be ringing the city waiting for the radiation to clear and trying to minister to the civilians.

The notion we need these weapons for military purposes is unsubstantiated. There is no military requirement for a so-called low- yield nuclear weapon.

In testimony before the Armed Services Committee on April 8, 2003, Ambassador Brooks, the head of NNSA, testified after a question from Bill Nelson:

Well, is there a requirement in your opinion for a new low

yield?

Ambassador Brooks: No.

Senator Bill Nelson. Is there a requirement for such a

weapon under consideration or being developed?

Ambassador Brooks: There is no requirement being developed.

To the best of my knowledge there is no requirement under

consideration. There is no military need for this weapon.

That is the testimony of the administration.

I am sure there are many people who would say yes, it is nice to study. There are lots of things that are nice to study. But without a military requirement for such a weapon, why are we abandoning a significant prohibition that has aided, I believe, our efforts in trying to tame or at least contain the proliferation of nuclear weapons?

It seems to me counterintuitive that one could argue, as I think some of my colleagues do, the way to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons is to build more nuclear weapons. I don't think that makes sense.

There is a suggestion also throughout the discussion this afternoon that this is just about research, nothing else. I was intrigued by this notion and I asked Ambassador Brooks about it at a hearing. His initial justification for the language requested by the administration was it would, in his words, ``remove the chilling effect on scientific inquiry that could hamper our ability to maintain and exercise our intellectual capabilities to respond to needs that one day might be articulated by the President.''

I asked a very obvious question. Why didn't the administration simply send up a modification to section 3136, the ban, simply to carve out language that will allow research but still would maintain the prohibition against engineering, development, testing, and deployment? I said:

For example, the language could simply say: It shall be the

policy of the United States not to produce a low-yield

nuclear weapon, including precision low-yield nuclear weapon.

Ambassador Brooks replied to my query:

It is accurate that that would eliminate one of the

concerns I have with the language, though the language now

does have, we fear, a potentially chilling effect on R&D and,

as you described a possible modification, it might not. So

speaking narrowly from the prospect of trying to get a robust

advanced concept program working, language like that might be

entirely suitable.

But that is not what this legislation includes. Not a limited exception to research, but a categorical elimination of the ban on research, engineering, development, testing, deployment of so-called low-yield nuclear weapons.

It is pretty clear here we are really not talking about just research. In fact, I hope this amendment of Senator Kennedy and Senator Feinstein passes. I support it. If it fails, I am prepared to offer language that will, in fact, limit it just to research.

Now, we also heard before the committee that one of the reasons we need this research project is so scientists can continue to work on it, maintain their skills. It turns out if that is the case, there are plenty of opportunities with existing weapons in the inventory to go ahead and hone those skills.

Even if such opportunities were not readily available, to give up a significant and recognized prohibition on at least one class of nuclear weapons simply to satisfy technical training would at least suggest to me that other ways should be found to train our scientists, and other ways, I think, could be found to train the scientists.

There is also a perception, I think inherent in the discussions here--and I have alluded to it in my initial comments--that the effect of one of these so-called low-yield weapons is that it will produce less collateral damage. That is true, but less than what? Less than the bomb at Hiroshima which, to my recollection, took over 100,000 lives. Are we willing to engage or use or tactically employ weapons that only take, in one fell swoop, 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 lives and claim they are low yield and therefore innocuous? There is nothing innocuous about the weapons we are talking about.

I believe very strongly that it is incumbent upon this Senate to maintain the ban. I think it is wise policy. I think it is a policy that has given us advantages as we have urged other nations to refrain from the development of nuclear weapons.

There are some discussions about whether arms control has succeeded or failed. I think many times we point to those cases in which countries acquire nuclear weapons, but we fail to recognize the many instances where countries have given up their nuclear weapons--such as several countries in the former Soviet Union like the Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakstan. Because of the spirit of the nonproliferation treaty and because of the efforts of the United States and other countries urging that they become compliant with the nonproliferation treaty, these countries voluntarily gave up nuclear weapons. I do not know that today, if they were watching what we are doing here, they would be so eager to give up their nuclear weapons.

So we lose a great deal more than simply this language in the bill. I think we lose a diplomatic advantage, in terms of the goal which I hope we are still pursuing, which is the elimination, I hope, or certainly the containment, of nuclear weapons.

I urge all my colleagues to think very clearly and to recall several, for me, salient points. These are weapons of horrendous effect. Don't think low-yield, think small apocalypse. These are weapons that have no military requirement today.

What we do here will be emulated by other countries. That is the nature of world leadership. We have a chance to preserve at least this aspect of arms control, which will give us the opportunity, I hope, to argue for even more, and more effective means of nonproliferation.

I urge my colleagues to support the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment.

I yield my time to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk.

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

Mr. President, for over 50 years, the United States has been in the vanguard in both urging and acting to delegitimize the use of nuclear weapons. Today, the Bush administration is implementing a departure from this bipartisan policy of arms control by adopting measures that will lower the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons.

Dissatisfaction with America's nuclear policy by conservatives was evident even before George W. Bush became President. One of the more dramatic examples of this was the rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty by the Senate in 1999. A particularly revealing aspect of that vote was the opposition to a proposal to put the treaty aside rather than to formally defeat it. Deferral would have given a future President the ability to renegotiate aspects of the treaty, such as verification, that were specifically criticized. A combination of ideological and political motivations forced a vote that further weakened efforts at arms control. Indeed, today the defeat of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty still lingers as something that I think is a serious erosion of arms control throughout the world and our ability to influence other nations to refrain from testing and developing.

In a similar vein, Republicans in Congress enacted legislation that fixed the minimal number of launch vehicles and warheads in order to prevent the Clinton administration from initiating reductions through negotiations with the Russians. This legislation was quietly repealed when President George W. Bush announced his intention to conclude the Moscow treaty. The Moscow treaty seems to be the type of arms control treaty that conservatives can be comfortable with since it does not actually require the elimination or destruction of nuclear weapons by either side. I have heard today repeatedly discussions of how we are destroying nuclear weapons. In fact, under the Moscow treaty, we are simply redesignating nuclear weapons. We are calling them operational and nonoperational. We are not destroying nuclear weapons.

The Bush administration not only accepted these precedents, but rapidly and deliberately built upon them. The President quickly announced the withdrawal of the United States from the ABM Treaty. Here again, there was scant attention paid to the possibility of negotiating changes with the Russians in order to pursue the development of an antimissile system without jettisoning the ABM Treaty. The ABM Treaty has been a long-time target of the right wing. President Bush's decision was as much about appeasing a powerful component of his political base as it was a reflection of strategic thinking.

The President has made it clear that he will not pursue further negotiations under the START process with the Russians. He is content to let the Moscow treaty stand as the beginning and the end of his arms control initiatives.

The most effective nonproliferation program, the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, was greeted initially by the Bush administration with skepticism. The program was placed on hold for the first year of the administration while the program was under review. The program was delayed an additional year when the administration could not make the certifications necessary for the program to proceed. The program survived the review and the certification delay but 2 years was spent on justifying the program rather than aggressively eliminating weapons and weapons material.

All of this was prelude to the publication of the Nuclear Posture Review in December of 2001. The review is classified and the administration provided only a cursory nonclassified briefing. Public comments by the administration suggest the major shifts in policy included in the review.

For the first time, the Nuclear Policy Review indicates that the United States is prepared to use nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations that are not aligned with a nuclear power. Previously, the focus of our policy was to respond to the nuclear potential of other nuclear powers and their allies as a means of deterring the use of nuclear weapons. Today, the United States is contemplating the use of nuclear weapons against nations that do not possess nuclear weapons. In so doing, the NPR, the Nuclear Posture Review, blurs distinctions between conventional and nuclear weapons.

Instead of trying to place nuclear weapons beyond use or at least severely restricting their use to the deterrence of an attack by a nuclear power, the NPR makes them just one more tool in our tool kit. In so doing, it mischaracterizes the horrific effects of nuclear weapons; trying to suggest that they are a little bit more than a conventional weapon, when they are of a dimension and scale that is beyond the contemplation of anyone who has used conventional weapons.

The NPR maintains the current size of the stockpile of nuclear weapons. Despite the end of the cold war, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a democratically elected government in Russia, the administration continues to maintain thousands of warheads in the stockpile.

The NPR holds out the possibility of the resumption of nuclear testing, either to maintain the current stockpile or to develop new types of nuclear weapons. Budget requests to fund the production of hundreds of new plutonium pits per year, a necessary component of a nuclear weapon, are included in this budget.

Requests to undertake the designs of new weapons if needed and to shorten the time necessary to initiate and conduct a nuclear test are included in the budget proposals, and all of them strongly suggest that testing could go well beyond the need to maintain the existing stockpile.

Coupled with the rejection of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, the NPR sent a disturbing signal that we would once again undertake a testing program. Such a program may very well be imitated by other nations, either through perceived need or as a means to maintain their prestige in the nuclear club. In any case, this, too, would further weaken the restraints against the use of nuclear weapons.

In the context of these dramatic changes in policy, rejection of the comprehensive test ban treaty and a new nuclear policy review that blurs the distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons, the administration proposed last year to begin the design of a robust nuclear earth penetrator to use against hard and deeply buried targets. This weapons would modify an existing nuclear device. In essence, the kinetic package already in the stockpile would come out of inventory and the key work would involve the design of a casing that could penetrate the proper depth for the weapon.

The first point to be made is that the existing weapons being considered are quite large, on the order of several hundred kilotons to over 1 megaton. For a frame of reference, the weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were in the range of 14 to 21 kilotons. Thus, the smaller of these bunker busters is roughly 25 times the size of the bombs dropped on Japan. These weapons will bust more than a bunker. The area of destruction will encompass an area the size of a city. They are really city breakers, not bunker busters.

A further point is the fact that conventional munitions have substantially increased their precision. We have seen that in Iraq rapidly and effectively. Although they have not achieved the ability of flying through an open door and taking the elevator down to the bunker command center, increased precision means enhanced ability to target and destroy entrances and the communication network of a command center or other sensitive target.

We have much better capacity today with conventional weapons, and many would argue these conventional weapons could effectively deal with many, if not all, of these potential targets.

Finally, the recent fighting in Iraq presented our forces with just the type of targets that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is envisioned to engage; deeply buried command centers and possible storage areas for weapons of mass destruction. From preliminary reports and from casual observations, it does not appear in any way that our military efforts were inhibited by the lack of a robust nuclear earth penetrator.

Last year Senate Democrats were able to delay spending money on a robust nuclear earth penetrator by requiring a report identifying the types of targets this weapon is designed to hold at risk and the employment policy for the robust nuclear earth penetrator. The classified report has been submitted and the administration is forging ahead.

Equally unsettling as the robust nuclear earth penetrator is the proposal by the administration to repeal the 1993 statutory ban on the research, development, testing, and production of low-yield nuclear weapons. Current law prohibits work on weapons with yields equal to or less than 5 kilotons. In attempting to justify this proposal, Ambassador Linton Brooks, Acting Director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, NNSA, stated before the Senate Armed Services Committee, that ``we are seeking to free ourselves from intellectual prohibitions against exploring a full range of technical options.''

Importantly, he did not justify this proposed work as a current military requirement. At present, there is no military requirement for a low-yield nuclear weapon. As I said before, really, low-yield nuclear weapon is a misnomer. These are still horrendous, horrific weapons. They might better be referred to as small apocalypses, not low-yield weapons.

More illustrative of the motivation behind the efforts is a subsequent statement of Ambassador Brooks at the hearing. The Ambassador declared:

I have a bias in favor of the lowest usable yield because I

have the bias in favor of something that is the minimum

destruction . . . I have a bias in favor of things that might

be usable.

Let me commend the Ambassador for his candor and his responsiveness to the question because I think he has laid it out very accurately and very precisely and very well. No longer are we being motivated by a sincere and intense and consistent desire to try to avoid the use of nuclear weapons. We are trying to design weapons and produce weapons that we fully anticipate can be used. That is an extraordinary sea change in our policy. And it is a sea change that I think will reverberate around the world to our disadvantage, not to our security.

At the heart of the debate over these so-called low-yield nuclear weapons lies the observation, if not the fact, that the ability to limit collateral damage makes a weapon more likely to be used. The advent of precision-guided munitions makes attacks on urban areas more acceptable to leaders. Would we have dropped a dumb bomb on Saddam Hussein's suspected hideouts in the crowded neighborhoods of Baghdad? It would have been a much tougher call.

In a similar fashion, as suggested by Ambassador Brooks' comments, developing low-yield nuclear weapons, small apocalyptic weapons, tilts the scales for use, not for restraint. That is a balance I think will again jeopardize our situation, not enhance it.

Proponents of this new policy with its bias in favor of things that are usable, in the Ambassador's terms, attempt to justify their position on several grounds. They argue arms control and nonproliferation have failed. We heard the arguments on the floor of the Senate all day long. They cite a litany of states that acquired nuclear weapons since the adoption of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968: India, Israel, Pakistan, South Africa, and apparently North Korea. But this litany must be placed in context. Forty years ago when the original nuclear powers--the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China--had a monopoly on nuclear weapons, it was routinely assumed that proliferation would be rapid and irreversible. President Kennedy predicted in the early 1960s that an additional 25 countries might develop nuclear weapons within 10 years. This dire prediction did not come true because of efforts at arms control exemplified by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Recently, this point was reiterated by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage who stated: Instead of the 25 or so countries that President Kennedy once predicted, only a handful of nations possess nuclear weapons. Of course, we suspect many more countries have chemical or biological weapons, but still short of the scores that have been predicted in the past.

We have reached this state of affairs in no small part through the concerted efforts of many nations, agreements such as the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty and Chemical Weapons Convention, organizations such as the IAEA and nuclear supply groups--these constitute a global security architecture that have served us satisfactorily and kept us safe.

Moreover, of the five states that have acquired nuclear weapons since 1968, three--Israel, India, and Pakistan--never signed on to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. In retrospect, many look back and wish we could have urged them, convinced them, persuaded them, to sign on because it would have made their ascendency to the nuclear ranks that much more difficult.

South Africa gave up its nuclear weapons and joined the regime as a nonpossessor. That leaves the very special case of North Korea which joined the NPT in 1985 and has been caught on at least two occasions violating this obligation before its recent announced repudiation of the treaty.

Critics of the nonproliferation regime frequently fail to acknowledge that Argentina, Brazil, South Korea, and Taiwan ceased their suspected nuclear program in part because of the international law norm represented by the nonproliferation treaty.

Similarly, with the demise of the Soviet Union, the newly independent states of Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine found themselves in possession of nuclear weapons. All of them voluntarily relinquished their weapons in favor of joining the NPT. Their decision, at the urging of the United States and others, reaffirmed the norms of nonproliferation. Indeed, as recently as May, 2000, the United States reaffirmed this norm by joining the four other original nuclear powers in declaring their commitment to the ``unequivocal undertaking'' to eliminate nuclear arsenals.

That affirmation is in stark contrast to the legislation before us that seeks to expand and enhance our nuclear arsenal. Today, nonproliferation is being advocated by the United States as ``do what I say,'' not ``do what I do.'' Unfortunately, the United States is more often imitated than obeyed.

Last Saturday, Vladimir Putin's annual address was reported in the American media. According to one report:

[Putin] appeared to be responding to the Bush

administration's new nuclear strategy, announced last year,

when he said that Russia, too, was considering developing new

variants of nuclear weapons.

President Putin declared, in his words:

I can inform you that at present the work to create new

types of Russian weapons, weapons of the new generation,

including those regarded by specialists as strategic weapons,

is in the stage of practical implementation.

As the newspaper report further indicated:

[A]nalysts said he [Putin] appeared to be referring to

Russia's efforts to modernize its nuclear arsenal and to

develop low yield nuclear weapons.

At this point in the speech, the press reported that the ``remark was greeted by applause.''

I don't know how comfortable we all feel with the Russian Duma applauding the statement that Russia is considering modernizing their nuclear forces, potentially developing low-yield nuclear weapons. Indeed, it seems terribly ironic to me that as we urge support and help for the Russians to destroy their nuclear arsenal, they are simultaneously taking the path we are in trying to create and build a new, more modern arsenal.

Acknowledging the important role of the nonproliferation treaty, as I have over many decades, should not be equated with assuming the arms control regime is without shortcomings. A structure that was designed primarily to moderate the superpower confrontation between the United States and the

Soviet Union cannot be expected to adapt to the new threats and new technologies of the post-cold-war world without conscious and committed efforts led by the United States to deal with these new circumstances. Thus, it is incumbent on ourselves, the United States, not simply to walk away from this regime of arms control but to adapt it to the new contingencies, the new threats, the new environment of this new strategic world.

The consequences of the detonation of a weapon of mass destruction are so devastating that reliance on military means alone to deter or preempt such an event is shortsighted. Abandoning serious efforts at arms control will weaken, not strengthen, our efforts to protect the Nation. We must engage, again, I believe, in a concerted effort to strengthen these norms of nonproliferation, of nonuse--not weaken them, as this legislation suggests.

A second argument used by proponents of these policies is that it is just about research; no one would ever deploy these weapons. These advocates have not been paying attention to the Bush administration. These are the words of Fred Celec, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News, talking in the context of the development of a ``hydrogen bomb that can be successfully designed to survive a crash through the hard rock or concrete and still explode,'' which is an earth penetrator. Mr. Celec concludes, in his words, if we can do it, ``it will ultimately get fielded.'

So this is not about hypothetical research; it is not about a big science project, or training scientists. In the view of a very influential member of the Department of Defense, it is about getting weapons we can put in the field. I can't think of any weapon that we would field, that we would place in the hands of American military personnel, that we wouldn't test first. So we are also talking about testing.

These are grave--not just possibilities, but if you listen to the spokesman of the administration, these are right over the horizon. I think it is very disturbing. That is why I think we have to act here to exercise our judgment and our responsibility to ensure that our policy is consistent with the best interests of this country. I hope, through consideration of this amendment, we will do that.

A third point that seems implicit in many of the arguments that are made on behalf of these weapons is the notion that nuclear weapons can be designed so their use is, if not relatively benign, then at least tolerable.

As previously discussed, the proposed modification of existing weapons to create a robust nuclear earth penetrator is anything but benign or tolerable. It will pack an explosive punch at least 25 times that of Nagasaki or Hiroshima, and even if technology and the Congress allows for a smaller yield robust nuclear earth penetrator, its use will be devastating.

Sidney Drell, a noted physicist and arms control advocate, pointed out that even a 1-kiloton weapon, penetrating to 40 feet, would create a crater larger than the impact area at the World Trade Center and put about 1 million cubic feet of radioactive material in the air. Such radioactivity could last for many years and would likely be spread over a fairly large area by the prevailing winds. That is not a small, discrete weapon that plows into the ground with a little puff of smoke emanating. That is a devastating weapon.

A fourth rationale raised by proponents is that permission to develop low-yield nuclear weapons is necessary to train the next generation of nuclear scientists. This argument ignores the existence of thousands of nuclear weapons that are available for training purposes. The ban on low-yield nuclear weapons applies only to the fabrication of new weapons, not the dismantling and study of existing ones. Moreover, the idea that decades of arms control efforts would be cast aside simply to provide a training exercise should cause a more exhaustive search for other training opportunities rather than the creation of a new class of nuclear weapons. Or, at a minimum, it should prompt a careful exemption from the ban for the purpose of research, and not the wholesale repeal of the ban that is included in this legislation before us.

A fifth rationale advanced by supporters is the possible use of a low-yield nuclear device to attack a facility that contains biological or chemical agents. The theory is that the radiation can destroy the biological or chemical agents in addition to destroying the facility. But this rationale begs two questions. What will destroy the radiation emitted by the nuclear blast and why are precision-guided missiles not as suitable a response? Once again, this is the very specialized threat that may be dealt with by other means and is an attempt to deal with the possibility of chemical and biological exposure through the release of a definite radiological exposure. It is not a compelling reason to abandon the ban on low-yield nuclear weapons.

A final justification for the development of low-yield nuclear weapons is that it will act as a deterrent. Proponents argue that our existing nuclear weapons are so large that we are self-deterred from using them and our adversaries know this. But with new, low-yield weapons, our adversaries will have renewed concern that we will employ nuclear weapons.

Several points are in order. First, in the war on terror, our adversaries are unlikely to be deterred by any size nuclear weapon, due to their fanaticism and the practical problem of targeting them. In a confrontation with rogue states, the targeting problem is easier, but the use of nuclear weapons of any size presents difficult tactical problems.

Our doctrine of air superiority, information dominance, precision weapons, and speed makes the use of nuclear weapons less attractive on military grounds since we plan for and anticipate the rapid destruction of enemy forces and the swift seizure of key political objectives. The use of nuclear weapons will likely slow us down and increase the cost, both short run and long run, of our operations.

In Iraq, we were confronted by a rogue state. We heard before the hostilities of the existence of deep underground facilities. We were told there were significant weapons of mass destruction throughout the country. Yet, I don't think any military commanders would have even contemplated the use of low-yield nuclear weapons, or any type of nuclear weapon. For one reason, if we had, we would still be miles away from Baghdad, because we could not occupy a place that was radiating plutonium. We would have caused significant civilian casualties. We would have caused a political firestorm that could never be contained in that part of the world and passed across the globe.

These are the practical considerations that deter us--not the fact that we do not have a low-yield weapon.

In addition, the ``deterrent effect'' may have the opposite effect on these rogue nations, as we think we are going to deter them.

Indeed, as Michael May, the former head of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, suggested, the emphasis on tactical nuclear weapons ``increases the motivation of 'targeted states' to improve and extend their own nuclear force, or to get one if they don't have it.''

The behavior of North Korea and Iran, although clearly unjustified, might be prompted by such considerations.

The amendment I offer today is designed to do what I heard practically all of my colleagues say was the intent of this proposal by the administration--to allow scientists to do research but clearly to prevent the development, the testing, the fielding, and the use of nuclear weapons, particularly low-yield nuclear weapons.

The amendment I offer today would amend the current Spratt-Furse law so that research is allowed. Work beyond research would, however, remain prohibited.

Since 1953, the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense have worked in a very formalized weapons development process. In the DOE nuclear weapons development process there are a series of numbered phases of development. They are pictured in this chart. The top chart represents the development of a new weapon. There are eight phases as indicated in the chart. The bottom array is the development of or modification of an existing weapon such as the case would be with the robust nuclear earth penetrator. It is coming out of the stockpile, but it is still subject to the same clearly defined phases that have been

defined now for almost 50 years, concept assessment, feasibility, all the way through retirement.

The amendment I offer today would prohibit ``development engineering,'' which is phase 3, or phase 6.3. Again, these are clearly identified phases. There will be no confusion in the Department of Energy or in the Department of Defense as to what is prohibited, what is allowed, and what is allowed as ``reasonable.'' That is what I have heard consistently my colleagues say, that the whole purpose of this proposal by the administration and the development phases are well understood. They have been in use for 50 years. The phases were developed jointly by the Atomic Energy Commission, the predecessor to the DOE, and the Department of Defense in a memorandum of understanding signed in 1953.

Again, my amendment is very clear. It allows phase 1, phase 2, and phase 2-A activity for a new weapon. The red line comes at phase 3. It would allow phase 6.1, 6.2, and 6.2-A. The red line phase comes at 6.3 for the modification of existing weapons. Research is allowed, and everything else is prohibited.

The amendment is designed to allow what, as I said, the Bush administration claims is a primary reason to seek the repeal of the Spratt-Furse law--the need to ``train the next generation of nuclear weapons scientists and engineers.''

I and many of my colleagues do not support providing an open-ended authority to this or any other administration to develop, test, produce, and deploy new nuclear weapons. Unless we adopt this amendment or some variance of the amendment, that is precisely what we will be giving the administration.

The amendment would address the primary concern of ADM Ellis, Commander of Strategic Command, the command responsible for nuclear weapons.

In a letter to the Armed Services Committee, ADM Ellis stated that the ``U.S. Strategic Command is interested in conducting rigorous studies of all new technologies and examining the merits of precision, increased penetration, and reduced yield for our nuclear weapons.''

Nowhere is there a suggestion that he would like the permission to develop the test in the field of new weapons.

Again, if we are serious about arms control, and if we recognize the request for less stability in research, this amendment will be adopted. I hope it is. I would prefer, frankly, the restoration completely of the Spratt-Furse amendment. But this will, I think, do what must be done--prevent development, testing, and fielding of new nuclear weapons of the low-yield type.

I yield the floor.

Will the chairman yield for a question?

I think I understand your second degree, but if I could, just for a moment--my amendment authorizes research activities in phases 1, 2, and 2-A, and 6.1, 6.2, and 6.2-A, and then prohibits the following phases. Your amendment would authorize work in these phases.

I think the difference is that rather than a clear prohibition, which would require someone coming back to the Congress and seeking to repeal the prohibition, you would require them to come back and get an authorization to proceed. I think that is correct.

Essentially, the functional difference between my amendment and your second degree is, at this point, under my amendment the administration would have to come and lift the prohibition; under your amendment, they would have to come and get an authorization. I think that is the functional difference.

Let me say, if I may, again, we are united in the notion of allowing the research in these first three phases. We choose a different way to control government access in the succeeding phases. But the effect, I hope, at the end of the deliberations is that the development, engineering, testing, and deployment of nuclear weapons of low-yield will be subject to congressional authority.

If the chairman will yield, that is why I have this chart, which is quite obvious, and it absolutely could explain your amendment, too.

I will lend it to you.

I believe you are.

It reads ``03.857'' on the upper left hand.

Mr. President, this amendment is intended to close an unfortunate and unacceptable gap in health insurance coverage for families of Reserve and Guard members who are called up for active duty in the Armed Forces. The amendment is a needed step forward in taking care of our troops and their families, and it includes most of the provisions of S. 647 that I introduced earlier this year to close the gap.

Today's military relies more heavily than ever on the Reserve and Guard.

Over 215,000 Guard and Reserve soldiers, sailors, marines, and airmen have been mobilized in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring Freedom, and Operation Noble Eagle. One challenge they should not have to face is maintaining their health insurance coverage. The problem is that few employers are willing to continue health insurance coverage for Guard and Reserve employees and family members when they are activated.

According to the General Accounting Office, nearly 80 percent of reservists have health care coverage when they are working in the private sector. Almost all of them would like to maintain that coverage when they are activated, in order to provide continued health benefits for their family members. The military's TRICARE coverage works well for the reservists when they are activated, but it is not a realistic alternative for family members since more TRICARE providers are located close to military bases that are often far from the homes where the family members of the reservists continue to live.

In fact, 95 percent of active-duty military families live near bases and health care facilities, so TRICARE is readily available to them. But only 25 percent of Guard and Reserve families live near bases, so TRICARE is inaccessible for them. Nevertheless, the other reservists feel they have no alternative, since their private insurance has lapsed. So they change to TRICARE while they are activated, and then change back to their former plan when the activation ends.

This amendment will enable them to enroll their family members in TRICARE, too. It is the right thing to do but it solves only part of the problem.

When TRICARE is not a realistic alternative for family members, they have the option to maintain their private health insurance plan during the activation. The frequency and length of activations for Guard and Reserves are disruptive and stressful enough. We should do everything we can to enable families to maintain their coverage and avoid unnecessary upheaval.

We had hoped to achieve that goal in this amendment as well, but the consent agreement means we cannot include it. So I urge the Senate to adopt the pending amendment to make TRICARE available to Reserve and Guard personnel and families and let us work together to deal with this other aspect of the problem, too.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, over the past years, we have had the opportunity to consider the Defense authorization bill, and a number of extremely important weapons systems have been debated on the floor of the Senate. By and large, over that period, we have seen the results in our military.

All of us recognize the extraordinary performance of our military in these past weeks where they performed with, first, extraordinary courage; second, with extraordinary leadership; and third, with the latest and the best of technology. I think all of us want to make sure those are the items which are going to be there for the security of our military. They are going to be the best trained, best led, and best equipped with the latest technology.

We ought to consider the various proposals that are before us and ask what is the military significance of any of the matters we are asked to consider on the Defense authorization bill. It is against the background that the Senator from California has pointed out that we ought to examine what is the possible need for this kind of a weapons system and another opening of the debate on the testing of nuclear weapons.

Make no mistake about it, we may hear that all we are interested in is the design of the nuclear weapon, but we will come back to that because it is the clear intention of the administration to move ahead with not only the design but also the testing of nuclear weaponry.

We have to ask: How does that affect our national security? How does that affect our national defense? First of all, we ought to be asking ourselves, given the fact that our Armed Forces were in battle over the past weeks, resulting in an enormous success: What came out of that conflict that would make us take this step of lifting the ban on any kind of nuclear test? What happened in Iraq? What was the objective? What was the military objective in Iraq that would make us say what we want to do on the Defense authorization bill is move us back from the successful negotiations over the last 50 years of Republican and Democratic Presidents in moving us away from nuclear proliferation and moving us away from the possibility of nuclear confrontation? That is what the record has been over the last 50 years under Republican and Democratic Presidents alike.

The Senator from California has reviewed that. We remember times when we came dangerously close--I certainly do--in the Cuban missile crisis to the real possibilities of nuclear conflict and nuclear exchange which effectively would have annihilated the United States and the Soviet Union as we knew it. It came dangerously close, and since that time Republican and Democrat leaders have said, OK, we do not want to see an escalation of the nuclear arms race. We have seen step after step to contain it. One of the most important ways of containing it is to have a moratorium on testing and also to have a battle against the proliferation of weapons.

What we have with this administration is basically an effort to lift what they call the Spratt amendment, which is a prohibition for research and development into the nuclear weapons. One can call them mini nukes. One can call them small nukes. Basically, I call them low- death weapons because that is what they are. We are talking about the killing of thousands of individuals with these weapons systems, and the administration is attempting to open this whole process again.

Over the period of the last 5 years we have not had any testing of nuclear weapons by India or by Pakistan, two nuclear powers. We have not seen any testing either by the United States, Russia, or China probably for the last 15 years. Progress was being made. We have seen five countries that have basically gone nonnuke, basically renounced their nuclear weapons in the world. We have been making real progress.

What do we hear from the other side? We are living in a dangerous world. Well, I hope on the other side they are going to be able to tell us how nuclear weapons are going to solve the problem of dealing with al-Qaida, how nuclear weapons would have solved our problem in dealing with the threats in Morocco this week or Saudi Arabia, for example, the last week.

What do they intend to do with these nuclear weapons? Well, we hear maybe they can be used in our new, dangerous world to deal with the problems of biological and chemical weapons.

Have my colleagues read the reports on what would happen if we have nuclear weapons incinerating large storage spaces of gas or chemical weapons, and if those were to fractionate into the air in terms of critical masses, the amount of devastation and death that would mean to thousands or tens of thousands of troops if they were near or hundreds of thousands of civilians who were near?

What is the singular purpose? What is the military necessity? What do the Joint Chiefs want to do with this weapons system?

We will hear the other side say, let's not get all worked up about this because all we are trying to do is some research on this issue.

Listen to what some of the principal spokespeople for the administration say about that. In February, the Pentagon's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nuclear Affairs, Fred Celec, was asked: What would happen if a nuclear bomb could be developed that would crash

through rock and concrete and still explode?

He said: It will ultimately get fielded.

And you are talking about all we are trying to do is a little research in this area? Come back to us later on; we will come back and talk to you if we are really going to get into testing of nuclear weapons.

This is what the head of the nuclear affairs weapons system at the Pentagon said: It will ultimately get fielded.

Then we go to Linton Brooks, who is the administration's nuclear weapons chief at the Department of Energy, who said the same thing to the Armed Services Committee in April: I have a bias in favor of the lowest usable yield because I have a bias in favor of something that is the minimum destruction. I have a bias in favor of things that might be usable.

There he is, Linton Brooks, the administration's nuclear weapons chief at the Department of Energy. Come on, now. You are talking about we are just going to do a little research and then we will come back and talk to you? Do you think our friends and adversaries around the world are going to believe that is what is going to happen in the United States? They will read those statements and they will start their programs of testing. That is what we are risking.

For what? We still have not heard from the military as to what it is our conventional bombs cannot do. What is it that our conventional artillery cannot achieve and accomplish? Where were their failings? Where is the potential target out there somewhere in the world? It was never told to us in the Armed Services Committee. It was never revealed to us in the Armed Services Committee.

Nonetheless, we want to find out if we want to go ahead--with all of the potential dangers that we know in terms of the dangers of proliferation of weaponry and the dangers from testing.

We have the administration's own Nuclear Posture Review in January of last year outlining the plans for developing new nuclear weapons, including improved weapons and warheads that reduce collateral damage. Do you know what that means in layman's language, reduced collateral damage? That means these smaller nuclear weapons. That is what it means.

Now, let us look at what these low-death weapons--I call them low- death weapons--could do. We have seen the administration talk about not exploding them even in their testimony before the Armed Services Committee. They refused to rule out the use of any nuclear weapons in the battle with Iraq; although Tony Blair did, our Secretary would not.

Well, now we have the 5-kiloton, earth-penetrating nuclear explosion. This chart depicts the average wind patterns for a winter day in the Middle East. It depicts a hypothetical attack outside of Damascus, Syria, using the nuclear weapon with a yield of 5 kilotons. The threshold of this ban exploded at a depth of 30 feet. This is the level, approximately 50 feet. This is at 30 feet.

This blast would cause 230,000 fatalities and another 280,000 casualties from radiation exposure within 2 years of the blast.

This is a plume pattern developed by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency computer model. We are talking about tens of thousands--hundreds of thousands--of casualties. That is what we are talking about with this weapon system.

What is the challenge? Are we finding that the Russians are building up to develop this kind of capability? No, we have not heard that. Have we heard the Chinese are now trying to build up their capability somehow to be a threat to us? No, we have not heard that. Have we heard the Pakistanis are going to do it? No. The Indians are going to do it? No, we have not heard they are going to do it. They have actually complied with the test ban treaties by not having any explosions, and they have been working with us in terms of the reduction. Certainly the Russians have in terms of reducing the total number of nuclear weapons.

We stood on the floor and passed an agreement with Russia not many weeks ago. So what is out there? What is out there that is going to put us on the track toward the reassumption of nuclear testing? What is the threat to us today?

It seems to me we do live in a dangerous world, with what is called al-Qaida. Everyone in the United States understands it, if they read the newspapers in the last few days and they see what has happened in the Middle East and what has happened in Morocco. We have to ask ourselves: How in the world will this particular weapon system help us deal with that particular threat? That reason has not been made.

The reason for this weapon system other than, well, let's take a chance, we can move ahead, it will be nice to add this to our stockpile, add one more weapon system, seems to be the argument. We have the possibility of going ahead; why not go ahead and do it.

I don't hear the other questions being raised about the range of activities that are going to take place in countries around the world. Make no mistake, this will release a chain of reactions across this world in nuclear testing. On the one hand, the United States says, look, we are trying to negotiate with the North Koreans in order to reduce the possibilities of nuclear exchange and miscalculation on the Korean peninsula. But do not pay attention to what we do. We are going over here to develop some new nuclear weapons. How does that work? What kind of message does that send in this world today? Who will buy that? Maybe those who support it are going to say how that kind of activity has worked in the recent past, how that kind of threat has resulted in other countries being cowed and intimidated into laying off on that. It will be the contrary.

Now, should these systems ever need to be developed, other colleagues want to speak about what the dangers would be, as to the possibilities of terrorists being able to purloin, steal, a small weapon system and being able to use that more effectively. We all know it is enormously complicated and difficult for them to do it today--not an impossibility--and we are realistic in terms of trying to do more to make sure that is done, but there is a whole range of additional threats by smaller systems that can cause devastation to hundreds of thousands of people.

Finally, we see what this administration will do; they will deploy the dangerous nuclear weapons. They could be developed to penetrate, according to their Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Affairs. Linton Brooks: ``I have a bias in things that might be usable.''

And there is the administration's nuclear policy review that indicates deployed warheads reduce collateral damage. That is what we are talking about. This is a matter of enormous risk.

If this risk were balanced by the danger, sign me up. But that case has not been made. This would be a remarkable step backward from the firewall established going back to GEN Eisenhowser, all the way through, a firewall between conventional and nuclear.

This administration, this policy, will break that down. It is wrong. It is not in our national security interests. That ought to be the test. This fails to meet that test.

I hope our amendment is acceptable.

I think I will only need 3 \1/2\ or 4 minutes, if we are trying to accommodate somebody.

Mr. President, this issue is as clear as any issue ever gets. You are either for nuclear war or you are not. Either you want to make it easier to start using nuclear weapons or you don't.

Our conventional weapons already have vast power and accuracy. We can make them even more powerful. No one at the Pentagon and no one in the administration has given us any examples--none at all--of cases where a smaller nuclear weapon is needed to do what a conventional weapon cannot do.

For half a century, our policy has been to do everything we possibly can to prevent nuclear war, and so far we have succeeded. The hardliners say things are different today: A nuclear war won't be so bad if we just make the nukes a little smaller. We will call them mini- nukes. They are not real nukes. A little nuclear war is OK.

That is nonsense. Nuclear war is nuclear war is nuclear war. We don't want it anywhere, anytime, anyplace. Make no mistake, a mini-nuke is still a nuke. Is half of Hiroshima OK? Is a quarter of Hiroshima OK? Is a little mushroom cloud OK? That is absurd.

The issue is too important. If we build it, we will use it. No Congress should be the Congress that says let's start down this street when it is a one-way street that can lead only to nuclear war.

Some may say that smaller weapons are less dangerous than the larger weapons already in our arsenal. But these nuclear weapons are actually more dangerous, because they are smaller, therefore easier to steal and smuggle. The Administration's goal is to make them more usable by lowering the thresholds for the first use of nuclear weapons.

Some may say we can't build new weapons, and haven't built them in years. To that I ask why do we need to build new weapons when we have over six thousand warheads in our inventory? It's enough to destroy the world at least ten times over, and leave the world in nuclear winter. It would take only ten nuclear weapons to paralyze the United States.

Some believe our non-proliferation efforts do not stop North Korea or Iran from developing nuclear weapons of their own. No one argues that these weapons have the capability to stop North Korea. But why not target them now with our existing nuclear weapons. This is not an argument for new nuclear weapons.

Some argue that current law ties the hands of the Pentagon. But there is no military requirement for these weapons, just hypothetical situations proposed by the other side. No one can point to an actual situation where we would use these weapons.

Some may argue that we need to do this research to go after Al Qaida and other asymmetric threats. How can we consider using thee weapons when we don't know where our adversaries are? Al Qaida is active in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Germany. Would we use these low- yield weapons against these countries?

Some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle believe that we have reduced our weapons while other countries have begun nuclear weapons programs. They say no one is following our lead and that since 1992, we have stopped testing while China, France, India, and Pakistan have continued to test. On the contrary, there have been no tests in the past five years. Four states who were nuclear states have come under the non-proliferation treaty as non-nuclear states: South Africa, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine.

They think we need to have our smartest people thinking about low- yield nuclear weapons. Lifting the ban would give them their freedom to indulge in intellectual curiosity, and it is more likely to yield a way to stop proliferation. However the research banned by this amendment is an offensive, not defensive capability. This is research leading to the development and the production of weapons, not pure intellectual exploration of advanced concepts. The Spratt amendment prohibits the construction of prototypes.

Some will argue that we cannot be confident that our weapons will work, without the development of these new weapons. According to the National Academy of Sciences (July 2002), ``The United States has the technical capabilities to maintain confidence in the safety and reliability of its existing nuclear weapons stockpile under the CTBT, provided that adequate resources are made available to the Department of Energy's nuclear weapons complex and are properly focused on this task.''

My colleagues believe that we still retain the right to authorize and appropriate funds for nuclear weapons systems. We should be allowed to think about these weapons to prevent others from developing this capability. But no one else is developing these weapons; if we start, others may follow. We may be igniting a new nuclear arms race. Nothing in law prohibits our scientists from doing research on our adversaries' capabilities.

Finally, some say we should develop these weapons because we cannot use the existing weapons, because they are too large. They say killing millions of Iraqis is too many. If we use a lower-yield weapon, we can deter Saddam Hussein. But this is just arguing for hundreds of thousands dead, rather than millions. If we really want a surgical strike capability, then we should develop a conventional alternative.

Mr. President, I yield back my remaining time to the Senator from Michigan.

Mr. President, I send an amendment to the desk on behalf of Senator Kennedy and myself, and we are joined by Senators Feingold, Dayton, and Stabenow.

Mr. President, I think the Senator probably knows this would strike the Spratt-Furse language.

I was 12 years old when the Enola Gay went out of the Pacific. I remember that big mushroom cloud on the San Francisco Chronicle and then, for months afterward, I remember the pictures that came back from Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It may well be that we are too far removed from that day to really understand the repercussions of what this bill is going to begin to allow to happen in the United States. What is going to be allowed to happen is a reopening of the door to nuclear development which has been closed for decades.

This amendment would strike section 3131, and that is the repeal of the Spratt-Furse language which prohibits the development of so-called low-yield nuclear weapons. This prohibition of nuclear development was adopted in the 1994 Defense authorization bill. It has been the law of the land for the last decade.

The language of Spratt-Furse--I would like to read it--says that with respect to U.S. policy, ``it shall be the policy of the United States not to conduct research and development which could lead to the production by the United States of a new low-yield nuclear weapon, including a precision low-yield warhead. The Secretary of Energy may not conduct or provide for the conduct of research and development which could lead to the production by the United States of a low-yield nuclear weapon which, as of the date of the enactment of this act, has not entered production.''

And then it has a section on the effect on other research and development, and it says that nothing in this section shall prohibit the Secretary of Energy from conducting or providing for the conduct of research and development necessary to design a testing device that has a yield of less than 5 kilotons; secondly, to modify an existing weapon for the purpose of addressing safety and reliability concerns, or, three, to address proliferation concerns.

President Bush is right when he says the greatest threat facing the United States lies in the global proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorist access to these weapons. But by adopting a new approach to national security in the wake of 9/11 that stresses unilateralism and preemption and increases U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons, I am deeply concerned that this administration may actually be encouraging the very proliferation we seek to prevent.

This bill, left intact, clearly opens the door to the development of new nuclear weapons and will, if left as is, begin a new era of nuclear proliferation, as sure as I am standing here.

A couple of weeks ago, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright talked with the Democratic Senate Caucus and she said something interesting. She said, in all of American history, there never has been a greater change in foreign policy and national security than between this administration and the last one.

Indeed, I deeply believe this bill places America at a crossroad in the conduct of foreign policy, and how we determine nuclear weapons policy will go a long way to determining whether we control nuclear proliferation or expand it. This bill will expand it. Let there be no doubt.

To my mind, even considering the use of these weapons threatens to undermine our efforts to stop proliferation. In fact, it actually encourages other nations to pursue nuclear weapons by emphasizing their importance.

For decades the United States relied on its nuclear arsenal for deterrence

only. In the symmetric world of the Cold War, we faced the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons and a conventional military that was stronger than ours. Nuclear weapons were used to deter not only a nuclear attack on our homeland but also a conventional attack against our allies in western Europe and Asia.

Today the Soviet Union is gone, but the world is not a safer place. Rather, we have seen new nuclear states emerge--India, Pakistan, and lately North Korea. As we continue to prosecute the war on terror, it should be a central tenet of U.S. policy to do everything at our disposal to make nuclear weapons less desirable, less available, and less likely to be used.

This bill will do exactly the opposite. Instead of ratcheting back our reliance on nuclear weapons, this administration is looking for new ways to use nuclear weapons and to make them more usable. Does anyone in this Chamber doubt that others will follow? I do not. The administration's Nuclear Posture Review, released in January of 2002, did not focus solely on the role of nuclear weapons for deterrence. It stressed the importance of being prepared to use nuclear weapons in the future. In fact, the review noted that we must now plan to possibly use them against a wider range of countries.

The Nuclear Posture Review said that we need to develop new types of nuclear weapons so we can use them in a wider variety of circumstances and against a wider range of targets such as hard and deeply buried targets or to defeat chemical or biological agents. And indeed, a few months after issuing the Nuclear Posture Review, President Bush signed National Security Presidential Directive 17, saying the United States might use nuclear weapons to respond to a chemical or biological attack.

In the past, U.S. officials have only hinted at that possibility. But this administration has made it formal policy. In doing so, it has telegraphed the importance of nuclear weapons and the administration's apparent willingness to use them.

In the legislation before us today, there is language requested by the administration asking Congress to repeal the Spratt-Furse provision--a decade old law that bans research on weapons with yields of 5 kilotons. Now, that is a third the size of the bomb used at Hiroshima.

I believe Spratt-Furse is an important prohibition with positive security equities for the United States. Since it has been in effect, no nation has developed lower yield nuclear weapons.

This administration wants to repeal Spratt-Furse for one reason, and one reason only: to build new nuclear weapons, particularly for missions against the hardened bunkers that rogue states may be using to store chemical and biological weapons.

By seeking to build nuclear weapons that produce smaller explosions and develop weapons which dig deeper, the administration is suggesting we can make nuclear weapons less deadly. It is suggesting we can make them more acceptable to use. But there is no such thing as a clean nuclear weapon that minimizes collateral damage.

Consider the following facts: According to a Stanford physicist, Sidney Drell, destroying a target buried 1,000 feet into rock would require a nuclear weapon with the yield of 100 kilotons. That is 10 times the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

According to Dr. Drell, even the effects of a small bomb would be dramatic. A 1-kiloton nuclear weapon detonated 20 to 50 feet underground would dig a crater the size of Ground Zero in New York and eject 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris into the air.

According to models done by the Natural Resources Defense Council, detonating a similar weapon on the surface of a city would kill a quarter of a million people and injure hundreds of thousands more.

So there really is no such thing as a ``usable nuclear weapon.''

Moreover, nuclear weapons cannot be engineered to penetrate deeply enough to prevent fallout. Based on technical analysis at the Nevada Test Site, a weapon with a 10-kiloton yield must be buried deeper than 850 feet to prevent spewing of radioactive debris. Yet a weapon dropped from a plane at 40,000 feet will penetrate less than 100 feet of loose dirt and less than 30 feet of rock.

Ultimately, the depth of penetration is limited by the strength of the missile casing. The deepest our current earth penetrators can burrow is 20 feet of dry earth. Casing made of even the strongest material cannot withstand the physical forces of burrowing through 100 feet of granite, much less 850 feet.

In addition, the United States already has a usable nuclear bunker buster, the B61-11, which has a ``dial-a-yield'' feature, allowing its yield to range from less than a kiloton to several hundred kilotons. When configured to have a 10-kiloton yield and detonated 4 feet underground, the B61-11 can produce a shock wave sufficient to crush a bunker buried beneath 350 feet of layered rock. We have the weapons to do the job. We don't need another.

But the U.S. military, the strongest and most capable military force the world has ever seen, bar none, has plenty of effective conventional options at hand designed to penetrate deeply into the earth and destroy underground bunkers and storage facilities.

Those conventional bunker busters range in size from 500 to 5,000 pounds, and most are equipped with either a laser or GPS guidance system. A 5,000-pound bunker buster like the Guided Bomb Unit 28/B is capable of penetrating up to 20 feet of reinforced concrete or 100 feet of earth. It was used with much success in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

Other conventional bunker busters were used to take out Saddam Hussein's underground lairs in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In fact, the U.S. military possesses a conventional bunker buster, the GBU-37, which is thought to be capable of taking out a silo-based ICBM. With this conventional arsenal at our disposal, there is little military utility that a low-yield nuclear weapon provides to the U.S. military.

While I agree that nuclear weapons may have some military utility in certain circumstances, the benefit of the development of new mini-nukes appears to me to be far outweighed by the costs. But with the sought- for repeal of Spratt-Furse, the administration seems to be moving toward a military posture in which nuclear weapons are considered just like other weapons--in which their purpose is not simply to serve as a deterrent but as a usable instrument of military power, like a tank, a fighter aircraft, or a cruise missile.

But there are several things wrong with that logic. Nuclear weapons are different.

First, using them--even small ones--would cross a line that has been in place for 60 years. If the Spratt-Furse prohibition is repealed, the development of new nuclear weapons could lead to the resumption of underground nuclear testing in order to test the new weapons. This would overturn the 10-year moratorium on nuclear testing and could lead other nuclear powers, and nuclear aspirants, to resume or start testing, actions that would fundamentally alter future nonproliferation and counterproliferation efforts.

I understand Secretary of State Powell has written a letter supporting this, and I must express my profound disappointment. I must restate something he said last year on ``The NewsHour With Jim Lehrer.'' I quote Secretary Powell:

I mean, the thought of nuclear conflict in 2002, with what

that would mean with respect to loss of life, what that would

mean to the condemnation--the worldwide condemnation--that

would come down on whatever nation chose to take that course

of action, would be such that I can see very little military,

political, or other kind of justification for the use of

nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in this day and age may

serve some deterrent effect, and so be it; but to think of

using them as just another weapon in what might start out as

a conventional conflict in this day and age seems to me

something that no side should be contemplating.

This was 1 year ago. What has changed, Mr. President? Why would we open the door to nuclear development at the very time we are trying to say to North Korea this is unacceptable, at the very time we are worried as to whether Pakistan can securitize its nuclear weapons, and whether there may be a nuclear holocaust between Pakistan and India?

I have never been more concerned about where this Nation is going than I am today. Let me give another example. China has a no-first-use nuclear policy. Their warheads have been stable at between 18 and 24 ICBMs. Yet we

have a policy document, the Nuclear Posture Review, that says we would countenance a first use of nuclear weapons against China if they were to use military action against Taiwan, and we said the same thing about North Korea going into South Korea. This is in writing.

Does no one think anybody reads these things? Does no one believe that we do not set the tenor of the world with respect to weapons? We are the largest weapons seller on Earth, and I do not want to see us develop more nuclear weapons, nor do I believe the American people want to see it either. This bill allows that to happen.

I do not believe this side of the aisle can sit by and let it happen to our children and our grandchildren. Tactical nuclear weapons in the most sophisticated military in the world should play no part.

I cannot think of a single issue that should more define the political agenda today than whether the United States should go back into the nuclear business again, and repeal of Spratt-Furse is the first step in that direction.

In the Energy Committee, I suspected this was coming, and I asked Secretary Abraham: Are there any plans? He said no. Last Wednesday, in Defense Appropriations, I asked Secretary Rumsfeld what is going on. He said: Oh, it is just a study. Just a study, baloney. Does anyone really believe that?

The repeal of Spratt-Furse opens the door for America to begin to develop nuclear weapons again, and I for one do not believe we should sit by and see that happen.

We are telling others not to develop nuclear weapons. We are telling others not to sell fissile materials. We are concerned when North Korea has plutonium and uranium and Iran begins to start up refining uranium. Yet it is all right for us to go out and begin to develop weapons that are one-third the size of the weapon that hit Hiroshima and killed instantly 175,000 people? I do not think so. And I do not believe that is what the American people stand for either.

This is a big vote. This is a vote that opens the door. How we can repeal language that says to all the world the United States is not in the nuclear development business, I do not know, but I find it absolutely chilling and even diabolical, particularly when we preach to other nations.

At a time when we brand as evil certain countries based in part on their pursuit of nuclear arms and weapons of mass destruction, we must be careful how we consider our own options and our own contingencies regarding nuclear weapons. So I urge my colleagues to think very carefully about the implications this defense bill is going to carry throughout the world.

The 10-year old prohibition on study, on testing, and on developing nuclear weapons is going to be thrown out the window, and it is a major signal that the United States is going to get back into the nuclear arms business.

I urge this Senate to join Senator Kennedy and I in support of this amendment. I yield time to Senator Kennedy, as much time as he requires.

I ask unanimous consent that Senator Reed from Rhode Island be added as a cosponsor, Senator Durbin of Illinois, I believe Senator Dayton already is, and Senator Bingaman, as well.

I wish the opportunity to speak at the end for 1 hour.

At the end. If it is a unanimous consent agreement, I don't want to be cut off.

Mr. President, I thank all of those who have come to the floor to speak. I think this is a very important debate because I think we are at a crossroad.

Clearly, this Defense authorization bill, when coupled with the repeal of the Spratt-Furse amendment, opens the door to new nuclear development. In my tenure in the Senate, in either a classified or unclassified session, I have never had any information provided that this is necessary or that there is a military requirement to do so.

One of the reasons this should not be repealed is, when it is combined with other provisions in the Defense authorization bill, one can really see where this is going. For example, this bill authorizes $15 million for the study of the robust nuclear earth penetrator. It authorizes $6 million for advanced nuclear weapons concepts. Then if we look at page 448 of the report, we see that the committee recommends a provision that would require the Secretary of Energy to achieve and thereafter maintain a readiness posture of 18 months for resumption by the United States of underground nuclear tests. This moves up a 3-year period to 18 months.

So if we combine all of these, it is very clear to me that where this country is going is toward the resumption of nuclear development.

I wish to rebut a couple of arguments. It was said that we need capabilities for any possible contingency, and I could not agree more. But if we read Spratt-Furse, it allows research but it disallows development and production. In other words, it allows research on existing systems; it does not allow research on new systems. Consequently, if Spratt-Furse is repealed, what automatically is being said is that we begin study, research, and testing on new systems. If research is promising and there is a military need, the administration can come back and ask for specific authorization. As I said, there is no specific military requirement for these weapons that we know about.

It has also been said today that developing low-yield weapons is important to preserve U.S. credibility in determining threats. In fact, we already have over 6,000 nuclear weapons in our stockpile, and we already have a warhead that can be dialed down to 1 kiloton or less. So what is the need to go to 5 kilotons of new development? We do not know because it has never been presented to us.

We also have an overwhelming conventional military advantage over any other country. We have conventional bombs that range in size from 500 to 5,000 pounds. A 5,000-pound bunker buster, like the guided bomb unit 28B, is capable of penetrating up to 20 feet of reinforced concrete or 100 feet of earth. This was used with success in Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

To my knowledge, we have never been told that this is inadequate or that there is no other way, other than a nuclear way, to get at a deep bunker; we have never been told that our intelligence does not work or you cannot plug an air hole or you cannot use a number of conventional bunker busters to achieve a similar result.

We have been told that repealing Spratt-Furse will not affect proliferation because others will seek nuclear weapons anyway. Well, our standing in the world, I have thought, really rests on our moral case, our sense of justice, our sense of equity, our freedom. In fact, since 1992, the United States has not developed new weapons and others have followed suit. Russia has not tested since then and has not developed new weapons. China stopped testing. India and Pakistan have not tested for 5 years and are not currently developing new weapons. But we can be sure, when it is learned that the United States is going to go ahead with new studies, new feasibility tests on up to 5-kiloton new nuclear warheads, that others will follow suit.

I believe U.S. restraint is, in fact, an important element of our nonproliferation effort.

This is a very big vote that is before us right now because the only reason to repeal Spratt-Furse is to signal that we are, in fact, going to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. This is a horrible mistake. I think it is a mistake morally. I think it is a mistake militarily. I do not know a commander who would want to send his troops onto a battlefield where a 5-kiloton nuclear weapons device had been utilized. So why are we doing this? It makes no sense to me. I hope this body would vote against it.

I leave with one point. A 1-kiloton weapon detonated at a depth of 20 to 50 feet would inject more than 1 million cubic feet of radioactive debris and form a crater about the size of ground zero in New York. If we fail to repeal the repeal, we will allow research to go ahead to develop up to five times that when we have conventional weapons that can do the job as well. I have very strong feelings on this subject.

I thank Senator Kennedy, Senator Levin, and all Members who have come to the floor to speak in support of our amendment.

I yield the floor.

I ask unanimous consent to add Senator Biden as a cosponsor.

The Senator is correct. There are at least two provisions here.

The Senator is correct. The so-called low-yield weapons indeed are about one-third the power of the weapon that was used at Hiroshima.

Under the law that exists today, the so-called Spratt- Furse language which exists in law today, there is a prohibition on research and development which could lead to the production of a so- called low-yield weapon. Under the bill, that language would be stricken from the law and there would be no such prohibition.

The so-called bunker busters, which is a total misnomer in my book because these are city busters--they may indeed be nation busters or world busters, but nevertheless the so-called bunker busters are two weapons. There is a so-called B-61 weapon, which is about the power of 28 Hiroshimas, and the other one is the B-83, which is up to 71 Hiroshima weapons, in terms of power.

I don't have a calculator. Whatever 140 times 70 would amount to would be that number, assuming the same approximate density in Hiroshima.

Reserving the right to object, Mr. President, I just suggest two things: One, the interspersed order include Republican speakers, should they desire----

Secondly, there will be additional speakers beyond that. I would not want to suggest that the debate would end then because we have additional speakers.

Prior to that, Senator Byrd wanted to speak. I wanted to speak for 10 minutes, and Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island and Senator Akaka want to speak as well.

I wonder if the Senator from New Mexico will yield for an inquiry.

Can the Senator give an approximation of how long he will speak?

An hour and a half?

Mr. President, will the Senator from Wisconsin yield just for a unanimous consent request?

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that after Senator Feingold, Senator Inhofe be recognized and then Senator Byrd be recognized after that Senator, and then Senator Talent be recognized after Senator Byrd.

I wonder if the Senator from Arizona would modify the request to add Senator Reed immediately after Senator Allard on his side.

Senator Reed of Rhode Island.

We are going to do our best. While the Senator is speaking, I will talk to Senator Kennedy and Senator Feinstein.

I am willing to cut my time down as well. I haven't talked to Senator Feinstein, who has already cut her time down.

Mr. President, the provisions in this bill relating to the development of new nuclear weapons mark a major and a very dangerous shift in American policy. Proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the greatest threat we face. Uncorking the nuclear bottle to develop new and modified nuclear weapons goes in the opposite direction of the commitment we made when we signed the nonproliferation treaty. We are a party to that treaty.

It has been said on this floor that North Korea is a party to the nonproliferation treaty, and they have to live up to it. They got something in return for their signature. They did, indeed. They got our signature, and our signature committed us to end the nuclear arms race.

Uncorking the nuclear bottle, which these provisions do, makes a mockery of our argument to other countries around the world that they should not go nuclear.

Just think about some of the headlines in the last few months about North Korea: ``U.S. Assails Move by North Koreans to Reject Treaty.'' That is the nonproliferation treaty to which we are a signatory, too, that commits us to end the nuclear arms race, not to start a new chapter in the nuclear arms race. So we assail their move.

Another headline: ``Military Action Possible, U.S. Warns North Korea.'' We take their move toward nuclear weapons so seriously that we have actually suggested we may initiate military action to stop them from moving in a nuclear direction. Yet we, if these provisions stay, are moving in that same direction. We have told Iran the same thing. We have urged Russia: Do not help Iran go nuclear. Do not supply them with any materials which they might use to go nuclear.

Yet in these provisions in this bill, we would, if they stay in the bill, lift a prohibition that exists in current law in the United States which prohibits the research and development on nuclear weapons that could lead to the production of new nuclear weapons. That is what the so-called Spratt-Furse language does. It prohibits research and development on nuclear weapons which could lead to their production. That is the language which was stricken by a 15-to-10 vote in the Armed Services Committee, and that is the language which the amendment offered by the Senators from California and Massachusetts would restore to the law.

We have a special responsibility for a lot of reasons. No. 1, we are the leader. We have to live up to what we say we want others to do. But we are also the only country that has actually used nuclear weapons. We say we are determined to stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Are we serious about that? If we have a prohibition in our law which says we will not do research and development on nuclear weapons which could lead to their production, are people around the world going to take us seriously that, in fact, we want to stop other countries from going nuclear, gaining nuclear weapons, that our major fear is the proliferation of nuclear weapons if we take the position that an existing prohibition in law on research and development that could lead to production of those weapons is going to be lifted by us?

We have a special responsibility. This is a security issue for us. Are we really more secure in the world where that nuclear bottle is uncorked and uncorked by us, by lifting an existing ban in our law?

Nuclear weapons cannot be seen as just another option for warfare. They cannot be seen as usable as warfighting weapons. Yet the administration is moving to change the historic position of one U.S. administration after another by looking to make nuclear weapons more usable, not just as another capability but usable in warfighting, and that is the language which has been quoted on this floor.

The language of the head of the nuclear weapons program talks about the desirability of designing weapons which are usable. That is his word, ``usable.'' One administration after another has gone in the other direction.

The specific weapons that are covered by the ban are so-called low- yield nuclear weapons. What a misnomer that is for reasons so many of us have given on the floor this afternoon. Five kilotons, which is the definition of a low-yield weapon, is roughly one-third the size of the nuclear bomb that was used on Hiroshima which immediately killed 140,000 people, left hundreds of thousands radiated and injured in other ways. And by the way, 140,000 people was almost half the population of Hiroshima.

Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction, whether they are a third the size of the bomb that was used at Hiroshima or 20 times the size or 40 times the size. They are weapons of mass destruction.

The administration seeks to repeal a ban on research and development which could lead to the production of a weapon of mass destruction. That is the bottom line, and the statement by the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration, Mr. Linton Brooks, makes it very clear that there is an intent here to develop weapons which are ``usable.'' That is not my word. That is not the word of the supporters of the amendment, the Senator from California and the Senator from Massachusetts. That is the testimony of the Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration who said that he has a bias in favor of things--referring to weapons--that might be usable, referring to the so-called low-yield nuclear weapons.

It is more than research. In this law which exists, unless we repeal it, are prohibitions on research and development. The Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense in charge of these programs, Mr. Celec, who has also been quoted today, specifically said the following. Fred Celec, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, made clear that:

The administration wants the weapon and it is moving

forward.

He is talking about a weapon that could be a deep penetrator. It could be a so-called bunker buster, but also it could be a low-yield weapon. He is not specific. If a hydrogen bomb can be successfully designed to survive a crash through hard rock and still explode, it will ultimately get fielded, Celec said in an interview with the Mercury News. The San Jose Mercury News in 2003 ran that story, and we have confirmed that, in fact, that is what he said. He was not misquoted. So we have the Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters saying that if a hydrogen bomb can be designed to penetrate hard rock and still explode, ``it will ultimately get fielded.''

That is the path the language in the bill repealing the so-called Spratt amendment would take us down.

All of this is being done in the context of what is called the Nuclear Posture Review which was completed by the administration in December of 2001. This was the first step in an effort to develop new usable nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Posture Review is the basis for a new strategic policy that is described in a March 23, 2002, Washington Post article:

Would give U.S. Presidents the option of conducting a

preemptive strike with precision-guided conventional bombs or

nuclear weapons.

That is the policy shift which occurred back then. That is the environment in which we are determining whether or not to lift a prohibition on research and development of new nuclear weapons.

That Nuclear Posture Review walks away from a longstanding policy that the United States will not be the first to use nuclear weapons against a nonnuclear state. That Nuclear Posture Review, again according to the Washington Post article, specifically identifies countries that could be targets, including North Korea, Iran, Syria, and Libya.

The legislative proposal that accompanied the administration's request to repeal the Spratt-Furse prohibition on low-yield nuclear weapons says the following--that is the proposal that accompanied the request that the committee voted to approve by a 15-to-10 vote. This is what the administration's language says:

In this regard, the . . . Nuclear Posture Review urged

exploration of weapons concepts that could offer greater

capabilities for precision, earth penetration--

And other things.

The justification concluded that the Spratt-Furse law impedes this effort.

It does indeed.

Without the Spratt-Furse law, there is no legal impediment to the development, testing, production, or deployment of new, usable nuclear weapons.

Will that impediment be removed? That is the issue we are going to decide tonight. At a time when we are trying to dissuade other countries from going forward with nuclear weapons development, when we strongly oppose North Korea's pulling out of the Nuclear Non- Proliferation Treaty, when we are spending over a billion dollars to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons material and technology, it seems to me that lifting this prohibition on the research and development of nuclear weapons which could lead to their production sends a terrible message. We are telling others not to go down the road to nuclear weapons, but instead of being a leader in the effort to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, we would be recklessly driving down that same road.

In short, the United States should not follow a policy that we do not tolerate in others. We live in a dangerous world where proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the greatest threat we face. The answer is not to make the world more dangerous by our own actions.

If Senator Allard wishes to alternate, there would then be someone to speak from his side. If not, I know Senator Feinstein is next in line.

I yield the floor.

Will the Senator withhold for just a moment.

I yield the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, the Senate has just voted to authorize the research of new nuclear weapons for the first time since 1993. We have removed a prohibition on research which could lead to the production of nuclear weapons. This is a major shift, in my judgment, a terribly mistaken shift in policy because of the message it so clearly sends to the world that we are now going to walk down the road we are telling the rest of the world not to walk down.

The amendment which has been offered by Senator Reed, of which I am a cosponsor, starts from that point. However, as the Senator from Rhode Island just described, it does not seek in any way to reverse what the Senate just did relative to the research that the opponents of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment said was so important to protect. It accepts the decision of the Senate and the opponents of the Feinstein- Kennedy amendment--the argument made that research should not be prohibited. Senator Reed's amendment does not prohibit research. Rather, it says we should not allow the development of these new weapons and, of course, any subsequent testing or deployment of those weapons; that if we are going to let the world know we are not committed to the deployment and the development of new weapons, we have to send a clear signal to the world of some kind that even though research would be allowed, nonetheless we are not going to raise the prohibition or lift the prohibition on the development of new nuclear weapons.

I believe it was a mistake to repeal the Spratt-Furse language. I think what we are doing is telling the North Koreas and the Irans of the world that we are not going to tolerate your having nuclear weapons, but we are going to develop new nuclear weapons ourselves. It is a totally inconsistent position. It undermines our whole position and our standing in the world to argue that nations such as North Korea and Iran should not be allowed to have nuclear weapons.

It is mighty difficult to persuade even our Allies in the world that we should take strong measures to stop North Korea from getting nuclear weapons, and we should take strong measures to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, including working with the Russians to try to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but, oh, by the way, we are going to do research and development on new nuclear weapons.

As the Senator from Rhode Island and others have said, this isn't just a matter of research, because the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters puts it this way: ``If a hydrogen bomb could be successfully designed to survive a crash through hard rock and still explode, it will ultimately get fielded''--I presume speaking for the administration.

So nobody should be, in any way, fooled that what we are talking about is just simply research. Unless we put a prohibition in to stop the development of these weapons, what the world will believe--and I think accurately--is that it is not just research, it is development. Then, in the words of Fred Celec, the Deputy Assistant Secretary on nuclear matters: It will get fielded.

Now, the opponents of the last amendment said: Well, that is not what we are trying to do here. We are not trying to make any commitment to fielding a weapon or even developing a weapon. All we are talking about is research. And since the Spratt amendment prohibits research on weapons which could lead to their deployment and to their production, we think the Spratt amendment simply goes too far and should be repealed.

So what the Senator from Rhode Island does in his amendment is say: Well, then, for Heaven's sake, consistent with that--and to avoid sending a message which even the opponents of the Feinstein-Kennedy amendment said they do not want to send--let us keep the prohibition on the development of new nuclear weapons. That is all the amendment offered by Senator Reed does.

It seems to me it is the least we can do to avoid sending a signal from the U.S. Senate that this country is now going down a road that we are saying no country should go down, which is the road of new nuclear weapons.

The former Assistant Energy Secretary, Rose Gottemoeller, in March of 2003 put it this way:

Other countries watch us like a hawk. They are very, very

attentive to what we do in the nuclear arena. This is going

to be considered another step in the tectonic shift.

She was referring to the repeal of the Spratt-Furse language.

I think people abroad will interpret this as part of a

really enthusiastic effort by the Bush administration to

renuclearize. And I think definitely there's going to be an

impetus to the development of nuclear weapons around the

world.

The greatest threat we face is the terrorist threat and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. We should do what we can to avoid sending a signal to the world that we are committed to the development of new nuclear weapons. The prohibition now has been lifted on research and development of new nuclear weapons, which could lead to their production.

Unless we adopt the Reed amendment, it will appear to the world-- accurately--that this Senate is committed to the development of new nuclear weapons. I hope we are not going to make that commitment. It would be a terrible mistake for what it would unleash.

In order to avoid that commitment from being made, or from appearing to be made, to the rest of the world, we need the Reed language, which says that we are going to keep the prohibition of Spratt-Furse from the development stage on.

The Senate has spoken relative to research. The words again of the opponents, who have said: My Heavens,

under Spratt-Furse, you can't even do the research. Surely, we ought to allow scientists to think.

The Reed amendment is consistent with what the opponents of Feinstein-Kennedy said was their main reason for opposing the prohibition that exists in law. So I would hope that we could adopt the language that is in Senator Reed's amendment, to indicate we, in fact, are not committed to the development of new nuclear weapons, and that we would not march down a road when we tell other nations they must not march down that road.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, I am just comparing the two amendments. It seems to me in terms of directives, the simplicity of the Reed amendment has it all over the amendment of the Senator from Virginia. It is shorter than the Senator's amendment, if I am reading this amendment correctly. I want to make sure I have the right amendment before I make this statement. It looks like on page 2 at least there are 10 lines of type; is that correct? Am I looking at the correct amendment?

On the first page.

Correct. It is at least as simple as the amendment of the Senator from Virginia, which I understand is really a substitute.

When the Senator says it reimposes the limitation on development, the Senator is correct. It does do that.

The Reed amendment, according to my dear friend from Virginia, would reimpose the prohibition on development that was just repealed in the bill's language and left in because of the defeat of the Feinstein amendment. That is correct.

And the Senator's amendment is useful.

The Senator from Virginia, the Senator I am addressing.

I am glad we are not in a trial courtroom because you surely don't have me nailed here.

It is quite clear what the Senator from Rhode Island and I want to do, which is maintain a prohibition on the development of new nuclear weapons. The difference is exactly what the Senator from Rhode Island said, which is that his amendment, which I have cosponsored, maintains a prohibition on development; whereas the amendment of the Senator from Virginia says the administration would have to come back for reauthorization.

The Senator from Virginia's amendment is valuable. As a matter of fact, I offered the amendment the Senator from Virginia is offering tonight in committee. It was defeated by one vote.

Mr. President, how much time do I have available under the unanimous consent agreement?

I thank the Chair.

Before I begin speaking in support of the Kennedy amendment, I would like to make just one generic point. I find it fascinating that the United States of America, of all countries in the world, feels the need to increase its nuclear arsenal at this moment--low-yield, high-yield, no-yield, any yield.

It is fascinating that, at this moment in the world's history, in our relative strength and power, we are the ones who think we need another nuclear weapon in our arsenal. But that is just, as a friend of mine named Arlen Mekler used to say, a random thought.

Let me get to the heart of this. I obviously support the Feinstein- Kennedy amendment which would keep the 1993 Spratt-Furse amendment in place. That amendment, as we all know, bans all work on low-yield nuclear weapons, those with a yield below 5 kilotons. We had a lot of reasons to do that. It is sometimes useful to remember why we did these things in the first place. I might add we enacted that amendment at a time when the Russians had a whole heck of a lot more weapons than exist now; at a time when things were actually a little more dangerous, when our vulnerability to nuclear attack was greater than it is today.

But the question now is, Why should we oppose the repeal of that ban? After all, section 3131 states:

Nothing in the repeal . . . shall be construed as

authorizing, testing, acquisition, or development of a low-

yield nuclear weapon.

So why stop our nuclear weapons labs from just thinking about these low-yield weapons?

One answer is that the current law doesn't restrict research and early development on these low-yield weapons. It only prohibits later stages of development and engineering that are geared toward the production of low-yield nuclear weapons.

Obviously, what we would do by lifting this ban is to be in the position of being able to move toward production of those weapons, a notion that will not be lost on the rest of the world.

The other answer is that low-yield nuclear weapons are not like regular ones. Regular nuclear weapons are designed to deter adversaries. The massive destruction and civilian casualties that they can cause make nuclear weapons unlike even other weapons of mass destruction. Low-yield nuclear weapons are different. They bridge the gap between conventional weapons and the city-busting weapons of the cold war, and they offer the lure of a better way to destroy point targets. Supporters of low-yield weapons argue they could deter an adversary, and that is true. All nuclear weapons have a deterrent function. But the deterrent benefits that low-yield weapons provide are far outweighed by both the risk that they will actually be used and the dangerous signal they send to other countries, whether intentional or not, that we intend to fight a nuclear war.

Low-yield weapons also blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war, and they begin to make nuclear war more ``thinkable,'' as Herman Kahn might have said. Herman Kahn's book was titled ``Thinking About the Unthinkable.'' He understood that nuclear war was unthinkable, even as he demanded that we think about how to fight one, if we had to.

Looking at the foreign defense policies of the current administration, I fear they fail to understand that very vital point. They want to make nuclear war ``thinkable.'' Section 3131 of this bill could make it ``thinkable'' that we could use these low-yield weapons-- as if we needed to have these low-yield nuclear weapons, despite the overwhelming conventional deterrent we have. Had we had them, I wonder if anyone might have suggested that we use these low-yield nuclear weapons that we may produce against any of the bunkers Saddam Hussein was in. I am sure we could hear a voice today that if we had a low- yield nuclear weapon, we could have used it that first night and guaranteed he was gone. The fact that we would have been the only country for the second time in world history to use a nuclear weapon, in this case unlike the first, without any real need, would have been lost on some people. But, I wonder what that message that would have sent to India and Pakistan, which are cheek to jowl with nuclear capability.

The administration's failure, in my view, to understand that nuclear is still ``unthinkable'' is, I think, the most fatal flaw in this approach. That failure to understand could lead to bigger failures--a failure to understand how to keep other countries from developing nuclear weapons, a failure to view nonproliferation as a vital and a workable policy objective, and perhaps even a failure to avoid nuclear war which would do horrible damage to any country involved, including ourselves.

Consider what the administration has said regarding nuclear weapons. We parse out what the administration says a piece at a time. I don't think we understand that the rest of the world, friend and foe alike, takes it in its total context. Let us look at the whole range of what they have said so far about nuclear weapons.

The Nuclear Posture Review of December 2001 spoke of reducing U.S. reliance on nuclear weapons. But it also

reportedly listed not only Russia and China but also North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya as potential enemies in a nuclear war with the use of nuclear weapons. I emphasize ``reportedly listed''--I have not looked at the classified document. I am referring to what has been printed on the Web and what has been in the press. The Nuclear Posture Review spoke of possibly needing to develop and test new types of nuclear weapons, and gave that as a reason for increasing our nuclear test readiness, and further said nuclear weapons might be used to neutralize chemical and biological agents.

More recently, civilian Pentagon leaders ordered a task force to consider possible requirements for new low-yield nuclear weapons, even while assuring the Senate that no formal requirement has yet been established.

A Presidential strategy document reportedly stated the United States might use nuclear weapons against a country with chemical or biological weapons. Then, in a runup to the war in Iraq, the administration proclaimed (but never explained) a new doctrine of preemption against any potential foe that acquired weapons of mass destruction.

All that taken individually is understandable. Taken collectively, it could give someone a very foreboding picture. And do those statements increase our leverage over potential foes, and with a world community at large, or do they only give the rogue states the argument that they really are threatened and, therefore, really need nuclear weapons? Do our statements enable the rest of the world to ``blame the victim,'' as the neo-conservatives would say--and I would agree with them on the outrageousness of that--instead of blaming those responsible for setting disorder in motion?

If you are North Korea, or Iran, or Libya, or Syria, which part of the reports I just referenced are you likely to rely on to make your specious case to the rest of the world?

We have seen the willingness of the rest of the world to engage in the suspension of disbelief. As a friend of mine said, never underestimate the ability of the human mind to rationalize. We have seen our friends, from the French on, rationalize why we shouldn't do what needs to be done.

Which part of the administration's strategy statements, which I briefly outlined, do you think the bad guys--North Korea, Iran, Libya, and Syria--are likely to rely on? The part where we say we reduce our reliance on nuclear bombs, or the part that names those countries as a possible target for nuclear preemption?

As long as you are already listed on the possible target list, what are you going to say, and what are you going to do? Obviously, they are going to say, ``We have to do this because of what the United States is doing.''

There is no one in the world who doubts our capacity to annihilate, by conventional weapons alone, any other country in the world. There is no doubt in anyone's mind. And now we are saying that for our defense, we need another nuclear weapon. How do you think the world will interpret that? Some will say it doesn't matter what the rest of the world thinks. But it surely matters, in 1,000 different ways, whether it is a matter of deciding you will not let us sell chickens in your country or deciding whether you will allow businessmen to operate in your country or deciding whether you will cooperate in any other 500 ways we need cooperation on.

What do our statements say, if you are North Korea or Libya or anywhere else? Do you say the United States is getting a low-yield nuclear weapon, so it is time we gave up our efforts to get nuclear weapons? Or if you think we are getting a low-yield nuclear weapon, might you decide it is time to accelerate your efforts?

So far we have one clear answer, from North Korea. It is not the one we wanted. Iran appears to be accelerating its nuclear weapons program as well. I am not suggesting they would not be doing that if we weren't enunciating the policies of this administration. I suspect they would anyway.

The whole question here is, How do we keep dangerous weapons, particularly nuclear weapons, out of the hands of the most dangerous people in the world, be they terrorists or those who would support them? That is our policy; that is the President's policy; and I agree with it. But obviously, we haven't quite gotten it right. So far, I don't think the administration has the answer to the question of how to achieve our objectives.

For a while, it seemed as though the administration's answer was to declare war on every adversary that dared to go nuclear. But do we really intend to go to war with North Korea, if the price is the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of South Korean civilians? Do we intend to go to war with Iran, when we cannot guarantee security in Iraq?

The list of countries that we accuse of having weapons of mass destruction is long; will we take them all on? And what do we do when Indian officials cite our Iraq war arguments as justification for a possible Indian attack on Pakistan that could risk a nuclear war? Is this the world we want?

The Administration has refused to negotiate directly with North Korea, so we have yet to really test North Korea's claim that it would be prepared to meet all our security concerns in return for truly normal relations with us. Instead, we have demanded that North Korea first renounce its nuclear programs and take tangible steps to dismantle them.

I sympathize with the concern not to be bullied or blackmailed. Nobody likes to be seen as backing down. I even sympathize with the President's intense dislike of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. There is much to dislike in the man, and even more to dislike in his regime.

But what have we achieved through this policy? So far, we have gotten the end of the 1994 Agreed Framework--which had kept North Korea from reprocessing more of its spent nuclear fuel to get plutonium for nuclear weapons. We have seen international inspectors kicked out of North Korea. And now North Korea may be reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel, which could give it enough material for a half dozen more nuclear weapons.

We may be making some progress, with China engaging North Korea. If we are lucky, North Korea's posturing will lead China and Russia to finally support us and bring some pressure on North Korea. But we don't know whether they can really influence a North Korea that sees itself already in the American crosshairs as part of the ``axis of evil.''

The administration talks of stopping North Korea from exporting its nuclear weapons. That worries me a little bit because it implies we have already given up on stopping them from producing them.

And North Korea could just export plutonium with which to make nuclear weapons; they will be able to become the plutonium factory of the world if they keep on the road they are on now. How are we going to stop that? The plutonium needed for a nuclear weapon can fit in a briefcase. It does not even need much shielding because it is not very radioactive. The whole shipment might be bigger than a bread box, as Steve Allen used to say, but it wouldn't be much bigger. It certainly wouldn't be bigger than a trash can. Can we really stop and search every trash can leaving North Korea? What will we do if a year from now North Korea claims to have provided weapons plutonium to groups in other countries that will destroy major cities unless we do what it wants?

What are we going to do about Iran, which has North Korean medium- range missiles and is moving toward the ability to enrich its own uranium?

Nobody ever said that nonproliferation was easy. I don't have a silver bullet, and I don't expect the President to have one either. But don't we have to keep our eye on the ball? When conservatives opposed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, they said countries would build nuclear weapons for their own strategic reasons. That's right. It means if we want to prevent proliferation, or roll it back, we have to affect those strategic calculations.

Nonproliferation policy gives us a framework for those efforts. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty gives us international support and may affect the calculations of countries whose neighbors sign and obey the treaty. The Nuclear Suppliers Group buys us more time by restricting exports of nuclear and dual-use materials and equipment. But in the end, it still comes

down to influencing a country's strategic calculations.

How can we influence those countries? Deterrence is one big way to influence them. Any country that builds nuclear weapons knows if they use them on us, they will very quickly cease to exist. But deterrence is still a mind game. It didn't help when the administration belittled deterrence in order to press its case for missile defense. And deterrence may not work if we say: By the way, we may still target you, even if you don't build nuclear weapons.

For countries that are not our enemies, security assurances are a big way to influence them. The U.S. nuclear umbrella offers a country a lot of security at a low cost; but that umbrella may not look so good if the United States is threatening nuclear war against a large number of countries. At that point, our friends may question whether we will really be able to protect them, when we are taking on all those other countries. That is the question you hear people asking in Japan.

To achieve lasting nonproliferation, we must treat the regional quarrels that drive countries to seek nuclear weapons. We did that with Argentina and Brazil. As South Africa moved away from apartheid, we were able to do that there as well. We are making a real effort to help India and Pakistan step back from the brink and have to continue that effort. But we also have to address security concerns in east Asia, including North Korea's concerns, if we are to keep that whole region from developing nuclear weapons, weaponizing the peninsula, and Japan becoming a nuclear power. We have to pursue peace in the Middle East, if we are truly going to take advantage of our military victory in Iraq.

Nor is there really any alternative to working with the international community. We don't have the ability to inspect sites in Iran; the Atomic Energy Agency does have that ability. Our forces in Iraq don't have a great record in their hunt for weapons of mass destruction; the IAEA and the U.N. could help in that hunt, both by providing detailed information from past inspections and by helping to monitor sites they have visited in the past.

We cannot close down proliferation traffic by ourselves. The cooperation of other countries, especially Russia and China, is essential.

These are the paths to nonproliferation. They are long and difficult. We don't know whether they will succeed, but we can see where we want to go, and we can see how working these issues will help us get there.

But building low-yield nuclear weapons is not a path to nonproliferation; neither is a program to do R&D on such weapons, while Defense Department officials tell people to come up with reasons to build them; neither is a program to test these weapons, which would surely be necessary to develop a new low-yield weapon, and which would just as surely be the death knell not only of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty--which I think is the objective of some--but of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the NPT.

Frankly, neither is nonproliferation served by the administration's plan to field a nearly worthless missile defense system in Alaska next year, just so the President can say he did it. The push to deploy that system has been at the expense of making an effective defense. The defense will lack the radar it needs for several years, and the space- based infrared collection it needs for even more years. And the funds and equipment to deploy it are coming out of the funds and equipment needed to test it, to improve it, and to make sure it works. You have to wonder what the administration's priorities are.

The path of deterrence, security assurance, nonproliferation, diplomacy, and sensible weapons development is difficult, but at least it is headed in the right direction.

The path of hasty deployment of a missile defense that cannot be useful for years to come is simply foolish. The path of new nuclear weapons, new nuclear testing, and looking at nuclear weapons as something ``normal'' may be a highway paved with good intentions, but as the nuns used to make me write on the board after school when I misbehaved: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

This is a road to disaster. We should know better than to go down it.

The Feinstein-Kennedy amendment, in my view, will keep us off that dangerous highway. It deserves our support.

I yield the floor.