Floor Statements

Mr. President, I join my colleagues in supporting the Kennedy amendment. We are trying to help over 1.1 million Americans who exhausted their benefits. These are hard-working Americans who paid into the unemployment trust fund. Now is our opportunity to help them. I believe it is our obligation. Here is an interesting point on this recession. In the 20th century, the average bottoming out of unemployment comes within 15 months of the beginning of the recession, but we have seen 25 months of continuing unemployment. This, indeed, is the longest in terms of the persistence of long-term unemployment that we have seen since the 1930s.

These people need our help. The trust fund has the resources. We should vote today to give these people benefits. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, in every other recession every other President has done it. There should be no exception today. If we want to help 1.1 million Americans, just as we helped lots of fortunate Americans today, we should support this amendment.

Yes.

Yes. It is my understanding that 1.1 million Americans have exhausted their benefits, and they are still looking. They are well- trained, well-skilled people. The jobs are gone. They want to work. We are ignoring them--we are not, but the other side's proposal totally ignores them.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Feinstein be added as a cosponsor of my amendment.

Mr. President, I rise in opposition to the Warner amendment and support of the underlying amendment which I proposed. I will make several points.

First, the notion of low-yield nuclear weapons is something of a misnomer. Indeed, it is misleading. These are nuclear weapons with horrific blasts and radiation effects. As I said yesterday, it is probably more accurate to say not low yield but small Apocalypses because, when we use nuclear weapons, we go beyond--except for one occasion in the history of warfare--what most military people contemplate as the appropriate use of force.

There is no military requirement for these weapons. Ambassador Brooks, the head of NNSA was asked, Is there a requirement? His answer succinctly and conclusively: No. Yet we are eliminating the ban on the research, development, production, and testing of these low-yield nuclear weapons.

Once again, low yield is a misnomer. These weapons are 5 kilotons or less. The weapons used against Japan in World War II were 14 to 21 kilotons with devastating effects. These small weapons are a third that size--still horrendous weapons.

Now, unless we act today, this approach will not simply result in research. It will result inevitably, inexorably, in the development and the testing and the fielding of these weapons. That is essentially what was said by Ambassador Brooks when he testified before the committee. His words: I have a bias in favor of something that is the minimum destruction. That means I have a bias in favor of that which might be usable.

This is not just research. This is creating weapons that will be used. His comments were echoed with respect particularly to the robust nuclear earth penetrator when Fred Celec, Deputy Assistant to the Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters, is quoted: If we can develop a system that can crack through the rock and detonate a hydrogen weapon, in his words, it will ultimately get fielded.

To field an atomic weapon it first must be tested. And we are walking down a path of testing and fielding that I think we will all regret.

There is a presumption that arms control does not matter, it does not work. Why did three nations--Belarus, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine--turn over voluntarily their nuclear weapon and join the nonproliferation regime? Why? Because there is an international norm that nuclear weapons should not be used. In fact, there should be efforts to eliminate their existence. These efforts and these norms are being undermined by the abolition of this ban.

This ban is more powerful than simply saying that the Congress will approve it. Why believe a scientist will say: I won't work on research unless I can produce and blow something up, an atomic weapon. If those are the scientists we have working, then perhaps we should look around for some other scientists. They, more than many other people, understand the power and the devastating effect of these weapons.

If we are really talking about research, let's make it research, not the back door to testing, development, and deployment. My amendment makes it much clearer that is what we are talking about. Indeed, my colleagues came to the floor yesterday and said this has nothing to do with deployment; it is all just science; we have to raise these issues; we have to ask these questions; intellectual curiosity and honesty must be respected in this realm as elsewhere.

Indeed, yesterday, Secretary Rumsfeld was asked: Are you pursuing nuclear weapons? His response: To pursue? I think it is a study. It is not to develop--his words--it is not to deploy, it is not to use, it is to study.

That is what the Reed amendment says. Essentially it says we will allow the scientists who operate in phase 1 through 2A of our well- defined process--research, development--but at the third phrase, that is where they stop. And similarly, if they are modifying a weapon rather than developing one from scratch, you would stop at phase 6.3. It is clearly defined.

The Warner amendment suggests we eliminate all of these prohibitions and we simply say: If you are going over here, come back to us and ask for permission. Functionally, in both amendments the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense would have to come to us. But there is a much more powerful, much more forceful, much more effective symbol if this moratorium is retained.

A few weeks ago, the Government of Pakistan offered to go nuclear free. They said: We would like to eliminate nuclear weapons on the subcontinent. The Indians would have to agree. That is a very interesting and very positive approach. The problem is, how do we reinforce that effort when we are not talking about going nuclear free? We are talking about new nuclear weapons, more sophisticated weapons that can be used. That will not encourage the Pakistanis to give up weapons, or the Indians. I think it will encourage their scientists to start looking at more and new technology.

We can make a difference if we maintain this ban by allowing what everyone says. That is all we want. We just

want the opportunity to research. The Reed amendment gives that opportunity.

I yield the floor and I reserve the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I yield the ranking member, the Senator from Michigan, 2 minutes.

Mr. President, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. President, this is not an issue of drafting or clarity of language. The amendment I propose is very clear. It simply takes the existing ban and walks it back from phase 1, phase 2, and phase 2-A to phase 3. If this language was unclear, then the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense would have leaped over these barriers a long time ago because they would have ignored the first phase and gone to the third, fourth, and fifth phase.

This is about whether we are going to begin a new but different nuclear arms race. Last week, President Putin announced that Russia is beginning to develop new weapons. 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.

Most analysts interpret that as meaning they are going to develop low-yield nuclear weapons. With those remarks in the Russian Duma, initiating a reversal of history, of the beginning of a new arms race, the Duma applauded. I hope we do not applaud here today.

Will the Senator yield?

I do not have the statute before me but the----

Let me tell you this: The original moratorium said: The Secretaries of Energy and Defense may not initiate research and development leading to the production of a low-yield nuclear weapon. We have replaced the term ``research and development'' with the development definition ``development engineering'' leading to the production of a nuclear weapon.

Essentially, what we have done, Mr. Chairman, is we have taken the existing ban, which the DOE says restricts their efforts to do any meaningful research, and simply said do the research.

Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, if I may have a moment, I think the world is pretty clear as to what is taking place. Your amendment strikes the ban. We used to have a prohibition against low- yield nuclear weapons development. Your amendment strikes that. In place, you say you have to come back to Congress.

My amendment leaves the ban in place.

Mr. President, I want to underscore the major issue that the Senator from New Mexico is raising and that is the weaponization of space. We have talked today earlier about different nuclear programs and should we have low-yield weapons bans or robust nuclear earth penetrator bans. But the realm of nuclear weaponry has been upon us now for five decades.

To date, we have been successful in preventing weapons from being deployed in space. So this is a completely different issue. This is not the issue of shall we do more of what we have been doing for 50 years. This is a threshold question: Do we want to introduce weapons into space? And will this introduction come surreptitiously, innocuously by research programs that put weapons in space for a test bed without debate in the U.S. Congress on behalf of the American people and a clear decision?

I think that is the Senator's amendment. He has identified programmatic funding that could be stretched to inch our way--perhaps through the back door, if you will--into placing weapons in space. I think that is such a critical and important issue that we not only have to debate it but we should decide it, not scientists and technologists in the Department of Defense. I cannot think of any scientist who would not like more permission to study more things.

So I urge, hopefully, the resolution of this amendment. If it is not resolved and comes to a vote, I hope we can support the Senator from New Mexico.

I yield back my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the pending amendment be laid aside.

Mr. President, I call up amendment No. 711.

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

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, there is a very simple, but important, premise underlying this amendment. I believe Congress should know the capabilities of any missile defense system that is deployed, and that these capabilities should be subject to rigorous testing. I understand this information may very well be classified, and we would receive it on a classified basis, but it is essential for us, as we make decisions about a huge program, not only in terms of dollars, but in terms of consequences to our security, that we know how capable this program is.

My amendment would request and require the Department of Defense develop measurable performance criteria for missile defense systems and an operational test plan for those systems, and an estimate of when operational testing would be done to verify the performance criteria are met. The performance criteria would include the characteristics of the threat missiles that each missile defense system is being designed to counter.

The amendment would require the Secretary of Defense to submit the performance criteria and operational test plan to the Congress each year.

The amendment would also require the Director of Operational Test and Evaluation to provide an annual assessment of the progress being made to verify, through operational testing, whether the systems are meeting their established performance criteria.

Both the performance criteria and test plans could be revised as necessary by the Department of Defense, but I do believe we need to have an idea at least of the capabilities of these systems and also, again, these capabilities must be established by operational testing.

The Patriot PAC-3 system, the only currently deployed ballistic missile defense system, conducted operational testing to prove it met established performance criteria prior to being deployed. This is the right way to develop a missile defense system; indeed, all defense programs. This amendment would model other missile defense programs on the very successful PAC-3 program in terms of performance criteria, operational testing, and then deployment.

There are a number of important things this amendment will not do. This amendment does not reduce funding for any missile defense system.

It would not prevent the administration from fielding missile defense by 2004, although, hopefully, we will have an idea of exactly what they field in 2004, and, frankly, I do not think this Congress has such an idea at this moment.

It would not dictate what performance any missile defense system should have, nor does it establish any dates for when certain performance must be attained.

It would, however, enable Congress to understand what missile defense capabilities are being bought for the $9.1 billion provided in the defense bill for missile defense. I think that is a threshold issue our constituents expect us to know. If we are investing $9.1 billion, we have to know, and the American people should feel confident we know, what are we buying, how much will it protect us against what type of threat.

I believe also it would improve the chances of developing effective missile defenses by establishing clear standards of performance.

Currently, none of the missile defense programs under development, under the Missile Defense Agency, have established performance criteria, meaning essentially there are no standards for when a system reaches any particular milestone or has completed its development. These standards did exist under the Clinton administration but were removed by the current administration.

The administration claims it cannot develop performance criteria for missile defense because the systems are too complex and difficult, and no one can predict how they will perform.

However, despite this seeming quandary about not knowing what will happen, the administration plans to field both ground- and sea-based missile defenses in 2004 and possibly an airborne missile defense by 2005. Frankly, a system that is ready to be fielded is presumably far enough along to be able to tell its performance, or one can only assume a system is being fielded without any knowledge of how it actually will work. That to me would not be a very prudent or a very wise deployment.

Other defense programs are also complex and difficult, yet they have measurable performance criteria against which they are tested. The F/A- 22 aircraft program is a very complex and difficult system, as is the V-22 Osprey program. Yet both of these programs have well-established performance criteria.

In fact, all major military programs, except missile defense, have performance criteria or requirements which were approved relatively early in a system's development and revised as necessary as the program matures. I do not think it is incompatible to have a flexible system that can be adapted, yet still have performance criteria, but it seems in our discussion of missile defense these two notions are completely separated: Flexibility, innovation, seizing technological breakthroughs, and simple performance criteria. They should be part and parcel of any program we undertake.

For example, all unmanned aerial vehicle programs, such as the Predator, have requirements stating how long they need to stay aloft, how high they should fly, and how well their sensors can see. Yet this has not interfered with their innovation, their development, and their deployment.

The administration has claimed because it has adopted the new spiral development, capabilities-based acquisition approach, that establishing actual performance criteria and operational test plans is not appropriate because we just do not know for sure what missile defense capabilities will ultimately emerge. But there are a number of other spiral development programs in the Department of Defense, and all of them, except missile defense, have performance criteria and operational test plans.

For example, the Global Hawk Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, which saw service in Afghanistan and Iraq, is a spiral development program. Yet it has well-established performance requirements and a documented operational test plan.

There is absolutely no reason that missile defense should not have the same sort of yardsticks for measuring progress.

Ballistic missile programs used to have performance criteria, such as how many incoming missiles they should be able to engage, and how much area a system should defend. This enabled Congress to understand the characteristics of missile defense programs that were being funded and why they were necessary. Such criteria have been removed, and Congress does not know, for example, how many incoming missiles each missile defense system is being designed to defend against or how much area the system is being designed to defend.

Without such information, Congress is essentially writing an $8 billion to $9 billion blank check each year to the administration for missile defense.

Over the previous 2 years, Congress has tried and tried again to get the administration to provide the most basic information on its missile defense programs. Time and again, the administration has refused to provide it.

In fiscal year 2002, Congress directed the Department of Defense to provide its most basic cost, schedule and performance goals for missile defense.

We also asked the General Accounting Office to assess the progress being made towards achieving these goals.

As late as the end of fiscal year 2002, when the first GAO assessment was due, the Department had still not established a single meaningful goal for its missile defense programs. GAO was forced to write to Congress saying that it could not complete its assess because there were no goals to measure missile defense programs.

Lately, in response to continued Congressional pressure, the administration has begun to establish a few very broad, very near-term goals. But even these goals are misleading.

Secretary Aldridge, the Pentagon's acquisition chief, recently testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought the administration's 2004 missile defense would have a 90 percent chance of hitting an incoming warhead from North Korea.

Whether this is a firmly established goal or simply the individual opinion of a very sophisticated observer but nevertheless an individual opinion, it is hard to tell. Indeed, one can raise many questions about whether this 90-percent figure as a goal is being achieved and can be achieved by 2004. Secretary Rumsfeld has said in public that the 2004 system is rudimentary. Does that mean a 90-percent goal will be achieved or does it mean something less?

Indeed, if we look at the system closely, there are many issues that emerge which would suggest that this is such a situation in which there are no goals. For example, the booster for the system that is designed to be deployed in 2004 has yet to be flown in an actual intercept. So there is the question of making it work with the actual kill vehicle in an operationally feasible mode. That is a pretty significant issue when it comes to whether this system will have a certain degree of reliability.

The radar for the system was never designed for missile defense and can never be actually tested in an actual intercept attempt. The Pentagon's chief tester has told the Senate Armed Services Committee that the 2004 missile defense, in his words, has not yet demonstrated operational capability. Yet it seems clear that, regardless, there is an intention to field this system in 2004.

All of these issues raise real questions as to the capability of this system. If we accept, in fact, that it might be 90 percent, is it 90 percent of hitting a missile with defense decoys or 90 percent of hitting a missile without a decoy? These are important points that I think can be answered and should be answered by the Department of Defense as we go forward to invest something on the order of $9 billion a year in missile defense.

The administration also claims that the missile defense system it plans to field in 2004 will protect all 50 States, but if we look at the details such a defense is only possible if we have Navy ships constantly patrolling the waters of North Korea using their radars to pick up any ICBM launches headed towards Hawaii.

Initially, in the Clinton proposal there was a plan to build a very large radar designed particularly for ballistic missile defense that was intended to and had established criteria that would include protecting and covering all 50 States.

This new approach may in fact be effective, but, once again, we are not sure--the Congress is not officially on record in either an unclassified or a classified sense--of what is the standard. Is it all 50 States? Is it 50 States assuming that the Navy will have ships constantly patrolling the waters off North Korea? Indeed, it is not quite sure whether those ships can constantly be patrolling the waters off of North Korea given the numerous missions in the war on terror, given the numerous military operations. That, too, has to be looked at and examined based upon some clear criteria.

Another point is that the radar on these ships is being adapted, but it was not originally designed to identify and track ICBM-type targets. There is a question of whether the radar would be accurate enough to perform this mission.

If the Navy ships are not there, if the radar truly does not work as they hope it works or it is not modified quickly enough, there is a real question about the coverage of the system.

All of these points are being made to say in order to assess what we are buying, it helps to have these performance goals, to have them clearly delineated, to have the assumption laid out, and to have all of this operationally tested, so when we deploy a system we can say with great confidence to the American people that it will provide this level of protection. I do not think we can say that at this point.

This amendment in no way inhibits the administration from fielding a system, any type of system, in 2004, but what it will give us is an opportunity to measure that system. How effective is that system? What threats will this system engage? That type of knowledge is very important for us as we make our decisions. It is also incumbent upon the administration to provide such knowledge. Again, I emphasize it can be done either on a classified or unclassified basis because I understand there is a utility sometimes to have a system which our adversaries might assume is 100-percent effective. But at least the Congress must know this information.

The other fact of this lack of clarity and goals is it inhibits operational testing. Administrative witnesses have testified as to the need for operational testing. We have passed laws establishing operational testing. This is the traditional routine way in which we verify whether a system works and also, as we improve the system, how effective the modifications and improvements are.

Every major defense program I can think of, except missile defense, has established plans for operational testing. Without these criteria for performance and operational testing, I do not know if we can, in fact, create and deploy a system of which we can be confident.

As we reestablish these performance criteria for missile defense programs and require a plan for operational testing, Congress will regain an important tool to understand how well our missile defense program is succeeding, how our money is being spent--not our money, frankly, but the American people's money. Without such criteria and operational testing, none of that clarity will be available to us.

I think something else will be very important. It will require the Department of Defense to face squarely these tough issues: What type of threats can we defeat? How wide is the coverage of our system? What additional resources must we bring to bear to make it effective? Is this investment cost effective and cost efficient in terms of protecting the American people?

Right now all of that is very amorphous, very nebulous because there is no standard to measure it, even a general standard, these general goals I talked about. I hope this amendment could be accepted because it builds on provisions in the law that were adopted by the committee.

I commend Senator Allen for his efforts to include more cost data, more lifetime cycles of the cost, what it will cost to field this system. This is an attempt to build on that foundation. I hope my colleagues will see it as such, agree to this amendment, and provide the kind of goals, operational testing and clarity that are needed so we can assure the American public that when we deploy a missile defense system, it will live up at least to the standards that are disclosed to the U.S. Congress.

I yield the floor.

I listened to Chairman Allard and I commend him for his leadership on the committee's subcommittee. The committee addressed a series of issues and in this legislation they have made progress on trying to do something we are all committed to do.

I point out in terms of reporting requirements, the legislation itself includes additional reporting requirements. For each ballistic missile defense element, the production rate capabilities, the potential data availability, the expected cost, et cetera, the notion of having more reporting requirements has already found its way into the legislation.

My point is that we are not, as yet, asking effectively--we have asked before but ineffectively--for some simple language about what are the goals, and also how are we going to validate these goals through operational testing.

I do know the value of a capabilities approach but you have to ask a more detailed question: The capability to defeat what? The Missile Defense Agency can answer what they know they are not going to defeat. They have absolutely no plans at this point to be able to engage a sophisticated MIRVed weapon with multiple decoys. They tell you that flat, that is not 2004. What they will not tell us is what they prepare to engage, what they can engage.

I think, if they clearly understand they are not attempting a capability to defeat one or multiple missiles launched from a significant power, such as Russia or China, they can tell us what precisely they are engaged in trying to defeat.

So the notion about capabilities cannot be divorced from threats. That is not possible in any type of military concept. The notion they have to have a capabilities base does not excuse them from that because they defined already their capability. It is a limited capability.

So I guess I would ask the question: What are the limits to that capability?

What I am proposing is not inconsistent with the notion of capabilities in an evolving system. This amendment clearly lets them revise these criteria daily, if they like. But at least it insists that there be some criteria, some goals.

The reluctance to provide us this information has, perhaps, many reasons. One possibility is they don't know. But if they don't know this, that is even more shocking. We are spending $9 billion a year and they don't know, in the Missile Defense Agency, what type of threat they are trying to defeat with this deployment in 2004? The alternative is they know but they will not tell us, and that is equally disturbing.

Frankly, I think this amendment makes sense. It does not restrict deployment. It does not restrict funding. Every major weapons development system has goals, has operational testing plans, except for the Missile Defense Program.

I, again, urge my colleagues to accept or adopt or support this amendment because it answers a very fundamental question, a question I think every Member of this body and every American wants answered: What are we buying for $9 billion each year? How will it protect us? From what will it protect us?

I think the people of my State--capability--threats--they want to know

what this system will be valuable to do.

I am happy to yield to the chairman.

I will be happy to respond to the chairman.

First, this is an issue I think is not only important but at a level where it is not just a detail of reporting. I think it goes to the heart of the accountability, not just for our committee but for the whole Senate.

Frankly, all of our colleagues have to be able to answer the question to their constituents: How much protection are we getting for these resources?

I understand the Missile Defense Agency, as so many Department of Defense organizations, is required to submit reports. But they certainly have the resources to do these reports.

What I find striking--again, it is a reflection, too, of the previous years--we have in the past tried to get this information. We required goal setting and a GAO assessment. I was, frankly, amazed--and this amazement came about in the preparation, not only for the committee markup but also coming to the floor--that the GAO simply sort of threw up its hands because the Missile Defense Agency says we really don't have any goals; we can't tell you; they are too imprecise.

So I think this is an issue that should be engaged by the entire Senate. There was no intention on my part to undermine the procedures on the committee, the Armed Services Committee or the subcommittee. I was not aware in order to bring a matter to the floor one had to offer it first in subcommittee or full committee.

I think this is an issue that is of a magnitude and of a degree of clarity that Members of the entire Senate can make a judgment and should make a judgment. That is my response.

If I may reclaim my time, first, I do not assume--just on a procedural basis--that is a requirement. I think by law every Member of the Senate can offer amendments on any bill when it comes to the floor, whether you are on the committee or not. Being on the committee does not prevent you from offering an amendment if you did not offer it before.

If there are procedural oppositions to the bill, that is one thing. But I think the substance is compelling enough to respond, and I think everyone here is capable to respond in substance. Either you are going to let the system continue to operate, which I think either because of--whatever number of reasons, it has not clearly identified goals and objectives, has not conducted robust testing that I think we all believe should be concomitant with the defense program. I am trying to remedy those issues. I think this is a perfectly appropriate place to introduce such an amendment, to have the committee engaged. All our colleagues are here. The staff is here. The arguments can be made here, and I hope they will be. I think it is an important issue. I am prepared to submit it to a vote. That is my understanding of the procedure.

Mr. President, I have no opposition to taking some time prior to coming forward to see if we can reach an agreement, if we can't ask for a vote. I have absolutely no opposition to setting aside and working it to try to come up with something with which we feel comfortable.

Mr. President, I want to clarify. We are putting this aside for a period of time to work on this. But if we can't reach--and I hope we can--an understanding, we will have a vote, I presume, early in the evening.

I think that is correct.

I will endeavor to reach an understanding, and hopefully we can.

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, I believe on the amendment that I offered earlier today on missile defense, we have reached agreement. It might be appropriate at this time to call up the amendment.

Mr. President, I will lay aside the pending amendment. We are trying to identify the numbers so we can call up the amendment.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to lay aside the pending amendment and call up amendment No. 711.

I ask unanimous consent to add as cosponsors Senators Feingold and Feinstein.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be modified with the changes at the desk.

The staffs have been collaborating all day. They have reached an agreement. The modifications make it clear that goals will be established with respect to the National Missile Defense Program. The modifications are acceptable to the majority and minority. I believe we have a meeting of the minds on all the details.

I urge acceptance of the amendment at this time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent, on behalf of Senator Mikulski, that Michael Hadley, a defense fellow in her office, be granted the privilege of the floor for the duration of consideration of the Defense authorization bill.

I thank the Chair.

Mr. President, I rise to express my support for the Defense authorization bill that we are debating today and for the remainder of this week.

I first want to thank the chairman and the ranking member for their courtesy, for their thoughtfulness, and for their collegiality in the conduct of the committee in the preparation of this bill. They are two Senators I respect and admire greatly. I thank them for their help and participation.

This is, overall, a very good bill that meets the needs of our fighting men and women. I have some reservations which I will talk about tonight, and during the course of the week I will suggest some improvements in the bill. But overall, this represents a thorough and consistent and appropriate discharge of our responsibility to ensure that the men and women of our Armed Forces are the best prepared and best cared for in the world.

Let me also say this year I had the privilege and the opportunity to serve as the ranking member of the Emerging Threat and Capability Subcommittee. I had the pleasure of working with Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas. I also want to thank Senator Roberts for his courtesy and thoughtfulness and for his collegiality. He created a cooperative spirit on the committee which resulted in legislation that is both thoughtful and which I think is a vast improvement for the men and women of our military services.

The package supported and presented by the subcommittee dealt with a range of subjects. The subcommittee itself was created 4 years ago to deal with new emerging threats and our response to these threats. The subcommittee looked at issues such as the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, terrorism, and information warfare, and it also focused on ways in which we can respond to these threats.

One of the areas, for example, is the Defense Science and Technology Program--providing the research and the analysis that makes our forces the most technologically advanced in the world.

Another area we are concerned about is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. There is a rather simple and obvious point: If we can reduce the threats, that is a better way than to respond to those threats if they are poised against us.

We are also concerned about our special operations forces. I think we have all seen in the past few months how effective and how important these forces are. They really are the tip of the spear when it comes to our efforts on the war on terrorism.

Needless to say, the Emerging Threats Subcommittee is obviously involved in many issues that are of critical importance today.

Let me speak just briefly about some of the issues as we approach the committee markup.

Science and technology is a critical component of our warfighting capability. This was brought home to me graphically in August of 2001. About 20-plus years ago, I commanded an infantry company--a parachute company--of the 82nd Airborne Division. And in August of 2001, I went back to Fort Bragg to watch a live fire demonstration by a division of the 82nd Airborne Division. I was, of course, very pleased with the toughness and skills of the paratroopers. But I was also impressed with the technology. Each soldier had a night vision device, and each soldier had a laser-aiming device on their weapon. Twenty-five years ago, there was one star-light scope for the whole platoon. It was a big, bulky device which we carried around and used sparingly. There was no laser-aiming device on their weapons.

These are graphic examples of the impact of science and technology on our ability to fight. They have made our soldiers, marines, and airmen the most formidable in the world because when we couple this technology with their skills and spirit and their courage, they are unstoppable.

I am pleased this bill includes provisions that strengthen the coordination between the Science and Technology Program. We really want to ensure that we get the maximum value from our technological investment.

I am also very pleased the bill includes Senator Lieberman's legislation which will increase research on technologies to help improve communications and networking and to help address our bandwidth crisis in the field.

Again, 25 years ago when I commanded troops, bandwidth was a concept which no one talked about. Today, it is an item that is critical to the success of any military force.

When members of the committee go out--as I know my colleagues do--and visit troops and talk to commanding officers, one of their consistent complaints is, We just do not have enough bandwidth. We don't have enough space on the spectrum to push out all the digital information we have to all of our warfighters instantaneously.

So I think Senator Lieberman's proposal will give us an added impetus to examine these issues of bandwidth and conductivity. It is literally the electronic backbone of our military forces. There are some issues of concern which I have with respect to science and technology. All of our experts looking at the appropriate level of funding for science and technology suggest that we should be investing about 3 percent of the defense budget in those programs. Secretary Rumsfeld has said the Quadrennial Defense Review made that point, and the Defense Science Board has endorsed this laudable goal of 3 percent expenditure on science and technology. However, last year the final defense budget did not reach 3 percent, and this year the President's request was $1 billion below last year's vital defense budget.

While I am pleased to note that this bill adds nearly $500 million to the Defense Science and Technology Program and supports significant investments in university research, advanced research to support special operations, and advanced undersea warfare technologies, the funding levels fall short of this 3 percent.

I think we have to maintain robust investment in our science and technology. We tried to close the gap, but there is still a gap. I hope in the next reauthorization--indeed in the conference--we can try to close this gap.

In the area of nonproliferation programs, we all understand that weapons

of mass destruction is one of the key threats, particularly if they get into the hands of terrorists. One of the most cost-effective ways to deal with this issue of nonproliferation is to support the Threat Reduction Program. I am pleased to report again that this bill authorizes full funding of these threat reduction and nonproliferation programs, including the Nunn-Lugar program.

This full funding is critical if we are going to eliminate the proliferation threat and if we are going to lower the danger that these materials pose to us, particularly if they get into the hands of terrorists.

Also, the bill includes authority to use Cooperative Threat Reduction Program funds outside the former Soviet Union under appropriate circumstances, as requested by the President.

Again, I think we have to recognize there are many places in the world, regrettably, where material could fall into the wrong hands. This gives the President authority for a much wider geographic approach on proliferation.

One of the problems we particularly worry about is the presence of a vast stockpile of lethal, chemical weapons--some of them small enough to fit into a briefcase--in Russia. This is the residue of years and years of Soviet research.

Under the Nunn-Lugar program, we have a project to destroy all those weapons so they cannot be used and do not fall into the hands of terrorists. There is a set of conditions that requires a Presidential certification before the money can be spent, but this bill provides the President a 1-year waiver of the certification so funds can be used to destroy these chemical weapons. Again, I thank Chairman Roberts, particularly, for his consideration of this request and for his willingness to provide this 1-year waiver.

As I said before, our special operations community each day demonstrates their incredible value in our war against terrorism. In recognition of the expanded role of the special operations forces, the Secretary of Defense has declared that rather than simply being a supporting command, special operations would be a command in itself.

Let me try to parse that. Before special operations command supported the CINCs, CENTCOM, SOUTHCOM. Today, they not only support these CINCs, but they are their own command in and of themselves with new responsibilities.

I applaud this decision, but I believe Congress should have a better appreciation of the new role that special operations command is taking on. Therefore, the committee included, at my suggestion, a recommendation so the Secretary of Defense can report to us information regarding this new role.

The information would include items such as the military strategy for utilizing special operations troops to fight the global war on terrorism and how the proposal contributes to the overall national security strategy with regard to the war on terrorism; the scope of the authorities granted to the commander of the special operations command by the Secretary of Defense; the operational and legal parameters within which special operations forces will exercise these authorities; the impact on existing special operations missions; the decisionmaking mechanisms, to include consultation with Congress, that will be involved in authorizing, planning, and conducting these operations; and future organizational and resource requirements for conducting the global counterterrorism mission.

I believe the answers to these questions will help us frame our oversight responsibility, and I also think it will help provide the details for the special operations commander and the Department of Defense in relation to their responsibilities and their missions in this new responsibility they have been given.

These are just some of the highlights with respect to the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee. I want my colleagues to know of these threats. There are other issues I would like to comment upon in addition to those related to my responsibilities on the subcommittee.

There was, in the committee, a proposal to, in my view, change the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. I thank my colleagues because, through collaboration with Senators Ensign, Allen, and others, we were able to do what I think the committee wanted to do: to provide the opportunity to temporarily suspend these regulations if property is needed by a State for emergency purposes but not to undermine completely and irrevocably the responsibility we have to provide suitable excess Government facilities for homeless purposes. I am very pleased and proud the committee was so responsive and so cooperative in that regard.

I also included in the bill an amendment which again was adopted unanimously--I thank my colleagues--that would direct the Secretary of Defense to provide guidelines to the Defense Policy Board. This is an advisory committee consisting of distinguished Americans who provide advice and insight, without compensation, to the Secretary of Defense. It is a very important board but recently it has come under some criticism.

I think in order to dispel that criticism but also to convince and assure the public that access to information and access to key decisionmakers is not being used for profit-making purposes but solely is an exercise in the patriotism of the individual members of the board, I ask that the Secretary of Defense provide guidelines. I hope these guidelines are forthcoming. I think they will be useful. I am pleased they are now included within the bill.

Let me turn to several other topics quickly because I see my colleagues are also in the Chamber to speak.

Within the context of missile defense is an area of the bill that I have some grave reservations. We have decided to pursue missile defense. The President has made the decision, and it is his prerogative to do so, to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. The question before us today is, will we do this in a logical, thorough, systematic way? Will we do it in a way in which we can assure the American public we are proceeding with all deliberate speed but also in a way that we can justify a product that eventually will be useful to national defense? These are the basic issues that come before us today.

The President has announced, however, that he intends to field a national missile defense system by September 2004, despite the fact the Pentagon's Director of Operational Test and Evaluation concluded, in his fiscal year 2002 annual report, that the system ``has yet to demonstrate significant operational capability.'' So the plan, in effect, is to field the system before we even know if it will work.

I think that raises grave questions about the usefulness of such a system and grave questions about the level of funding that is going to support a system if we are not ready to declare it operationally useful yet we are ready to declare it will be deployed.

We also understand after 9/11 there are other ways to attack the homeland of the United States and that it is not just through the use of long-range missiles. We have to, in our debate and our discussions and our decisions, be very careful with resources that could be spent in other ways to protect our country and our homeland, particularly.

One of the other aspects of the system that is proposed for deployment is that the decision has been made to field this system without a radar capable of distinguishing between a warhead and a decoy. The radar is a key aspect of any missile defense system.

Indeed, the Clinton administration was criticized very harshly for their national Missile Defense Program, yet this administration has decided to deploy a system that appears, at least on the surface, to be far less capable than the one proposed by President Clinton, particularly when it comes to the radar architecture.

Another issue, with respect to missile defense, is the decision to significantly reduce the number of tests. Ironically, it seems that one of the byproducts of the President's decision to rapidly field a national missile defense is a concomitant reduction in the amount of testing. It seems to me that is sort of doing things exactly the wrong way; that if you are going to accelerate deployment, you would accelerate testing also.

I believe if we are going to have confidence in a system that we field, we have to make the investment in testing now, and not just simply reply upon our faith in technology that has not yet been adequately tested.

Originally, 20 national missile defense tests had been scheduled to occur between mid-2002 and 2007, but after the President's deployment decision, 9 of these 20 tests were canceled without explanation. Furthermore, the scheduled date to complete this new, very minimal test plan is now 2009 instead of 2007. That is 5 years after the advertised deployment of this system in 2004.

We have to recognize this Missile Defense Program is the largest single acquisition program in the Department of Defense, with a budget request of more than $9 billion in fiscal year 2004 alone.

For perspective, this funding could buy 9 DDG-51-class destroyers, 45 F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft, or more than 2,800 Stryker armored vehicles. So the decisions we make are not without cost, not without opportunity costs.

The investment we make in missiles means, quite literally, we cannot buy new destroyers; today we cannot buy more F-22 Raptor fighter aircraft; we cannot buy more Stryker armored vehicles. So again, I think we have to look very carefully at the deployment, at the testing.

I think we are all committed to the notion of someday putting in place a missile defense system that will effectively defend the United States, but we cannot do it hastily, and we cannot do it simply on a wish that it works. I believe we have to prove it works before we deploy it or simply declare it is deployed.

Over the last several years, we have tried to put some structure, if you will, in the Missile Defense Program. For example, at the beginning of fiscal year 2002, Congress required that the Bush administration establish cost, schedule, testing, and performance goals for missile defense, and we directed the General Accounting Office to review whether progress was being made toward these established goals.

By the end of 2002, the Bush administration had still not established any meaningful goals for missile defense. Consequently, in November 2002, the Director of Acquisition and Sourcing Management at the GAO wrote to the committee to say that since no goals had been established, GAO could not complete its review.

I think, at a minimum, there should be costs, there should be schedules, there should be goals, certainly at a level so the GAO can at least offer a preliminary assessment of whether these goals are being achieved or what effort must be expended to achieve these goals. That is something that has not been done.

I support prudent research and development and testing on national missile defense, but I think ultimately we all want to assure the American people that when we put something in the field, it will work, and that we know precisely what it will do when it is in the field. I don't think that is too much to ask the administration.

Finally, let me cover a topic that will receive a great deal of attention over the next couple days. That is the issue of nuclear policy. I have grave concerns over some of the provisions in the bill. Under the guise of maintaining flexibility and keeping all options open, this bill approves and encourages the administration to continue its push to develop, test, deploy, and possibly use nuclear weapons. I heard my colleague Senator Levin earlier today referencing the quote by former Ambassador Brooks, the head of NSSA, who said his bias is to something that can be used. For many decades, our bias was against even thinking about the use of nuclear weapons if we could avoid it.

One of the consequences of the proposal for a low-yield nuclear weapon, for a robust nuclear earth penetrator is, if not a fact, an observation that as you make weapons such that their collateral damage is minimal, there is a tendency to use them. We have to ask ourselves in our recent conflict in Baghdad, would we have dropped dumb bombs in the middle of crowded neighborhoods in an attempt to attack the leadership of Iraq? It would have been a much harder call. But because we had precision weapons with low collateral damage, as a result the call was much easier--a tough call, nevertheless, but easier.

I fear that as we move down this path for low-yield nuclear weapons, more usable nuclear weapons, the threshold, the inhibition against use will come down also. This is just not another tool in our tool kit. Nuclear weapons have been, since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a weapon every nation has tried to avoid using in combat. I hope we can continue that effort, but I fear the language, the momentum, the incentives that have created these exceptions in the bill are driving us down the wrong path.

We should respond by amending the legislation to reflect the continuing desire to put nuclear weapons outside of use, to delegitimize their use in conflict. We will have opportunity over the next several days to debate in much more detail the issue of nuclear weapons, the issue of missile defense.

I believe this legislation overall is sound. If we could make successful amendments to some of the provisions with respect to missile defense and particularly the provisions with respect to nuclear weapons, we can send to conference a bill of which we will all be very proud. I hope in the next few days we can do that.

I thank the chairman and ranking member for their thoughtful approach and for their continued efforts over the next few days.

I yield the floor.

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

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

Mr. President, I offer this amendment along with Senators Corzine, Mikulski, Kerry, and Rockefeller. It is a sense-of-the-Senate amendment.

It addresses the potential detrimental effect on the low-income housing tax credit by proposing to reduce or eliminate taxes on dividends. If those proposals with respect to dividends are passed, they could provide a disincentive for corporations to invest in the low-income tax credit, which is the major form of support for low- income and moderate-income housing, and rental housing in particular, in the United States.

I understand this amendment is acceptable to the other side. I urge its adoption.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to include Senators Landrieu and Sarbanes as cosponsors.

Mr. President, today I joined 49 of my colleagues in voting to waive the Congressional Budget Act in support of Senator Dorgan's amendment to restore the pre-1993 tax treatment of Social Security benefits.

In 1993, I joined a majority of Congress in voting for the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, which combined with subsequent similar laws, eliminated the deficits of the early 1990s and the debt that had grown exponentially under Presidents Reagan and Bush. Included in this 1993 Act was a provision that changed the way Social Security benefits for individuals making over $25,000 and couples with income over $32,000 were taxed. Like many of my colleagues at that time, I believed there were more appropriate ways to eliminate the deficit, but budget procedures prevented them from being considered, and, while there were partisan amendments offered at later dates to reverse this policy, they did so by increasing the deficit, so I and a majority of my colleagues opposed these proposals.

Today's vote was different. It was different because the President and the Republican majority have brought about a striking reversal in our Nation's fiscal policies. In the span of less than 3 years, the government's fiscal situation has deteriorated from budget surpluses to near record budget deficits. We have gone from concerns that we would retire our mountains of public debt too quickly to considering the President's request to increase our debt limit to its highest level ever. And, today we are voting on a tax bill that will only exacerbate both of these problems. Indeed, it appears that the majority is resolutely determined to cut dividend taxes for the most affluent in our society. These actions are being taken without regard for fiscal soundness and without any consideration of the impact and the burden decisions we make today place on future generations.

In this environment, Senator Dorgan's amendment to aid senior citizens rather than the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, is the appropriate policy because at the very least if we are going to deficit spend, we should direct those resources to those individuals who have already contributed in so many ways to this great Nation.

It would be my hope that we can find a way to address 1993 OBRA in a manner that aids deserving seniors while protecting the long term solvency of Social Security and restoring some sense of discipline to the Federal budget process.

Madam President, I rise in strong support of the Kennedy amendment. I am amazed that at a time when there are over 1.1 million workers who have exhausted all their unemployment benefits--who are looking for work, who are not finding work--at a time when our fund to pay for these benefits is in surplus by billions of dollars, we are not extending this program.

This is perhaps the last chance we will have. The program expires in just a few days. Yet we are here on the floor of the Senate talking about many other things: tax benefits for affluent Americans who are doing quite well.

But we are not responding to the demands, the needs of countless numbers of our fellow citizens. I am just amazed this would happen.

This UI, temporary Federal unemployment insurance program, will expire at the end of May. What is happening in our economy today is that people are desperately looking for jobs, but the economy is changing. As I go about Rhode Island, I do not find lots of people who say: Well, I don't want to take a job because these benefits are so good. These benefits are a fraction of what these people were making when they were working. They are hardly sufficient to pay the mortgage, to pay for their children's needs, to pay for all the items they have to buy each and every day.

What has happened in the economy, in our case in Rhode Island, is we used to be a manufacturing center where there were 20 or 30 or 40 different manufacturing plants all requiring foremen and supervisors and vice presidents for human resources. Those factories have been closing. Work has been going overseas.

In many cases, it is not a question of losing a job nowadays; it is a question of the company going away, leaving the small towns of Rhode Island and southern New England and the small towns of North Carolina and South Carolina, leaving people highly skilled but with no place to work.

These are the true victims of this current economic malaise and recession. And we are not responding by simply giving them some more time, giving them resources to pay the debts that pile up every day in every family in this country? I think it is just appalling.

Madam President, 1.1 million workers have exhausted their benefits and have not found work. That is the current situation. We have to help them. The unemployment rate today is 6 percent. That rate is higher than when this temporary program was initiated in March of 2002. It is higher today than when the program was extended in January 2003. Yet we are not extending the program. The situation is worse, but our response is not appropriate to that situation.

Over the last 3 months, 540,000 private sector jobs have been lost and the economy has lost, since the beginning of the recession, a total of 2.7 million private sector jobs. This is not a question of jobs being there and workers being unwilling to take those jobs.

As a result, we only have one recourse--frankly, they only have one recourse: They must have these benefits. And we must provide these benefits.

Private payrolls are 2.4 percent below their level in March 2001 at the beginning of this recession. The job losses in this recession now exceed those in the recession of 1990.

One other very compelling point is, on average, if you look at the recessions in this century, at least, job losses tend to bottom out after 15 months and are erased within 2 years. The persistent job losses in this recession are at the 25-month mark--25 months, not 15 months--and as a result, in that dimension, this is the worst recession, most severe recession since the 1930s in terms of the duration of long-term unemployment.

The latest employment report paints a bleak labor market picture for the future.

There are 8.8 million unemployed Americans, but we only count on our unemployment rolls those Americans who are actively seeking employment. There are millions more who are unable or so frustrated by the lack of jobs that they are not actively seeking--4.4 million Americans. They want a job. There is no real prospect, and as a result they are not even counted.

Then add to that the number of Americans--4.8 million--who work part time. They want to work full time but they work part time because there are no full-time jobs.

Then throughout these numbers, there is this persistent overhanging population of long-term unemployed Americans, about 1.9 million jobless for more than 26 weeks, about 20 percent of the total unemployed. This is a number that is not going down; it is persistent. These are the individuals who need our help, and we should help. We must help. Yet the bill that comes before us today, the bill that is supposed to stimulate the economy, ignores all of these millions of Americans. Frankly, I can't think of a more efficient way to stimulate the economy than to continue extended unemployment benefits. It puts money in the hands of working families. That money is not going to be hoarded. That money will not be spent on impressionist art. That money is going to be spent immediately at Kmart and Target and Wal-Mart.

So this is not just about fairness. This is about getting the economy moving again, at least in a very direct way. I believe we have to do this. We have to do it now. The time literally is running out. As Senator Kennedy pointed out, even today's program is less generous than programs in the past. Indeed, the fund has over $20 billion of assets that were contributed by these people when they worked. They paid into these funds. Now they are simply asking in their time of need to be supported, to be helped. It is not fair to ignore them.

There is no good economic argument to say we should not do this. First, it is stimulative. It puts money directly in the hands of Americans who will spend it. That is the best stimulation we can find. Second, the notion that these people are just sitting around because they don't want to work is preposterous. These people, many of them our contemporaries, in their forties and fifties, would love to work simply for the sake of working but, more importantly, because their expenses far exceed whatever payment they will receive from this unemployment compensation fund. We have to do something and we have to do it now.

Alan Greenspan, in January of 2002, dispelled this whole myth that the administration is trying to foster that this program is not any good, it is not worthwhile; they are just sitting around; it discourages people from finding jobs.

He said:

[C]learly, you cannot argue that somebody who runs past the

26-week level is slow for not looking for a job or not

actively seeking to get re-employed. There are just no jobs

out there.

This is January 2002. The situation is worse today.

And consequently, to adhere to the 26-week limit doesn't

serve its actual purpose, which is essentially to prevent a

misuse of the unemployment insurance system. So I've always

been in favor of extending benefits when the job market

itself begins to dry up.

Frankly, this is the Sahara of the job market that we see today. It is very dried up.

That was January 2002. It is worse today. Yet we are not responding today. Since January 2002, we have lost over three-quarters of a million more jobs. There is no economic argument against this amendment. In fact, all of the economic arguments, all the arguments on fairness, all the arguments about letting people get access to the benefits before they find work again argue strenuously for this amendment. I urge my colleagues to support the Kennedy amendment.

I yield back whatever time I have to the Senator from Massachusetts.

Mr. President, we find ourselves here, yet again, confronted with the third tax cut package in 3 years from the President. As a recent Washington Post article pointed out, President Bush seems dead set on ramming through tax cuts every year he is in the Presidency---regardless of the economy, regardless of the budget deficit, regardless of its competition with much-needed programs like a universal and comprehensive prescription drug benefit for Medicare.

In fact, after years of harping on budget deficits, the Republican Party has now jettisoned its sense of fiscal responsibility, but only after President Clinton adopted that same fiscal responsibility and successfully delivered budget surpluses. Now, Republicans are silent on the issue.

But only when we put all of these concerns aside do we get to the most fundamental question---the question of fairness. President Bush has taken great strides to launch preemptive rhetorical attacks, claiming Democrats are engaging in class warfare with opposition to tax cuts. But when we consider the facts, it is the President who is engaging in class warfare by pushing through a package that steals from the poor and then gives to the rich. His preemptive rhetorical attacks will not measure up to the facts.

So, with all the challenges we have ahead, we are being asked to vote on another tax cut that will not help the average American family. It is incumbent on us to separate the myth of Republican rhetoric from reality in how this tax cut will affect our constituents, our families, and our country. It is time to set the record straight.

Myth 1: The Republican tax proposals are best at generating new jobs and promoting a strong sustainable recovery. The reality is that the Republican tax proposals are poorly targeted to the problems facing the economy. They generate fewer jobs and less economic growth this year when they are needed most than does the Democratic alternative.

The economy is in a slump now, with 2.7 million fewer private sector jobs than in March 2001, and even the Fed's outlook for the near future is weak.

Economic forecasters expect that the economy will eventually bounce back, but they have been expecting a recovery ``soon'' for over a year and it has not come yet. With the economy still in a slump, with excess unemployment and underutilized factories, the policy we need now is job-creating stimulus that restores full employment quickly.

Republicans still insist that long-term tax cuts for the wealthy somehow create jobs, despite the poor track record that 1.7 million jobs have been lost since passage of the 2001 tax cut. Their program is so backloaded that it doesn't take effect until past the time when it is needed. Such a policy is not just ineffective but counterproductive, because it creates large deficits and an increase in the public debt that is a drag on long-term growth.

Additionally, most of the Republicans' proposed capital income tax cuts reward capital owners without directly encouraging new capital formation or higher output. Such tax cuts can't be expected to create new jobs if they don't encourage output. In fact, to the extent that the tax cuts effectively reduce the cost of capital facing businesses, some businesses may be encouraged to substitute capital for labor without increasing their output, so that jobs are lost rather than gained. If the goal of the tax cut is really job creation, the tax cuts should be designed to directly encourage businesses to hire more workers.

The Democratic proposal adheres to the basic principles of sound policy: it provides a boost to job creation and economic growth now when it is needed and does not create large future deficits or increases in debt that are a drag on growth. The Democratic plan just has ``more taste'' and is ``less filling.''

When the JEC Democratic staff compared the impact on jobs and growth of the President's $726 billion ``Jobs and Growth Initiative'' and a much smaller but more targeted Democratic alternative, they found that the Democratic proposal generated roughly twice the additional jobs and growth by the end of this year than the President's plan but at one- seventh the cost. The Republican proposal provides less growth and fewer jobs in the first year when they are really needed than the Democratic proposal.

Myth 2: The Republican tax proposals are good for economic growth. The reality is that the Republican tax proposals hurt economic growth and depress national income in the long run.

An analysis by the JEC Democratic staff found that because of its long-run budgetary costs, the President's plan had adverse long-run supply-side effects that lowered national income in 2013 by 0.4 to 0.6 percent. In their most recent analysis of the President's budget, the CBO found adverse macroeconomic effects if tax cuts are not paid for-- that a proper ``dynamic scoring'' would raise, not lower, the costs of the administration's tax proposals.

Economic theories that claim that private saving should fully make up for drops in public saving are unsupported by experience. What did we learn from the Reagan era and the fiscal discipline of the 1990s? The Reagan tax cuts pulled down both public saving and national saving; the tax cuts failed to generate the large supply-side responses that had been claimed by the proponents of the cuts.

Myth 3: The Republican proposals are fair and are aimed at the middle class. In reality, the Republican proposals are unfair and are heavily tilted toward the very top of the income distribution.

The lion's share of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 already went to the very richest of households, particularly the tax cuts scheduled to take effect after 2002. Before the 2001 tax cut, the justification for large tax cuts for the wealthy was that we were simply ``returning the people's money'' and getting rid of surpluses that were too big, and the wealthy were the ones who paid the most in taxes. But that is clearly not the case because now we have no surpluses.

By 2010 when the tax cut is fully phased in, over a third of the tax cut goes to the richest 1 percent of households, while less than one- fourth goes to the entire bottom 60 percent. Despite this, the administration has proposed additional tax cuts that would clearly benefit only high-income households: the dividend tax exclusion and the new savings incentives. As part of their growth and jobs package, the

administration also proposes to accelerate the portions of the 2001 Tax Act that highest-income households benefit the most, while leaving unchanged, continuing to phase in slowly, elements of the 2001 tax cut that most benefit lowest income families with children. The plan truly keeps the spirit of the administration's proposals--``leave no millionaire behind.''

In advertising just how ``fair'' their growth package is, the administration has repeatedly relied on the average tax cut statistic, stating that households will ``on average'' receive a tax cut of over $1,000 in 2003. But this is far greater than what a typical household near the middle of the income distribution would receive; in fact, four-fifths of households would receive less than this amount. According to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, the middle 20 percent of households would get tax cuts averaging only $200 in 2003 from the President's plan. Meanwhile, households in the top 1 percent would enjoy an average tax cut of over $20,000, and millionaires would get tax cuts averaging about $90,000.

The compromise tax cut package crafted by Senator Grassley limits the dividend exemption to the first $500 of a family's dividends in fiscal year 2003, increasing by 10 percent of dividend income above $500 from 2004 to 2007, and 20 percent above $500 from 2008 to 2012. Still, even in the first year with the $500 limit, the great bulk of the dividend tax cuts will go to highest income households simply because they are most likely to have dividend income, and among those with dividend income are the most likely to have at least $500 of dividend income. In later years as the tax break for higher dividend income increases, the share of the dividend tax cut benefiting highest income households will increase. Overall, the Grassley plan would still provide a disproportionately large tax cut to the highest income households.

But most importantly, even though the low- and moderate-income families need the most help in this troubled economy, Republican proposals assist them the least.

Myth 4: The Republican tax plan is the best way to address the problems of long-term unemployment. The reality is that the Republican tax plan ignores the plight of the unemployed and the long-term unemployed.

Although the temporary Federal unemployment insurance program will expire at the end of May for workers exhausting regular state UI benefits, currently the Republican plan does not extend the program. Nor does the plan provide any further assistance to the approximately 1.1 million workers who have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits and still have not found work.

The unemployment rate today is 6.0 percent, higher than when the temporary Federal UI program was created in March, 2002, or extended in January, 2003. During the last 3 months, over 540,000 private-sector jobs have been lost and the economy has lost 2.7 million private-sector jobs since the recession began. On average, job losses in a recession bottom out after about 15 months and are erased within 2 years. The persistence of job losses at the 25-month mark in this recession is the most severe since the 1930s. These workers have carried the brunt of this recession, there are simply no jobs out there for them.

Myth 5: The Republican tax plan is fiscally responsible, but the reality is that the Republican plan leads to deficits as far as the eye can see and exacerbates the fiscal pressures posed by the imminent retirement of the baby boom generation.

What was a $5.6 trillion 10-year surplus when the President took office has virtually disappeared, even without counting any current proposals. The administration has repeatedly claimed that the deterioration was largely out of their control, but the fact is that even including the effects of the recession and other technical changes to the CBO budget forecast, the tax cuts already passed are responsible for over a third of the deterioration in the budget. Enactment of the President's new budget proposals would result in a $2.1 trillion 10- year deficit--a turnaround of an astounding $7.7 trillion.

A particularly large bias in administration estimates comes from assuming that expiring tax provisions will indeed expire and that the alternative minimum tax will continue to affect a larger and larger segment of the population without any fix.

Deficits reduce national saving, reduce the resources available for productive investments, and hence reduce future economic growth. Even Chairman Greenspan recently warned of the danger to our nation's long- term economic health: ``I support the program to reduce double taxation on dividends and the necessary other actions in the federal budget to make it revenue-neutral . . . it should be done in the context of paygo rules, which means that the deficit must be maintained at minimal levels.''

Myth 6: States will benefit from the Republican tax plan. The reality is that the Republican tax plan ignores the fiscal crisis of the States and probably makes it worse.

The Senate Republican plan established a $20 billion fund to be equally divided between State governments and local governments, to be used for education and job training, health care including Medicaid, infrastructure, law enforcement, and other essential services. However, at the same time, the Federal tax changes will reduce State revenues by approximately $10 billion, leaving States on net with no additional funds.

The recession that began in March 2001 has hit State budgets from both sides. Income and sales tax revenues have fallen with reduced economic activity, while the demands on social services have grown as joblessness has increased and family incomes have declined. Every week brings a new headline--or two--announcing another State's proposed cutbacks in services or program eligibility as it responds to a worsening budget crisis. Numerous spending cuts in social programs, including Medicaid, have been announced by States as they work to close their widening funding gaps. Some 22 States have proposed or adopted cuts in Medicaid and the SCHIP that would drop coverage for at least 1.7 million people if all the proposals were adopted. Prospects for 2004 are worse: the National Conference of State Legislators estimates that 41 States will face a cumulative budget shortfall of $78 billion.

The Democratic proposal requires that the Federal Government provide twice as much money to help States mitigate the negative impacts of the recession on poor and working families. This will also aid job creation.

Myth 7: The congressional Republican tax plans adhere to the limits set in the budget resolution. The reality is that the Republican tax plans are full of ``smoke and mirrors'' gimmicks that hide their true costs.

The true cost of the 2001 tax cut is much greater than the official cost because of the gimmicks of phase-ins and sunsets and because the tax cut allowed the alternative minimum tax to pick up additional revenue from more and more over time--a situation that is not likely to be tolerated for too long. The official cost ignores interest costs as well. As a result, a more realistic estimate of the cost of the 2001 tax cut is much greater than the official cost--nearly $2.5 trillion over the first 10 years, not the $1.35 trillion as officially scored. A fully phased in version of the tax cut would cost even more over 10 years, over $4 trillion, even before counting interest payments.

Myth 8: Republican tax and budget proposals are no threat to Social Security and Medicare. In reality the Republican tax and budget proposals break our promises on Social Security and Medicare.

Tax cuts now mean even bigger tax increases later. The Bush tax cut agenda gambles away the income security of future generations, and for what? Current tax cuts to the wealthy, which Republicans claim will ultimately benefit everyone. Instead, those tax cuts will ultimately cost everyone.

Our country's impending demographic challenge and corresponding fiscal pressures are a certainty. We were already faced with tough decisions ahead about how the retirement of the baby boomers would be made ``affordable'' to our Government budget: either taxes will have to rise in the future, spending cuts, or some combination of both. The Bush tax cut agenda is not responsible for that situation, but it surely and dramatically has made the tough problem even tougher. It makes the fiscal hole even deeper, and it unjustly pushes off most

of the financial responsibility for the tax cuts and government programs we now enjoy, onto our children and grandchildren. We're putting our tax cuts on a credit card that our kids will have to pay off.

In the end, tax reform should be considered in a time of surpluses and not in a time during record budget deficits. Most importantly, we as a Congress have responsibility to act fairly and effectively to combat our Nation's economic crises. The Republican plans do not live up to that responsibility and I can only hope that my words today have separated the rhetorical myths from the facts.

Mr. President, I join my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to express my support for the ratification of the protocols to the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 on the accession of Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.

NATO has been perhaps the most successful military alliance in history, ensuring the peace and security of Europe for over fifty years. I believe these seven countries will not only benefit immeasurably from their inclusion in NATO, but they will all serve to further strengthen the alliance in ways that we could not have imagined in 1949. Though they are all fledgling democracies, they bring with them a zeal for the democratic process that we all share.

In 1997, I had concerns about admitting the last three nations into NATO--Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. I had significant concerns about the cost we as a nation might incur by allowing these countries with immature political and social structures and outdated militaries to enter the alliance. But time has proven that these costs are less than we imagined, and I believe that the cost required to bring these next seven nations into the alliance should be well worth the investment.

At the same time, I continue to have reservations about the likelihood of true interoperability with these seven new nations. These seven nations use military hardware that is a product of the Soviet armed forces, and it is rapidly reaching the end of its useful life. Very little of this equipment is compatible with the latest hardware, weapons, and ammunition currently utilized by the United States. The militaries of the seven new nations are also top heavy with senior officers who were trained under the old Soviet regime. As with the ground forces, their air forces are also products of the Soviet era, and are greatly outdated. Finally, interoperability within the communications arena will be extremely challenging, at best, until these militaries become proficient in English.

Despite these misgivings, I still believe that we should admit these seven nations into the NATO alliance. The NATO alliance ensured victory in the Cold War and has preserved the peace in Europe for over fifty years. But in order to survive for the next fifty years, the alliance must be willing to make much-needed changes to its charter. I support the Warner-Levin-Roberts amendment and its two major provisions that the President of the United States placed on the agenda at the North Atlantic Council. First, I agree that we must eliminate the ``consensus rule,'' the antiquated requirement in the NATO charter that nearly prevented NATO from protecting one of its own members, Turkey, before the commencement of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This rule may have worked when the alliance was first formed in 1949 with its original 12 members, but it cannot work any longer. Secondly, I support the need for a new rule in NATO that authorizes the members of the alliance to suspend the membership of any country in NATO which no longer supports the ideals of the alliance. The recent refusal of support on the part of some of our NATO allies during the build-up for and execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom has again shown the need for such a change. Only with these two critical steps will NATO continue to thrive and be as critical to peace and security in the 21st Century as it was in the 20th Century.

Judge Prado has served 19 years in the United States district court. As some of my colleagues have noted, it is sometimes more challenging to review nominees who come to us from private practice and universities. We have to extrapolate from their record in those different roles as to how they would perform as a judge. With Judge Prado, we certainly do not have that problem. We know how he has performed as a judge.

With the nomination of Priscilla Owen, the same applies. We have the Priscilla Owen and Judge Prado judicial records we can directly evaluate. In the case of Justice Owen, it is a record many on our side find troubling. If all the Members had been present today, it would have been 47 people voting against cloture.

In the case of Judge Prado, it is a record we find evinces an evenhandedness and fairness befitting a circuit court judge. Not that I would decide every case the way Judge Prado has--I would not--but overall he has won the support of all Democratic Senators, as far as I know, on the Judiciary Committee, and other Democratic Senators, because they found his record one of balance and fairness. Unlike Justice Owen and Mr. Estrada, no colleague or supervisor has questioned his ability to apply the law faithfully. Unlike Justice Owen and Mr. Estrada, no single person or organization has submitted a letter of concern or opposition to Judge Prado's nomination.

Judge Prado has generated no controversy. He is experienced. While I am sure he is conservative, it does not matter; He is an evenhanded judge.

There is something to be said for conservative judges. If conservatism means the law is followed, stare decisis, the precedent set, I think that is good.

Judge Prado will be confirmed today because he is a fine person and an excellent judge. As I have noted in the past, eight of the sitting Latino judges were appointed by President Clinton. Several of these judges were denied Senate consideration for years while the Republicans controlled the Senate. Judge Richard Paez, nominee for the Ninth Circuit, waited over 1,500 days. He was well qualified, had the support of his hometown Senators, and 39 Republicans voted against his nomination. There is nothing wrong with that. They had different views as to how he would serve as a judge.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, a nominee to the Second Circuit, was similarly stalled. Her confirmation took 433 days. Then there were the Hispanic nominees who were denied hearings or votes by Republicans during the Clinton administration: Jorge Rangel, Enrique Moreno, Christine Arguello, Richard Morado, Anabelle Rodriquez.

These facts and the expected confirmation of Judge Prado belie the anti-Hispanic charges some have made in the context of the Estrada debate. The extended debate Democrats have sought to have on just a handful of judicial nominees affects our constitutional advice and consent duty.

While the number of judges who have been confirmed demonstrates our good faith in working with our colleagues and the President, we will not simply rubberstamp ideologically driven individuals for lifetime seats on our Federal courts.

I am pleased that today we are moving forward on this qualified judge, Edward Prado. I believe the way Judge Prado's nomination has been received in the Senate points the way through some of the conflict that has occurred in the Senate over a very small number of judicial nominees.

If my math is correct, by today's end there will be 121 versus 2. That is a good record in anyone's book.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, in 2001, at the President's urging, Congress passed the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act, which provided $1.35 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. While I have consistently voted to reduce the tax burden of working families, I voted against the President's tax cut because it left too few resources for debt reduction and came at the expense of reforming Medicare and Social Security, providing a prescription drug benefit, and supporting critical investments like education, the environment, and national defense. A year later, the economic evidence indicates that the President's 2001 tax breaks have had little positive effect on the economy.

The economy continues to be in a slump and, now, we are in the midst of considering another large round of tax cuts that would help wealthy Americans. These tax cuts would also come at a time of record budget deficits and would break from the longstanding congressional practice of not passing tax cuts in times of war.

The Republican budget resolution calls for $1.3 trillion in additional tax cuts over the next 11 years. In an unprecedented move, the House and Senate Republicans are including two reconciliation tax numbers--rather than

one so they can use the reconciliation procedure to pass a bigger $550 billion tax cut. These tax cuts will add to long-term deficits and further impede economic growth.

Last week, the newly released labor market data confirmed again that there is a crisis facing America's working families. Mr. President, 108,000 more jobs were lost in March, including 68,000 in the private sector. There are 2.6 million fewer private payroll jobs than there were when the recession began.

Nationally, the number of long-term unemployed rose to 1.8 million in March, far higher than the 660,000 long-term unemployed in January 2001. There were 445,000 new unemployment insurance claims filed last week, up from 407,000 the prior week.

The economy is in as much trouble as it was in the early 1990s, if not worse. The latest study by the Joint Economic Committee shows that during the last 4 months that private sector job loss in the current recession is now larger and more serious than the private sector job loss in the 1990 recession.

With so many Americans out of work for far too long, the persistence of job losses and the clear signs of no economic recovery anytime soon, the need to pass another extension of unemployment insurance benefits is overwhelming. These benefits are set to expire on May 31, and the last time the extension was passed, it did not even include assistance to approximately one million workers who had exhausted all of their unemployment benefits and still found no work. Yet the budget conference report fails to provide for further extensions to help victims of this recession who are struggling to take care of their families and struggling to find work.

Furthermore, just yesterday the IMF, in its annual report, projected that the world economy would grow 3.2 percent this year, down from its previous projections. It expects the U.S. economy to grow 2.2 percent this year and 3.6 percent next year. Commenting on the current administration's economic plans, IMF research director Kenneth Rogoff said, ``Suppose for a moment we were talking about a developing country that had a gaping trade deficit year after year as far as the eye can see, a budget ink spinning from black into red, open-ended security costs and an exchange rate that has been inflated by capital inflows. With all that I think it's fair to say we'd be pretty concerned. The U.S. isn't a developing country, but nonetheless, for the global economy, the tax cut . . . on top of ongoing security expenditures seems awkwardly timed.'' This comes from the IMF that was supportive of President Bush's first round of tax cuts.

With all this negative data and with no upturn in the economy in sight, this budget resolution also makes too many cuts to vital programs and services to pay for the administration's oversized tax cuts. The conference agreement endorses a majority of the tax cuts that were in the President's proposal at the expense of domestic investments that are integral to the recovery of the economy and the welfare of our citizens.

As columnist Bob Herbert observed in the New York Times last week, ``With the eyes of most Americans focused on the war, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are getting close to agreeing on a set of budget policies that will take an awful toll on the poor, the young, the elderly, the disabled and others in need of assistance and support from their government . . . It mugs the poor and the helpless while giving unstintingly to the rich.'' The Senate budget includes a reduction of approximately $168 billion in funding for domestic discretionary programs in fiscal year 2004. Approximately two- fifths of this funding consists of grants in aid to State and local governments. These cuts will worsen the already severe budget crises that States are facing.

This is a restrictive funding level for domestic discretionary spending, given the continued needs in the homeland security area, the underfunding of the education reforms in the No Child Left Behind Act, need for aid to the States, and the severe structural burdens facing Medicare and Social Security.

The administration and the majority need to stop pushing economic plans that reward the wealthiest Americans and abandon fiscal responsibility. Instead, they need to support real economic stimulus that would provide immediate one-time tax relief for working families, extend unemployment benefits and provide desperately needed fiscal relief to the States.

Lastly, this conference report includes a gross misuse of the reconciliation process which was intended to facilitate deficit reduction not deficit increases. Due to the majority's obsession with supersized tax cuts, they have devised a heretofore, unheralded mechanism, to subvert the Senate's right to amend legislation. Indeed, while many of my colleagues can say that while the Senate can enact only $350 tax cut, the sad truth is that this contrivance paves the way for a tax cut that is much larger than many of my colleagues on both sides of the aisle are willing to support.

The budget before us is lamentable, and I only hope that those who support it today will reassess their positions in the weeks ahead.

Madam President, today I rise in the special recognition of the students of West Warwick Senior High School for representing the State of Rhode Island in the national competition for the ``We the People: The Citizen and the Constitution'' program. This year's national competition will take place on April 26 to 28, 2003.

The ``We the People'' program and competition are administered by the Center for Civic Education. The program is an extensive one, developed to educate students about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The competition is modeled after hearings in Congress and consists of oral presentations by high school students before a panel of adult judges on constitutional topics. The students' testimony is followed by a period of questioning by the judges who probe their depth of understanding and ability to apply their constitutional knowledge.

Our current global situation has increased the importance of initiatives which help young people to understand the fundamental ideals and principles of our government. We cannot take these ideals and principles for granted. Instead, we must hold them as standards in our endeavor to preserve and realize the promise of our constitutional democracy. It is of vital importance for future generations to understand the convictions that bind us together as a nation.

I believe that these students from West Warwick deserve added recognition. Not only is this their second consecutive State championship, this year's State competition took place just 2 weeks after the tragic fire in West Warwick that injured and took the lives of almost 290 family, friends, and neighbors of these young adults. In spite of their hometown's mourning, these students were able to continue their diligent preparation for the statewide ``We the People'' competition, and win. The West Warwick High School students will be joining 1,200 others from across the United States.

On behalf of all Rhode Islanders, I would like to congratulate the following students: Carly Alvernaz, Linzy Alvernaz, Jennifer Bartley, Stacy Costa, Sara Dalton, Ryan Desrochers, Megan Dougherty, Jillian Drummond, Elizabeth Duggan, Katheryn Flynn, Ashley Iasimone, Thomas Kelly, Paris Legault, Paul Piacitelli, Daniel Politelli, Lisa Powers, Ali Shihadeh, Nicholas St. Germain, Christen Varin, Russell Venditto, and Meaghan Whitford. In addition, I would like to acknowledge their teacher Marc Leblanc, the Rhode Island State coordinator, Michael Trofi, and the district coordinator, Henry Cote, for their dedication to this program over the years. I wish the students from West Warwick High School the best of luck at the ``We the People'' national finals.