National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005

NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005-CONTINUED

Mrs. FEINSTEIN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Massachusetts. I particularly thank him for being the main sponsor of this amendment.

This amendment is something about which I feel passion, and the reason I do is because the country, of which I am a part, in this bill authorizes the opening of a nuclear door to the development of new nuclear weapons.

One of the things I realized is Americans forget what a nuclear weapon does. Both Senator Kennedy and I were very young teenagers when the first nuclear bomb was dropped. The first nuclear bomb that was dropped was 15 kilotons, and it was dropped on Hiroshima. This is what Hiroshima looked like when that bomb was dropped.

Let me show you what a 21-kiloton nuclear bomb did, because that was the second bomb that was dropped, and that was on Nagasaki. In the course of a year, between the two cities, 200,000 people died-200,000-many of them in the most horrible of ways from radiation sickness.

Radiation is a major problem whenever you look at a new nuclear weapon-where it can be contained, how it can be contained, and where it cannot be contained.

In this bill, there is authorization for a 100-kiloton nuclear bunker buster. In this bill, there is a request for authorization of $9 million for advanced nuclear weapons concepts which translates into strategic battlefield nuclear weapons under 5 kilotons-battlefield nuclear weapons.

Let me show you the depth to which a bomb has to penetrate to prevent nuclear fallout. If it is two-tenths of a kiloton, it has to go down 70 feet, to 120 feet, and then it throws off 25,000 tons of radioactive fallout.

If it is 1 kiloton, at 80 feet, it throws up 60,000 tons of radioactive fallout and would have to go down to 220 feet not to throw out any radioactive fallout. Five kilotons, if it goes down 320 feet, it will not throw off radioactive fallout, but at 130 feet, it throws out 220,000 tons of radioactive fallout. At 100 kilotons, it would have to go down to 800 to 1,000 feet not to throw off any radioactive fallout.

That is what we are talking about. That is what is authorized in this bill: a nuclear bunker buster of 100 kilotons, and there is no known way to drive a bomb 800 to 1,000 feet into the earth because there is no known casing strong enough to drive that bomb down to that depth.

So I ask the question: Why are we doing this? Why are we spending what over 5 years will be $500 million on this program? And why are we doing it when it is going to encourage the very proliferation everything about us wants to prevent?

We now know through newspaper articles that India may be looking at what is called a boutique nuclear weapon, a battlefield nuclear weapon. We lead the way. We do not want other nations to go ahead and develop this, and this country has the most sophisticated conventional military in the world.

I support this amendment which essentially would eliminate the authorization for the robust nuclear earth penetrator and the advanced nuclear weapon concept.

I want to point out when this administration came into office, they put out a document called the Nuclear Posture Review in 2002. This Nuclear Posture Review, according to press reports, actually stated the United States would countenance a first use of nuclear weapons in certain circumstances.

This document named seven countries against whom we would consider launching a nuclear first strike. Those seven countries as listed in 2002 were North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, China, and Russia. It also proposed a new triad in which nuclear and conventional weapons coexist along the same continuum. This effectively blurs the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons and suggests that they could be used as an offensive weapon.

In addition, the Nuclear Posture Review said we need to develop new types of weapons so we can use them in a wider variety of circumstances and against a wider range of targets, such as hard and deeply buried targets, or to defeat chemical or biological agents.

I have now asked Secretary Rumsfeld, as a member of the Defense Appropriations Committee 2 years running, about this.
The first year he said this is just a study; that is all. This year a week ago when I asked him, he said clearly, with the amount of underground activity that exists in the world, and it is pervasive in country after country that people have tunneled underground-North Korea is a perfect example; certainly Iran is-we have found this in country after country, and the question is, If that is a problem, what might be done about it. Your first choice would be to find some obviously conventional way to do it. They have looked and looked and looked, and this additional way is at least, in my view, worth studying.

In addition, the Congressional Research Service says the fiscal year 2005 budget request seems to cast serious doubt on the assertions that the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator is only a study because budget projections over the next 5 years is nearly $500 million for this program. So it is more than a study. It is a real program that is underway. I think it is a huge mistake.

I indicated that there is no way today to sink a nuclear weapon deeply enough into the earth to prevent radioactive fallout.
Let me show what that fallout would do. This is the predicted radioactive fallout from a 300-kiloton explosion in west Pyongyang, North Korea, using historical weather data for the month of May. We see what the fallout would be. This makes no sense. We are not going to use a weapon either on a battlefield or as a bunker buster that spews out radioactive nuclear fallout. Why reopen the nuclear door? Why have other nations look at America and say, America is going to do this; maybe we should do it? India, Pakistan, historic enemies, both nuclear capable countries, rumors are that one now is going to develop a tactical battlefield nuclear weapon. They see us doing it; therefore, it is all right for them to do it.

According to press reports, in a Nuclear Posture Review, one of the countries we might consider a first use, North Korea.
We then find North Korea breaks the agreed formula. North Korea is producing a nuclear capability. It makes no sense for the strongest military on Earth, the most sophisticated conventional military on Earth, to say, once again, we must reopen the nuclear door, and we must begin a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The people of California do not want this. I do not think the people of any State want that. So I believe very strongly in this amendment. I hope to discuss it more on Tuesday. I will do everything in my power to fight every way I can the reopening of this nuclear door.

The Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, and Advanced Concepts Initiative are only part of a movement to expand the development of new nuclear weapons. There are also plans to develop a modern pit facility, and that modern pit facility would provide the capacity to create up to 450 more plutonium pits per year. The plutonium pit is the shell which is effectively the trigger of a nuclear device which compresses and therefore detonates. That is not necessary to maintain the current nuclear numbers that we have. It is only necessary if you are going to build new nuclear. In addition, last year the Administration urged Congress to eliminate the Spratt-Furse provision which for the past 10 years provided that there could be no research, no development, no study of low-yield nuclear weapons.

So the evidence is there that this administration is proceeding along the lines to reopen the nuclear door to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons while at the same time preaching to the world, thou shalt not; we are opposed to nuclear proliferation. Yet we are willing to open that door and proliferate ourselves.

In my view, this is hypocrisy. In my view, this is not good public policy. In my view, this is immoral and unethical.

I represent a constituency that does not think we need a new generation of nuclear weapons. So this amendment would remove that authorization from the Defense authorization bill, and I stand in support of it.

I yield the floor.