this because no time can be wasted. just to give you one illustration, when we left one of the facilities, we have examined -- we have been to each of these facilities and we have talked to the people there and we were given a little souvenir from one of them. it's a -- encased in plastic a little vacuum tube. it's a vacuum tube like came out of our black and white tv's back in the 1960's, i guess. it's still being used as a component in one of our weapons and they are replacing it with circuit boards, of course. that's the kind of thing that needs to be modernized in these weapons. so what is it going to take to do it? well, the congress, understanding that we had to get about this in the last defense bill, put in a requirement that the president prepare a plan. it's named after the section of the bill which was 1251. that section of the bill now is the nomenclature for the plan, the 1251 plan for modernizing

our forces. and this really followed a speech that secretary gates made, and let me just quote from this speech and get into a little bit of the detail here. he said -- "to be blunt, there is absolutely no way we can maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program." and that was pretty much the genesis, that and the so-called perry schlesinger commission which really ran the red flag up the flagpole to get this program moving. so in fiscal year 2010, the obama administration devoted devoted $6.4 billion to nuclear weapon activities, but it has acknowledged that that's a loss of purchasing power of about 20% from 2005 -- and this is by the administration's own calculations. so we knew from the very beginning that there wasn't enough money in the plan to get the job done. in december, just a year ago, 41 senators -- and this is before

scott brown, i might add, joined us -- wrote a letter to the the president, stating -- "funding for such a modernization program beginning in earnest in your f.y. 2011 budget is needed as the u.s. further consideration the nuclear weapons reductions needed in the start negotiations." end of quote. so to make a long story short, the administration had a ten-year plan in place that was becoming pretty apparent would not be adequate. that ten-year plan called for about $7 billion a year over ten years to basically operate the facilities. i've said it's like the money to keep the lights on but not money for this new modernization of our nuclear warhead or most of it wouldn't have gone to that. so they realized they needed about $10 billion, at least according to their initial calculations. they got about half of that from the defense department. the other half they figured they would get from savings from recalculating interest costs in the latter years of the budget. so they added a $10 billion slug

onto the $70 billion that was already budgeted for general operation of the system and said that's our $80 billion modernization program. but based upon work that had been done by laboratories earlier, by other study groups and so on, a lot of experts agreed, including all of the former lab directors, that that slug of $10 billion would never be adequate for the costly items that needed to be performed over the next decade. most of us estimate it to be about double that cost or about $20 billion. i think that's eventually about where we're going to end up, by the way. in any event, the two biggest drivers are two new buildings, facilities that have to be built, one for plutonium work at los alamos lab in new mexico, the other for uranium work at the so-called y-12 plant at oak ridge, tennessee. those two buildings alone could end up costing over $10 billion. and as a result, as i said, we went to the administration and said we appreciate this

modernization plan, but you need to update the plan and incorporate a lot of new costs, and we showed them a lot of areas in which there were deficiencies, including deferred maintenance that had to be performed. we pointed out there is a a $1 billion unfunded pension liability that would have to be dealt with in -- in order for these -- for the scientists to continue to work. and i -- i won't go into the quotations here. vice president biden acknowledged the same thing in a statement that he made. i appreciate the fact that, by the way, they complimented our work and our staff for pointing out a lot of these things which were the basis then for the administration coming back and doing an update to the 1251 plan which at least incorporated funding for some of of the items that we had talked about. there has been some talk about an additional $4.1 billion. and i know senator kerry will confirm this, it grates at me and i'm sure it does on him as well to hear people referring to

this in negotiation terms. well, they gave the -- or gave kyl another $4.1 billion, that should be enough. that's not the point here. this is an ongoing, evolving process. the administration has also identified about another another $2 billion likely to have to be spent within six years, but they were only looking at a five-year process, so that $4 billion pertains to five years. my guess is there will be another $6 billion over the last five years and we'll ultimately look at about $20 billion, more or less. the point is that i didn't believe that the administration had been sufficiently careful in defining the requirements and identifying the amount of money that would be needed, and i have said to many people, including my colleague senator kerry, we had better not underestimate this for the appropriation members of congress. we better let them know up front this is going to be pretty costly and get that out on the table.

and to their credit, the administration has now put out new figures. now, as i'll discuss in more detail later, but just summarize here. while that is a big step forward and very welcome and i will support it all, there are other things that need to be done, and one of the biggest concerns i have is that they achieve this objective in part by simply extending the date to complete these two big facilities that i mentioned by another two years. they wouldn't be complete until 2023, for one, and 2024 for the other one. that has the advantage of getting them outside the 10-year budget window so you don't count any new money but it extends the time by which these facilities can be done. and every year, we were told it's about a $200 million expense just to keep the existing facilities operating. so we're losing a lot of money every year that we don't get these two new buildings constructed so that we can move into them and get the modernization done. that's -- that's the biggest

concern that i have. i'll talk about some others later, but let me just conclude here with a couple of quotations that i think illustrate the importance of doing what we need to do here. tom d'agostino, which is the n.s.a. administrator, he says "our plans for the modern security enterprise are essential, irrespective of whether or not the start treaty is ratified." now, he and i think all of us agree it's even more important if we go down to the lower numbers in the start treaty, but this is important either way. and i note that former energy secretary spence abraham wrote a column in "weekly standard" recently that made the same point, that regardless of what's done on the start treaty, this modernization needs to move forward. i made the point earlier about how the house democrats conditioned the funding on ratification of start, and i hope that in the comments that

are made on the floor here, it may be the subject of -- in fact, it probably will be the subject of at least one amendment to the resolution of are the if i occasion, but this is a place where the debate that we have, the comments we make may be just as important as an amendment because it's a statement of our intention as senators. i think you will find that senators who support -- republican senators who support the start treaty and i'm sure democratic senators who support the start treaty will all say one of the things that has to happen is the modernization of our facilities along the lines of this updated 1251 plan and the statements that the administration as well as we have made. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: i yield just for -- i just want to -- i want to compliment the senator and -- and confirm on the record that senator kyl indeed brought to the attention of the administration and to all of us

several points which the laboratory chiefs agreed were in deficiency. and he is absolutely correct that while it's not directly within the four corners of the treaty, modernization, per se, obviously if you contemplate reductions, you have to also be able to understand that you're maintaining the capacity of your existing force. and so senator kyl has been diligent in pursuing that, and i also applaud the administration for responding, and i think he would, too, in acknowledging that. so he is correct that i think this part of the record is an important one. we have not separately with -- we have met separately with senator inouye, with senator feinstein, and they have agreed with senator kyl that they accept the need to continue down to the levels that the administration has put on the table, and they are committed to doing that.

now, that said, let me also place in the record a letter from our three laboratory leaders -- dr. george miller, lawrence livermore, dr. michael anastasio who was just referred to, and dr. paul herman at sandia. here is what they say. we are very pleased by the update to the section 1251 report as it would enable the laboratories to execute our requirements for ensuring a safe, secure and reliable stockpile under the stockpile stewardship and management plan. in particular, we are pleased because it clearly responds to many of the concerns that we and others have voiced in the past about potential year funding shortfalls and it substantially reduces risks to the overall program. we believe that if enacted, the added funding outlined in the section 1251 report update for enhanced surveillance, pensions, facility construction and

readiness and technical base and facilities, among other programs, would establish a workable funding level for a balanced program that sustains the science, technology and engineering base. in summary, we believe the proposed budgets provide adequate support, sustain the safety, security, reliability and effectiveness of america's nuclear deterrent within the limit of 1,550 deployed strategic warheads established by the new start treaty with adequate confidence and acceptable risk. i think it's very important, so to do that, i would think that we have adequately addressed it because there is also language in the resolution of ratification that embraces the modernization component. so i thank the senator from arizona. i think that has been a constructive -- constructive component to helping us to be in a position to be able to ratify the treaty. mr. kyl: i appreciate my

colleague's comments, and rather than read the remainder of this, i would simply ask unanimous consent that at the conclusion of my remarks here, that i -- that there will be additional quotations on the need for modernization by former lab directors, dr. miller, secretary schlesinger and several others, and would just conclude by emphasizing what the lab directors also emphasized in this correspondence, and i will just quote it. "as we emphasized in our testimonies, implementation of the future vision of the nuclear deterrent will require sustained attention and continued refinement." the out years are very, very important, and that's why the record that we create in this debate is important to ensuring that those who come after us will appreciate our intentions as we move forward here, that we never again take our eye off the ball and allow the deterioration in our nuclear forces to occur as we have so that we can continue to support them as

called for in this modernization plan. madam secretary, i will just insert those in the record at this point and then make the remainder of my statement at another time when i haven't taken up all my colleague's time. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: well, i thank -- madam president, i thank the senator from arizona and i look forward with anticipation to any returns to the floor with an amendment, and we look forward to moving on that. i also regret that he won't be here because i would like to be able to answer some of the concerns that he raised because i think there are answers to them, and i think it's important obviously for that part of the record. i do want to -- some of the questions that were raised were questions about verification. i won't take a long time because i know the senator from nebraska and the senator from georgia are waiting to speak. let me say really quell, in a letter from the secretary of

defense to us regarding this issue of verification -- and we may well have a closed session where we'll discuss that to some degree -- but in the letter, secretary gates writes to me and through me to the senate, saying -- "the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, the joint chiefs, the commander of the u.s. strategic command and i assess that russia will not be able to achieve militarily significant cheating or breakout under new start, due to both the new start verification regime and the inherent survivability and flexibility of the planned u.s. strategic force structure." so they have confidence in this verification regime. and we need to have confidence in the leadership in our military, national security agencies, the intelligence agencies and the strategic command all of whom are confident that we have the capacity to verify under this treaty. and so i ask unanimous consent

to submit that. i have a separate unanimous consent request for a committee to meet during today's session of the senate and it has the approval of the majority and minority leaders, so i ask unanimous consent that that be agreed to and the request be printed in the record. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: as if in legislative session. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: one last wick comment -- i don't -- quick comment -- i couldn't want to leave -- senator kyl knows these materials very, very well, and he's an effective advocate for a point of view. but that doesn't mean that by saying those things all of them have a factual underpinning or that they are, in fact, the best judgment as to what our military thinks or the national intelligence community thinks about the components of this treaty. let me just give an example. senator kyl has raised concerns

about the conventional strike, the global -- prompt global strike capacity under here. now, what he didn't say is that russia very much wanted to ban strategic range conventional weapon systems all together. we rejected that approach. the obama administration said, no, we're not going to ban all conventional capacity. and -- and, in effect, decided to proceed along the same approach that we used in start i. ted warner, the secretary of defense's representatives to the negotiations testified to the foreign relations committee saying, "we agreed to a regime whereby conventionally armed icbms or slbm -- those are the

intercontinental ballistic missles or submarine launched ballistic missles -- and they agreed they would be permitted, but, yes, they did agree to count them under the strategic delivery vehicle and strategic warhead ceilings. now senator kyl sort of sees that as a problem. all of our folks who negotiated this treaty and our military and our strategic thinkers see that as an advantage for the united states of america. that protects us. we are better off that way. why? because, madam president, it would be extraordinarily difficult to ver if i compliance -- verify compliance with a treaty that limited nuclear tipped icbm and slbm but it didn't count and therefore didn't inspect identical conventionally armed slbm and

icbm. so we'd be absolutely foolish on our part to allow the russians to deploy additional slbm, slbm based exclusively on their assurance that they're not nuclear armed. how would you know? it's only by putting them under the counting that we protect the interest of our country rather than creating a whole sidebar arms race which would make everybody less safe. not -- not counting those missles would, in fact, create a new risk, the risk of breakout that you allow the other side the opportunity even if there were no cheating russia could simply leave the treaty and arm those missles if they wanted to with nuclear warheads on very short notice and we would all be worse off. so, in fact, what senator kyl is complaining about is something

that makes us more stable. and if he did what he's sort of hinting that he might like to do, you actually create greater instability and it would be clearly much more likely to kill the treaty all together. so, you know, some of these things get raised, you know, they sound like there's a sort of reasonableness to them. but when you put them in the overall context of strategic analysis and thinking and of the balance, the sort of threat analysis that attaches to any treaty of this sort, what you're trying to work through is sort of reaching a -- an equilibrium between both sides' perception of the other side's capacity and what kind of threat that exposes each side to. and that's how you sort of arrive at the equilibrium. that's what's driven every arms control agreement since the

inception. and the pentagon has made very, very clear that the -- that the global prompt strike is going to be developed, but it's going to be developed as a niche capacity. they think it's too expensive to do in huge numbers and it's also very, very clear that under the best circumstances it's going to be a long time before that is ready to deploy. you know, you've got boost live vehicles that are still in proof of concept test stage. nobody would -- has any imagination whether they'll be ready in 10 or 15 years. the life of this treaty is 10 years. so you're looking beyond the life of the treaty for when they might or might not be ready. there are a host of other concepts out there about this. we're going to get a record from -- report from the pentagon next year on what technologies they think are most promising. i think it is going to be exceedingly difficult to imagine to bring them online within the 10-year life of this treaty.

so any concept that's sort of revising things that makes this treaty subject to some component of that is, in effect, a guise to try to kill the treaty. there's one component of it, there are many other similar kinds of arguments raised in the last hour and as we go forward if an amendment arises, we'll deal with each of them. i wanted colleagues to be aware that -- that there's more underneath some of these red herrings than they appear to the eye at first blush. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. a senator: are we scheduled to recess at 12:30? just checking. i'm not going to make a one-hour speech, but i might go beyond 12:30. the presiding officer: no, we are not required. mr. isakson: i was at the floor and i addressed my concern about

the omnibus and the dual track process we're on right now. that statement's been made. i come to the floor this morning to address the new start treaty. i voted for it to come out of the foreign relations committee to the floor of the united states senate and i want to go through my reasons for having done that and i want to talk about what the new start treaty is, not what it is not. first of all i want to pay tribute to dick lugar. senator liewg hars been a bastion of -- senator lugar. i want to thank senator kerry for the time he gave us to go through hour after hour after hour of hearing and hour after hour after hour of secure briefing in the bowels of the new visitors center where we read the summary of the notes of the negotiations of the new treaty. we read the threat initiative and the estimate of the threat initiative and all of the --

what is critical -- it is critical to consider and debate this treaty. i want to talk about two united states senators, one a democrat and one a republican and with all due respect to the chairman, it's not him. it's a democrat by the name of sam nunn from georgia who chaired the armed services committee, who, along with senator lugar, put together the nunn-lugar initiative. i sought out senator nunn as i have sought out senator lugar in my deliberations during the committee debate and my considerations of what i would do in that committee vote and later a vote on the floor. i want to make a couple of notes about the success of the nunn-lugar initiative. the nunn-lugar initiative is a commitment to see to it that nuclear materials are secure. it is a commitment to see to it that loose nucleares around the world don't fall into the hands that would kill my grandchildren, your grandchildren or all of us in the united states of america. i don't think it's been

mentioned on the floor of the senate, but as a result of the initiative of the nunn-lugar initiative, they have reduced the number of loose nukes in the world by 7599, belaruse, the ukraine no longer have nuclear arsenals, they destroyed the weapons and they've turned weapons of mass destruction into plow shares and are powering power plants in that part of the world. the nuclear threat initiative does not mean you get out of the business of having a nuclear arsenal. it means you get into the business of security for the nuke that are there. now, from my history as far as this it goes back to the 1950's. in fact, it goes back to ms. hamburger's first grade class in the 1950's when i remember getting under the school desk once a week to practice what we would do if a

nuclear attack hit the united states of america. my history goes back to october of 1962 when as a freshman at the university of georgia i stood in fear with all my colleagues and watched what was happening in cuba, watched the blockade, watched the strength of president kennedy and facedded russians down and faced what would have been a strike against the united states. and then i remember the night in october in 1986 when i had the honor to introduce ronald reagan in atlanta, georgia, the night before he flew to iceland to begin the negotiations on nuclear treaties at that time. in one speech it has been made that reagan rejected what was offered. reagan rejected not doing research and development and building a nuclear arsenal. he did invest on verification of what both countries were doing so we could never have a situation of not having

transparency, not having intelligence and not knowing what the right hand and left hand were doing. it was out of that rejection that the beginning of the negotiations of the start treaty were began and they were signed in 1991 under the administration of george h.w. bush. until december 5 of last year that start treaty had been in place and for those years the united states had transparency, it had verification, and it had cooperative communication back and forth between the two countries that controlled 90% of the nuclear weapons in the united states -- in the world. so my history with this goes all the way back to climbing under a school desk to introducing president ronald reagan to serving on the foreign relations committee of the united states senate in washington, d.c. my decisions to support the bill coming out of the committee were based on four principles that i want to talk about for a second. first of all is inspections. now, it has been said that the inspections have been reduced

but what has not been said is the number of sites inspected have also been greatly reduced. the number of inspections is corresponding with what is necessary to inspect the russian arsenal and knowing whether they're complying with the treaty or not. we learned what happens if you don't have human intelligence on the ground where you need it. what happens is you get surprised. what happened to us on 9/11 is almost 3,000 citizens of the world died at the hands of a heinous attack by radical terrorists because we didn't have as good of intelligence as we needed to have. that's why i don't want to turn my back on the opportunity to have human intelligence on the ground, in the russian federation verifying that they are complying with a mutual pack that we have made with them. correspondingly the transparency they have to inspect our nuclear arsenal in the united states of america. now, the second point i want to make that caused me to come to

the conclusion it was the right thing to do to support the treaty in committee was the verification process. now, i've heard some people say that this verification process is not as good as the old verification process. i'm not going to get into that argument. but i will tell you one thing, this verification process is a heck of a lot better than no verification process at all which is exactly what we have today. since december 5 of last year, over a year from now, we haven't had the human intelligence, we couldn't verify. verification is critically important because with verification comes communication, with communication comes understanding and from that understanding and communication comes intelligence. while our inspections are to make sure that the quantity of the nuclear arsenals and the warheads are within compliance of the treaty, it gives us interaction to learn what others may know about nuclear weapons around the world that are not covered by this treaty. which, by the way, brings me to one other point, it has been

said by some that bilateral treaties are no longer useful, we need multilateral treaties. i have to ask you this question, if we reject the one bilateral treaty over nuclear power, how are you going to get to a multilateral treaty? you're not going to do it. i think it is important to have a bilateral treaty between two countries who control 90% of the weapons so we see to it as other countries gain nuclear power, we can bring them to a regimen that has transparency and accountability too. you will never do that if you reject it between yourself and the russian federation. i mentioned senator nunn before. he served as armed services chairman and so did john warner, the distinguished republican member of this united states senate. they released a joint statement not too long ago and raised a point that i had not really thought of and i want -- if you'll beg my doing this read on

the floor of the senate one of the points they made that were supportive of this treaty. i quote from senator nunn and senator warner. "washington and moscow should expand the risk of nuclear risk reduction centers and other members of congress established with president ronald reagan to further reduce nuclear threats. for example, to improve both nation's early warning capabilities, the centers could exchange data on global missile launches. it would provide the basis for a giant initiative involving russia, the united states and the north atlantic treaty organization on a structure for europe that would help address other key issues like tactical nuclear weapons vulnerable to theft by terrorists. when the stwrs proposed, they were envisioned to help prevent catastrophic nuclear terrorism. these initiatives can go tabored a new start treaty." i thought that observation was very telling and looking

prospectively into the future about again having the two nations, the russian federation and the united states, bring in other people like nato to be a part of a treaty and a missile defense system that's agreeable with all parties in the absence of negotiation, the absence of transparency, the absence of cooperation ensures that that cannot happen. my fourth point is this: the thing i fear the most as a citizen, the thing i fear the most as as a senator and the thing i fear the most as a father of three and grandfather of nine is a nuclear fissionable material getting into the hands of a radical terrorist. that is the fear that all of us have. it is critical when you look at what the nunn-lugar initiative has done and the destruction of loose nooks, 7,599, what the original start treaty, the foundation it gave us to begin to reduce nuclear weapon proliferation without the ability to defend ourselves and

to launch strikes that are necessary to protect the people of the united states of america. but i worry about one of the radical terrorists getting ahold of one of these materials, and i fear in the absence f with the absence of transparency, we run the risk of playing into their hands and making that type of a material more and more available. what's known as the lugar doctrine is very important to understand at this stage of this debate. doing my research on the treaty and the work that dick lugar and others have done on nonproliferation, i came upon what is known as the lugar document. i would like to read it because it answers the question i just raised about a loose nuke getting in the hands of a rogue terrorist. "every nation that has weapons and materials of mass destruction must account for what it has, spend its own money or obtain international technical and financial resources to safely secure what it has and pledge that no other nation sell or cause will be

allowed to access its use." that is as clearly and succinctly you can state the future fear that all of us have for this country of what might happen with nuclear weapons. so, in closing my remarks, i went through interviews with sam nunn, listened to the chairman and the ranking member, listened to the testimony, read the documentation which everybody else can read, in the secure briefing room, cainldz to the conclusion that verification is better than no verification at all. transparency is what prevents things like 9/11 from ever happening again. you can never expect multilateral negotiations with countries that have some degree of nuclear power if the two greatest powers refuse to sit down and negotiator and extend the understanding they've had since 1991. only through setting the example, without giving in or capitulating a thing do we moaflly give hope to the future that my grandchildren and yours can live in a world that is that

will not be free of nukes but that we can ensure that loose nukes will not be in the hands of bad people and still have the ability to defend ourselves. it is for those reasons that i supported the new start treaty in the committee. i submit them for the consideration of the members of the senate. and i yield back my time. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from nebraska. mr. nelson: madam president, i rise today to discuss the new start treaty. in the last 40 years our country has participate the in numerous arms control and nonproliferation efforts. they are a critical l our national security strategy f done right, arms control agreements can enhance u.s. national security by promoting transparency and information-sharing that can inform us about the size, makeup, and operations of other military forces. they also provide other countries with information about our force and capabilities and

that promotes a strategic balance and discourages an attack on the u.s. or its alli allies. transparency and information-sharing enable our military partners to better prepare for a real threat. without such agreements and understandings, our military and the military of countries like russia must prepare for worse-case scenarios. that leads to inefficient, runaway defense spending. if that sounds familiar, that's because we've been down that road before. it was called "the arms race." the u.s. and the former soviet union poured massive resources into building not only vast stockpiles of nuclear weapons but also on the expansive systems needed to defend against inexamining bombers and missiles. since the late-1960's, arms control agreements and other measures have worked to reduce nuclear forces and systems that support them.

i.d. a neat former president -- i'd note that former president ronald reagan who accelerated nuclear modernization and wan oe the star wars effort, working with soviet premier gorbachev, he laid the foundation for stayed's start treaty n july of 1991, presidents bush and gorbachev signed the start i treaty and the senate later approved it on an overwhelming and bipartisan vote of 93-6, a vote which concluded after four days of floor debate. nebraska senators at the time, jim exxon and bob kerrey, both supported that start i treaty. as we consider new start, it's our constitutional duty to address today's concerns and this treaty's merits. i've heard five main concerns during debate. they are: one, treaty limitations on missile defense; two,

sufficiency of modernization plans for nuclear enterprise; three, adequacy of treaty verification measures; four, force structure changes rultding from treaty reductions; five, the timing of the senate's deliberation on the treaty. first, new start -- the new start treaty won't affect any current or plan u.s. missile defense efforts. some point to language in the treaty's preamble and the inclusion of unilateral statements, but they're not legally binding and changing the preamble would unravel the treaty. the only binding restriction on missile defense systems arises in article v. it prevents conversion of icbm silos into missile defense launchers. and that has no practical effect because converting silos is more expensive and less desirable than building new silos. second, some have questioned the

administration's question to modernize our nuclear facilities and forces. as the chairman of the armed services strategic forces subcommittee, i held three hearings this year addressing the health of our nuclear weapons complex, and i'd note that the administration asked for $7 billion in fy 2011 for stockpile sustainment and infrastructure investments. that's roughly 10% more than 2010 funding. the administration also plans to invest $80 billion in the next decade to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex. that's the biggest commitment to the nuclear enterprise in more than a decade. on top of that the administration recently offered an additional $4 billion toward modernizational goals. third it some argue that verification measures are less rigorous than for start i. its verification measures

expired last september so as today we've gone 376 days without on-site monitoring and verification in miewsh. the less we're allowed to see for ourselves, the more uncertainty we'll feel about russian forces. new start includes verification measures allowing 18 on-site inspections annually. we determine where and when to go, with very little advance notice to the musings. as many of you know, this treaty counts every warhead and delivery system and tracks them with unique identifiers. that's a tremendous advancement in transparency over the previous system of attribution. and it certainly is better than p no verification stham exists at the present time. fourth, some express concern about the treaty's impact on the nuclear triad or strategic bombers, missile, and ballistic missile submarines. in testimony and in direct conversations with me, our military leaders have assured that the new start retains the

triad. proposed reductions by the pentagon aimed to spread across all systems and minimize the impacts to any one somer base, thus retaining a safe, secure, and effective triad. finally, some indicate that considering new start now prevents the senate from spending adequate time to consider the treaty or that we would be rushing to judgment on the treaty. new start was signed in april of this year. and the senate has had it for consideration since may of this year. together, the foreign relations, intelligence, and armed services committees have held 21 hearings and briefings related to the treaty. the truth is that the senate has been actively deliberating new start for seven months. by comparison, the 2002 moscow treaty took nine months to complete and start i took a little more than a year.

when it came to floor debate is, in 1991 start i treaty required four days of debate while start ii, the kell weapons, convention, and 29002 moscow treaty each took two days. now, i'm confident that the senate has fulfilled our responsibility to fully consider and deliberate on new start and our actions are entirely consistent with the past actions of this body in considering previous arms control agreements. now, those are the concerns that have been raised. now, let's look at the merits. in recent months, i've spoken about this treaty with key military leaders, including secretary gates, admiral mullen be, general cartwright and general chilton. each has expressed full support and participation in this treaty. they also fully support the proposed reductions to the nuclear arsenal, and the continued sustainment of the nuclear triad.

in addition, secretary clinton and every living former secretary of state, nine in total, have all publicly voiced their support. five former secretaries of defense on both sides of the aisle have endorsed the treaty. seven former strategic command commanders have endorsed the treaty. stratcom headquartered in my state, omaha, nebraska, in the belleview area, oversees america's strategic nuclear, nonnuclear, and cyber defenses. also, it's important i believe that the u.s. strategic command actively played a key role in negotiating the treaty. with that experience, the former stratcom commander in chief, general chilton, who just recently departed, said, "our nation will be safer and more secure with this treaty than without it. what we negotiated to is

absolutely accept to believe the united states strategic command for what we need to do to provide the deterrent for the country." i wholeheartedly agree. i'm prepared to vote to ratify the new start treaty because it promotes our national security and can make both america and the world safer. it increases transparency between nuclear nations. it promotes cooperation and not suspicion, and it redices the possibility of a -- reduces the possibility of a nuclear exchange and still inabilities america to respond to the terrible threats that continue in this nuclear age. i'd like it elaborate for just a second. america will be stronger if we can continue to look under russia's hood and they under ours. trust but verify still works. this treaty will help u.s. strategic command accomplish its absolutely vital mission for our nation. further, as the chairman of the

u.s.-russia interparliamentary group, i've held many meetings with my russian counterparts about this treaty. it's a step in the right direction to encourage even further cooperation between the united states and russia. as we work toward cooperation, the treaty reestablishes that verification michigan and increases the transparency -- measure and increases the transparency immeasurably. that will reduce uncertainty about russian forces and increase their predictsability. without this treaty, our understanding of russia's nuclear forces will continue to deteriorate. we would have a tendency for united states forces to overcompensate for what we don't know. that's a losing strategy in an era of large budget deficits and needed fiscal constraint. entering into this treaty demonstrates our commitment to modernizing the nuclear stockpile by making the most of what we have to spend. and and to keep our country safe.

the new start treaty offers the possibility of providing our military with insights needed to efficiently and successfully provide a safe, reliable, and secure nuclear deterrent. at the end of the day, the new start treaty builds on successes from previous treaties and paves the way for further bilateral agreements between the united states and russia. it moves us away from a nuclear war no one wants. even as it does, we'll retain a powerful and effective deterrent capability. and, finally, ratification also will send a strong message to those around the world opposed to proliferation and those seeking to proliferate. so for these reasons, madam president, i support this new start treaty and i believe the senate should ratify it as soon as possible. and i yield the floor.

mr. bingaman: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. bingaman: madam president, i'd like to speak briefly on the new start treaty and state the reasons why i believe the senate should go ahead and ratify this treaty. let me highlight some key points on first what the treaty accomplishes. let me mention four things. number one, it reduces the number of deployed nuclear warheads by a relatively small number. that is, it takes us from 2,200, which is what we're required to reduce to under the moscow treaty, down to 1,550. second, its counting regime is not based on attributing a number of warheads to a launch system but instead, like the 2002 moscow treaty, this treaty actually requires the counting of deployed warheads.

third, this treaty reestablishes a verification regime of inspectors on the ground. this is something which lapsed a year ago when start i lapsed. and third -- and fourth, this treaty still maintains a credible nuclear deterrent against russia, against china, against anyone who might threaten our country. before discussing some of these points in detail, let me put the new start treaty in some historical perspective, at least as i see t. a -- as i see it. as this chart graphically demonstrates, at the peak of the cold war some 30 years ago, there were about 60,000 nuclear warheads. that's clearly an astounding number given that a single warhead would destroy most american -- major american

cities and most major cities anywhere in the world. from 1991, when the first start treaty was signed, until 2002, when the moscow treaty was signed, the number of warheads declined dramatically from about 50,000 to a little over 20,000 or about 10,000 for the united states and 10,000 for russia. this includes spare and deployed warheads, not just those that were deployed. the moscow treaty took this count further and allowed 2,200 to 1,700 deployed warheads. with additional spares of about 3,300 were -- when additional spares of about 3,300 were included, the number rises somewhere to between 5,500 and down to 5,000 warheads for each nation.

the new start treaty is -- if the new start treaty is ratified, as shown on this chart -- down here where this arrow is in the right-hand bottom corner -- in 2010, it will take the number of deployed warheads to 1,550 from the lower limit that was in the moscow treaty. that's a very modest reduction compared to what was done -- what has been done in previous arms control agreements. after the cold war ended 20 years ago, it was clear that we had an astounding and excessive number of nuclear weapons. i believe it was the hope and the expectation of most americans that there would be deep reductions in nuclear weapons at that time that. reduction, in my view, has been slow in coming. our government has declassified the number of nuclear warheads we have in our active stockpile

and that number is 5,113. if asked directly, i believe most americans would be surprised to know that here at the end of 2010, we still have over 5,000 nuclear warheads and we have 2,200 that are deployed. today we have a treaty before us that achieves a modest reduction from the moscow level of 2,200 deployed warheads. as i indicated before, this treaty will take us down to 1,550. quite frankly, i'm surprised that some are arguing for having a drawn-out debate over the treaty. start i took about four days of floor debate and lowered the number of warheads between russia and the united states from about 50,000 to 20,000, a 60% reduction. the moscow treaty lowered the total number of u.s. warheads from about 11,000 to today's

level of about 5,000. that took two days of debate. and that involved a 55% reduction. yet, with the relatively modest reduction called for in this treaty, we still have people proposing a floor debate that could extend into the next congress. let me turn to a number of substantive issues associated with the new start treaty that i believe weigh in favor of its ratification by the senate. first, we have been briefed by the military commanders about the 1,550 deployed warhead as that will still be in place once this treaty is approved. this total is comprised of about 700 deployed icbm and slbms and about 800 total heavy bombers and launchers. i urge my colleagues to obtained

classified briefing on the treaty. i believe it's clear that the commander of u.s. strategic command has analyzed in detail the strategic nuclear force structure of each side under this treaty and is confident that we can maintain our deterrence against russia and china, who hold 96% of the world's strategic nuclear warheads. the resolution of approval, as reported by the senate foreign relations committee, speaks to this issue, noting in condition three that before any reductions in deployed warheads are made below the current moscow treaty level, the president must notify congress that such reductions are in the national security interests of the united states. the second point is that the intelligence community has judged that we're better off with this treaty and its inspection regime than we are

without it. monitoring and verification under start i, which has now expired, was based on counting strategic launch systems and then attributing a number of warheads to each submarine, each airplane, each missile. this counting rule overestimated the number of warheads carried on u.s. strategic systems. the new start treaty's much more specific than start i. it counts only the actual number of warheads carried by each deployed missiles. in fact, this is the same counting rule as in the moscow treaty, which was developed by the prior administration and subsequently approved here in this senate 95-0. moreover, under this treaty, we have the ability to inspect on the ground with short notice to determine whether uniquely coded launchers actually carry the declared numbers of warheads.

contrary to what some have claimed, short notice inspections of uniquely identified launchers, combined with other intelligence assets, give us a high probability of detecting cheating, such as uploading of more warheads, which would take days to months for russia to achieve. condition two of the resolution of approval out of the committee speaks to the monitoring issue by requiring the president to certify that our national technical means or other intelligence assets combined with the -- our on-the-ground verification capability is -- quote -- "sufficient to effective monitoring of russian compliance with the provisions of the treaty." third, there's a large policy issue of strategic stability. this treaty provides a framework of transparency through inspections and accountability of warheads and launchers. if we're worried about unchecked growth of russia's strategic nuclear forces not now but five

years from now, it makes great sense to approve this treaty. many have criticized the treaty because it does not deal with russia's numerical advantage in tactical nuclear weapons, such as gravity bombs or submarine-launched cruise missiles. i would point out that none of preefofthe previous arms control treaties have dealt with tactical nuclear weapons. while i agree that we should have discussions with russia on tactical nuclear weapons, we need this treaty to restart the process of negotiations if we have ever going to achieve the goal of reducing tactical nuclear weapons. this treaty lays the groundwork for a subsequent negotiation to address tactical nuclear weapons, many of which are deployed close to our nato allies, and if we cannot demonstrate that we have the ability to enter into finding -o binding obligations on strategic nuclear forces, which are the

most easily verifiable, how can we advance to the next step with russia on reducing their tactical nuclear weapons which number in the thousands and which are the most easily concealed of the weapons? fourth point, let me turn to the issue of modernization of our own nuclear arsenal. despite our unsustainable budget deficit -- and i notice the senator from alabama's here on the floor today. he and i both voted against th the -- the tax bill. i don't know all of his reasons. one of mine was the unsustainable deficits faced by this country today. but despite these unsustainable budget deficits, this administration is commit an additional $14 billion over the next ten years for a total of $84 billion to modernize our nuclear weapons enterprise to ensure that as we draw that

nuclear arsenal down, reduce the numbers in the nuclear arsenal under new start, we will be capable of maintaining those weapons that we do rely upon. now, this chart shows the ten-year projections for weapons stockpile and infrastructure funding, and you can see that there is a very substantial commitment of funds by this administration to maintain the reliability of our stockpile. the fifth point i wanted to make is that concerns have been raised regarding the nonbinding russian unilateral missile defense statement. this is separate from the binding provisions of the trea treaty. this is a nonbinding statement that russia made that it considers the treaty effective only where there is, as they put it, no qualitative or quantitative buildup of the

missile defense capabilities for the united states of america, end quote. in testimony before the armed services committee, secretary of state clinton stated unequivocally that the treaty does not constrain our missile defense efforts. secretary clinton went on to say that russia has issued a unilateral statement expressing its view but we have not agreed to this view, we are not bound by it. in fact, we have issued our own statement making it clear the united states intends to continue improving and deploying effective missile defense. in the same hearing, secretary of defense gates said -- quote -- "the treaty will not constrain the united states from deploying the most effective missile defense possible nor impose additional costs or barriers on those defenses." secretary gates then goes on to say in that hearing, he went on to say that -- quote -- "as the administration's ballistic missile defense review and budget makes clear, the united states will continue to improve

our capability to defend ourselves. our deployed forces and our allies and partners against ballistic missile threats." from a historical perspective, i'd note that similar unilateral statements on missile defense were made by russia in connection with start i, in connection with start ii, both of which treaties were approved by the congress. consistent with the statements that secretaries clinton and gates made, the foreign relation committee's resolution of approval contains an understanding included in the instrument of ratification that -- quote -- "it is the understanding that the new start treaty does not impose any limitations on the deployment of missle defenses other than the requirement of paragraph 3, article 5, and that section of the treaty prohibits the use of slbm and icbm launchers for

missle defense or the conversion of missle defense launchers for icbm except for those that have been converted before the treaty was signed." on the question of whether we should vote on the ratification in this congress or leave this to the next congress, some senators have claimed that we simply need more time. other treaties have laid before the congress for longer periods, but this is simply not the case. arms control treaties since the a.b.m. treaty in 1972 were either taken up, debated, and ratified -- taken up, debated and ratified within the same congress or in the cases of start ii and the moscow treaty and the chemical weapons treaty, they were taken up, debated and approved within the congress from which the foreign relations committee reported a resolution of approval. this historical precedent on the ratification of arms control treaties runs counter to what

some of my colleagues have been advocating. it is this congressional session of the congress that received the treaty that held 21 hearings and briefings on the treaty, that submitted over 900 questions as part of the advice and consent process, and it should be this congressional session of the congress that should finish the job. mr. president, let me conclude with what -- where irstarted, that -- where i started, that is the new start treaty is a relatively modest treaty in terms of the reduction in the numbers of nuclear warheads. our military commanders have analyzed the force structure under the treaty. they've concluded it maintains our nuclear deterrent. it provides own the ground intelligence through verification that the intelligence community believes will allow us to be better off with these provisions than without them.

finally, mr. president, it's clear that this treaty does not impede our missle defense programs. in my opinion, there is no credible argument i've heard that the ratification of this treaty would undermine our national security. i urge my colleagues to vote for the ratification of the new start treaty. i thank the chair. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from alabama. mr. sessions: i would ask unanimous consent that commander bribriding the defense legislative fellow assigned to my office be granted floor privileges to the remainder of the debate of number 1115, the new start treaty. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. sessions: mr. president, as we begin consideration of the new start treaty, we must understand that the proposal is not made in a vacuum.

it is a part, in one sense, an important part of our nation's strategic policy. i have served as chairman, ranking member, and member of the strategic forces subcommittee of the armed services committee for 12 years in the senate. thus one of the matters -- these matters of nuclear policy and nuclear defense have been before uus so many times and i've had a front-row seat about it. deserves a just consideration in this senate after appropriate debate has stated this treaty is a critical part to his approach of strategic issues, repeatedly insisting that it is needed so that the united states can set an example and show leadership in moving toward what he has

often stated to be his goal, a nuclear-free world. so this treaty now comes at a time when our nation is the world's only nuclear power, but we have -- and we're the only nuclear power to have no production facility ongoing at this time. it will have to be reconstituted. it's been a sore spot for quite a number of years in this congress, but it has not happened. for over a decade the senate efforts to modernize our aging weapon stockpile, which our scientists have told us is getting to a point where it has to be fixed, have been blocked by house democrats mostly and republicans -- and some republicans there. we've gotten bills out of the senate to do this, but it has failed in the house. it's been an article of faith on the left in america and abroad

by the international left that our goal must be to eliminate all nuclear weapons from the world. president obama and his administration have often used that rhetoric. they just have. but our modernization capability hasn't been started and it's a troubling thing. as secretary gates, though, has said about modernization, we cannot continue at this rate. in 2008 i sponsored legislation to create a bipartisan commission of experienced statesmen to do a study of our nuclear posture. the legislation passed and the commission on the strategic posture of the united states did its work. it was headed by dr. william j. perry and dr. james r. schlesinger, former defense secretaries of this country, democrat and republican.

actually secretary schlesinger served in president carter's cabinet and president reagan's cabinet. but they were able to reach a consensus on a number of key issues. they concluded that we could reduce our nuclear stockpile more than the current numbers, but that -- quote -- "modernization is essential to the nonproliferation benefits derived from the extended deterrent." they said it was essential to have a modernization program. i know a lot of discussion has been ongoing about that. i do believe senator kyl has done an excellent job in raising this issue and the administration has responded positively in some regard. the commission also, nicely in -- in -- in a diplomatic language deflected the administration's goal of zero

nuclear weapons by saying -- quote -- "it's clear that the goal of zero nuclear weapons is extremely difficult to attain and would require a fundamental transformation of the world political order." close quote. so i think that's about as close as you come from a bipartisan commission expressing serious concern about this policy. meanwhile, china, russia, pakistan, india continue to expand their stockpiles while rogue, outlaw nations like north korea an iran suppose -- and iran posing great risk to world peace advance their nuclear weapons programs. we'll need to talk about this more as this debate goes forward, but it's quite clear that the greatest threat to world peace and nuclear danger arises from the rogue nations

and other nations that have less secure situations than the russians do. and while it -- it could be very beneficial to have a good treaty with the russians, this is not the core of the danger this nation faces today. we've had very little work, very little success getting the kind of robust support from china and russia that we should have with regard to north korea and iran. it's inexplicable to me why they would jeopardize their reputations as a positive force in the world to curry favor with the rogue nations like iran and north korea. but this administration has been unsuccessful in gaining the kind of support to ratchet up the sanctions against those countries that could perhaps make a difference.

and the russians, they're steadfast in their nuclear program. they have absolutely no intention of going to zero nuclear weapons. i had an opportunity to talk to some of their people, and -- and it was pretty clear to me that they thought it was outside the realm of good judgment to discuss going to zero nuclear weapons. they were never going to zero nuclear weapons. and they have a 10 to 1 advantage over the united states intact kal nuclear weapons -- tactical nuclear weapons, more maneuverable, and this treaty does nothing to deal with that situation. and the russians may make some changes in the future, perhaps, but i don't think they're going to make much on tactical nuclear weapons. it's a critical part of their defense strategy.

it's a critical part of the their defense strategy. so russia, we understand, is willing and really has plans at this time to reduce their strategic nuclear stockpile, what this treaty deals with, not the tactical weapons, and that is because it represents a necessary economic move for them. i think, frankly, they don't see the united states or europe as a -- the kind of strategic threat that it used to be and they're willing to pull down those numbers. and it's a good thing, and we should celebrate what gains we can obtain. some close observers believe this treaty can you tails the united states -- curtails the united states programs, while not curtailing modernization programs an systems they want to advance. in short the russians seem to

have negotiated more effectively than the united states in this treaty. that's my observation. we wanted it too desperately. i warned our negotiators that they were too committed, to desperate to get this treaty, would make it -- difficult -- it would make more difficult their negotiations with the russians. i think that has proven to be true. so let me be plain about my overall concerns. first, the idea that it should be the goal of this country to move toward the total elimination of nuclear weapons is not just a fantasy or wild or some harmless vision. i think it's dangerous. i really thinks dangerous. it can only raise questions about the quality of the judgment that lies behind our strategic policy. thus, the question arises, is the fierce determination of this

administration to get a treaty really a part of their stated goal of moving to zero nuclear weapons and setting an example for the world? the united states of america under whose nuclear umbrella presides a host of free and prosperous nations no longer reliable as a nuclear power? and we know many of the nations that are part of our nuclear umbrella are worried about our nuclear policy. and i can understand that. how far, how low does this world leadership take us? how few weapons should we go to? down from 1,500 as this treaty would have us and that might be a sustainable number, to 1,000 or 500? well, not 500, somebody would

say. i would note that jim hoblum writing in "the washington post," december 10, declares that the treaty fails in his view because the numbers are not low enough. he says -- quote -- "500 or fewer -- or fewer" close quote would be sufficient. well, will this example of reducing weapons cause our nations to follow our good example? i think not. if iran and north korea risk their security and their financial futures on building a nuclear arsenal today, will our example cause them to stop? i think not. rather i must conclude it will embolden them and could even embolden others as our weapon numbers fall lower and lower, these rogue nations can begin to see clearly their way to being a peer nuclear competitor to what

is now the world's greatest military power. why would we want to encourage them in that fashion? i think it's a risky goal. thus to the extent that the treaty is an effort to advance the stated goals of this administration a nuclear-free world, the treaty will be counterproductive and dangerous, i think. if that's what it's about, it's counterproductive. it's going to enhance and encourage other nations to have nuclear weapons and any nuclear -- any country that's advanced under our nuclear umbrella who does not now have nuclear weapons may well decide they got to have their own further proliferating nuclear weapons. at the halifax international security forum a few weeks ago, supported by the german marshall fund, under secretary of defense for policy repeated the administration's goal of zero nuclear weapons and further stated it's a vision, it's an

aspiration, and she noted while she act nodged, it may not happen in our lifetimes. -- she acknowledged, it may not happen in our lifetimes. i can tell you it's not happening in our lifetimes with a high degree of certainty. the name of the panel, by the way, had a little bit of an irony to it. it was a world without nukes. really? good question. so some of my democratic colleagues may say these statements about no nukes, they're just rhetoric, you have to say those things to keep the president's political left in line, the president is not really serious about it, it's not a real goal of his. well, i don't know. american leaders usually mean what they say. he hasn't renounced the policy. the secretary was repeating it

just a few weeks ago at an international conference. i have got to say a lot of people weren't too impressed with that policy, frankly, from our allies around the world. if the president is not telling us prattly what his philosophy is, these words don't mean anything. he is just throwing out astonishing visions about what he would like to happen. a lamb lying down with the lion. what else is he not serious about as we consider this treaty? if one isn't accurate about matters as significant as nuclear weapons, we have a grave problem of leadership in this country. does it mean that the president favors modernization of our stockpile? he says so, but in essence, he's conditioned that support on

passing of the treaty when we need to modernize the stockpile whether or not we have a treaty. so what kind of -- does this give me confidence that the president is clear-headed about our nuclear policy when the secretary of defense and former secretary of defense and the laboratory directors and the top military people went without exception, said we need to modernize our nuclear forces, and he is only going to support it if this congress ratifies the treaty? i don't feel good about that. a lot of people have opposed modernization. they think modernization is a step toward more nuclear weapons in their mind, and we ought to eliminate nuclear weapons, not have more, and that's, frankly, where the president's political ancestry is. it's where he came from politically. forgive me if i'm not real comfortable about this.

does the president mean it when he says he's not compromised and will not compromise our ability to deploy strategic missile defense systems in europe? there's a rub here. some in this post-modern world may not have the slightest concerns that our commander in chief's words are ambiguous on matters like this. they don't believe much in the authority of words anyway. but call me old-fashioned, i think words are important. words, these words that i'm hearing, worry me. so these views that really are fantastical place a cloud of unreality over this entire process. secondly, i'm not persuaded that this administration has not retreated on nuclear missile defense to a significant degree. i'm not persuaded that that has not occurred. for example, the latest wikileaks reveal that the administration negotiated away

president bush's plan for a forward missile defense site in poland in exchange for the russian cooperation. "the new york times" summarized these cables on november 29 -- "throughout 2009, the cables show the russians vehemently objected to american plans for a ballistic missile defense site, in poland and the czech republic. in talks with the united states, the russians insisted that there would be no cooperation on other issues until the european site was scrapped. six weeks later, mr. obama gave the russians what they wanted. he abruptly replaced the european site with a ship-borne system." that was a quote from the "new york times." so that makes me a bit nervous. we had a plan to place that in

europe. two-state system instead of the -- two-stage system instead of the three-stage system we have in the united states. give us redundant coverage from an iranian attack. and the russians didn't like it. they didn't want a uranium system on their border, even though at best it would have only minimum protection against the massive number of missiles they have. they were only going to put ten i think in poland. but they objected, they objected. the bush administration stood firm. they got the last treaty by standing firm. indeed, mr. former secretary of defense for policy doug feith wrote an article in the -- one of the major newspapers, an op-ed, i think "the wall street journal," saying that they said no, eventually it will -- the russians agreed to sign. and he raised an important issue. i just want to share this with my colleagues who i know believe

so deeply, we have to have this treaty or all kind of bad things will happen. mr. feith told the russians we don't have to have a treaty with you. we don't have a treaty with other nations who have nuclear weapons. if it's not a good treaty, we're not going to agree to it. eventually, the russians agreed, and he says the very same insistences, positions that they asserted at that time against the bush administration, that they rejected were -- were demands acquiesced in by this administration in this treaty. so forgive me if i'm a bit dubious about how wonderful this treaty is. so i asked the state department about those cables, and we haven't heard any information on it. so there are many, many more things we need to talk about with regard to the treaty and

the overall strategic situation that we find ourselves in. are we making the world safer? i'm worried that we're not. i'm worried that this approach may not make us safer. i'm well aware that some of our best allies are worried now about the constancy of the united states, the commitment of the united states to defense even if, god forbid, nuclear defense of our world allies, that we won't follow through, and so they may have to have their own nuclear weapons. so, mr. president, i know there's a good bit more to be -- to discuss in this debate. i encourage this body to be deliberative in their consideration of the treaty. i am not happy that it's being

shoved at this point in time. i was so hopeful and expectant that we would be able to have a -- to give a firm date to start to negotiate -- the debate early next year and we could have a robust debate not only about the treaty but how it fits into our overall nuclear strategic posture. what are we going to do about missile defense? what are we going to do about updating our stockpile? and what about our triad and delivery systems? what are we going to do about those? and now it's being jammed in here. i understand why. they have more votes they think now, and the likelihood of it pass something greater now. i think it has a realistic chance of passing next year, but more significantly, i think the administration would like to avoid a full debate about strategic nuclear policy of the united states, and if that's successful, then i think the

american people will be the losers, as will the security of the united states. i thank the chair and would yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: mr. majority manager. mr. kerry: mr. president, i want to ask the senator before he leaves, it's now 1:30 in the afternoon and we have yet to have one amendment presented to us. i recognize there is a value to having some of these comments help frame it, but it also can be done in the context of a specific amendment. i would ask the senator if he has an amendment that he's prepared to offer that could help us move forward. mr. sessions: it's difficult to amend the treaty, as the senator knows, once it's been signed. there are things that can be done. i think first and foremost, we need to ask ourselves is this a good thing for the country? will it advance our interests? i believe we need a pretty big discussion about that and where we stand.

i know -- i know senator kerry has been supportive of modernization -- i believe you have, at least as this treaty has moved forward if not in the past, and we really need to do that, so -- but i'm a bit uneasy that the president basically is saying you don't pass my treaty, we're not going to modernize. i think modernization is critical for the security of our country. and i also want to know how it fits into our overall strategic policy. so that's kind of my biggest concern, senator kerry. i don't know that the numbers that the treaty takes us to, the reduced numbers themselves are dangerous. some people say they think it's a bit dangerous, but most experts don't think so, and i'm not inclined to oppose the treaty on whether it's 1550 or 1700 or 1800. but if it's part of a trend to

take our numbers down further, perhaps you saw mr. hoeingland's article saying it ought to be 500 or lower. that would make me very concerned and i think would cause a serious -- serious ramifications internationally. would you agree? if this treaty were to be for, say, 500, it would definitely create some concern and angst around the world. mr. kerry: mr. president, let me say to my friend -- and i appreciate his desire to try to be thoughtful about what the numbers are and about the treaty as a whole. we appreciate that. a couple of comments i want to make. number one, the administration is not linking modernization to the treaty. this is -- i think it's clear now to senator kyl. i read a letter before the senator started speaking from the directors of the three

laboratories, expressing their satisfaction and gratitude with the levels of funding that have been put in there, and i acknowledged that senator kyl was correct in finding some inadequacies in the original funding levels and the administration in good faith has made up for those. what happened over in the house happened over in the house. it was not instigated by the administration. in fact, the administration has countered that and made it clear that modernization is necessary as a matter of modernizing, in order to keep our arsenal viable. the second point i'd like to make to the senator, i hope the senator does not vote against this treaty because he thinks somehow this is a step to some irresponsible, slippery slide that takes us to -- quote -- " zero nuclear weapons" without all of the other things that very, very intelligent, thoughtful statesmen have talked about in the context of -- of

less nuclear weapons. but i should point out to the senator, dr. henry kissinger, who has -- is an advocate for this concept not as something we're going to do tomorrow or in the next, you know, ten years perhaps, 20 years, 30 years, but as an organizing principle, as a way of beginning to think differently about how we resolve conflicts, because whatever you do that moves you towards a world of less nuclear weapons, because we have to get 67 votes here, clearly would build the kind of consensus that says we're doing things that make us safer. and so it would have to be accompanied by other countries, transparency, by other countries taking part. it would also, i would say to

the senator, almost necessarily have to accompany -- be accompanied by something that today is way out of reach, which is a kind of restraint on conventional weapon growth and involvement in the way in which we try and resolve conflicts between countries. but it's no accident that george schulze, bill perry, sam nunn, just to mention a few others, both of the 2008 presidential nominees, senator mccain and president obama, have all agreed that this is a principle worth trying to move towards. and one thing is for certain, the road to a reduced number of nuclear weapons in the world, which would reduce the amount of fissionable material potentially available to terrorists certainly doesn't pass through a nuclear tehran. and so, if we're going to have

our bona fides to be able to leverage north korea and leverage iran, we need to at least prove that we can put together a bilateral agreement between the two countries that have 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. so i would hope my colleague would not view this, given all of the sign-offs that have accompanied it from our national security establishment, from our joint chiefs of staff, the military leaders, the national intelligence community, from our laboratory directors, our strategic commanders, all of them have agreed, 1,550, the current number of launchers we have, et cetera, this is going to permit the united states to maintain the advantages that we feel we have today. and i would hope my colleague would look hard so* at how henry kissinger and george shultz and bill perry have framed this concept of moving in that direction as an organizing

principle. i don't expect it in my lifetime. i doubt the senator does. but i wouldn't vote against this treaty that provides a window into what russians are doing, provides verification, reduces the threat, creates stability. i would link the two and i would hoept senator does not. -- and i would hope the senator does not. mr. sessions: i believe earlier today you made the point -- quote -- "make no mistake, we're not going to amend the treaty itself. we'll accept resolutions that don't kill the treaty. i think i understand that. i do assert, as we both know, amending the treaty is not something that is easily done. we've got to deal with whether or not we think the treaty is helpful. we can do some things to the amendment process to make it more palatable and acceptable to people who have concerns, and i don't dispute that.

but i do feel like that fundamentally this day ought to be discussing the overall strategic impact of the treaty. thank you, mr. president. mr. kerry: mr. president, i thank the senator, and i just say to him we have incorporated into the resolution of ratification some 13 different declarations, understandings, conditions. we certainly would welcome more becauseare constructive and we've already addressed the missile defense issue, rail mobile issue, the verification issue. all of those have been addressed. but i welcome additional and i look forward to working with the senator in the next few days to see if we can do that. mr. president, can i suggest the absence of a quorum for just a moment so i can confer with the

senator from arizona? i suggest the absence of a quorum. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. mccain: i ask unanimous consent that the quorum call be lifted. the presiding officer: without objection, so ordered. mr. mccain: mr. president, we are discussion the new start treaty at this time, and i look forward to continued debate and discussion on this vital and very important national security issue. i want to, however, remind my colleagues that, as within any other issue that relates to this treaty and the russians, that it can't be totally considered in a vacuum. because the events that have transpired in the last several years in russia should bring great concern and pause to all of us. to all of us. and so i'm going to speak today about the situation in russia

today, and specifically the continued imprisonment of mikhail khodorkovsky and lebedev and the decision of the judge which is likely to extend that imprisonment to december 27. if we needed any more reason to know what verdict is coming, this is it. the russian government seems to be trying to bury some inconvenient news by issuing it two days after christmas and after this body will probably be finished debating the possible ratification of a treaty with the russian federation. some may see this as evidence that the russian government is accommodating u.s. interests and desires. i would be more inclined to believe that these prisoners were set free.

until that time i will continue to believe that when prime minister putin says khodorkovsky -- quote -- "should sit in jail, as he said yesterday," that this is exactly the verdict the russian court will deliver. the fact is, mr. president, the political fix has been in for years on this case. mr. khodorkovsky built one of the most successful companies in the postsoviet russia. and while i'm under no illusions that some of these gains may have been ill gotten, the subsequent crimes committed against him by the russian state have exceeded the boundaries of human decency, equal and lawful justice and the god-given rights of man. i ask unanimous consent for an article in yahoo yesterday that said "russia's putin: card coul-

khodorkovsky should sit in jail. i believe that a thief should sit in jail. with more than a tough of sarcasm, the lawyer thanked putin for speaking his mind because it answers the question who, with what aims and what power is putting pressure on the court as the judge is deliberating." in 2003 when mr. khodorkovsky became outspoken about the russian government abuses of power, he was arbitrarily arrested and detained under political charges. his company was stolen from his by russian authorities and he was thrown in prison through a process that fell far short of the universal standards of due

process. mr. khodorkovsky was held in those conditions for seven years, and when his sentence was drawing to a close, new charges were brought against him which were then even more blatantly political than the previous ones. mr. khodorkovsky along with mr. lebedev were charged with stealing all of the oil of the company that had been so egregiously stolen from them. the trial that is now concluded; so what will happen next seems rather clear. after spending seven years in prison, mr. khodorkovsky will likely face many more, which i fear is tantamount to a death sentence. this case is a travesty of justice for one man, but it's also a revealing commentary on the nature of the russian government today. yesterday the senate voted to take up the new start treaty. to be sure, this treaty should be considered on its merits to

our national security. but it is only reasonable to ask -- and i ask my colleagues this question -- if russian officials demonstrate such a blatant disregard for the rights and legal obligations owed to one of their own citizens, how will they treat us and the legal obligations, be it this treaty or any other, that they owe to us? what's worse, the sad case of mikhail khodorkovsky now looks like one of more modest offenses of the corrupt officials ruling russia today. thrao*eubgd quote from an -- i'd like to quote from an article in the economist dated december 9, 2010, entitled frost at the core which i would like to ask unanimous consent to be entered into the record, mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection -- mr. mccain: mr. khodorkovsky, "the economist" writes,

"mr. khodorkovsky is a symbol of the injustices perpetrated by corrupt bureaucrats and members of the security services who epitomize the nexus between power and wealth." the article goes on to describe the staggering scale of corruption in russia today -- and i quote -- "shortly before his arrest, mr. khodorkovsky estimated state corruption at around $30 billion, or 10% of the country's gross domestic product. by 2005, the bribes market, according to indem, a think tank, had risen to $300 billion or 20% of g.d.p. as mr. khodorkovsky said in a recent interview, most of this was not the bribes paid to traffic police or doctors, but contracts awarded by bureaucrats to their affiliated companies. i go on to quote from "the economist." their wealth is dependent on their administrative power rather than property rights.

the profits are often stashed away in foreign bank accounts or quickly spent on luxury property in european capitals or on their children's education in british private schools. unsurprisingly, surveys now show that the young would rather have a job in the government or a state firm than in private business. over the past ten years the number of bureaucrats has gone up by 66%, from 527,000 to 878,000. and the cost of maintaining such a state machine has risen from 15% to 20% of g.d.p. other figures point out to the same conclusion as "the economist." in its annual index of perceptions of corruption, transparency international ranked russia 154th out of 178 countries perceived as more corrupt than pakistan, yemen and

zimbabwe. the world bank considers 122 countries to be better places to do business than russia. one of those countries is georgia, which the world bank ranks as the 12th best country to do business. president medvedev speaks often and at times eloquently about the need for russia to be governed by the rule of law. considering the likely outcome of mr. khodorkovsky's show trial, it's not surprising why president medvedev himself has lamented that his anticorruption campaign has produced, in his words -- quote -- "no results." russians who want better for their country and dare to challenge the corrupt bureaucrats who govern it are often targeted with impunity. one case that has garnered enormous attention around the world is that of sergei

magnifky, who uncovered a theft of $230 million from the russian trerb rhode island because of his -- treasury. because of his relentless investigation, the russian interior ministry threw him in prison to silence him. he was deprived of clean water, left in a freezing cell for days and denied medical care. after 358 days of this abbureaucracies sergei magifsky died. he was 37. not only did the russian government not hold anyone accountable for his death. several have actually received commendations. then there is the tragic case of russia's last remaining nonpartisan journalist -- independent journalist. last month a russian journalist named oleg cashin who had written of a movement associated with the kremlin was beaten by attackers who broke his jaw, many of his -- both of legs and

many of his fingers. no one has been charged for this crime. writing in "the new york times" this sunday, mr. cashin suggests that no one ever will. it seems intkaoub teubl, he writes that the atmosphere of hatred and aggression artificially fomented by the kremlin has become the dominant fact in russian politics. the reset in relations with the united states and talk of economic modernization not withstanding, a man with a steel rod is standing behind the smiling politicians who speak of democracy. that man is the real defender of the kremlin and its order. i got to feel that man with my own head. i would ask that this entire article be included in the record as well, mr. president. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. mccain: an earlier "new york times" news story dated may 17 of this year and entitled "russian journalist fighting

graft pay in blood" describe the fate of other independent journalists in russia, one is mikhail bagatov who exposed corruption in a moscow suburb. this is what happened to him. last spring i challenged the leadership, a few days later my automobile was blown up. what is next for me? not long after he was savagely beaten outside his home and left to bleed in the snow. his fingers were bashed and three later had to be amputated as if his assailants sought to make sure that he would never write another word. he lost a leg. now 52, these in a wheelchair, his brain so damaged that he cannot utter a simple sentence. no one has been charged or held responsible for this crime either. the same article mentions another journalist, piotore

lipitoff, attacked while attending a rally. as he was leaving, three men pushed him to the ground and punched him in the head. even while i was unconscious, they didn't let me go, he said. this beating was recorded on video by protesters. his colleagues used the video to track down the met who beat him. they were police officers. while mr. lipitoff, 28, was recovering in the hospital, he said two other police officers visited and urged him to sign a statement saying that he had provoked the attack. officials later acknowledged that police officers had been involved in the attack, but they still brought no charges. instead they raid phr-d lipi -- mr. lipitoff's and brought a suit against him. they assert he sought to foment -- quote -- "negative stereotypes and negative images of members of the security

forces." fearing for his safety and more criminal charges, he quit. sadly, i could go on and on like this, mr. president. to say nothing of the many unsolved murders. so i would ask the entire article be included in the record. russia's beleagured political opposition unfortunately fares no better than its the journalists. i met with former deputy prime minister boris nepzoff who organizes peaceful political rallies to protest democracy in russia, but these rallies are often targeted and broken up by russian authorities. considering this is how russian officials treat their fellow citizens, it's not hard to see a profound connection between the russian government authoritarian actions at home and its aggressive behavior abroad. the most glaring example of this remains georgia. over two years after its

invasion, russia not only continues to occupy 20% of georgia's sovereign territory, it's building military bases there, permitting the ethnic cleansing of georgians and denying access to humane tehran -- humanitarian issues in violation of russia's obligations under the cease-fire agreement negotiated by president sarkozy. in a major step, president -- the president pledged tonal defend nonoccupied georgia in the event of a violent attack. yet, russian officials responded hostilely and dismissively. i ask, i ask my colleagues that when the russians illegally in violation of all international law occupy a southern -- a sovereign nation, a sovereign

nation and have recognized these two provinces within the international boundaries of georgia as independent nations, how in the world are we going to trust them to adhere to a treaty? i have met with the people in georgia who have been displaced from their homes. the sorrow and the misery inflicted on them. and president sarkozy of france flew in, arranged for a cease-fire. the russians agreed to it. they are in total violation of it. they're occupying 20% of the country of georgia. i think nicarauga, one other country has also recognized these two independent states in which the russians are now carrying out ethnic cleansing and stationing russian military. but don't -- not to worry, we can trust the russians to adhere to solemn treaties and abide by international law.

when we consider the ver yaws crimes and abuses of this russian government, mr. president, its harder to believe that this government shares our deepest values. now, this doesn't mean that we cannot or should not work with the russian federation where possible. the world doesn't work that way. what it does mean is that we need a national debate about the real nature of this russian government, about what kind of a relationship is possible with this government and about the place that russia should realistically occupy in u.s. foreign policy. the senate's consideration of the new start treaty offers a chance to have this debate, as this russian access to the w.t.o. some may want to avoid it but we cannot. i believe we need a greater sense of realism about russia, but that's not the same as pessimism or cynicism or demonization. i am an optimist, even about riewrk, and i often find sources for hope in the most hopeless of

places. micmick kale cod roof skiplacese judge in his case, mr. mr. kodorsvsky gave one of the most moving speeches i have heard in a long time. skilled that be included in the record, mr. president. this is how -- this is how he saw the broader implications of his trial, "i will not be exaggerating if i say that millions of eyes throughout all of russia and throughout the whole world are watching for the outcome of this trial they're watching with the hope that russia will after all become a country of freedom and of the law. or supporting opposition parties will cease being a cause for

reprisals, where the special services will protect the people and the law, and not the bureaucracy from the people and the law. , where human rights will no longer depend on the mood of the czar, good or evil, where on the contrary the power will be truly -- the power will truly be dependent on the citizens and the court only on law and good. for me, as for anybody, it is hard to live in jail, and i do not want to die there. but if i have to, i will not hesitate. the things i believe in are worth dying for. that there are still men and women of such spirit in russia is a cause for hope and eventually maybe not this year or next year or the year after that, but eventually these russians will occupy their rightful place as the leaders of their nation, for equal justice can be delayed and human dignity can be denied, but not forever.

thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i want to thank and congratulate the senator from arizona for his important and impassioned comments about the situation in russia regarding the rights of mr. correspondent dove ski. i would say to him one thing. he asked the question, how do you trust russia? and that is precisely why this treaty is so important. a treaty is not built on trust. in one taught us more than that's famous words from president reagan: trust but verify. we don't have verification today. we're signature here with no verification. we're in a forced position of -- quote -- "trust -- where we don't necessarily.

the sooner we get this treaty ratified the sooner we provide a foundation underneath the important question senator mccain asked which is, you know, if you can't trust them, you got to have verification. and the whole point is that you build a relationship even in the worst of times so that your country, our country is more stable and more protected. during the worst of the soviet union, during the worst years of confrontation, we still built up a series of treaties in the arms agreements and various other kinds of agreements in order to try to tampen down the potential for hostility. our hope is that we can do that as soon as possible here. i'm going to suggest the absence of a quorum for a minute. the presiding officer: the clerk will call the roll. quorum call:

mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i request that the quorum proceedings be dispensed with. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: mr. president, i

want to address a couple of the points that were raised by senator kyl earlier, and i'll address a good number more as the debate goes forward. but let me just be very clear for the record ahead of time, because he opened his floor remarks this morning by asserting that we don't have the time to be able to consider this treaty before the end of the year. and then he said that even though the start i treaty, which i had referred to yesterday and he specifically referred to my comments, he said that even though it was completed in four days -- maybe four-plus slightly -- he said that it wasn't done under the same circumstances. it didn't have to compete with other legislation and so forth. but that's just incorrect. let's set the record straight. on the same day that the senate held a cloture vote on the start i treaty and votes on two amendments related to the treaty on that same day, it voted on

the final passage of the tax bill. the following day when the senate voted on another amendment related to the treaty, it also agreed to the conference report on interior appropriations, passed the d.c. appropriations bill, and debated and held two roll call votes on the foreign operations appropriations bill. the following day, it completed the final passage vote on the start treaty. so, you know, if our predecessor senate had the ability to do start i while it passed three or four other bills and held four, five separate votes on those other items, i think it's very clear that we have the ability here to be able to do this treaty in the next days. now, more importantly, the senate has been considering this treaty, not just for the day and a half we've now been on it. we wept o went on this treaty yy

and some people chose not to even come to the ploor to talk about it. now we're here talking about amendments and no one on the other side has chosen to come and offer an amendment. we're ready to vote on the treaty. 58 democratic senators are ready to vote on the treaty. the only thing we're waiting for are the people that say we don't have time, who haven't brought an amendment to the floor. i clearly smell this sort of self-fulfilling strategy going on here. they have to know that when flights are disrupted next week or people can't get home, we're ehere to do business. i think it'll be clear why we're not able to. so we're going to stay here. we've made that cleemplet the majority leader has made it cleemplet and the president and the vice president have made it clear. we're prepared to move forward with any amendment to

understandings, declarations or conditions that they wish to bring and have a robust on this. i also would reiterate that starting in june of last year, the foreign relations committee was briefed at least five times during the talks with the russians. that's while the talks were going on. so we have a group of senators here, almost 60 strong, who at one time or another over a year and a half have been following these negotiations very closely. they've been briefed down in the secure facilities. they've been briefed by the negotiators, by the military, by the intelligence community, the intelligence committee has weighed in the armed services committee has weighed in, and the national security group has had an opportunity to work on this. since the treaty was submitted, there have been 12 open and classified hearings, more than 20 witnesses, the secretary of defense, the secretary of state,

the joint chiefs of staff chairmen, the commander of the strategic command, the director of the missile defense agency have all urged us to pass this treaty. and the question is beginning to be asked, sort of, you know, not why -- why should we do it now. the question is, why aren't we doing did now? and i hope that we can get some amendments and begin to proceed forward. so, mr. president, i at this point might share a couple of other thoughts while we're waiting for a couple of other colleagues who have requested time to come here. let me mention that senator kyl asked the question, what do we get out of this treaty? and he sort of juxtaposed what he said the russians get versus what we get and seemed to imply that we're not getting very much. well, i can assure him -- the senator from arizona -- that the

chairman of the joint chiefs of starvetion the secretary of defense, the leaders of our strategic command and others don't come before the united states congress willy-nilly just to say, hey, do this because we don't get anything out of it. every single one of them has articulated very clearly how they believe this treaty strengthenings america's national security, advantages our leadership in the world it positions us to be able to deal more effectively with iran and north korea, and, you know, i have to say to my colleagues, you know, you cede the right to come to the floor of the senate and talk seriously about iran and north korea if you can't talk seriously about the ways in which this treaty enhances our ability to be able to put leverage on those countries. before we push the reset button, so-called, with russia, we didn't have their cooperation with respect to iran. in fact, the russians were very

skeptical about the intelligence that we were offering and putting on the table, and it wasn't until we sat down to them face-to-face and really went through that, that they became alarmed and they began to see, indeed, this question of how we respond to iran is deadly serious. as a consequence of that, russia joined with the united states. now, i agree with my colleagues, you know, the mere fact of their joining us is not a reason to embrace a treaty if their treaty doesn't do all the other things that you need to provide stability and enhance your security. but when it does all those other things and you know the consequences of turning your back on all of those achievements is going to create a negative relationship, you ought to try to weigh that a little bit. it seems to me that when someone like -- you know, whose point of view comes specifically from sort of the economic engagement

and business world, somebody like steve forbes, writes that this is important to the economic component of our relationship and to that component of the reset button. you know, i think we can see the breadth of impact that a treaty like this can have. but let me -- let me say a few more words about what we do get out of this. first of all, and this is as significant as any reason there is to be considering this, we get nuclear stability. the fact is that that nuclear stability enhances the relationship between the countries so that we can do a lot of other things that assist in stabilizing this important relationship in a time of crisis. the fact is, as i mentioned earlier -- and we all know this -- the united states and russia possess 90% of the

world's nuclear weapons. any single one of those weapons accidentally released, stolen, or if they became, you know, or the materials in them have the ability to destroy any american city. that's a reality today. and so both countries have decided it's in both countries' interests to reduce the dangers that arrive when you have misunderstandings or mistrust without the verification that builds the trust and -- and it's important to establish limits on those weapons in order to achieve that. predictability is what comes with this treaty. transparency is what comes with this treaty. accountability comes with this treaty. without this treaty, we don't have the right to count their warheads. with this treaty, we have a

specific counting and identifying mechanism which will provide for greater accountability and greater stability. secretary gates said very clearly -- i want to quote him -- he said, russia is currently above the treaty limits in terms of its numbers, so they're going to have to take down warheads. how could it not be in the interest of the united states to have russia reduce the number of warheads that it has today? now, there are many other reasons -- i see my colleague from north dakota has arrived and i will go through a number of these others as the opportunity presents itself later. but i think there are a host of reasons that are very, very clear and they are part of the record already and we'll highlight them as we go forward as to what we get out of this treaty and why this is directly in the interests of our country and that is the only reason that

the president of the united states is submitting this treaty to the united states senate and we need to pay close attention to the rationale that our military and intelligence community has laid out to us for why they would like this treaty, as jim clapper, the head of the intelligence community has said, he'd like it sooner -- the sooner the better. the quick erk the sooner -- thee sooner, the better. i yield the floor. mr. conrad: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. conrad: mr. president, i've come to the floor today to speak in favor of the new start treaty and to do so pronto. first, let me say i've been listening to chairman kerry, senator lugar discuss this treaty. i think they have been clear and compelling with respect to the arguments that they have advanced. i think senator kerry has made

abundantly clear why this treaty is entirely in the interest of the united states. this treaty simultaneously makes real steps towards reducing the number of nuclear arms in the world while also recognizing the important role these weapons play in our national defense. above all else, i believe this treaty is stabilize, which should be the goal of any action related to nuclear weapons. mr. president, i currently serve as chairman of the senate icbm coalition. north dakota proudly hosts the only air force base in the country that has two nuclear missions. minot air force base houses both icbms and nuclear bombers. as a result, north dakotans have a special appreciation for the

aawesome power of these weapons and their critical role in our national security. while most people approach the existence of these weapons purely from an academic standpoint, we in north dakota are confronted with their eight reality on a daily basis. still, we as north dakotans are really only observers. i assure you, there is nothing more sobering than visiting a missile facility and talking with the young men and women who stand every day as the sentinels of our security. we'rsecurity. or talking with bomber pilots as they prepare to fly halfway around the world to patrol the skies for our protection, which i was fortunate to do this summer. and let me just say parenthetically, these young people are extraordinary. we can be incredibly proud of the young men and women of our military, the quality of these young people is really extraordinary. mr. president, these brave men

and women live the reality of nuclear determination and the -- deterrence and the stability and security that it brings to our nation. as we approach this treaty, our first consideration must be its implications for our ability to maintain deterrence and stability and our overall national security. my colleagues on the icbm coalition and i watched closely throughout the negotiation of this treaty. we attended dozens of meetings and briefings to understand the impacts this treaty would have on our national security. i even visited russia shortly after the treaty was presented to the world and met with many of their top military leadership. after careful and thorough analysis of this treaty, i can say with confidence that this treaty will strengthen our national security. i have no doubt about that fact. there is no question that the

treaty will reduce the number of launchers that deliver nuclear weapons. this treaty has real cuts to those forces, cuts that perhaps go even deeper than the icbm coalition initially would have liked. but after speaking at length with our military leaders, the men and women responsible for developing the plans for the use of these weapons, it is clear to me that the numbers contained in this treaty remain sufficient to ensure the discuss of the nuclear deterrence mission. they tell me that while absolute numbers are important, there is no precise number that assures our security and enhances our nuclear stability. the about the tom lin -- the bottom line is that we must maintain enough launchers to have a credible and secure deterrent that promotes stability in times of crisis. this treaty does that.

it not only maintains our neeckienuclear deterrent, it ens it for coming decades. beyond protecting a sufficient credible nuclear deterrent, this treaty advances our national security in other ways as well. president ronald reagan famously said, "trust but verify." however, for over a year, we have been unable to inspect russia's weapons. that is not in our interest. it risks developments that harm our national security going undetected or even misunderstandings that could lead to a national security crisis. this treaty allows us to resume the extensive and intrusive inspections that began under the first start treaty signed by the first president bush and ratified by this body on a vote of 93-6.

93-6. this treaty also moves our nuclear security forward at a more advanced level. although i doubt we can ever rid the world of all nuclear weapo weapons, we are no longer in the midst of a nuclear arms race. and thank god for that. by signaling our commitment to reducing our nuclear arsenal while still maintaining a sufficient and credible deterrent, this treaty will advance our interest in halting nuclear proliferation. the single biggest threat to our nation would be a terrorist organization with a nuclear weapon. this treaty will enhance our ability to deter the development of nuclear weapons by rogue states, and it will reduce the risk that nuclear arms races around the globe destabilize regions of the world or create students for terrorists to

acquire nuclear weapons. now, many treaty opponent argue this treaty may weaken our national security. after closely reviewing their concerns and consulting with experts, i do not find their arguments persuasive. let's look at those arguments in turn. first, some opponents greatly inflate the importance of a short phrase in the nonbinding preamble of the treaty to argue that it would somehow constrain our missile defense abilities. this ignores the remaining 17 pages of treaty text and 165 pages of protocol text. let me just say, i have long favored missile defense. i have at many times been in the minority, on my own side on that question. if i believed this prevented our

creating a stable and secure missile defense, i would not favor the treaty. but this treaty doesn't do that. and i think it's as clear as it can be. other than limiting the conversion of existing icbm launchers to missile defense interceptors, which are missile -- our military leaders have already said would be more expensive than building new launchers -- and, more importantly, in my view would degrade our icbm capability -- there are no restrictions on our missile defense. none. others argue the treaty will restrict future missle defense capabilities. that's not accurate. the treaty fully allows for the use of conventional missles. we are free to decide what conventional capability we want. we also adhere -- hear that

russia's tactical weapons should be included in the treaty. i've also been one who long favored restrictions on tactical nuclear weapons. and while i recognize the importance of addressing that threat, a strategic arms treaty, by definition, is not the place to debate them. never in history have tactical weapons been included in treaties aimed at strategic weapons and that has not stopped this senate from ratifying those agreements. nor has it stopped those agreements from serving our national security interest for decades. let me say i am quick to recognize that tactical weapons at some point can become a strategic issue. the problem that we confront here is never before in the context of a strategic agreement have we included tactical systems. that is the reality. frankly, i would very much like to have tactical weapons

included in this treaty. let me be clear, that would be my preference. but that is not the reality of the history of these negotiations. mr. president, some argue the number of total warheads goes too low. however, the treaty allows nearly twice as many warheads as launchers. more importantly, the number of total launchers available is far more important deterrence for our national security than the number of warheads. this treaty shows the administration understands the critical need to maintain a sufficient number of launchers to assure continued nuclear stability. with that said, like many other military and civilian experts on our nuclear forces, i would be extremely wary of any efforts to further decrease the number of our launchers. i argued repeatedly as chairman

of the icbm caucus against further reductions at this stage. and i believe that is a prudent position. finally, opponents argue the administration has not committed to investment in the modernization of our nuclear weapons and infrastructure. this argument completely ignores the dramatic increase in modernization funding the president proposed in his budget. as chairman of the senate budget committee, i can attest to the fact that this increase is unprecedented. this commitment ensures that the remaining launchers and warheads will be reliable and effective in the event weaver need to launch -- in the event we ever need to launch them. those who argue this treaty would hurt our national security are not convinced. and that is not just my conclusion. that is the conclusion of former

secretaries of defense and former secretaries of state from both the republican party and the democratic party and previous administrations. as well as current and former military officers who have all publicly stated that this treaty will not advance -- will advance, not harm, our national security. let me say, mr. president, i have two major air force bases in my state, grand forks air force base, my -- minotte air force base. i spend time talking to our air force leadership. i have consulted with them closely on this matter as chairman of the icbm caucus. i am absolutely persuaded by the best military thinking available

to me that this treaty is entirely in the national security interest of the united states. i believe that is clear. i -- mr. president, i'm proud of my record in the senate on national security over the past 23 years, especially when it comes to our nuclear arsenal. for a generation the young men and women who served at minotte and grand fork air force bases declared peace as their profession as they defended the united states from global threats through nuclear deterrence. though they may not be recognized as publicly today as they were 50 years ago, the airmen who stand guard at minotte remain at the vanguard of our nation's most important military mission. i would never do anything to undermine the mission they carry

out every day. after careful review and discussions with our nation's best nuclear experts, both those in uniform and those who do not wear the uniform, i am confident that this treaty makes our nation safer and more secure. mr. president, i will strongly support approving this treaty and call on my colleagues to join me in that effort. mr. president, i just want to conclude, as i began, by thanking the chairman and the ranking member for their leadership on this matter. it is in the highest traditions of the united states senate, working together in a bipartisan, really nonpartisan way, senator lugar and senator kerry have provided vital leadership to this body and to this country and we are all very

deeply in their debt. and i want to express my gratitude to them both for the statesman-like quality that they have brought to this discussion and debate. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from indiana. mr. lugar: mr. president, as we're waiting other senators coming to the floor hopefully to offer amendments to the new start treaty, i have some interesting information that i think is relevant to our discussion today. as has been suggested by other senators, the so-called nunn-lugar cooperative threat reduction program, an operation for the last 19 years, has made possible through operations of the united states military, the united states contractors, working with their counterparts

in russia, the destruction, very sizable amounts of nuclear weapons, of threats we took very seriously in 1991 that i hope americans take very seriously currently. i've just received a report that since october, and that is specifically during the month of november, we have eliminated eight more slbms in russia. we have concerned 10 more nuclear weapon transports trains and neutralized 100-plus more tons -- metric tons of chemical weapon agents. now, i mention this because i've been fortunate enough to receive monthly at least for the last 15 years similar reports. i have a -- a scoreboard in my office that, in fact, illustrates, first of all, that

7,599 strategic nuclear warheads aimed at the united states have been deactivated through the cooperative threat reduction program. each one of those warheads, i've pointed out without being mellow dramatic, may have been sufficient to completely eliminate my home city of indianapolis. i take seriously the treaty we're looking at now not so much in terms of the numbers of reductions the treaty calls for, but -- but simply even it 1,550 warheads are left on both sides, it is an e extensional problem r both of our countries to take seriously. in any event in addition to the warheads deactivated, 791

intercontinental missles were destroyed. so by taking the warheads off of the missles, then taking down the 791 intercontinental ballistic missles and destroying them, and then 498 icbm silos where these missles were located, destroyed, and 180 icbm destroyed, 679 submarine launched ballistic missles relimited. 32 nuclear submarines capable of carrying launching -- ballistic missles have been destroyed. 155 bombers eliminated, we're talking about so-called carriers. we talked in the treaty about maybe 1,550 warheads left, 700

carriers on both sides -- for those who have not followed closely these arguments over the years, these are the elements that have been aimed at us and the vehicles that would have made possible what they were doing. i would just say anecdotally without taking the time of other senators, that during one of my visits with senator sam nunn, formally the senator from georgia, in our body, we went to a site in siberia where, in fact, the missle had been taken out of the ground. this was a missle that had, we were told, 10 warheads, multiple reentry vehicle idea. multiple warheads on one missle. we were in the silo. it was like a large tube that had an elevator going down. i don't know on which floor we finally arrived, but it was the floor in the silo in which

russians stayed as guards or as watch officers. what authority they had was not clear in terms of launching the missle or following the orders from wherever they may have come from, but the vivid impression i had from that visit to the silo before it was destroyed that very day -- and we have pictures of the silo being destroyed in the office. i explained this is not a nuclear weapon being destroyed, this time just a silo in the ground. but around a table at which the russians who were on duty sat were pictures of american cities. these were ostensibly the targets of the 10 warheads, and it shows effect as you go around and discover which cities are -- are cities that i represent here on the chart, the fact was that

was the intent and that it was made known to us in the united states. -- united states that our total populations, not the occasional nuclear terrorist attack were at risk. now i -- i mention all of this once again not as a mellow dramatic press indication on a serious -- presentation on a serious treaty, but we are talking about something that is very fundamental. i heard during the course of the debate several of my colleagues say and i think they are mistaken, right now the american people are focused, as we all are, on how to create jobs, how to make a difference in the economy, how to bring new hope into lives people's lives have and confidence have been destroyed. that is our paramount objective. but at the same time these

problems occur in a world that is not necessarily -- does not necessarily wish us well and is prepared to leave us in our domestic economy to work our problems out while -- while the rest of the world necessarily takes time out. i'm not one that envisions, after all this time, a nuclear attack using icbms and the carriers that we're talking about except the fact as a practical matter by and large these weapons are maintained for the security of -- of the countries involved, but at the same time it seems to me to have been prudent throughout the years to have taken those steps we could to take the warheads off the missles, destroy the missles, destroy the silos, tak up the cable in the fields around them, in essence, to eliminate a lot of the threat.

my scoreboard starts out with 13,300 nuclear warheads. whether that was precisely the number, that was the best one we could arrive at. how could we arrive at it? we had literally boots on the ground, a subject discussed frequently today. the dilemma that i forsee, and i'm not trying to borrow trouble is that the boots on the grown in terms of the specifics of the start treaty ended, as we now know, december 5, 2009. most of us on the senate knew of that date. we have amended the fact that was occurring. but the fact is that we have not been able to take action until today's debate to remedy that. we must do so. this is not a question of the discretionary treaty that somehow might be held over to a

more convenient time, as the facts of life are that even the program i have discovered, the cooperative threat reduction program has diminishing results because the russians are waiting for work on this fundamental treaty. in due course, even though we may appropriate in our defense budget, as i hope we will, substantial moneys for the nunn-lugar program next year. our ability to continue to work with russian military, russian contractors outside a situation in which there is no start treaty and which the russians may feel there is no expectation of a new start treaty could mean that the monthly reports that i've cited today and most specifically the one for november of this year may cease

coming to my office. the numbers of warheads removed, the numbers of missiles destroyed and so forth may simply either stop or we may have no idea what, in fact, the russians have decided to do. now, i -- i appreciate in past debates some of my colleagues have said, and i think they were mistaken, but i understand their point of view. this is russia's problem. why were american taxpayer funds ever involved in helping russians take warheads off of missiles, destroy missiles, destroy submarines? in other words, to destroy weapons that were aimed at us? phrased in those terms, that does not seem to be a sensible bargain, that if you have cooperative threat reduction,

russians now for 19 years have allowed us to work in their country on their sites where these weapons were located with not only transparency, an actual feel of the hardware. the silo i was in was real. it was not by electronic means that we found it or surveillance of leaks from diplomacy. it was very real. so was the submarine base that i was invited to -- to visit. entirely out of the blue during one occasion on a visit to russia. and why was i asked to come there? because they had a feeling, and correctly, that if they presented to me the fact that there were in existence then six typhoon submarines, that each one of them had 200 missiles, small missiles on them, that

even though tom clancy finally discovered the day offense in the "hunt for red october" stories, the russians may have been operating these submarines up and down our east coast for as long as 20 years, whether we knew about it or not, and as you saw the submarines, the largest ever produced by any country and the 200 warheads that were chip shots into new york or philadelphia or any of our large east coast metropolitan areas. whether citizens there ever knew there was a threat or not is immaterial. there was a very substantial one. and yet, the russians were inviting us to consider this -- the destruction of these huge submarines because the work is very complex, extraordinarily expensive, it was beyond their abilities at that point. and we can take a choice, to

leave six typhoons in the world that might begin to cruise again, maybe someplace else, or work with them to destroy them. i'm here to say that even after several years, only three of the six have been destroyed. it is an extremely complex operation, and this is why we need to have treaty arrangements with the russians so there are former reasons why their government and our government might be prepared to send our military personnel, our civilian contractors, others who might wish to work with us on projects that we believe mutually are important, because -- and i will give just one more illustration, because this is very subjective. but on one occasion, i was surprised, although i should not have been, that many nuclear

warheads when they are removed from missiles are not destroyed. it is difficult to destroy a warhead. very expensive and complex, dangerous for the personnel involved in it. and the russians did not have very many facilities to do this. so they put many of these warheads into caves or caverns. i was invited into one of these caverns on one occasion, and i saw warheads lying there almost like corporations in a morgue. this is what it reminded me of. there were small captions at the top of each of these corporations, in essence, which gave -- at least the russians told me in translathing what was on there a history of that warhead, when it had been created, what sort of servicing it had received over the years. now, i mention this because these particular warheads were

not inert matter like sporting goods material. they require for the safety of the russians who were involved servicing, apparently, from time to time. and one of the reasons why russians always ask united states military and contractors to remove the oldest warheads first was that none of us have had that much of a history as to how long these warheads survived without potential accidents, end quote, something that could make a huge difference in this particular case for those that were in proximity to that particular cave. it is a crucial matter for them and for us that we find solutions to this. and this is why, i believe, there is urgency in considering the new start treaty, urgency in doing so right now. as a matter of fact, and as

rapidly as possible, re-entering americans on to the scene in russia and in a reciprocal manner, accepting russians who will be interested in our situation because this is important for our two countries and it's important really for many innocent people who were never a part of the designs of these weapons but could, in fact, be vastly affected in the event that we make a mistake. and we will make a mistake if we fail to act promptly, knowing what we do about the situation. mr. president, i am pleased to yield the floor. mr. kerry: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i have said a couple of times during the course of our opening comments and subsequently what a privilege it is to be working with senator lugar on this treaty, and i listened to him talk as i have heard before about his experiences of traveling over to russia and

going through the process of establishing this extraordinary program, but the country and the world owe him a huge debt of gratitude for his leadership on this issue. his vision together with senator nunn has just -- has made a global difference, and he is appropriately recognized on a global basis for that. so i thank him for his comments, telling every colleague to focus on this linkage of the threat reduction program to the start agreement and to the relationship that comes out of it. i know senator inhofe is here. i would just like to say a few words before he does about the verification because i think it's important as we go forward here to be very clear about the verification components of this treaty. a number of colleagues have questioned the verification regime, and we may yet have further discussion on it, so let me just make as clear as i can

that this treaty has fully satisfied our intelligence community and our military community and our stockpile verification folks as to the verifiability of the treaty. now, is it slightly different from what we had before with start i? the answer is yes. but importantly, i want to underscore why that difference exists because one colleague that raised the issue a little while ago -- i think it was senator kyl who talked about why it was that we might not have gotten them to do an extension of the start i treaty. well, the reality is, you know, it takes all parties to be party to that extension. the fact is that kazkstan,

ukraine, byelorussia all dropped out of the nuclear game and all of those weapons were deposited into russia, and they were all party to that original agreement, but russia made clear to the bush administration long before president obama came to power that they weren't going to proceed with that same system any more. and the reason was they saw it as a one-sided structure. they felt that they didn't get anything out of it, we were the only ones who got something out of it, and as long as they weren't getting something, they made us -- put us on notice we're not continuing that one. now, that said, the new start succeeds in streamlining verification and tracking procedures, and it creates a new system, a state-of-the-art inspection system and very strict reporting guidelines, and compliance and verification

measures that are in the new start build on 20 years of verification experience, and they appropriately reflect the technological advances that have been made since 1991 as well as the difference of relationship between the united states and russia because of the end of the cold war. so colleagues need to look at -- at those changes and measure it against the original benchmark, if you will. the fact is that new start's enhanced verification measures have a five-pronged approach, five different components. one, invasive, on-site inspections. two, national technical means, and we have always had that, but our national technical means have improved significantly without discussing them here on the floor. i think colleagues are aware of the capacity of our national technical means. three, unique identifiers that will be placed on each weapon.

we didn't have that before. now we're going to have the ability to track each individual weapon, warhead, and count them. that's new. that's increased. regular data exchange. we gain a great deal, they gain a great deal. it's a mutual process of exchanging data, which provides stability and assurances for both sides. and finally, prompt notifications of the movement of any weapons. now, the new start permits up to 18 short-notice, on-site inspections each year in order to determine the accuracy of russia's data and to verify the compliance. the -- the fact is that this new system is every bit as rigorous as the system that existed previously. in fact, there has been a -- because of the change that i described earlier, the

byelorussia, ukraine, kazakhstan change, we were -- we had about 70 inspection sites previously, and those were the nuclear facilities in each of those different countries, but since three of them have now denuclearized, the result is all of the former soviet union's remaining nuclear weapons have centralized in russia, and they're divided between 35 nuclear facilities. so we go from 70 facilities that we used to have to inspect down to 35. thus, the decreasing number of annual inspections from 28 in start i to 18 in the new start, is almost exactly the equivalent in terms of those allowed under start i. because we're inspecting fewer places and the inspectors are now allowed to gather more types of data during those inspections. the u.s. is also allowed to use

national technical means which would be reconnaissance satellites, ground stations, ships, all of them to verify compliance, and the treaty expressly prohibits tampering with the other party's national technical means. third, russia has to assign and inform the united states of the specific unique alpha numeric identifiers that are designating the deployed and nondeployed icbmsand slbmsand nuclear-capable heavy bombers. this information gives us an inside look with respect to the tracking patterns on russia's equipment throughout the full life cycle of any of those systems. fourth, the treaty requires russia to regularly provide to the u.s. the aggregate data on strategic offensive forces including numbers, locations,

technical characteristics of deployed and nondeployed strategic defensive arms. fifth, the new start establishes a comprehensive notification regime allowing us to track the movement of russia's strategic forces and any changes in the status of their strategic weapons. so, mr. president, the fact is this agreement employs an enormously aggressive forward-leaning and effective verification system, and it's been predicated on decades of our doing this very thing with the same people. this is not new ground we're breaking. we know how to do this. we build up a certain understanding of each other's capabilities, each other's idiosyncrasies and resistances. we know how to do this. and the verification system that was designed for this treaty is specifically designed to be less complicated, less costly and

more effective than the one that was in the original start treaty. i have a series of quotes. i want our colleague, both of them, to have an opportunity to speak. so i'll wait and later share with colleagues the number of different distinguished, respected, long-serving personalities within the intelligence community. former lieutenant general jim clapper of the united states air force, others, awful whom have affirmed the ability of this verification system to do the job and to protect the interests of our country. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from oklahoma. mr. inhofe: mr. president, i complimented the senator from massachusetts a few minutes ago for his endurance and his at attention down here. i appreciate that. i have to say this also to the senator from indiana, my very good friend, i'm in kind of a unique position, one who serves on both the armed services

committee as well as the foreign relations committee. i disagree with most of what was just stated and what i've heard several times stated by the senior senator from massachusetts. one of the concerns that i've had is that we have so many people who want to be in on this, who should be in on this, who have been elected. we have new senators. one is occupying the chair right now. we have senator kirk and senator manchin. but also we have senators blunt, boozman, portman, more ran, johnson, and rubio, all of them have signed on to a letter saying this is very significant. we really need to be a part of this thing. this is important. it's important, in my eyes in a different way than it is others. i'm opposed to it for a number of reasons, and i'm one of the few who is the bad guys who came out initially and said i do

oppose it. i remember, we all know what a strategic arms reduction act is. initially when with we had two superpowers it made a lot more sense to me. frankly, i look at this and i see the concerns that i have. verification, that sounds good; yes, we're going to verify. yet the number of verifications, the inspections are 18 per year in the new start as opposed to some 600 over a 15-year period. modernization. i think it's one thing we all agree on, we have to modernize, but there has to be a way of doing it. we haven't done it yet. it was three years ago that secretary gates said -- quote -- "no way can we maintain a credible deterrent and reduce the number of weapons in our stockpile without either resorting to testing our stockpile or pursuing a modernization program." well, that's an area where we do all agree. how are we going to do that? right now i think the generally

agreed-upon number that it would cost over a period of, was it ten years? ten years would be $85 billion. we have right now about $600 million that would be coming up in the next budget cycle. now, we all know how things work around here. we can only commit funds for the next cycle. there's no assurance at all that we'd be able to come through with the other $84.5 billion in that period of time. so the modernization is not set up in a way where we are in the current year demonstrating the commitment we have to modernize our fleet. the fact that we're handling this in a lame-duck session, most of the stuff we're trying to cram in right now are things we should have been talking about all year long, and we haven't been doing it. most of them fall into a category that it looks like things are going to change in the united states senate. we know the house after the november election is now a

republican-dominated house. we know that we have gained large gains here in the united states senate. we also know that there are several of my good colleagues or good friends in the senate who are up for reelection in 2012 aoeufplt not sure -- i'm not sure they want to join in these issues coming up at the last minute, and this is just one of them. i look at the quotes that we have, the missile defense thing has not been -- has not been addressed. i know it would take a lot of discussion. there are probably potentially, with the new congress coming in in january, 40 or 50 different amendments just addressing the missile defense thing. they say, well, no, this is not a problem. any time you have a unilateral statement that was made, which was made by the russians early on, this treaty can only operate and be viable only if the united states of america refrains from developing its missile defense capabilities quantitatively and qualitatively. that has been stated and has

been stated and reaffirmed more recently when sergio lavrov said we have not yet agreed on this missile defense issue, and we are trying to clarify the agreements reached by the two presidents. well, the problem is that when the american people look at this, they say, well, maybe back during the cold war, maybe back when we had two superpowers this thing made sense. frankly, i was not a supporter of this concept back then. but there is certainly justification for it. where are we today? right now we are probably in the most endangered position we've been as a nation. and i say this from the experience i've had on both of these committees. we have problems. there are certainly problems with north korea and what they have developed in their capabilities, problems with syria. certainly problems with iran. our intelligence says -- and it's not even classified -- that iran would have the capability of sending a missile to western europe and eastern united states

by 2015. one of the most disturbing things that happened at the beginning of this administration a year and a half ago was when the president came out with his budget and did away with our site in poland which was a ground interceptor site that would have given us capability defending the geography i just mentioned. they took a risk. it wasn't easy for poland over the czech republic in terms of their radar system, to almost defy russia. but they're willing to do it. i'll always remember being a part of that negotiation over there when they said are you sure, if we take this bold step, if we start agreeing to building a ground interceptor in poland that would protect that area, are you sure that you're not going to pull the rug out from under us? i said absolutely. i had no idea, no hint that this would happen, but it did. and so we had the -- in february, i guess it was, right after the new president was

inaugurated, of the many things that he did that i found objectionable with our defense system, national defense system, but that was the most -- that was the most egregious. now, we're talking about doing a type of a strategic arms reduction with russia. i'm not concerned about russia. i am concerned about these other places. the threat is there, and the threat is very real. i don't think there are too many people around since 9/11 who don't know that the terrorists would in a heartbeat come after the united states of america. and when we have something that's written down in the preamble and statements have been made over and over again that if we -- it would be a violation of this treaty if we were to enhance our missile defense system, and yet we know that syria is going to have a capability by 2015. to me, it's just mind-boggling that people can be sitting arbd around here worrying about this treaty taking place between two

countries when i don't view them as being a threat. then we have the issue of force structure. i think we know that not only do we have to have a weapon to send, you have to have a way of sending it. we all know the triad and how they're not being enhanced by this. that's my major concern. but i was against it from the very beginning. however, this is where we are today. we're in the middle of the thing. i keep hearing on the radio you're going to be here until christmas. you should do that because our troops are. i'll be spending new year's eve with our troops in afghanistan. i'm very much concerned about them. but i'm also concerned about what we're doing here in america. why are we waiting? last year we waited until christmas eve. i always remember going home christmas eve. it happened to fall at the same time, it was the worst snowstorm in the history of texas and northeastern oklahoma, and barely made it in time to get home. i've got 20 kids and grandkids. i kind of thraoeubg to see them

at -- kind of like to see them at christmastime and these are things we could have been doing a long time ago. you wait until the last minute and say this is things you want to cram through. the american people don't want it. let's just look at what we should be talking about now. that is running government for the, into the next year so we don't have some type of a stoppage, some type of a crisis on our hands. they have the -- the liberals have the omnibus bill that they have up there. they want to get this passed, a bill that's $1.3 trillion. here we're talking about we have actually increased -- we've come up with $2 trillion in the first two years. this is unheard of in terms of deficits. look where we're going right now with $9 billion more spending this year than in last year, we thought last year was an absolutely disaster. at the same time where is the spending going? we have such things as their

agenda, $1.4 billion for a variety of climate change programs. they're not going to give up on that. they're going to keep coming forth trying to spend money. $1.4 billion. they're talking about the money for the corporation for public broadcasting, talking about zeroing out efforts in yucca mountain. these are things that are in this bill. and what it does to the defense system, everything is enhanced except our defense. what is this aversion to trying to rebuild americans' defense system? overall the defense spending cuts in the omnibus bill amount to $10.3 billion. that's from the president's request, 2011 request. it includes the $450 million to include work on the second engine, the alternate engine. we've already talked about that. we have been discussing that in the senate armed services committee, the house armed services committee.

we decided, i think justly, i was on the single-engine side of that argument because of the sheer cost. and yet, i know the arguments on both sides. but we've already done that. we've already debated it. i don't know why we have to come to the floor after we have made these decisions and then look at a bill. it cuts the proposed purchase of the f-35's from 42 to 35. let's remember what happened a year and a half ago. they talked about doing way with the f-22's which are only fifth-generation capability that we have. the excuse -- the justification was look what we're doing with f-35's. that's fine. it's going to be 42. this bill would cut it down; further cuts. while we're increasing, we're talking about a bill, $1.3 trillion it, throws money on every kind of social engineering, everything you can have except defense. the cerp program, commanders

emergency relief program. it was one that was my program. you talk to the commanders in the field and they'll tell you they have the capability of taking care of some of these needs. it used to be iraq, now afghanistan. they could accomplish so much more if they could do it right now. that was called the cerp program. they're already bringing the funding of that down in this bill. i look at this. i look at $1 trillion of this, over $1 trillion in funding to implement the very unpopular health care law. so if anybody's out there thinking that this is going to be an easy lift, i personally think that we will be able to defeat this omnibus bill. i think it will be defeated by almost all of the republicans and a few of the democrats, particularly those that are coming up for reelection in 2012. i would hate to be a position where i'd say what i'm going to run on, is the fact that i've already voted to put a new, more than $1 trillion to fund this

form of socialized medicine. so, anyway, that's where we are right now. i do think that we need to take a deep breath and just figure that we have a new congress coming in, a new senate coming in in -- right after january. we have plenty of time to allow other senators who are elected to weigh in on this very critical issue of the new start treaty. with that, i'll yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from texas. mr. cornyn: mr. president, i would like to briefly join my colleagues in explaining some of my concerns, first of all, about the process by which we are taking up something as important as the treaty with regard to nuclear arms. of course, this is the second part of a two-part constitutional process. the president sent this treaty over here to the -- to the senate and -- along with a

transmittal letter dated may the 13th -- may the 13th -- 2010. and here we are, december the 16th, shortly before the christmas holidays and adjournment, taking up a treaty as important as this. and, of course, under article 2, section 2, of the united states constitution, a treaty cannot be ratified without the vote of two-thirds -- at least two-thirds of the members of the united states senate. and i know everyone, whether they're for this treaty, whether they're against this treaty, whether they merely are questioning some aspects of the treaty and are perhaps seeking to make some modifications, i believe that everyone is approaching this issue with the kind of seriousness and gravity that should be required of a united states senator or approaching something this serious. but i have to make this observation, mr. president.

here we are, as i said, december the 16th, two days -- two days after having dropped on us a 1,924-page omnibus appropriation bill which calls for the federal government to spend an additional $1.2 trillion. and the idea that we would later today take up the issue of funding the federal government and consider this omnibus appropriation bill while we would have to basically detour and lay this treaty by the side is to me just irresponsible. i don't know any other word to describe it. we have, in fact, been in session 151 days during 2010. that's right, you heard me correctly, the senate has actually been in session 151 days this year. i think most people would love to get a paycheck across america

and only be expected to show up and do their job 151 days a year. now, i know that when we go back home, we continue to work with our constituents to listen to their concerns and otherwise, but my simple point is that when the president sends this treaty over on may the 13th, 2010, at the same time simultaneously we are being asked to consider this huge omnibus appropriation bill of $1.2 trillion, some 2,000 pages long, the idea that we would try to jam through or give expedited consideration to the serious, substantive issues being raised by this treaty is, as i said, poor time management, to say the least. and i think irresponsible. i want to raise some of the substantive concerns i have about the treaty in which i know there will be further discussions. first of all, i would point out

that the treaty does not itself address tactical -- mr. president, i have the floor. mr. kerry: i know. i'm just asking if he'd yield for a question. mr. cornyn: i would be glad to after i get through with my remarks yield for some questions. mr. kerry: appreciate it. mr. cornyn: i would note, mr. president, as others have noted, that the treaty completely excludes consideration and limitation of tactical nuclear weapons, even though russia possesses a significant superiority in terms of numbers over the united states for these types of weapons. i would just note that the -- some at the department of defense have noted that the difference between strategic weapons and tactical weapons has become somewhat middled and less meaningful in recent decades. and i believe a legitimate cause for concern is why we would exclude tactical nuclear weapons that the russians have numerical

superiority of and not even seek to regulate or contain those at all while we are focused strictly on strategic nuclear weapons, of which the united states would have to cut our current numbers and the russians not at all in order to meet -- meet the goals of the treaty. i would say secondly, mr. president, i have concerns about the treaty's provisions on verification. of course, president reagan was famous for saying we should trust but verify when it comes to this type of treaty. i would point out that bent scowcroft in 1996 199pointed out the -- 1997 pointed out that when you're talking about the numbers, verification becomes that much more important. end in 1997, "current force levels provide a buffer because they're high enough to be

relatively insensitive to imperfect intelligence and modest force changes. as force levels go down, the balance of nuclear power can become increasingly delicate and vulnerable to cheating on arms-control limits. concerns about hidden missiles and actions of nuclear third parties." so we need to be extraordinarily careful, even more careful now than perhaps we have been in the past with regard to the verification measures. and we know that the russians have taken every advantage to cheat on previous treaties and to be untrustworthy. according to the official state department reports on arms control compliance, the russians have previously violated or are still violating even as we speak important provisions of most of the key arms control treaties to which they've been a party, including the original start treaty, the chemical weapons convention, the biological weapons convention, the

conventional forces in europe treaty, and open skies. the new start treaty does not close that gap on verification loopholes that the russians are already exploiting or, in fact, evading. as my colleague, senator bond, said, who is notably the vice chairman of the senate select committee on intelligence, the annual ten-warhead limit inspections allowed under this treaty permit us to sample only 2% to 3% of the total russian deployed force and, therefore, it will be impossible, it will be literally impossible limited to ten annual warhead inspections over a ten-year treaty, it will be impossible to inspect all, much less most, of the 1,550 deployed -- limit on deployed warheads. so why would we call this a robust verification provision if

we're only allowed to see 2% to 3% of the total russian force? the new start treaty are unlike its predecessors, permits any number of warheads to be loaded on a missile, so even if the russians fully cooperated, which i do not believe they have in the past nor can be trusted to do so in the future, even if they do cooperate with all of the provisions in the new start treaty, these inspections do not provide the sort of conclusive evidence that you would think would be required given the gravity of the potential risk. they can't provide conclusive evidence that the russians are, in fact, complying with the warhead limit. third, mr. president, the new start treaty handcuffs the united states from deploying new capabilities we need to defend our nation and our allies from missile attacks. i would just point out that this

demonstrates the ballistic missile threat that's presented in a map of europe and africa and asia. and you will notice that russia is not even on this map. this map's been -- is a compilation from the defense intelligence agency and other federal government agencies. but you will notice a number of other ballistic missile threats that could affect not only the united states but most certainly our allies. this map was prepared by, as i said, the missile defense agency based on information from several agencies in the intelligence community and shows that more than a dozen nation nations -- more than a dozen nations have developed or are developing ballistic missile

capabilities. several of these nations are notorious for that. north korea, iran, just to name two. but we know that several others, like libya, yemen and pakistan have al qaeda operatives or other extremist groups operating within their borders. the fact of the matter is that we need a robust missile defense capability not to protect us from russian ballistic missiles but from ballistic missiles from some of these other nations that have developed them, some of whom have -- have groups like al qaeda and other terrorist organizations that would love to get their hands on some of these weapons and use them against america or our allies. that's why it makes absolutely no sense to constrain our future missile defense options in exchange for reductions in the

strategic nuclear weapons of just one country and that's russia. now, some of my colleagues may be arguing there are no limitations on missile defense in the treaty and that the language in the preamble -- the language in the preamble which ties our strategic offensive arms to our strategic defensive arms for the first time ever, by the way, that this preamble language really doesn't mean anything and does not operate as a constraint on our missile defense programs. but that's not what the russians have said. that's not how they read it. and, of course, mr. president, the senate's been denied the negotiating record by which we could actually clarify what was said by american negotiators and russian negotiators in coming up with this language. isn't that something you would think that the administration would want clarified if they could clarify it by providing

this information? but, no, we've been stonewalled and told, you can't have it, senate, even though under article 2, section 2, of the constitution, you have a constitutional duty when it comes to treaty ratification. i just think it's a very poor way to do business, to say the least, and causes me really to question whether there is a uniform understanding of -- of constraints on our missile defense system or not. and, again, you can see that t the -- the risk is not just from russia, it's much more widespread, unfortunately, than that. russia has also made a unilateral statement that it claims the right to withdrawal from the new start treaty if the united states does, in fact, expand our missile defense capability. doug fife shed some life on this issue earlier in an op-ed piece in the "wall street journal." mr. fife, of course, is remembered as the former under secretary of defense during the

bush administration, and he helped negotiate the strategic offensive reductions treaty known as the sort treaty. he says that during those negotiations, the russians were constantly trying to get the americans to negotiate away our right to defend ourselves from missile attacks. the bush administration rightly rejected those russian demands and they got a good treaty anyway. but the obama administration in this treaty gave russia what it wanted when it came to our missile defense, among other concessions as well, a very serious concern, i would say. mr. president, the new start treaty has other flaws, but even if it was a outstanding treaty, i think the gravity of what we are about here in considering this treaty and reductions in nuclear arms and trying to make the world a more secure and safer place, that it warrants

more careful and deliberate consideration of this treaty than we're going to be able to give during this lame-duck session. you know, i've heard people talk about well, the fact this is the christmas season and of course we'd all like to be with our families, but we recognize the fact that we have important obligations to perform here in the senate. and i think all of us are willing to perform those. but the problem is that we've had an election on november the 2nd and there are a lot of people, like senator -- the senator from oklahoma said, who were just elected by the american people who would be denied an opportunity to let their voice be heard on such an important issue if this treaty is jammed through during the waning days of the 111th congress. now, we know that the legitimacy of our government itself rests upon consent of the governed, and the fact of the matter is, the american people during the most recent election said they don't like the direction

washington is heading and they want us to change. and the idea that we would then, after the election takes place but before the new senators and congressmen are actually sworn in, that we would try to rush through with such important matters like this treaty and deny them an opportunity and the voices of the people that elected them to be heard is, to me, does not speak well of this process. and i think denies, indeed, us the legitimacy of the consent of the governed or certainly many of them. well, let's be clear about what's happening here. we know the administration wants a vote on this new start treaty because they think they have a better chance of passing it now than when these new senators are sworn in on january the 5th. there's no one i've heard, mr. president, who suggested that there is a national security threat to the united states from delaying the

ratification of this treaty by a month. no one. and i don't think they could plawsablplausible make such a contention. there is a little bit to focus our attention away from the -- in which we're told that senator reid, the majority leader, is going to insist be voted on in just a few days. i think a better alternative to that, and certainly a better alternative than to go through this unnecessary drama about government shutdowns, is to pass a one-page continuing resolution that would keep the government operating until january or february at which time these newly elected senators and house members would be able to participate and at a time when we could certainly take up this treaty and give it the sort of thoughtful and careful

consideration, the kind of debate and amendment process that i think our responsibility requires rather than trying to move it through in this irresponsible manner. this bill that, of course, i mentioned earlier, this omnibus appropriation bill will, no doubt, be called up later today perhaps and be attached to a continuing resolution and cloture filed asking 60 senators to agree to close off debate, deny any opportunity for amendments and the kind of consideration i think the american people would want us to have of a $1.2 trillion spending bill. well, we know that christmas is almost here and many americans look forward to celebrating that important holiday and reflect on what comes with the new year. but i hope that our friends on the other side of the aisle will reconsider the -- the tactics

that they're employing during this lame-duck session to try to gloss over or ignore the important substantive concerns that many of us have about this very significant treaty and ram through unpopular legislation just like happened last year on christmas eve with the passage of the health care bill. many americans remember passing that bill on christmas eve here in the senate and they were outraged by the process, by the backroom negotiations and deals that took place in order to get over the 60-vote threshold there. so this year i would submit, mr. president, millions of american -- americans want just one thing from congress and that would be a silent night. let's pray that they get it. i thank the chair and yield the floor. if the senator still has a question or two for me, i'd be glad to yield for that purpose.

the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: mr. president, i just want to say to my colleague from texas, i'm -- i'm a little surprised to hear him be quite so harsh about the -- i think he used the word irresponsible, in other words, about why we're here in this predicament right now. i shouldn't have to remind him, but in this session of congress there have been more filibusters by his party than at any time from world war i all the way through until the late 1970's. we have members -- we have -- we mom nominees wait -- nominees waiting to be passed who cannot get out and have a vote. when we finally have a cloture vote getting 06 votes to get them -- 60 votes to get them out, they get 95 votes in the united states senate. they just delay and delay and

delay. and i'm not going to stand here and listen to them come to the floor of the united states senate asking them why we're trying to do the important business of the country at the last minute. because all they have to do is in -- is look in the mirror. that's all they have to do and they'll see why we're here. and then to say we can't do the important business of this treaty in the last -- in the amount of time we have is totally contradicted by history of every treaty that we've worked on. earlier today we had a senator say, well, we can't do this, we have to have -- we can't dual track, and i pointed out that start i, which was a much more complicated treaty, took 4 1/2 days, on the day that they passed it, they passed two or three other pieces of legislation, on the day they passed a tax bill, they passed an appropriations bill. so this is -- so we've reached a new stage in america where you

just say something. it doesn't matter if it's based on the truth. just say it. put it out there and somebody will say it, somebody will pick it up. we've been here for a day. we still haven't had an amendment. all this talk about serious consideration, i'm going to release a -- a breakdown of who spoken for how long here because it's really interesting to take a look at what's going on here. and, by the way, why would we have to read something? i understand that we may have to read the appropriations bill for about a day and a half. have the clerk up here just reading the bill. now, there's an act of stunning responsibility. let's just chew up the time of the united states senate keeping everybody up all night reading a bill rather than working on it. so i -- let's just, now he there's a -- well, i've said enough about it. i really think that what we need

to do is do the business of the country and there's plenty of time to do it and still plenty of time to get home for christmas if we spent our time doing that rather than a lot of delay tactics. now, some senators have cited an early statement by senator cartwright, the vice chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, about the numbers here, here's what general cartwright said today, we need start and we need it badly. now are you going to listen to general cartwright or are you going to listen to some of these vague and somewhat similar talking points that keep coming to the floor without an amendment and without any substantive work. so, mr. president, at this point i would ask unanimous consent that at 6:00 p.m. today the senate resume legislative senate

and the majority leader be recognized at that time. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. a senator: i just want to make sure at 3:00 p.m. 30 i'll be able to have 10 -- mr. kerry: we're staying on start agreement until that time. mrs. boxer: is 3:00 p.m. 30 a good -- 3:30 p.m. a good time for you or 3:40? mr. kerry: i'm going to yield the floor and i -- mr. president, i ask unanimous consent that when i yield the floor, the senator from california be recognized. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. kerry: and now, mr. president, i ask for your ruling, the unanimous consent with respect to 6:00 p.m. moving to legislative session and the majority leader be recognized. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. kerry: i thank the chair and i yield the floor. mrs. boxer: mr. president -- the presiding officer: the senator from california. mrs. boxer: i want to thank my

chairman of the foreign relations committee, senator kerry, with whom i work closely. i want to thank senator lugar, the ranking member, who at times has been my chair, it does my heart good to see them working to closely on this and i was very elated to see the vote -- the test vote on this we had already, and i just really hope that that vote that we had, that test vote is indicative of where we were going. we were almost at 67. my understanding is that one member wasn't there to vote. we should be at 67. i just hope we can get this done at the earliest opportunity. because despite some of the protests of colleagues that say there hasn't been enough time, my understanding is that we've been on this for seven months. seven months. and -- and no one could have worked harder than our chairman and our ranking member on making sure that every single objection to the new start treaty, every single problem challenged

understanding was heard. and that a lot of this was already worked out in the -- in the solution of ratification. so hopefully we can get through this. now, i've had opportunities as a member of foreign relations committee, in particular, to ask national security experts what keeps them up at night? what's the one thing that they worry about? and whether it comes from the c.i.a. or any other place in the intelligence community, the answer comes back like this, what keeps them up at night is the possibility that a terrorist could get a hold of a nuclear weapon. and i will have to say that that worrisome possibility is on the

minds of many americans. well, the new start treaty makes this less likely, therefore, it is in our national interest and, frankly, it's in the interest of the world. the new start treaty requires a 30% reduction of deployed strategic weapons on the russian and american side with boots on the ground verification. and that is key. it reduces delivery systems to 800 per side and -- and i'm not going to speak very long, i say to my colleagues who have come here, because so much has been said and i can't say it any better, so what i'm going to do for most of the remainder of my time is quote from people, republicans and democrats who have been quite eloquent in addition to senators kerry and lugar. it is clear that democrats and republicans alike support this treaty. and we hear a lot about no labels and let's come together.

look, this is an area where we have come together and all we have to do is put the finishing touches on this ratification and complete this very important work that's in front of us. so i'm going to say this. in addition to all of our nato allies supporting this, including those in eastern europe, and i think that is very important to note, we have all of these american leaders on both sides of the aisle and i will read some of their comments for the record. "i urge the united states senate to ratify the start treaty." this is a statement from a few days ago, president george herbert walker bush. quote -- "i fully support this

treaty" this is colin powell, "i hope the senate will give its advice and consent as soon as possible. it's in the best interest of the united states of america. the best interest of the world and, frankly, in the best interest of the russian federation." howard baker, former senator, republican from tennessee. he said just a few days ago, "a world without a binding u.s. nuclear u.s.-russian treaty is less predictable than the one we live in today. trust but verify he says. ratify this treaty. george schultz, a constituent of mine, secretary of state for president reagan, he wrote with sam nunn, democrat, former senator from georgia who we all respected on these issues -- quote -- "noting the full support of the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and following our own

review of the treaty, we urge the senate to give its advice and consent to ratification of new start as early as is feasible." and i just hope we don't have a lot of delaying -- more delaying tactics around here. because it's not necessary. and i -- i heard colleagues say, what's the rush? what's the rush? what's the rush? we had seven months and -- and senators kerry and lugar bent over backwards, did everything possible to accommodate senators like senator kyl who wanted certain assurances on the modernization of our nuclear weapons. they did everything to answer every question. and, by the way, they'll continue to do that as we get to any of the reservations. this is what james schlesinger,

secretary of defense for presidents nixon and ford said, i think it's obligatory for the united states to ratify new start. for the united states to fail to ratify the treaty in the due source course of the senate's deliberation would have a detrimental effect on our ability to influence others with regard to particularly the nonproliferation issue." and so james schlesinger gets to the point of nonproliferation, the worrisome fact that a terrorist or a rogue state could get one much these weapons. alan simpson, who we all know, outspoken republican senator from wyoming -- quote -- "nothing in the treaty constrains our ability to develop and deploy a robust missile defense system as our military planners see fit." he says "the idea that this treaty somehow makes major concessions to the russians on missile defense is just simply not true." pat buchanan, i'm going to quote

pat buchanan, white house communications director for president ronald reagan. "richard nixon would have supported this treaty. ronald reagan, he said, would have supported this treaty, as he loathed nuclear weapons and wished to get rid of them, wished to rid the world of them. and simply because this treaty is obama's treaty does not mean it is not in america's interest." that is pat buchanan. i don't think i have ever in my life quoted pat buchanan on the floor, just proving the point that this particular issue is extremely bipartisan. it unites everybody k except apparently a few of our friends on the other side. brent scowcroft, lieutenant general retired national security advisor to presidents ford and george h.w. bush, -- quote -- "new start should not be controversial, no matter how liberal or conservative you

are." that really makes the point here. chuck hagel had a very eloquent statement. he ends it by saying "this would be devastating not just for arms control, but for security interests worldwide if we didn't deal with this issue." henry kissinger has a very long statement. i won't read the entire one. but he says "for all these reasons, i recommend ratification of this treaty. i do not believe this treaty is an obstacle to a missile defense program or pho tkerpbgzation. rejection this have treaty would indicate a new period of pherpbl policy has start -- of american policy has started that would have an unsettling impact on the international environment." here you have somebody who has been deeply involved in foreign relations for so many years, saying in essence -- and i am not quoting him here but i'm summing up what i read -- would be a radical departure from

america's foreign policy if we were not to do this. james baker, secretary of state for president george bush, and he writes, "new start appears to take our country in a direction that can enhance our national security. it can improve washington's relationship with moscow regarding nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles. a relationship that will be vital if the two countries are to cooperate in order to stem nuclear proliferation in skufpbts as iran -- countries such as iran and north korea." he says, i agree with secretary of defense bob gates when he wrote last week in the "wall street journal" that the new treaty provides verification that has been needed since start i expired in december. he says -- this is james baker -- an effective verification regime is a critical component of arms control, and i believe the world is safer when the united states and russia are abiding by one.

i ask unanimous consent to place some other statements in the record. and i will close -- the presiding officer: without objection. mrs. boxer: -- with a couple of democratic individuals who wo have also joined their republican friends in this. president bill clinton, "the start agreement is very important to the future of our national security, and it is not a radical agreement. this is something that is profoundly important. this ought to be way beyond party." he just said that a couple of days ago. william perry, you remember well, secretary of defense for president clinton, "the treaty puts no meaningful limits on our antiballistic missile defense program. it reduces restrictions that existed under the previous start treaty. i recommend ratification." sam nunn, "delaying ratification of this treaty or defeating it would damage u.s. security interests and u.s. credibility globally." and he takes the same tack that

i'm taking which is he's summing up who supports it. the joint chiefs of staff, former strategic nuclear commanders and our intelligence community leadership all have stated the treaty is essential to our nation's security. i'm hopeful the senate will put our nation's security first by providing advice and consent to this important treaty. that's senator sam nunn, democrat of georgia. retired. and i'll close with two more quotes, one from vice president joe biden. "failure to pass the new start treaty this year would endanger our national security. we would have no americans on the ground to inspect russia's nuclear activities, no verification regime to track russia's strategic nuclear arsenal. less cooperation between the two nations that account for 90% of the world's nuclear weapons. and no verified nuclear reductions." that's vice president biden. and we all know that he was

respected chair of the foreign relations committee. it was my honor to serve with him. and finally, secretary of state hillary rodham clinton, "failing to ratify the treaty would undermine the predictability and transparency but impact our ability of leadership on nonproliferation. i end where i started. what keeps intelligence community leaders up at night is the fear that we don't wrap our arms around nuclear proliferation and that a weapon gets into the hands of a terrorist or rogue nation. and new start, it's not, as our chairman has said many times, it's not a very broad treaty. it's pretty narrow. it's essential. but it does not really covers that much new ground. but what it assures us is we're

going to have a mutual reduction in these arms. we're going to be able to verify that. and it makes it less likely that we're going to have the type of proliferation that keeps a lot of us up at night, including the american people, i'm sure. we need to take steps in this holiday season toward peace. we need to take steps every day to make sure that the threat that we face in this difficult world, with all of our challenges, that the threats are diminished. so once again i want to say to my chairman, and i have to say this to senator kerry with whom i work on so many issues, his leadership on this has been extraordinary. i was giving up hope that we would be able to get this done, and he constantly said, we don't give up. we just keep on pursuing this. it's the right thing to do. with senator lugar by his side. this is a good day. i feel good that we're doing this. and i feel that the people,

particularly in this time of the year, will feel much better when we get this done in the bipartisan way i know we will. thank you very much, and i would yield the floor. a senator: mr. president? mr. burr: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from snorting car. mr. burr: mr. president -- the presiding officer: the senator from from north carolina. mr. burr: are we working from already arranged times, i ask the chair. the presiding officer: there is no operating u.c. for time at this moment. mr. burr: i thank the president. mr. president, i'd like to make some introductory remarks about the start treaty this afternoon. my real interest lies in the

closed session which will take place at a later date. but this is an important debate, and i have deep respect for not just the chairman, but for the ranking member. but like all members, have a passion for this issue, and i'd like to make some general comments at this time about it. the threat of nuclear engagement between the united states and russia has diminished greatly since we began arms reduction talks with the soviets in the 1970's. and it's a credit to the agreements of past years that the strategic relationship between the united states and russia has evolved to a point where americans and russians no longer fear a war between nato and war saw powers. the world has changed in many ways for the better as a result of those bilateral arms reduction efforts. but today the united states and our allies face emerging and destabilizing nuclear threats from rogue nations and nonstate actors who have shown no

willingness to follow accepted international standards or adhere to nonproliferation treaties. while the new start treaty continues an historic dialogue between two great nations, i'm concerned that negotiated language in this treaty, especially wording in its preamble about -- and i quote -- "existence of the interrelationship between strategic offensive arms and stpreupblg strategic defensive arms" may trigger a subtle yet offensive move between offensive and defensive weapons. words have meaning, mr. president, and treaty language is not filler. i can only conclude that this specific commitment reflects to the current thinking of the president and his

administration, which is a departure from their predecessors in past administrations and offers the russians a reason to leverage the treaty to their distinct advantage with respect to our efforts to improve upon our missile defenses. even if a treaty such as the new start had a place in today's world, several key issues are lacking in the treaty that this body should and would have to address. one, the treaty does not address russia's tactical nuclear weapons. two, this treaty does nothing to address stored warheads. three, this treaty is silent on rail mobile icbms. four, this treaty allows the russians to encrypt and hide missile test data for all new nuclear weapons they develop. this treaty places limits on our

nonnuclear conventional global strike weapons, unheard of in the past. this treaty submits and subjects our nation's objectives in missile defense to the review and approval of the kremlin. and this treaty ignores the nuclear capabilities, stkaoeurbgs ambitions -- desires, ambitions and plans of nation and nonnation actors who seek to undermine and harm u.s. national security interests. many pundits have spoken about the urgent need to get the u.s. inspectors on the ground in russia to verify the state of their nuclear weapons system and to verify compliance. but when one examines the inspection protocols within this treaty, it will be clear that we must give such advanced notification and jump through so many multiple hoops just to get approval to visit a site that by

the time an inspection begins, there's a high likelihood we will only see what the russians want us to see, and nothing more. other supporters of this treaty contend that by ratifying new start, we further enhance our relationship and leverage with the russians. with respect to the destabilizing threats posted by north korea and iran. but the russians already recognize the problems posed by these two countries because they are along their borders. the russians should not require this treaty as an incentive to protect their own regional interests. for these reasons, i remain concerned that by ratifying new start, the united states senate would be allowing an outdated and narrow agenda to constrain our defense flexibilities and capabilities at the very point in history where we need a

clear-eyed view of the real threats on the horizon. there is no urgent need to ratify new start this week, next week, or even next year. given the numerous flaws in this treaty, to say nothing of the flawed, backward-looking process that developed it, it's prudent for the senate to work upon twaoeuz improve upon the treat -- ways to improve upon the treaty in order to better ensure the strategic interest of the united states and to make sure that it is fully protected. mr. president, and my colleagues, our nation does need a new start in our relationship with russia. it needs a new approach. this treaty represents an old approach based on cold war relationships. and in my estimation it should be rejected by this body. i thank the president, and i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president?

the presiding officer: the senator from new jersey. mr. menendez: mr. president, i rise in support of a treaty that i actually think is vital, of vital importance to our national security, to our national interests and our international reputation, the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. let me first start off by recognizing senator kerry, the chairman of our foreign relations committee, and senator lugar as the ranking member. they have done an extraordinary job. i smile as i listen to some of my colleagues saying it hasn't been reviewed enough, it hasn't been vetted enough. we have had an incredible number of sessions on the question of what the treaty contains in flushing out all of its points and points of view. and in a very bipartisan way, the committee has worked assiduously to bring us to this point so that members can make an informed decision. so i want to salute the chairman for his incredible work in this

regard. you know, the original start treaty expired on december 5 of last year, 200 9. so as of today, december 16, 2010, it has been 376 days since the united states lost the ability to conduct on-site inspections. lost it. not knowing what is happening with those weapons. 376 days since we lost our ability to monitor and verify russia's nuclear arsenal. now, i know that some say our relationship with russia has gotten a lot better. yes. but it is about their arsenal that we care about. it is about an arsenal that now has a russian leadership that we now have better relationships

with but we never know what that relationship will be tomorrow. and good relationships are built on firm understandings and the treaty creates a firm understanding of our respective obligations. that's why we need to move forward and ratify start. now, i agree, i've heard some of my colleagues suggest that there are other nations -- namely, iran and north korea -- that present presently maybe a greater threat to our security and the security of our allies, but that is not the point. the point is that the threat of loose nuclear materials anywhere in the world -- anywhere in the world -- whether in russia, iran, or north korea, is a major concern. the point is, the severity of the threat from those nations does not diminish -- does not diminish the threat presented by the russian nuclear arsenal. those threats in no way negate

our need to complete our regime and approve a treaty with russia and then continuing to move on and address the serious threats presented by iran and north korea. let me just say on one of those two, iran, since my days in the house of representatives, i have been pursuing iran well before some people looked at iran as a challenge. when i found out the international atomic energy administration was taking voluntary contributions for the united states to help create operational capacity at the bushera nuclear facility and sought those fees to stem the use of taxpayer dollars for that purpose, so i understand about iran and north korea. but that does not diminish the importance of knowing about this nuclear arsenal. now, it's true that political developments in the past two decades have greatly diminished the probability of nuclear war between our nations, but the

fact remains that russia continues to have more than 600 nuclear launch vehicles and more than 2,700 warheads. and it is because of those numbers that this chamber needs to do what is in our national security interest and ratify start now. now, we need the ability to track and verify russia's nuclear arsenal. we need on-site inspections. we need the enhanced flexibility of short-notice inspections of deployed and nondeployed systems. we need t to be able to verify e numbers of warheads carried on russian strategic missiles. we need the ability provided for the first time in this treaty, for the first time, to track all accountable strategic nuclear delivery systems. and we need a verification regime. trust but verify.

trust but verify. we know those words well. they have been spoken on this floor many times by many of our republican colleagues, some who are now willing to turn their backs on the truth of those words. the truth is at the heart of this treaty. the ability for this nation to verify rush this's nuclear arsenal remains paramount to our security. it remains paramount to continued bilateral cooperation between the united states and russia. so for these reasons, start has broad bipartisan support, including support from the secretaries of defense and state and national security advisors or a whole host of presidents, presidents nixon, presidents ford, presidents reagan, george h.w. bush, presidents clinton and george w. bush. they all believe, all of those people have come together, regardless of their partisan labels or views, they all

believe this is in our national security interests and necessary if we are to show the world that we demand as much of ourselves as we ask of others. so as we press the iranian and north korean governments to come into compliance, this treaty demonstrates to all nations who have nuclear aspirations that we are willing to live by the rules, that nonproliferation of nuclear weapons is not an empty wish but a national policy that is in our national interest and the interests of the world. that our willingness to accede to overside and monitoring of our nuclear weapons and facilities, our willingness to reduce our nuclear arsenal in the interest of global security and our willingness to cooperate with willing partners is part and parcel of american policy. it is what we believe is right, what we will live by, and what

we will demand of all nations. i hope that with respect to global nuclear security that we can see clear to be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. some have suggested in this chamber we can't do that. we certainly can. we can ratify start and continue to press iran and north korea. you know, this is the one issue that i would hope that we -- and we certainly do in some respec respects, certainly in some of our leadership on the committee and senator lugar and others -- but it is the one place that the senate has always enjoyed a bipartisan effort. put the country forward first in the eyes of all those in the nation -- in the world, i should say, and understand on -- there is no division. it was senator vandenberg, a republican from michigan, who once famously said -- quote -- "to me, bipartisan foreign

policy means a mutual effort to unite our official voice at the water's edge." he went on to say -- quote -- "it does not invoke the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. in a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage." sadly, mr. president, i believe the efforts by some to derail start are politically motivated, putting partisan advantage ahead of national security. nothing that protects us from the spread of nuclear weapons should be politically motivated, not in this brave, new world. let's be clear. this treaty does not in any way diminish our commitment to keeping this nation safe and strong. it imposes no limits on current or planned ballistic missile defense programs by the united states. in fact, the president has committed -- committed -- to a

$10-year, $80 billion plan to modernize our nuclear infrastructure, which represents a 15% increase over current spending levels. the truth is that the united states retains overwhelming strike capacity under this treaty. under this treaty, we will retain 700 deployed launchers and 1,550 deployed warheads. let's keep in mind the overwhelming strike capacity this represents to assure any adversary of a devastating response to any attack on the united states or our allies, which is at the heart of our deterrent posture. in real terms, just to give us a sense of what this means, we will retain enough strike capacity to end civilization as we know it and destroy the entire ecosystem of the planet, far beyond the destructive power

of the weapons used in hiroshima and nagasaki. let's keep in mind that one standard nuclear warhead has an explosive force equal to a hundred thousand tons of conventional high explosives. the use of a thousand nuclear warheads has the destructive power of a hundred million tons of dynamite and the ability to darken this planet in a nightmare nuclear winter beyond our imagination. so, mr. president, any argument to the contrary, any argument that we do not retain an overwhelming nuclear strike capacity is, in my view, a political argument. and i believe that some who have come and said that we can't do this and then i hear in the midst of this discussion -- in the midst of this treaty debate i hear omnibus discussions. you know, i -- i cannot believe

that something that is about the national security of the united states, making sure that future generations of americans never face that nuclear winter, somehow gets lumped in with all of the other political conversations, i know that i have heard the leadership of the other side of the aisle say that their number-one goal is for this president to fail at all costs and make him a one-term president. but, my god, i thought that this had nothing to do with that. i thought this had nothing to do with that. i would hope that on an occasion like this, where we are talking about the nation's security, the ability to verify, the ability to understand what russia's nuclear weaponry is all about goes beyond the success or failure of this president. it's about the nation being able

to succeed. and finally, i -- i've heard a lot of talk about how late this is and it's almost christmas, and i certainly want to be with my family as much as anybody else. but i have to be honest with you, i want my family to be assured, i want the family of every new jerseyan that i represent, of o every american that i'm part of this united states senate, to have the security that they, in fact, will never face that nuclear winter. i -- i cannot accept that the statements that i've heard here -- and i wasn't going to include this in my remarks, but i've heard this several times and we are here so late, but, you know, the session -- this two-year session of congress has been so challenging because time and time again, colleagues, particularly on the other side of the aisle, have used a procedure in the senate, a right they have but it is a right that has clearly been abused, to filibuster. and what that means is that that which we grew up understanding as americans from the day we're in a classroom and we're taught about a simple majority rule,

well, here in the senate, that simple majority of representing the united states people, the 300 million people, is 51. but under the rules of the senate, when one senator wants to object to moving forward, ultimately we don't need that simple majority that americans have come to understand. we end up needing 60. and, of course, since neither party possesses those 6 on, we often end up -- 60, we often end up in a stalemate of being able to move forward. and that has been used time and time and time and time and time again. i'd have to do it over a hundred times just for the one session of congress, of the two years of the congress, to remind people why it is so late in the proce process. because time and time again, that process has been used to delay, even when that process has been broken and the 60 votes have been accomplished, there have been votes that soar in the

80 or 90 percentile of the members in this body voting to support the proposition but the time was killed. it's the time not of the senate, it's the time of the american people. so we are here today at a time -- and then i have to hear some of my colleagues in the midst of a debate about a nuclear treaty, understanding that we are trying to prevent and to verify the possibility that weapons get out of the hands of those who have the authority of them, among other reasons to have this treaty, and talk about omnibus. well, i -- i just find it beyond my imagination, especially when everything that my colleagues who are railing about on that, are part of asking for hundreds of millions of dollars in earmarks in the omnibus and then come and say, "oh, this is a terrible thing and the treaty's being brought up at the same

time" and somehow we shouldn't be able to move this treaty because of that issue, even though what they rail against is what they have blatantly participated against. this issue's too important, too important, to be wound up in that. so, madam president, in the end, the purpose of this treaty and of u.s. efforts to thwart other nations from going nuclear is to ensure that future generations will not live with the specter of nuclear winter and the destruction of civilization as we know it. we have an opportunity to move, and i would hope move quickly, to do what is right to ratify start and lead the world by example. and by leading the world by example, then you can also make the demands on the rest of the world to make sure that they obey and agree and ultimately concur and ultimately live by the same example. that's our opportunity and

that's an opportunity we should not lose. with that, madam president, i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. kerry: madam president, i want to thank the senator from new jersey. he is a valuable member of our committee, diligent, and articulate on these issues and i really appreciate the comments that he made, particularly reinforcing the comments about the delay. i just want to remind colleagues that earlier the senator from arizona mentioned that, you know, we -- it sort -- it's sort of unfair doing this at the same time, dual tracking, that we're doing something else, so i just want to remind colleagues, he said start i was completed sort of on its own, freestanding. and i just want to correct the record on that. start i did not, in fact, go through freestanding. on the same day that the senate

held the cloture vote on the treaty on start i, it also -- and also voted on two amendments, i might add on the same day related to the treaty, it also voted on the final passage of the tax bill. it managed to do two things at the same time. the following day the senate voted on another amendment related to the treaty. it also agreed on that day to the conference report on interior appropriations, it passed the d.c. appropriations bill, that's two separate items, and it debated and held two roll call votes on the foreign operations bill. so that's four separate bills and items that were dealt with at the same time that they were dealing with the start i treaty. and -- and the following day it had the final passage on the start treaty, about four days, four days plus and a half, i think. also just remind folks, i should have reminded the senator from texas of this, 13 times

colleagues came on the other side of the aisle to senator lugar and asked him to slow town the process of the legislation piece of the treaty because of the needs to work on the modernization. and we worked on it. we did that. and, again, colleagues came to us and suggested way back last summer, we were prepared to move the treaty out of committee so that we wouldn't wind up in this situation and guess who came to us and said, oh, no, no, no, it would be better if we had a little more time. our friends on the other side of the aisle said, please don't to that vote, i think it would be better for the treaty if we kind of took our time. so we provided another six weeks to file questions, get answers, work on modernization, pull people together and -- and, frankly, it was a constructive process. i'm not suggesting that it didn't provide some benefits. but we accomodated a request to slow it down to meet the needs of our friends on the other side

of the aisle. and then subsequently when there were potential complaints that it would be politicizing the united states senate and this treaty to have the vote and this debate that we're having now before the election, we could have done that. but we didn't want treaty to get caught up in the election and election process. so, once again, we voluntarily delayed the process to meet and accommodate some of the concerns of colleagues on the other side of the aisle. so then when we come back after the election, all of a sudden, oh, my gosh, we can't do in the lame-duck, we have to do it down the road. one colleague came to defend the people's rights of those who ant even senators. they're not senators. they may have been elected in this election, but they haven't taken part in the year and a half long effort of preparing to deal with this treaty. every senator here has.

all 100 of us walked up to the well, raised our hands and swore to uphold the constitution of the united states, and that constitution gives us the specific responsibility of advice and consent on a treaty. that is why we're here at this moment. now, if i had my druthers, we'd have been here weeks ago, but there was always a filibuster, always a delay, always some long period of -- longer period of time that some other piece of legislation was taking. i think it's really important for colleagues to sort of be honest about that. the -- you know, we've had 125 cloture motions since january of 2009. as i mentioned earlier, that's as many cloture motions as has been filed between 1919 and 1974, between world war i and the vietnam war, that's how many cloture motions we've had filed since last year alone.

in addition, the republicans came back to the minority in 2007 and we've had to file 264 cloture motions to end the filibuster since 2007. that averages out to 66 per year. in the first 44 years of the existence of this filibuster rule, it was only used about once a year. for 44 years it was used once a year. in the last few years it's been used 66 times a year. that's why we're here and that's why we're delayed. and i, personally, look forward when we return next year to seeing us adjust that rule. i want to respect the rights of the minority. because i know that that's what the founding fathers intended. but nobody intended that we have to vote twice to get to a bill.

filibuster on the motion to proceed, filibuster on the substance. it simply doesn't make sense and the american people i don't think supports it. and i think it negates the fundamental concept of majority rule. i'm willing to take my lumps, but i think there's a way to not necessarily undo it completely. i might add since president obama took office last year, the senate has had roll call votes on 62 nominations. of those 62 nominations 27 were confirmed with 90 votes or more. 23 were confirmed with 70 votes or more. that means that of the 62 nominations fully 60 -- 60 of them were confirmed with more than 70 votes. over 80% of the nominations that we've taken votes on have passed

with overwhelming support and almost all of those votes, many of them, anyway, took place only after this extraordinary lengthy delay. many of these nominations sat on the calendar for over 100 days while people waited for the united states senate to act. on average the senate has taken more than five times longer to confirm a circuit court nomination after it was favorably reported by the judiciary and so forth. i don't want to chew up all our time going through that, but the record ought to read really fundamentally clear that, you know, nobody's rushing anything here. the start treaty debate, the original start treaty began on september 28, 1992, and the amendments were proposed as early as the first day of the debate. they were debating amendments. there were two votes on amendments on the second day of debate and on the third day there were three amendments and

they ratified the treaty. so, madam president, we ought to be able to move here. now, i know another colleague wants to speak. i just want to add a couple of thoughts quickly on -- on the subject of the tactical nukes very quickly. a number of senators have expressed concern about why this treaty doesn't deal with tactical nuclear weapons and all of us would agree -- i mean you have to acknowledge upfront there is a sort of asymmetry, an imbalance between the number of tactical weapons that the russians have and have deployed and what we have. but you have to remember that -- that -- that first we needed to replace the original start agreement in order to get verification measures back into place in order to take the steps then necessary to go to the next tier. and secretary clinton and secretary gates explained for the record -- quote -- "a more ambitious treaty that addressed

tactical nuclear weapons would have taken a lot longer to complete adding significantly to the time before a successor agreement, including the verification measures, could enter into force following start's e expiration in 2009." their fundamental judgment was, yeah, we want to get there, but start, itself, helps you get there. and if we sit without those verification measures in place that come with start, you make it much harder to actually reach the agreement you're rieg to get to on the -- agreement you're trying to get to on the tactical. the agreement said revitalize the cooperation on arms control and that will empower you subsequently to be able to achieve your goal. now, that's not something that the obama administration dreamed up. i want to emphasize that to our colleagues on the other side of the aisle. the very respected former

secretaries of defense, secretary bill perry and secretary jim schlesinger were part of a bipartisan commission and they reported that -- that the first step they thought necessary was to deal with this. they knew that nuclear tactical weapons were an issue. but they also knew that our military leaders made it clear they didn't need actual parity in those weapons. secretary gates and admiral mullen both stated in response to a question for the record, this is a -- quote -- "because of the limited range, that is of the tactical weapons, and very different roles from those played by strategic nuclear forces, the vast majority of russian tactical nuclear weapons could not directly influence the

strategic nuclear balance between the united states and russia." and donald rumsfeld told the foreign relations committee in 2002 -- quote -- "i don't know that we would ever want to have symmetry between the united states and russia. their circumstances are different and their geography is different." what they're referring to is the vast gulf of the atlantic ocean and western europe that is between russia and us and the whole original tactical decisions of russia in terms of warsaw pact versus nato that existed for so many years and of course the cold war. i don't want to be mistaken by my colleagues on the other side. yes, we want to limit russia's nuclear tactical weapons. yes. but a desire to limit those tactical weapons is not a reason to reject the start treaty. frank miller, who was a senior n.s.c. staffer in the bush

administration testified to the armed services committee on ju july 27 -- quote -- "i believe this treaty is properly focused on the strategic forces of both sides. the tactical forces are clearly a political and military threat to our allies, but i think throwing this treaty away because we haven't gotten our hands on the tacticals is not the way to approach this. i think we have to go after the tacticals separately." and that is exactly what president obama, vice president biden, secretary clinton, and the rest of our military establishment want to do, but they want the start treaty as the foundation on which to build that effort to try to secure something in terms of tactical weapons. i think we should pursue a treaty on tactical nuclear weapons and -- and one that can give us adequate transparency about how russia -- how many they have and that ultimately reduces that number.

now, let me say to my colleagues on the other side, that is precisely why we put into the resolution of ratification declaration 11 which says -- quote -- "the senate calls upon the president to pursue, following consultation with allies, an agreement with the russian federation that would address the disparity between the tactical nuclear stockpiles of the russian federation and of the united states and would secure and reduce tactical nuclear weapons in a verifiable manner." madam president, we address the issues of tactical nuclear weapons and it wasn't an oversight. it was a calculated tactical decision to lay the foundation, renew the relationship with russia, renew our arms control understandings and lay the foundation to be able to reach an agreement. and that's what secretary gates said when he testified to the armed services committee on

june 17. he said, "we will never get to that step of reductions of tactical weapons with the russians on tactical nukes if this treaty on strategic nuclear weapons is not ratified." secretary gates, appointed by president bush said clearly if we don't ratify this treaty, we don't get to the treaty on tactical nuclear weapons. so i think the imperative could not be more clear. the eastern european leaders see this the same way and they, afterall, are the ones more directly threatened by those weapons. and poland's foreign minister wrote on november 20 -- quote -- "our nato allies see new start as a necessary stepping stone to future negotiations with russia about reductions intact kal nuclear arsenals and a prerequisite for the successful revival of the treaty on conventional forces in europe."

the secretary of general of nato said the same thing. he said we need transparency of short-range tactical nuclear weapons in europe. this is a key concern for our allies, but we cannot address this disparity until the new start treaty is ratified. i hope our colleagues will stand with our allies and stand with common sense and ratify this treaty so that we can get to the issue of tactical nuclear weapons. i yield the floor. mr. dorgan: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: madam president, first of all, let me say that there are big issues and small issues, some of substantial consequence, others of minor importance that are debated here on the floor of the senate. this is one of those big issues, one of significant importance not just to us, but to the world. and while we get involved in a lot of details in this discussion, the questions to be

resolved in all of the efforts that are made here dealing with nuclear weapons is will we be able to find a way to prevent the explosion of a nuclear weapon in a major city on this planet in a way that will kill hundreds of thousands of people? the answer to that question comes from efforts about whether we are able to stop the spread of nuclear weapons to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and rogue nations and then begin to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. let me read for a moment from "time" magazine in 2002. it refers to something that happened exactly one month after 9/11, 2001, the terrible attack that occurred in this country by terrorists that murdered over 3,000 americans. one month later -- october 11, 2001 -- something happened, and it was described in "time"

magazine because it wasn't readily known around the rest of the country when it happened. let me read it. "for a few harrowing weeks last fall" referring to october 2001, "a group of u.s. officials believed that the worst nightmare of their lives, something even more horrific than 9/11, was about to come true. in october an intelligence alert went out to a small number of government agencies, including the energy department's top secret nuclear emergency search team, based in nevada. the report said that terrorists were thought to have obtained a ten-kiloton nuclear weapon from the russian arsenal and planned to smuggle it into new york city. the source of the report was a mercurial agent code name dragon fire who intelligence officials believed was undetermined reliability. but dragon fire's claim tracked a report from a russian general twhaobld his forces were -- who believed his forces were missing a ten-kiloton nuclear device.

detonated in lower manhattan, a ten-kiloton nuclear bomb would kill about 100,000 civilians and irradiate 700,000 more, flattening everything, everything for a half a mile in diameter. and so, counterterrorists investigators were on their highest alert. it was brutal, continuing to quote, a u.s. official told "time" magazine. it was also a highly classified and closely guarded skrefplt and under the aegis of the white house counterterrorism security group, part of the security council suspected nuke was kept secret so as to not panic the people of new york. senior f.b.i. officials were not even in the hraoup. former -- loop. former mayor giuliani said he was never told about the threat. in the end, the investigators found nothing and concluded that dragon fire's information was false. but few of them slept better.

they had made a chilling realization. if terrorists had in fact managed to smuggle a nuclear weapon into a city, there was almost nothing anyone could have done about it. madam president, here are the number of nuclear weapons on this planet. the story i just read was about one small nuclear weapon, a russian ten-kiloton nuclear weapon. there are roughly 25,000 nuclear weapons on this earth. i just skraoeubtd appoe -- i just skraoeubtd seizure that occurred over one ten-kiloton weapon missing, threatened to be detonated in one of our larger cities. russia has about 15,000 nuclear weapons, the united states about 9,000, china a couple hundred, france several hundred, britain several hundred, and the list goes on.

the question is: what do we do about all of that? will we just waltz along forever and believe somehow, some way we'll be lucky enough to make sure nobody ever explodes a nuclear weapon in the middle of a city on this earth? because when they do, all life on this planet is going to change. what do we do about that? well, my colleagues say let's ratify the start treaty. i fully agree. and there is so much more that needs to be done beyond that. the work that has been done here on the floor of the senate by my colleague senator kerry and senator lugar is extraordinary work. senator lugar is here, and i don't know that he's been here previously. people are tired of my doing it, but it is so important. i have always kept in my desk a small piece of the wing of a backfire bomber that was given to phaoefplt senator lugar is responsible for this. this is the piece of a wing of a

backfire bomber. no, we didn't shoot it down. senator lugar didn't shoot it down. nor did our air force. we sawed the wings off the pwofrplt how did that happen? something called nunn-lugar, a program called nunn-lugar, which we actually paid to destroy a soviet union bomber. makes a whole lot more sense than being engaged in warfare to shoot down this bomber. i have -- and i won't show -- in the desk a hinge from the missile in the ukraine that was in a missile silo with a nuclear weapon on its tip aimed at the united states of america. it's not there anymore. sunflower seeds grow where a missile once resided. nunn-lugar. the american taxpayers. and especially importantly arms negotiations that work. we know this works. this isn't a theory. we know it works to reduce the number of nuclear weapons by engaging in negotiations and

discussions. i have heard lots of reasons for us not to do this. too soon, not enough information, not enough detail, more need for consideration. all of those things. i have always talked about mark twain, who said the negative side of a debate never needs any preparation. so i understand it's easy to come to the floor saying don't do this. don't do this. but it is those who decide to do things that always prevail to make this a safer country when you're talking about weapons policies, nuclear weapons, and arms reductions. so let me describe why we should do this. first of all, this was negotiated over a long period of time with the interest of our country at heart and with substantial negotiation. i was on the national security working group here in the senate, and we sat down in

secret briefings on many occasions having the negotiators themselves come back and say to us here's what we're doing. let us explain to you where we are in the negotiations. i mean, this didn't emerge out of thin air. all of us were involved and had the ability to understand what they were doing. so they negotiated a treaty. and we needed to negotiate that treaty because the circumstances that exist now are that we -- we do not have, given the previous treat kwrao*esy's -- previous treaty's expiration, we do not have the capability to know what the other side is doing, inspection capability. let me describe who supports this treaty. every former secretary of state now living, republican and democrat, kissinger, shultz, baker, eagleburger, christopher, albright, powell, rice, all of them support this treaty. they say it's the right thing

for this country, it's important for us to do. now let me put up, especially the comment of henry kissinger, because he said it this way. he said i recommend ratification of this treaty. he said it should be noted i come from the hawkish side of this debate, so i'm not here advocating these measures in the abstract. he said i try to build them into my perception of the national interest. i recommend ratification of this treaty. i just mentioned my colleague, senator lugar. he had a partnership with our former colleague, senator nunn, and it's properly called nunn-lugar. we've talked a lot about it. i talked about it many times on the floor of this senate. it's one of the things we should be so proud of having done. i know senator lugar, i'm sure -- i've not talked to him about this, but i'm sure he regards it as one of the significant accomplishments of his career.

nunn-lugar program. as a result, the ukraine, kazakhstan and byelarus are now free of nuclear weapons. think of that. free of nuclear weapons. albania has no more chemical weapons. 7,500 nuclear warheads have been deactivated as a result of this program. the weapons of mass destruction that have been eliminated, 32 ballistic missile submarines, 1,400 long-range nuclear missiles, 906 nuclear air to surface missiles, 155 bombers that carried nuclear weapons. well, it isn't hard to see the success of this. and i've shown before and will again the photographs of what nunn-lugar means and its success. you can argue with a lot of things on this floor, but not photographic evidence, it seems to me. this is the explosion of an ss-18 missile silo that held a

missile with a nuclear warhead aimed very likely at an american city. well, in explosion was, but that missile silo was detonated, explode, and the silo is gone, the missile is gone, the nuclear warhead is gone, and there are now sunflower seeds planted. it is such an important symbol of the success of these kinds of agreements. this photograph is about the nunn-lugar program, eliminating a typhoon-class ballistic missile submarine. we didn't track that in the deep waters of some faraway ocean and decide to engage it and succeed in the engagement. we didn't do that at all. we paid money to destroy this submarine. and i have the ground-up copper wire and a little vile in this desk from a submarine that used to carry missiles aimed at america. and here's an example of what happened under nunn-lugar.

dismantling a blackjack bomber. we paid to have that bomber destroyed. we didn't shoot it down; didn't have to. this agreement, this start agreement, admiral michael mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff -- i want everybody to understand this because there are some people coming to this floor saying from a military standpoint, this might leave us vulnerable, short of what we should have. the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff says -- quote -- "i, the vice chairman and the joint chiefs as well as our combatant commanders around the world stand silently behind this new treaty. having had the opportunity to provide our counsel, to make our recommendations and to help shape the final agreements, we stand behind this treaty, representing the best strategic interests of this country." and finally, with respect to the issue of funding, i want to make some points about that because i chair the subcommittee that

funds nuclear weapons here in the congress, and there's been some discussion that there's not ample funding here for modernization of our current weapons programs. and that is just not the case. it's just not true. let me describe where we are with respect to funding. let me predicate that by saying linton brooks was the former nssa administrator. he ran the program dealing with nuclear weapons, the nuclear weapons complex. here's what he said: "start is a good idea on its own merits, but i think for those who think it's only a good idea if you only have a strong weapons program, this budget ought to take care of that." he said "coupled with the outyear projections, it takes care of the concerns about the complex and it does very good things about the stockpile. and it should be -- it should keep the labs, the national laboratories healthy." he says -- quote -- "i would have killed for this kind of

budget. i would have killed for this kind of budget." that's the man who understands the money that's needed to make sure our stockpile of nuclear weapons is a stockpile that you can have confidence in. so this notion that somehow there's an underfunding or a lack of funding for the nuclear weapons life extension programs and modernization programs is just sheer nonsense. let me describe what we have done. as i said, i chair the subcommittee that funds these programs. the president in his budget proposed robust funding. while most other things were held constant, very little growth, in many cases no growth at all, in some cases less funding than in the past, the president said for fiscal year 2011, he wanted $7 billion. for the life extension programs and modernization for the current nuclear weapons stock.

that's because people are concerned if we were to use our nuclear weapons, are we assured that they work. well, you know what, i don't mean to minimize that but the fact is we have so many nuclear weapons, as do the russians and others, that if one works, unfortunately, it would be a catastrophe for this world. in fact, if they are used, it will be a catastrophe. but having said that, the proposal was $7 billion. that was a 10% increase over the previous year. so then the president came out with a budget for the fiscal year we're now going to be in and he said, all right, in response to the people here in the senate -- there were some who were insisting on much, much, much more spending -- he said, all right, we did a 10% increase for this year on the programs to modernize our existing nuclear weapons stock and we will go to another 10% increase for the next year -- that's the year we're in now --

$7.6 billion. that's $600 million more than was originally planned, so you have a 10% increase, another 10% increase. and then i was out in north dakota traveling down some county highway one day and was listening on the news and they described the money from my appropriations committee was going to be increased by another $4 billion for the next five years. and i'm thinking, that's interesting, because i've -- nobody's told me about that. $4 billion added to this already 10% above, 10% above, now $4 billion more. and we have people coming to the floor who have previously talked about the difficulty of the -- of the federal debt, $13 trillion debt, $1.3 trillion annual budget deficit, choking and smothering this country in debt. they're saying, you know what? we don't have enough money, getting 10% and 10% increases but $4 billion more, still not

enough, we want more. and the people that run the place say, i'd have killed to get a budget like that. you know, someplace somebody has to sober up here in terms of what -- what these numbers really mean. i swear to you, if you -- if you play out the numbers for the next five years, the commitment this administration has made for the life extension programs and the modernization programs for our existing nuclear weapons stock, there is no question that we have the capability to certify a nuclear weapons program that is workable and we ought to have confidence in will work. i just -- i don't understand how this debate has moved forward with the notion that somehow this is underfunded. it is not at all. in fact, there is funding for buildings that have not yet been designed. we don't ever do that.

in fact, the money for the nuclear weapons program was the only thing that was stuck in in the last minute in the continuing resolution of the you know, all the other government programs, they are on a continuing resolution, which means they're being funded at last year's level, except -- except -- the nuclear weapons program. that extra money was put in in the continuing resolution. why? to try to satisfy those who apparently have an insatiable appetite for more and more and more spending in these areas. we're spending more than at any other time and so much more than anybody in the world has ever spent on these things. so nobody should stand up here with any credibility and suggest this is underfunded. it is not. it is not. the people who understand and run these programs know it is not and yet some people here are trying to shovel more money into -- shove more money into these programs for buildings that have never been designed

yet. we've never done that before. people know better than that. other issue. they say, well, this is going to limit our ability with respect to antiballistic missile systems. it is not. that's long been discredited. there's nothing here that's going to limit that. they say, well, but the russians, they put a -- they put a provision in that says that's the way they read it. yeah, they put that in the last one as well, the other start agreements as well. doesn't mean anything to us. it's not part of what was agreed to. there is nothing here that's going to limit us with respect to our antiballistic missile programsment -- programs to protect this country and to protect othersment i -- it i --t others. i -- it is -- it is just so difficult to think this is just some other issue. it is not. one day, one day somebody's going to wake up, if we're not smart and if we don't decide that our highest priority is to reduce the number of nuclear weapons and stop the spread of nuclear weapons, one day we all wake up and we read a head lin line -- a headline that someone

has detonated a nuclear weapon somewhere on this planet and killed hundreds of thousands of people in the name of a terrorist act. when that happens, everything about life on this planet is going to change. that's why it's our responsibility. we're the leading nuclear power on earth. we must lead in an area that -- i shouldn't raise this, but i will. i've been distressed for ten years at what happened in this senate on the comprehensive test ban treaty. this country never should have turned that down. we did. i mean, we're not testing but we still should have been the first to sign the treaty. but having -- having gone past that point, the question now is: will we decide to not be assertive and aggressive on behalf of arms control treaties that we have negotiated carefully, that have strong bipartisan support? will we decide that that's not important? i hope not. it falls on our shoulders here in the united states of america to lead the world. it's our job to lead the world.

on these issues. we've got to try to prevent the issues of korea and iran and rogue nations and the spread of others who want nuclear. we've got to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of those who would use them. and then we have to continue to find ways to reduce the number of nuclear weapons on this earth. my colleague just talked about tactical nuclear weapons. this doesn't involve tactical nuclear weapons, and i wish it did but it doesn't. but we've got to get through this in order to get to limiting tactical nuclear weapons. the russians have far more of them than we do. and the quicker we get to that point on negotiating tactical weapons, the better we are. i was just, again, in conclusion thinking about how easy it is to come to the floor of the senate and oppose. you know, the negative side just never requires any preparation. this is just the case. and mark twain was right. but abe lincoln once was in a

debate with douglas and douglas was -- was propounding a rather strange proposal that abe lincoln was discarding and he called it -- quote -- "as thin as a home a home homeopathic sos bathed in a pigeon that was starved to death." i belabor the point, but i'll tell you this, those who we've this is not in the interests of this country, those who believe we're not adequately funding our nuclear weapons stock, those who believe this is going to hinder our ability for an antiballistic missile system that will protect our country, i mean, that's as thin as the homeopathic soup described by abraham lincoln. it is just not accurate. this is bipartisan, it's important for the country, and we ought to do this sooner, not later. so let me conclude by saying, the work that's been done by my two colleagues, strong, assertive, bipartisan work that build on some very important --

rbledz on sombuilds on some vert work that was done for the last two decades, senator kerry, senator lugar, i don't know whether there will be a kerry-liewg her-lugar, but thera nunn lugar that's been so important to the security and safety of this world. and i hope that this is the next chapper ichapter in building bly block by block this country's responsibility to be a world leader in saying we want a twhoorld is safer by keeping -- world that is safer by keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of those who don't have them and then aggressively negotiating to try to reduce the nuclear weapons that now do exist. some months ago, i was at a place just outside of moscow where my colleague, senator lugar, has previously visited and that space just outside of moscow is devoted to the training and the security of nuclear weapons. i suspect senator lugar, because he knows a lot about this and has worked on it a long time, thinks a lot about those issues, as do i.

are we certain that these 25,000 nuclear weapons spread around the world are always secure? always safe? will never be subject to theft? are we -- well, the answer to that is no, but we're trying very hard. this treaty is one more step in the attempt that we must make to exercise that leadership responsibility that is ours. so my compliments to senator kerry and senator lugar and to all of the others who are engaged in this discussion and who work so hard and have done so for decades on these nuclear weapons issues and arms reduction issues. madam president, i yield the floor. madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from north dakota. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent to proceed as if in legislative session and as if in morning business for the purpose of processing cleared legislative -- for the purpose of clearing processed

legislative items. the presiding officer: is there objection? without objection, so ordered. mr. dorgan dorgan: just for the information of my colleague, i'll run through these unanimous consent requests and then be completed. i ask unanimous consent that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 678, h.r. 2142. the presiding officer: without objection. the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 67, h.r. 2142, an act to require quarterly performance assessments of government programs and so forth and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? withouwithout objection, senatel proceed. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the committee-reported substitute amendment be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table and any statement related to the bill be placed in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of calendar number 702, s. 3874. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: calendar number 702, s. 3874, a bill to amend the safe drinking water act to

reduce lead in drinking water. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask consent the bill be rea third time and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and that any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on judiciary be discharged from further consideration of h.r. 5809 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: h.r. 5809, an act to amend the controlled substances act to provide for takeback disposal of controlled substances in certain instances and for other purposes. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection, the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the substitute at the desk be agreed to, the bill as amended be read a third time and passed, the title amendment be agreed to, the motion to

reconsider be laid upon the table and any statements relating to the measure appear at the appropriate place in the record as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of s. 4036, introduced earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 4036, a bill to clarify the national credit union administration authority to make stabilization fund expenditures without borrowing from the treasury. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection the senate will proceed. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent the bill be read three times and passed, the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table with no intervening action or debate, and any statements related to the bill be placed in the record at the appropriate plates as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the following postal namings be discharged from the homeland security committee en bloc. s. 3592, h.r. 4602, h.r. 5133,

h.r. 5605, h.r. 5606, h.r. a56 a5655, h.r. 5877, and h.r h.r. . the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: further that the senate proceed to the immediate consideration of these bills, the immediate consideration of h.r. -- and the immediate consideration of h.r. 6392, which was received from the house and is at the desk en bloc. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: i ask unanimous consent that the bills be read three times and passed en bloc, the motions to reconsider be laid upon the table en bloc, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements relating to the bills be placed in the record at the appropriate place as if read. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: and, madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the senate now proceed to the consideration of s. res. 7202, which was submitted earlier today. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s senate resolution

702, recognizing the work and importance of special education teachers. the presiding officer: is there objection to proceeding to the measure? without objection. mr. dorgan: madam president, i ask unanimous consent that the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, and the motion to reconsider be laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. dorgan: and finally, madam president, i understand there is a joint resolution at the desk and i ask for its first reading. the presiding officer: the clerk will read the title of the joint resolution for the first time. the clerk: senate joint resolution 42 to continued the continuing resolution until february 18, 2011. mr. dorgan: madam president, i now ask for a second reading in order to place the resolution on the calendar under the provisions of rule 14 and i object to my own request. the presiding officer: objection having been heard, the joint resolution will receive its second reading on the next

legislative day. mr. dorgan: madam president, that concludes the unanimous consent requests. i yield the floor. a senator: madam president? the presiding officer: the senator from mississippi. mr. wicker: do i understand that the senate is back on general debate on the start ratification? the presiding officer: that's correct. mr. wicker: i thank the president. madam president, america had an election on november 2, and let me begin by reminding my colleagues that the american people spoke loud and clear in november and chose a far different team to serve in washington, a vastly -- washington. a vastly different leadership will soon take over in the house of representatives and a substantially different group of senators has been chosen by the american people in the election on november 2.

it -- it seems that the leadership of this lame-duck senate is determined in the waning days of 2010 to pack quite a bit of legislation that normally is -- is debated over a considerable amount of time into just a few days. not only this start treaty that we're on today, but also don't ask, don't tell, supposedly the majority has not given up on -- on the "dream" act which would provide amnesty to many illegal immigrants, also the massive omnibus appropriation bill with 2,000-plus pages. and so we -- we're here at this time realizing that if the congress doesn't act, the government will run out of money on saturday. i assume a short-term c.r. is going to be done to address that, but certainly it would be

much easier if we passed what the minority leader suggested today and that is a reasonable short-term resolution so that the government can be funded, that the lights can stay on until mid-february and the newly elected congress, the people's choice, can best decide these great issues that are facing our country. i did find it interesting a few moments ago to hear the chairman -- the distinguished chairman of the foreign relations committee scold the senate about the number of filibusters that we have supposedly had in this term of congress. i believe the statement was made that we've had more filibusters in -- in the last two years than we've had in decades or since world war ii or words to that

effect. madam president, here's why that statement is only true in a very technical sense. here has been the practice of the majority during the three years that i have been in the senate and from what i understand much longer before that. typically the majority leader of the united states senate brings a bill to the floor of the senate, he immediately fills the amendment tree, that is, he offers all of the amendments that are allowed under the parliamentary rules of the senate. that's called filling the tree so that no one has an opportunity to file amendments and then the majority leader files cloture on that bill. and technically, yes, madam president, that is considered a filibuster, but i do not believe that's what most american people consider a filibuster and a delaying tactic with excessive

speech when they hear the term filibuster. so let's be clear that there's been an unusual practice at least in the last three or four years, calling the bill up, filling the tree, filing for cloture and that goes down in history as a filibuster. now, with all that we have to do and all that our leadership has determined that we must consider during these waning days of december 2010, we must divide our attention between an expensive 2,000-page omnibus bill and consideration of a very complicated arms control agreement. and it's that agreement that i will discuss today. but it is hard to imagine a more important, a more serious issue than our nuclear weapon stockpile. and my view -- in my view such a debate deserves our undivided attention, but we will pivot in

a few moments to -- to moving to the omnibus bill. but i want to take what time i have at this point to begin sharing my concerns over this treaty and the effect it might have on national security. article 2 of the constitution requires that the united states senate ratify any treaty the president signs with a two-thirds vote. i take this responsibility very seriously as i'm sure all of my colleagues do. this responsibility requires us to review any proposed treaty to ensure that it is in the national interest of the united states of america. as a member of the senate armed services committee, as a member of the foreign relations committee, i have participated in the review of this treaty to date. and while i appreciate the efforts of my chairman and my ranking member, i'm not convinced that the treaty in its current form is in the national

interest of the united states of america. and i might add, madam president, that i am not alone in this view. to hear debate on the floor from time to time today one would think that all of the learned authorities, all of the collected wisdom of the united states of america, present and past, are in favor of the hasty ratification of this treaty. and -- and i would point out that there is a wide variety of information out there and opinion that should be brought to the attention of members of the senate and of the american people. first of all, i would point out to my colleagues an op-ed by former secretary of state rice which appeared in the 2010 issue

of "the wall street journal," entitled new start, ratify with caveats. secretary rice is generally in favor of the direction that we're headed in the ratification of -- of the start treaty, but she does say that we need two caveats before ratification takes place. first, she states smaller forces make the modernization of our nuclear infrastructure even more urgent and she commends the valiant efforts, including senator jon kyl, to regain more robust modernization of our nuclear weapons. secondly the former secretary of state says that the senate must make absolutely clear that in ratifying this treaty the u.s. is not reestablishing the cold war link between offensive forces and missle defenses.

and she says that it is troubling that new start's preample is unclear in this respect. i -- i wonder if we do decide, as a senate, to move toward consideration of this treaty if we will be allowed to offer amendments to the preamble to address the concerns of our immediate past secretary of state. now, further i would commend to my colleagues a "wall street journal" op-ed. as my colleagues know and many americans know, mr. woolsey was -- has a distinguished record as a delegate at-large to the start and defense space

negotiations back during the mid-1980 as ambassador and chief negotiator for the conventional armed forces treaty in 1998 and 1991 and president clinton's director of central intelligence from 1993 to 1995. and so that bipartisan experienced former government official lists four concerns that he has with regard to the new start treaty. number one, he wonders about this administration's commitment to modernization. number two, he says it needs to be made clear that the united states in ratifying new start will not be limited at all in its -- and its missle defense he does not believe that has been taken care of. number three, director woolsey,

mr. clinton's director of central intelligence says that this treaty represents a step backward in the verification process between the united states and russia. and, finally, mr. woolsey sites the -- cites the need for a binding resolution on russian submarine-launched cruise missles. so i think information that members of the senate need to hear more about and need to consider. further, i would mention, madam president, two opinion pieces by steven g.redimaker, an assistant secretary of state from 2002 to 2006 in a "washington post" op-ed on friday, august 20, 2010, secretary radimaker

authored an opinion piece saying this is no way to approve the new start treaty. in -- in his opinion piece mr. radimaker said senate critics of new start have largely been cut out of the process. and i know this from personal experience, madam president as a member of the foreign relations committee. he goes on to say all but two republicans on the foreign relations committee formally asked the administration to share with them the negotiating record of the treaty. they were told to know even though there is precedent for accommodating such requests. a simple request that could have been accommodated perhaps could have allayed some of the concerns that we have. now, in another op-ed mr. radamaker on december 2 of

this -- of december 10 of this year said start won't stop nuclear proliferation and he points out the claim that progress and the u.s.-russian arms control will help stop countries like iran from getting nuclear weapons isn't just an argument offered in new start, it's also one of the key premises underlying president obama's embrace of nuclear disarmament. there's just one problem according to mr. radamaker the notion that faster disarm yt will lead to greater progress of nuclear proliferation has never added up. and then further, i would quote from a september 8, 2010, "wall street journal" piece by john bolton, a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute an former undersecretary of state for arms control and international security from 2001

to 2005. secretary bolton robes the treaty's -- observes the treaty's concern to outmoated limits on weapons launchers which would require the united states, but not russia to dismantle existing delivery systems is a problem according to mr. bolton. he goes on to say this could cripple -- this could cripple america's long-range conventional war led delivery capability while constraining our nuclear flexibility equipment we will pay for this -- flexibility. we will pay for this in the future conflicts entirely unrelated to russia. so i would say to my colleagues the jury is still out on this issue. these are experienced public

servants and experts and -- and current observers of the international scene and the nuclear negotiation process. and they have given us words that give me pause, madam president. and make me think that there's no reason to rush into a hasty ratification of this treaty. with regard to the process, hearings first started in may of this year. i was one of the foreign relations committee members to request nine witnesses we believed were important and necessary to cover the extent of our concern