March 17, 2014

REP. TURNER: PUSH FOR NUKE WEAPONS CUTS

By ExchangeMonitor

The chairman of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee fired back at a plan to reduce government spending unveiled by Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) yesterday, calling a plan that would slash funding to maintain and modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent by $200 billion over 10 years “irrational.” With the support of 63 other House lawmakers, Markey formally announced a plan to spare healthcare programs and programs for seniors by cutting the nation’s nuclear weapons budget yesterday. “Congressman Markey should be more careful before irrationally proposing policies that would gamble with our national security,” Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio) said in a statement. “At a time when Russia and China are engaging in significant nuclear modernization programs and North Korea and Iran continue their illegal nuclear weapons programs, what Mr. Markey proposes amounts to unilateral disarmament of the U.S.”

At a press conference yesterday outside the Capitol, Markey ticked off a laundry list of projects he said should be killed. He urged the Joint Select Committee on Debt Reduction to eliminate funding for the Chemistry and Metallurgy Research Replacement-Nuclear Facility at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the Uranium Processing Facility planned for Y-12, and the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility under construction at the Savannah River Site as part of its plan to reduce government spending. The outlines of Markey’s plan had been laid out in a letter circulated over the last month on Capitol Hill to drum up support for his nuke-cutting agenda. Sixty-two other lawmakers signed on to the letter, including Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Jim McDermott (D-Wash.). “We know we need a strong military. But do we still need 5,000 nuclear weapons?” Markey said at the press conference. “The Berlin Wall has fallen, the Soviet Union has crumbled, the Cold War has ended, yet two decades later our nation still spends $50 billion every year on nuclear weapons. And there are proposals to spend up to $70 billion a year. … Our nuclear policy is the epitome of overkill.”

However, Turner emphasized that the commitments to modernize the nation’s nuclear deterrent, including NNSA facilities and warheads, came about during debate on the New START Treaty last year. “Our military leadership has been clear that the only way to gain further reductions to our nuclear stockpile, including those in the New START Treaty, is to modernize our nuclear deterrent,” Turner said. “President Obama agreed with that line of thinking during the New START Treaty debate, and has pledged additional funds to modernize our nuclear stockpile.”

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