[Peace] FW: [Paaffiliates] Senate resumes new nukes debate

[Matt Reichel]

>From: "Elizabeth Fitzgerald" <bfitzgerald at peace-action.org>
>To: <paaffiliates at xmail.peace-action.org>
>Subject: [Paaffiliates] Senate resumes new nukes debate
>Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2004 10:52:08 -0400
>
>Today, begining at 2:30pm eastern, the Senate will resume debate on 
>amendments to the Defense Authorization bill.  All first degree amendments 
>have to be filed by 5pm today, but there will be no recorded votes until 
>Tuesday.
>The first vote on Tuesday will be on the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment to 
>eliminate funds to develop a new generation of nuclear weapons. Before the 
>vote, there may be up to 50 minutes debate in support of the 
>Kennedy-Feinstein amendment and 50 minutes in opposition. This vote is 
>likely to be very close.
>Please alert your members to call, fax, and/or email their senators to urge 
>them to support the Kennedy-Feinstein amendment to cut funds for new 
>nuclear weapons from the defense authorization bill (S. 2400).
>
>The most important senators are:
>Bill Nelson (Fla.)
>Evan Bayh (Ind.)
>Susan Collins (Maine)
>Olympia Snowe (Maine)
>Ben Nelson (Neb.)
>Gordon Smith (Ore.)
>Arlen Specter (Pa.)
>
>Below is a list of amendments organized into three catagories: pending 
>amendments, likely amendments and amendments already considered.  If you 
>would like a full list of amendments under consideration, please let me 
>know.
>
>Best,
>Beth
>Beth Fitzgerald
>Organizing Director
>Peace Action
>
>
>------------------------------
>Pending amendments
>------------------------------
>=============
>Nuclear weapons
>=============
>Sens. Feinstein (D-CA), Kennedy (D-MA), Reed (RI), Lautenberg and Feingold 
>have offered amendment No. 3263 to delete funds in the bill for R&D on the 
>nuclear bunker buster ($27.6 million) and advanced concepts ($9 million), 
>money that could be used for research on small nuclear weapons. The 
>Committee approved full funding for these two programs requested by the 
>Department of Energy. These weapons are not needed because the U.S. already 
>has 6,000 deployed nuclear weapons. Moreover, a U.S. decision to proceed 
>with a new generation of nuclear weapons will undercut non- proliferation 
>efforts.
>------------------------------------------------------
>Amendments that may be considered
>-------------------------------------------------------
>============
>Missile defense
>============
>There is likely to be one or more amendments dealing with the issue of 
>national missile defense. During Senate Armed Services Committee mark-up, 
>Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) offered an amendment to fence $550.5 million for 
>interceptors 21 - 40 pending completion of operational testing (the 
>amendment failed 14 -11, with all Democrats but Bayh (D-IN) voting for and 
>all Republicans and Bayh voting against). Sen. Reed (D-RI) offered an 
>amendment to require operational tests, at some undetermined point, for 
>missile defenses being fielded, and to require cost, schedule and 
>performance baselines for m issile defense programs. The amendment failed 
>by an identical vote. Sen. Levin (D-MI) offered but withdrew a third 
>amendment to transfer funding for interceptors 21-30 to homeland defense 
>and combating terrorism accounts.
>Some version or versions of these amendments are likely to be offered by 
>Sens. Levin and Reed. Their basic argument is that the planned national 
>missile defense system to be deployed later this year has not undergone any 
>realistic, operational testing and no such tests are planned for the 
>future. Thus there is no way to know whether the system to be deployed will 
>work.
>Sen. Boxer (D-CA) is expected to offer an amendment that would require the 
>Secretary of Defense to certify that the initial missile defense deployment 
>scheduled for this year can perform its mission as determined by 
>operationally realistic testing.
>Senator Bayh is likely to offer an amendment to require combat realistic 
>testing for the ground-based interceptors.
>==========================
>Selling missile defense technology
>==========================
>Sen. Allard (R-CO) may offer an amendment to make it easier for the U.S. to 
>sell missile defense technology to other countries by easing U.S. export 
>regulations on the sale or transfer of such technology. This step could 
>conflict with the Missile Technology Control Regime (MCTR), which calls 
>upon its 33 members to restrict their exports of missiles capable of 
>delivering weapons of mass destruction. Defensive missiles can be made into 
>offensive missiles. At a time when the U.S. is trying to discourage other 
>countries from obtaining missile technology that could be used to attack us 
>with weapons of mass destruction, the Allard amendment goes in the wrong 
>direction.
>========
>Plutonium
>========
>Sen. Bingaman (D-NM) has offered an amendment to require a report on the 
>efforts of the National Nuclear Security Administration to understand the 
>aging of plutonium in nuclear weapons.  It requires a study group of 
>scientists to be established to carry out a study to assess the efforts of 
>the National Nuclear Security Administration to understand the aging of 
>plutonium in nuclear weapons. In contracting for the performance of such 
>services, the Administrator shall seek to enter into that contract with the 
>study group of scientists that is affiliated with MITRE Corporation and 
>known as the JASON group. Not later than two years after the date of the 
>enactment of this Act, the Administrator would be required to submit to 
>Congress a report on the findings of the contractor on the efforts of the 
>Administration to understand the aging of plutonium in nuclear weapons.  
>The report shall include the recommendations of the contractor for 
>improving the knowledge, understanding, and application of the fundamental 
>and applied sciences related to the study of plutonium aging. The report 
>shall be submitted in unclassified form, but may include a classified 
>annex.
>======================
>Paying for the war in Iraq (2)
>======================
>Sen. Biden is expected to offer an amendment to eliminate tax cuts for the 
>wealthy to raise $25 billion to pay for the war in Iraq. His amendment is 
>similar to one he offered during consideration of the budget resolution.
>=====================
>Reporting on the war in Iraq
>=====================
>Senator Bayh is likely to offer amendment requiring the Pentagon to provide 
>a goals, objectives, milestones and strategy report on Iraq.
>=======================
>Reporting on the war on terror
>=======================
>Sen. Dayton (D-MN) has offered amendment No. 3203 to require monthly 
>reports to Congress on costs of Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Enduring 
>Freedom and other operations related to the war on terrorism.
>=================
>Contracting out in Iraq
>=================
>Sen. Dodd (D-CT) may offer an amendment to place a one-year moratorium on 
>the use of contractors for interrogations in Iraq, on transferring 
>prisoners into the custody of contractors and limiting contractor 
>involvement in U.S.-led combat operations. According to a May 5 story in 
>the Washington Post, there are at least 60 private security companies 
>employing 20,000 workers operating in Iraq. These contract employees are 
>involved in providing security (including security for the Coalition 
>Provisional Authority) and managing prisons. There is a lack of clarity 
>about the chain of command for private security forces and who is 
>responsible for disciplining employees involved in prison abuses. The 
>Committee bill contains several reporting requirements concerning military 
>contractors.
>=================
>Iraqi prison scandal (1)
>=================
>Senator Bingaman (D-NM) may offer an amendment to require the Pentagon to 
>provide semi-annual reports to Congress related to investigations of Geneva 
>Convention violations and data related to foreign detainees and detention 
>facilities. This amendment will assist in Congress's oversight 
>responsibilities without intervening in ongoing investigations.
>===================
>Iraqi prisoner scandal (2)
>================ ===
>Sen. Durbin (D-IL) may offer an amendment dealing with the prisoner abuses 
>at prisons in Iraq.
>====================
>Photos of returning coffins
>====================
>Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) is considering offering an amendment to modify the 
>Pentagon policy, which, until a recent and temporary exception, has barred 
>photographs of the coffins returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to the Dover 
>Air Force Base, citing family privacy issues. Others suspect that the 
>policy is designed to hide the painful costs of the war.
>==============================================================
>Reimburse families who purchased body armor for soldiers in Iraq or 
>Afghanistan
>==============================================================
>Sen. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Sen. Dodd (D-CT) are considering offering an 
>amendment to reimburse the families who have been forced to spend as much 
>as $1,500 for body armor for family members fighting in Iraq and 
>Afghanistan. Many soldiers did not have body armor when they entered Iraq.
>=============
>Iraq stabilization
>=============
>Sens. Kennedy (D-MA) and Leahy (D-VT) introduced amendment No. 3174 to 
>require the President to submit a report to Congress on the strategy of the 
>United States for stabilizing Iraq, including descriptions of the 
>President's efforts to involve NATO and the UN, to develop an Iraqi 
>security force, and an estimate of the troop requirements for the next five 
>years, including the percentage of reservists that will be required.
>===========================
>Strengthen Intelligence commission
>===========================
>An amendment could be offered to require the commission established by 
>President Bush on February 7 to study the intelligence failures concerning 
>weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to hold public hearings and to provide 
>a report to Congress and the public. The panel will be co-chaired by a 
>Democrat and a Republican: Former Sen. Chuck Robb of Virginia, and former 
>U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Laurence Silberman.
>====================
>Iraq authorization of force
>====================
>Sen. Byrd (D-WV) may offer an amendment to modify the original use of force 
>resolution in Iraq approved by Congress in October 2002 by stating that the 
>mission in Iraq is now one of stabilization, rather than preemption. The 
>amendment would emphasize that the United States must work with the United 
>Nations and our allies to accomplish the mission to transfer sovereignty to 
>the Iraqi people.
>==================
>Tracking injured soldiers
>===================
>Sen. Pryor (D-AR) introduced amendment no. 3264 to establish procedure for 
>tracking and care of members of the armed forces who are injured in combat.
>===================
>Bodies of service people
>===================
>Sen. Snowe (R-ME) introduce amendment No. 3270 to require family members or 
>designees to greet bodies of members of the armed forces killed in action 
>overseas upon the return to the United States at Dover Air Force Base in 
>Delaware.
>
>===========================================
>Encourage other nations to participate in peacekeeping
>===========================================
>Sen. Inhofe may offer an amendment to authorize the Secretary of State to 
>provide up to $100 million in equipment, supplies, services, training, and 
>funding assistance in FY 2005 to other nations in order to enhance their 
>preparedness (and willingness) to participate in international peacekeeping 
>efforts.
>============
>Contracting out
>============
>Sen. Kennedy (D-MA) may offer an amendment that Pentagon civilian employee 
>jobs cannot be contracted out unless there is a transparent public-private 
>competition process.
>
>---------------------------------------------
>Amendments (& a bill) considered
>---------------------------------------------
>=============
>Global clean-out
>=============
>Sens. Domenici (R-NM), Feinstein, Lugar, Biden, Alexander, Bingaman, Reed, 
>Akaka, Warner, Levin and Feingold's amendment No. 3192 to authorize a 
>program to clean up stockpiles of highly enriched uranium around the globe 
>that could be turned into nuclear bombs was adopted by voice vote on May 
>19. The proponents argue that current policies leave a significant gap 
>between the urgency of the threat from these materials around the globe 
>being stolen or sold and the U.S. government response. The danger that 
>nuclear weapons, or the materials and expertise needed to make them, might 
>fall into the hands of violent extremist groups is very real. The amendment 
>does not actually authorize funds annually for global clean-out and require 
>the DOE to establish an office to coordinate and rapidly remove nuclear 
>materials from the world's most at- risk facilities.
>==============================
>Contractors and terrorist organizations
>==============================
>Sens. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Clinton (D-NY), Corzine (D-NJ) and Feingold (D-WI) 
>amendment No. 3151 to deny terrorist funding and support by closing 
>loopholes allowing U.S. companies to do business with terrorist sponsoring 
>nations such as Iran was rejected 49 - 50 on May 19.
>====================
>Paying for the war in Iraq
>====================
>Sens. Warner (R-VA), Levin (D-MI) and Stevens (R-AK) amendment No. 3260 to 
>authorize the $25 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was 
>adopted 95 - 0 on June 2. The amendment included many more "strings" than 
>the Bush Administration requested. The Administration had submitted a 
>less-than-precise request for $25 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and 
>Afghanistan.
>=================
>DOE high level waste
>=================
>Sen. Graham (R-SC)'s amendment No. 3170 (and a Crapo perfecting amendment) 
>to strike section 3119 and authorize $350 million for cleanup was adopted 
>by voice vote on June 3.
>=================
>DOE high level waste
>=================
>Sens. Cantwell (D-WA), Hollings (D-SC), Murray (D-WA), Clinton (D-NY) and 
>Feinstein (D-CA)'s amendment No. 3261 to overturn the Committee vote on a 
>Graham amendment failed on a tie vote, 48 - 48, on June 3. During mark-up, 
>Sen. Graham (R- SC) successfully offered provisions to permit the 
>Department of Energy to reclassify high level radioactive wastes. If 
>enacted, this provision would permit the Department to abandon clean-up 
>efforts of millions of gallons of high-level nuclear waste next to drinking 
>water supplies in South Carolina. This language turns decades of law on its 
>head without the benefit of a single hearing in the traditional Committees 
>of jurisdiction, sets a terrible precedent for other states that are home 
>to either high-level waste inventories or disposal sites, and overturns a 
>recent District Court ruling in which DOE's attempt to reclassify HLW waste 
>was deemed unlawful under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982. The 
>legislation could also affect high level nuclear waste in Washington, Idaho 
>and perhaps New York.
>
>
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