This afternoon, during a mark up held by the House Armed Service’s Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY) offered an amendment to H.R. 2500, the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2020. The amendment would reverse Democrats’ efforts to handcuff the Pentagon on low-yield nuclear weapons, among other misguided provisions they included in the subcommittee mark. 

The leading Republican on the subcommittee, Representative Mike Turner (R-OH), said in his opening remarks that unless Rep. Cheney’s amendment was adopted, no Republicans would vote for the Strategic Forces mark. Democrats forced this break from bipartisan tradition by including provisions that hurt America’s national defense. The amendment was voted down by a vote of 8-10 along party lines and the mark passed through the subcommittee on a partisan basis. Video of Rep. Cheney offering the amendment and the amendment’s full text can be found below:

REP. CHENEY: We’ve worked very hard together on this subcommittee to advance our nation’s most important national security initiatives and the members of the committee have been doing so since it was formed. We’ve sat together in countless meetings, hearings, intelligence briefings. Every member on this subcommittee knows the threats we face and the investments that our adversaries have made, and are continuing to make, in weapons systems that threaten our homeland and our citizens. 

Historically, we have always been able to work in a fully bipartisan fashion. And yet, as we meet here this afternoon, the majority seems determined to end that bipartisan tradition. My colleagues and I have significant concerns with this mark, and the damage it will do to our nation’s strategic forces and to our national security. I’m offering an amendment today that will strike the provisions that make this bill a partisan, and frankly dangerous proposal, and instead return us to the bipartisan way in which we’ve dealt with the most serious threats facing our nation. 

My amendment first would restore the authority of the Department of Defense to deploy the low-yield variant of the SLBM, the W76-2 warhead. Our adversaries are developing and deploying low-yield nuclear weapons, and the credibility of our deterrents requires that the United States have a proportional response available to discourage the potentially devastating Russian miscalculation if they attempted to escalate to de-escalate. As a bipartisan group of members wrote just last year, “low-yield weapons would raise the bar to limited first use by convincing Russia that the risks of such use far outweigh any possible security benefit.”  

Low yield weapons are critical to our security because they give us a credible deterrent. Russian confidence that were they to strike we would have the capability and the will to respond in a proportional manner makes such a strike less likely not more likely.
 
My amendment also reinstates the STRATCOM requirement validated by experts on the Nuclear Weapons Council that the United States must produce at least 80 plutonium pits per year by 2027. As my colleague from South Carolina, Mr. Wilson, spoke so eloquently yesterday, and his work tirelessly on behalf of this issue, we must ensure that this requirement is met. The NSA STRATCOM Commander and the Nuclear Weapons Council have all confirmed our national requirement to ensure the reliability and surety of our nuclear stockpile is that we produce at minimum 80 new plutonium pits per year.
 
This committee cannot responsibly fulfill our obligations by forcing our nation’s strategic forces to operate with pits, some of which will soon be 100 years old. Hoping for the best when it comes to our nation’s strategic forces is indefensible.
 
My amendment also removes an underlying provision in the mark that would prevent the DOD from taking any action to withdraw the United States from the Open Skies Treaty. We do not say here today, or with this amendment, that we should withdraw from the treaty. We would note, however, that the Undersecretary of State recently testified that the Russians are currently in violation of this treaty, and former STRATCOM Commander General Heney testified that the Open Skies Treaty has become a critical component of Russia’s intelligence collection capability directed at the United States. I’ve seen a lot of irresponsible legislating during the last six months of the Democrat’s majority, but giving 34 other countries the right to overrule an American Secretary of State and Defense if they determine that the United States should withdraw from this treaty is a new low.

But giving 34 other countries the right to overrule an American Secretary of State and Defense, if they determine the United States should withdraw from this treaty, is a new low. It is also a flagrant violation of our sovereignty and our Constitution. Finally, my amendment removes a provision that would impose unconstitutional requirements and violate separation of powers with respect to the Nuclear Weapons Council. In closing Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment so that we can produce a mark that will make America more, not less safe. A mark that will give us the tools and resources to deter our adversaries. No matter how much we wish for a world where nuclear weapons were not necessary, that is not the world in which we live. Defending the American people requires that we maintain and modernize our strategic forces, so they continue to present a safe, clear and credible deterrent to all who wish us ill.
 
Without this amendment, Mr. Chairman, the underlying mark will send the opposite message to our adversaries: Keep moving forward with your destabilizing policies, because the Democratic majority in the House seems unwilling to do what is necessary to keep this nation safe. I urge my colleagues to adopt this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.