Norton Makes Progress on Nuclear Disarmament in House Vote - July 19, 2006
Norton Makes Progress on Nuclear Disarmament in House Vote on Nuclear Warhead Dismantlement
July 19, 2006
Washington, DC-Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), who for more than a decade has introduced a bill for nuclear disarmament each session, today said that the House has moved in the direction of her bill by passing House Resolution 905, commending Kazakhstan on the 15th anniversary of the closure of the world's second largest nuclear test site and for its efforts on the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Norton introduced her bill, H.R. 1348, the Nuclear Disarmament and Economic Conversion Act (NDECA), at the beginning of the 109th Congress. The NDECA would require the United States to disable and dismantle its nuclear weapons when all other nations possessing nuclear weapons enact laws to do the same. NDECA further provides that when our nuclear weapons are dismantled, the resources used to support nuclear weapons programs would be diverted to our growing human and infrastructure needs, such as housing, health care, Social Security and the environment.
Norton said that both bills are particularly relevant now when there is worldwide concern about North Korea's ballistics missile tests two weeks ago, Iran's greater nuclear capability and raging war in the Middle-East. "All the while, Bush Administration policies have moved the world further and further away from peace and failed to build on efforts by Congress and other countries to lessen the nuclear threat," Norton said. "This country must lead the world community in redoubling efforts to push back the new surge of nuclear proliferation. Our country would be better able to dissuade other nations who aspire to become or remain nuclear powers if we ourselves took greater initiative in dismantling our own nuclear weapons program."
Norton, who is a member of the Prevention of Nuclear and Biological Attack Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee, based her bill on a ballot initiative approved by D.C. residents in 1993, redirecting resources used to support nuclear weapons programs to urgent domestic needs. More than a decade later, however, the problem is far more complicated than world nuclear disarmament. The Congresswoman said that the greatest threat today is from inadequately defended and guarded sites in many countries where there is enough material to make nuclear weapons and many opportunities for terrorists to secure nuclear materials. Astonishingly, because of the absence of presidential leadership, less nuclear material was seized in the two years following the 9/11 attacks than in the two years immediately preceding the attacks, according to a report, "Securing the Bomb: An Agenda for Action", May 2004. Norton said, "The lessons learned from Kazakhstan's progress, and the continuing terror threat in the wake of 9/11 should prompt the Bush Administration, now more than ever, to dramatically ramp up its efforts toward the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
The resolution approved yesterday notes that Kazakhstan inherited from the former Soviet Union more than 1,000 nuclear warheads, and the world's largest anthrax production and weaponization facility. However, since 1991 Kazakhstan has, in cooperation with the United States, dismantled these dangerous production facilities.