U.S.-Russian Non-Proliferation Programs: Legislative Update and Talking Points
On Friday, December 7, the Senate passed its version of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2002 (H.R. 3338). The bill, which now goes into conference, included two pieces of legislation (see texts below) relevant to U.S. non-proliferation programs in Russia.
The first amendment (S.A. 2389) restores $46 million to the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (Department of Defense) that the Appropriations Committee cut earlier in the week.
Second, as part of the $20 billion emergency spending package added to the defense bill (S.A. 2348), U.S. non-proliferation programs (Department of Energy) in Russia receive a boost of $226 million.
House and Senate conferees will iron out differences between their respective defense bills this week, and much attention is expected to be devoted to how the emergency $20 billion will be allocated. While the $46 million restored to Nunn-Lugar stands a good chance of surviving (it brought the Senate bill up to the House bill level of $403 million), the fate of the extra $226 million for Department of Energy non-proliferation programs is uncertain.
Talking Points:
- Nunn-Lugar and other non-proliferation programs in the former Soviet Union seek to reduce the continuing threats to U.S. security posed by Russia’s massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and materials, and to redirect former Soviet weapons expertise into peaceful pursuits. In January 2001, the bipartisan Baker/Cutler panel concluded that these materials and expertise pose the most “urgent, unmet national security threat to the United States today.”
- U.S.-Russian non-proliferation programs have become even more important at the U.S. wages its war on terrorism because they offer the best way to prevent materials and expertise needed to make weapons of mass destruction from falling into the hands of terrorists.
- Furthermore, as the U.S. and Russia formalize the agreement between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin to carry out a new wave of bilateral nuclear reductions, U.S. non-proliferation programs will be instrumental in assisting Russia to safely dismantle its strategic assets, securely store and dispose of weapons-grade fissile materials from dismantled weapons, and verifying overall progress of the agreement.
- President Bush has vocally supported U.S.- Russian non-proliferation programs. In a November 1999 campaign speech, Bush pledged to “ask the Congress to increase substantially our assistance to dismantle as many of Russia’s weapons as possible as quickly as possible.”
- A November 13, 2001 White House fact sheet stated, “The United States is committed to strong, effective cooperation with Russia and the other states emerging from the former Soviet Union to reduce weapons of mass destruction and prevent the proliferation of these weapons or the material and expertise to develop them.”