Over at the Chain Reaction, our dear leader John Isaacs has compiled a very handy summary of the amendments offered to the Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which was considered on the House floor last Thursday and Friday. Below is an excerpt from John’s blog highlighting the nuclear weapons and missile defense amendments. For our review of the House Armed Services Committee (HASC) version of the bill, see here.
For the second year in a row, the House Rules Committee refused to allow a debate on an amendment offered by Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA) to wipe out the funding added by HASC to begin construction of an East Coast missile defense site. The Rules Committee also blocked an intriguing amendment offered by Rep. Rick Larsen (D-WA) that would have required NATO to foot half the bill for the B61 life extension program.
Stay tuned to this space and www.armscontrolcenter.org for looks at the Senate Armed Services Committee version of the FY 2014 NDAA (which was marked up last week) and the FY 2014 House Energy and Water Appropriations Bill (which will be marked up tomorrow, June 18).
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The numbers to the left of the permitted amendments are the numbers for floor votes The second number is the original Rules Committee number.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS-RELATED AMENDMENTS
Rejected 61-362 Floor amendment #22 – Missile defense: Holt (D-NJ) Rules amendment #40 to strike all of subtitle C of title II, the missile defense title, except section 237 (Iron Dome program).
Rejected 146-278 Floor amendment #23 – Missile defense: Polis (D-CO) Rules amendment #217 to reduce funding for Missile Field 1 at Fort Greely, Alaska, and for the advanced procurement of 14 ground-based interceptors.
Rejected 195-229 Floor amendment #33 – Spending to reduce nuclear weapons: Larsen (D-WA) for Cooper (D-TN) Rules amendment #136 to reinstate funding to comply with the New START Treaty that the Committee cut.
Approved by voice vote Floor amendment #148 – Cooperative Threat Reduction Program: Fortenberry (R-NE) Rules amendment #228 to develop a strategy to modernize the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program in order to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and related materials in the Middle East and North Africa region.
Approved 235-189 Floor amendment #3 – ICBM missile silos: Lummis (R-WY), Daines (R-MT), Kevin Cramer (R-ND) Rules amendment #115 to require the Pentagon to preserve currently active ICBM silos in warm status.
Approved 239-182 Floor amendment #21 – Cooperation with Russia: Turner (R-OH) Rules amendment #19 to require the President to convey to Congress the details of any proposed deals with the Russian Federation concerning the missile defense or nuclear arms of the United States.
GOP REFUSE TO ALLOW TO BE DEBATED: B61 nuclear weapon: Larsen (D-WA), Markey (D-MA), Blumenauer (D-OR) and Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) Rules amendment #89 requiring NATO to pay for 50% of the cost of the Life Extension Program for the weapon.
GOP REFUSE TO ALLOW TO BE DEBATED: Missile defense: Garamendi (D-CA), Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) Rules amendment #241 cutting $107 million for advanced procurement for 14 West Coast interceptors and reducing funding by $140.4 million for an East Coast missile defense.
GOP REFUSE TO ALLOW TO BE DEBATED: Nuclear weapons reductions: Quigley (D-IL) Rules amendment #104 to strike section 1054 that bars further arms reductions below the limits of the New START Treaty without Senate approval and limits the availability of funds to reduce strategic delivery vehicles below limits of the New START Treaty without Senate approval. A second Quigley Rules amendment #105 is a sense of Congress that the Secretary of Defense should submit the report required by section 1042(a) of last year’s bill, and that Congress should not limit funds to implement the New START Treaty contingent on the receipt of the report.
GOP REFUSE TO ALLOW TO BE DEBATED: Strategic nuclear submarines: Blumenauer (D-OR) Rules amendment #223 requiring a report on alternatives to the plan by the Navy to purchase 12 ballistic missile submarines.