At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing prior to the Congressional recess, Sen. Angus King (I-ME) spoke about the United States’ nuclear power development.
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00:00Senator King, you are recognized for any remarks. Thank you, Madam Chair. I think
00:06it's important to emphasize at the beginning of this hearing why nuclear
00:11weapons. Why is it that we have this focus on your production of nuclear
00:17weapons and also on our strategic delivery platforms? It's because of
00:22deterrence. The whole idea of nuclear weapons is to never have to use them,
00:27and they will never have to be used as long as our adversaries are convinced
00:34that if they use nuclear weapons first they will pay a terrible and unacceptable
00:38price. So I think it's important that we remember the fundamental purpose of this
00:44whole enterprise, which is to make this country safer and to avoid the use of
00:51these unthinkable weapons. Every year or every probably every 12 months or so
00:57I speak at the launch of a new destroyer at Bath Iron Works in Maine, and my
01:02remarks always have a similar theme, which is we're building these ships in the
01:06hopes that they will never have to be used in conflict, because having them
01:10there, having the capability that you're responsible for developing, is what keeps
01:15this country safe and avoids the unthinkable, which is a nuclear
01:20confrontation. I am concerned, and I'm sure we'll examine these questions during the
01:26course of the hearing with issues of staffing, whether it's at Hanford or at
01:32the National Labs or in NSA generally, because we can't solve these problems. We
01:40can't meet the demands that are being placed upon you without the people, and I'm
01:45worried that we've lost in the past few months some pretty important people, some
01:50very capable people, and I want to be sure that the expertise that those
01:54people carried with them is being transferred to new staff coming on, and that we're
02:02adequately staffing various departments and bureaus in order to be sure that we
02:09can meet the demands. We're now well into the modernization of the nuclear triad with
02:15missiles, with the bomber, with the new Columbia-class submarine, but they have to
02:22have the weapons in order to make them the effective deterrent, and that's where
02:25NSA comes in. So I'm looking forward to the hearing, and I hope you will address
02:30issues of staffing and adequacy of staffing, because I am concerned that that
02:35could hobble our ability to meet the very high level of demand that we have in the
02:41nuclear modernization project. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair.