'A New Arms Race Is A Race With No Finish Line': Tokuda Slams Pentagon Sentinel Missile Program

During a speech on the House floor on Wednesday, Rep. Jill Tokuda (D-HI) spoke about nuclear proliferation.

Transcript

00:00Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to join my colleagues and reinforce their warning and

00:09urgent call to action. Mr. Speaker, today we stand at a crossroads. The world is once

00:14again drifting toward a future where nuclear weapons are not just tools of deterrence,

00:19but urgent threats hanging over every human life. We cannot afford to look away, not when

00:24the lessons of the past are still very visible amongst us. Look to the people of the Marshall

00:29Islands, many of them living in my district, part of our Hawaii Ohana, whose lands became

00:36sacrifice zones in the name of power, entire communities displaced, generations scarred

00:42by radiation. The Bikini Atoll, once a paradise, became a proving ground for devastation. These

00:50were not just theoretical consequences, lines on paper, assumptions, equations. They were

00:55real. And they are very real still. The United States and its allies conducted 318 nuclear

01:02tests in the Pacific Islands. The people who lived on the islands lost their ancestral homes,

01:09now uninhabitable. And the people who were exposed to fallout were immediately sickened

01:14with ongoing long-term impacts for human health, including increased rates of birth defects, genetic

01:19disorders, and secondary cancers. The nuclear age taught us that while bombs may drop in seconds,

01:26their impacts stretched across centuries and generations. And now, instead of learning from

01:32history, learning from the mistakes of our past, we are poised to repeat it with greater risk,

01:38fewer safeguards, and far more at stake. Today, the United States, Russia, and China inch closer to an

01:44unrestrained three-way arms race, as we collectively spend well over a trillion dollars on updated and

01:51new nuclear warheads and means of delivery. Just one of these programs, as was mentioned,

01:57the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile will cost $141 billion, according to the Department of

02:04Defense. But keep in mind, that's not even the bottom line. Their cost estimates keep growing and

02:10growing. A new arms race is a race with no finish line. Let us be clear. No winners. Only losers in

02:20this race. And it doesn't have to be this way. We must urgently renew and expand nuclear arms control

02:27treaties with both Russia and with China. The path to security lies not in new warheads or golden domes,

02:34but in dialogue, transparency, and mutual restraint. We must invest as much into

02:39diplomacy and prevention as we do into silos and interceptors. Because let us be clear. All it

02:46takes is one bomb, one miscalculation, one moment of madness, and everything, everything will end.

02:56The clock is ticking, but the future is still ours to shape. Let us choose wisdom over fear, peace over

03:03peril, life over annihilation. Mahalo to my colleague Congressman McGovern for organizing this special

03:09hour. And I would ask that on August 6th and August 9th, let us take a moment to pause. And remember,

03:17we do have a choice. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I yield that.