[国会记录第164卷第108号(2018年6月27日星期三)H5803-H5812]国防部拨款法案，2019扬声器临时。Pursuant to House Resolution 964 and rule XVIII, the Chair declares the House in the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union for the further consideration of the bill, H.R. 6157. [...] Amendment No. 24 Offered by Mr. Foster The Acting CHAIR. It is now in order to consider amendment No. 24 printed in House Report 115-785. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chair, I have an amendment at the desk. The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment. The text of the amendment is as follows: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the procurement, the deployment, or the research, development, test, and evaluation of a space-based ballistic missile intercept layer. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to House Resolution 964, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster) and a Member opposed each will control 5 minutes. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Illinois. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, my straightforward amendment would prohibit the misguided use of taxpayer dollars to attempt to develop a space- based missile defense intercept layer. As the Chair knows, the Senate-passed version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019 tasks the Missile Defense Agency with developing such a concept. Mr. Chairman, we have been here before. The idea of a space-based intercept layer has gone in and out of fashion for the last 30 years, ever since President Reagan called for defending the United States against a massive first strike by developing a Strategic Defense Initiative system, commonly known as Star Wars. But every time technologically competent outside experts have looked at this space-based concept, they deem it unworkable, impossibly expensive, vulnerable to simple countermeasures, easy for an opponent to destroy, easy to overwhelm with a small number of enemy missiles, or all of the above. In fact, the former Director of the Missile Defense Agency, Admiral Syring said in 2016, that he had: [[Page H5804]] Serious concerns about the technical feasibility of interceptors in space, and its long-term affordability. In order to reach an incoming ballistic missile during the first few minutes of flight, a large number of interceptors must be stationed in low-altitude orbit where they will be very easy for an enemy to destroy. A report conducted by the American Physical Society in 2003 concluded that in order to ensure full coverage, a fleet of 1,000 or more orbiting satellites would be required to intercept just a single missile. To put that in perspective, the United States today currently has slightly more than 800 satellites in Earth's orbit, and that includes commercial, scientific, and military satellites. The National Academy of Sciences estimated that even an austere and limited network of 650 satellites would cost $300 billion, or roughly 10 times the cost of a ground-based system. Setting aside the massive cost, a space-based missile defense system has inherent vulnerabilities that greatly limit its effectiveness. Even with thousands of interceptors deployed, only a few would be within range to target an incoming missile, and those could easily be overwhelmed by the launch of several missiles from one location. And because interceptors must be stationed in low-altitude orbit, they could easily be detected, tracked, and destroyed. It is these limitations that led Admiral Syring to conclude that: Essential space-based interceptor technologies have been worked on only sporadically over the years and, consequently, are not feasible to procure, to deploy, or operate in the near or midterm. There is no doubt that a ballistic missile defense, if technologically feasible and economically justifiable, would be an important priority for our national security. So would be the Star Trek warp drive, or the transporter, if they were not technological fantasies. But as a scientist, and, in fact, the only Ph.D. physicist in the U.S. Congress, I think that we have to listen to the experts and do our homework before investing hundreds of billions of dollars attempting to develop an unworkable system. Mr. Chair, I urge my colleagues to join me and vote ``yes'' on my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, I claim the time in opposition to this amendment. The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Colorado is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chair, as noted by Secretary of Defense Mattis: Space is a contested domain by our strategic competitors just like air, land, and sea. This dangerous amendment would place our country at a disadvantage with our strategic competitors by limiting the work that can be done to continue our efforts in protecting our dominance in space, and, further, from protecting our homeland from intercontinental ballistic missiles. With the significant advances being made today by our adversaries in key areas, such as hypersonic weapons and expanding nuclear weapon proliferation, we must not restrict the Defense Department from pursuing options to deploy directed energy in space or any other capability that would result in the possibility of boost-phase capability that could be deployed from space. This amendment, Mr. Chairman, is against even the possibility of investigating and going down this road. House authorizers and appropriators understand the importance of employing a layered missile defense capability, and this dangerous amendment would significantly constrain options for developing critical defensive capabilities in a gap of our current ballistic missile defense system. A proponent of boost-phase missile defense, General Hyten, the commander of Strategic Command testified this year that: The day you can actually shoot a missile down over somebody's head and have that thing drop back down on their heads, that will be a good day. Because as soon as you drop it back on their heads, that is the last one they are going to launch, especially if there is something nasty on top of it. I think directed energy brings that to bear, although such weapons do not yet exist in the U.S. arsenal. Finally, I would also point out that the issue of space-based intercept was debated at length last year, passed with bipartisan support in the House Armed Services Committee, and that the National Defense Authorization Act last year passed with broad bipartisan support on the House floor. This year, the Senate Armed Services Committee has also provided broad bipartisan support on this critical, technological development area. Now, is not the time to curtail this emerging potential capability. Mr. Chair, I would urge my colleagues to oppose this amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I spent most of my career as an energy particle physicist and accelerator designer, designing and building complex technical systems. Nothing is less productive as a use of taxpayer money than designing and building a system, attempting to build a system that you know from the outset cannot and will not work. If there was suddenly a magic new technology, then we can revisit this decision. But the fundamental physics and the fundamental numerology of the attack versus defense balance in this has not changed in the last 30 years as we have examined this issue. So I think that just because it would be nice if we could magically drop a launch missile back on the enemy's head, if we do not have plausible technology that could accomplish that, doing paper designs of systems that will not work is a blatant waste of taxpayer money. Again, I urge all of my colleagues to vote ``yes'' on my amendment, and I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. LAMBORN. Mr. Chairman, well, let me just conclude by saying in opposition, if it hasn't been developed yet, you don't know that it doesn't work. We have hundreds or even thousands of bright minds. I appreciate my colleague's credentials, but we have hundreds of scientists and engineers working in the Missile Defense Agency and at the government-sponsored laboratories and in other parts of the defense community in the private sector, and at the Department of Defense in the government sector, and there are possibilities here that are being pursued that have great promise, have great potential. I think it would just be the height of foolishness to cut it off all right now when there is not even any money being appropriated for this. It is just even the possibility that the gentleman is trying to cut off, when we have potential for something that would be helpful to saving our homeland, and making those who want to rain missiles on us have to suffer the consequences of those missiles coming back down on themselves. So we shouldn't foreclose the possibility and shut the door. Mr. Chairman, I would urge a ``no'' vote on this amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have remaining? The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Illinois has 30 seconds remaining. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chair, I think this all comes down to technical feasibility. Whenever you are thinking of how to spend taxpayer money, you must make a judgment call as to what things are just way out there and are not going to happen in our lifetimes, and things which have a realistic chance of working on the time scale that we are planning for. And when all of the experts that you convene to look at this unanimously say that this system makes no sense, then it makes no sense to spend taxpayer money until we get the breakthroughs that might some day make it possible. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time. The Acting CHAIR. The question is on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Foster). The question was taken; and the Acting Chair announced that the noes appeared to have it. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chair, I demand a recorded vote. The Acting CHAIR. Pursuant to clause 6 of rule XVIII, further proceedings on the amendment offered by the gentleman from Illinois will be postponed. {time} 1815 Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word. [[Page H5805]] The Acting CHAIR. The gentleman from Indiana is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Chairman, I yield to my colleague from Illinois for a colloquy. Mr. FOSTER. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Indiana for yielding. As the only Ph.D. physicist in Congress, I would like to take a moment to highlight the risks of underfunding both nuclear nonproliferation and detection. When discussing the dangers of nuclear weapons, we often overfocus our attention on missiles and missile defense. Unfortunately, proliferation challenges are changing significantly, and there are, unfortunately, many ways to deliver a nuclear weapon, for example, the smuggling of nuclear radiological materials into the United States through our maritime ports or borders or through the use of commercial and recreational vehicles to deliver waterborne nuclear devices. We must focus our resources on developing and deploying technologies that will lead to a substantial improvement in our ability to detect, verify, and monitor fissile material and devices. And we must continue to strengthen our workforce at our national laboratories by continuing to recruit the best and the brightest technical experts. I note that much of this expertise is the same as will be required to ensure complete, verifiable, and irreversible dismantlement of North Korea's nuclear weapons programs and their nuclear weapons. We can have the most expensive missile defense system in the world, but unless we address these unconventional threats as well, it is simply a false sense of security. So it is my hope that, by raising these concerns and rebalancing our spending, we will continue to develop new and innovative ideas to detect and monitor the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons and materials and, ultimately, make the world a safer place. Mr. VISCLOSKY. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's comments and acknowledge his expertise as a fellow member of the Nuclear Security Working Group. I am grateful that Mr. Foster has raised the important subject of nuclear smuggling and for his continued commitment to addressing nuclear security issues. We must be relentless in developing the technologies that will help us identify and counter nuclear smuggling before dangerous materials fall into terrorist hands. The 2018 Nuclear Posture Review acknowledges the importance of nonproliferation and countering nuclear terrorism. But I do not believe the document is forward-thinking enough when it comes to developing a plan to address future threats. We must continue to invest in research and development of nonproliferation technologies so we will have the tools that we need to keep our Nation secure in an increasingly complex nuclear environment. Again, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the gentleman's raising it, and I yield back the balance of my time. [...]