About this. The thing america has over any potential adversary is our creativity, Technological Prowess and ability, our asymmetrical advantage was a technological accomplishment as a nation and this provision showed up 1665 because it prohibits the Missile Defense agency before going down the path of exploring and researching the spacebased missile intercept we have had some tremendoutremendous progreh directed energy and neutron particle beams with those kind of technological advanced projects i dont see why we woulwewould tell them to explore possibility we would love to have a spacebased defensive capability like this. So i would ask that we adopt this amendment and restore what we do two years ago. In the spirit of being helpful to our colleagues, two of my colleagues voted for this two years ago it would ask for the support of the amendment and that we both restore i would like to speak in opposition to the amendment. For the members of the committee, the technology we are talking about here is called natural particle and it was pretty thoroughly explored in the 1990s and largely abandoned. By now it happens to have one or two advocates and the pentagon, and i hope like the gentleman from colorado does that all technology works, but some are more likely to work than others. I apologize because the amendment is awkwardly worded in talking about the development of spacebased ballistic is really about natural particle and this request for 34 million would be a wild goose chase. Its not even a program of record. Folks ive talked to in the community and ive asked virtually everybody about this in the hearings that weve had this year a kind of roll their eyes when they talk about the neutral particle because it seems to be the project of one or two people in the pentagon, not a real thing scientists think have an opportunity to work so im not against the project to send one oprojects ad might work but it just seemed like this is not as important a priority for the Missile Defense agency as many other things. I shouldnt have to remind the committee that should be the number one priority they are making us suffer because of a series of mistake that they made in designing the absolutely essential vehicle and number two to siphon 34 million so somebody can play with toys in the pentagon seems to me to be a little bit of a mistaken priority so i would urge opposition to the amendment. This is about knowledge and research and development. We advocate for research and development and knowledge. I just wrote down the words mr. Cooper was saying play with toys and to be appropriated by the fiscal 2020 for the Missile Defense agency they would be obligated or expended to develop a spacebased Ballistic Missile capability that is only able to be deployed in space. None of us expect we are deploying anything in 2020 if nobodys expecting we have anything we are going to be sending up. This is old research and development. Its about the word a. That means any. You are doing none and i cant imagine how anybody in this committee would say i dont want the United States to have any of this knowledge. We are looking at the issue and how we are being passed by russia and china and we were way ahead. Its the same thing how is it we could ever say you should vote this down because it doesnt say what mr. Cooper said it did. Did. Any further comments . One of the issues we run up against and this is when we look at some of this with different issues but part of the difficulty is seeing what else is going on and where else can we actually put our efforts and our focus. It isnt doing that. Its not putting it in the context. I know that theres still more concerned about it. I realized since march 231983 there has been a strain of thought in this country that posed and i realized that there has been a consistent refrain that it will never work if we should have provided us with the provocative. It is a science project and i would hope the success that we have had as well as the evolution of the threat from north korea would have dispelled such lines of thought and im sitting here listening to the last two amendments. One was the shouldnt even have a test of the missile. This one is we shouldnt even explore whether spacebased Missile Defense makes sense. I think that the American People expect us to promote, certainly allow or promote Defense Department defend the country from missile threats. It seems contrary to what they expect us to do in this very serious area where the missiles are proliferating and the threat over growing. So it just doesnt make sense to me that we would want to dismiss a test or exploration of a spacebased Missile Defense layer because i think the American People expect us to be able to defend the country, and doing so requires the sort of testing and research that can help us do that. Any other comments. Mr. Whitman. I want to yield my time to mr. Lamborn. I will just make this brief. I have all the respect for your abilities as a chair man and you are a bright and intelligent g guy. I would like you to consider with me that as a country we can walk and chew gum at the same time and pursue multiple lines of technological possibilities at the same time. If it were true that canceling the south an and taking that moy and putting it in another program automatically translated to that other Program Began successful, then i would agree with you. But canceling the program doesnt mean that the other program you are concerned about is claimed to be successful. That is a separate issue and we shouldnt conflate the two. As a country we have the ability and responsibility and opportunity to pursue different kinds of technological possibilities. And cannot even say we can ever attempt that is wrong as a country. I would hope that you would agree with that. With regards to the gentleman from colorado i want to congratulate him because even though he isnt a member of the subcommittee, he has more attendance than other members. You care passionately about these issues and i shared your concerned with science in fact i would like to invite you to an events that we have had the golden goose awards in which we celebrate nationally and internationally though sometimes unexpected benefits of government funded research. Its amazing. Weve actually had difficulty some folks may want to talk to randy and folks like that we have difficulty getting folks to help us with that. Its amazing what research can produce and i am as pro science as anybody in congress, may be anybody in america. I hope and pray this word. The witnesses i talked to in the subcommittee it just seems like of all the areas we could explore this isnt one of the more productive ones and maybe they are all wrong. We have to prioritize on the committee and i think the evidence so far at least is that this is more of a science fair project than it is something that is likely to help us with Missile Defense. I am for Missile Defense and i want to fund it in a way that they will work. Lets work on that together and i think that we can do that. Further debate. They are working overtime to develop antiBallistic Missile capability. If the defense is possible i guarantee they are going to go down that path and try to field it. We wanted to be like Hypersonic Weapons where china gets a big advantage where we have to catch up. I think its worthy of doing research to know what is possible. We dont want to be left behind. They put so much more energy on this than we do and we cant afford to be left behind so. I want to take the prerogative is there any sense of cost factors that we are talking about in this regard . The only thing would fall under the petition was 34 million that they requested just for that component. There are no costs for the system at this point. 200 million approximately bought a small amount of change. If it would be for the test. Any more discussion. The question is on the adoption. I just want to clarify or are we talking about the cost of studying this or the cost of implementing it . Spinnakers 34 million to begin the testing that would be deployed by 2023 so there isnt a study at this point, its Development Money for the actual test. This isnt a line item that is removed from its anything considered anybody wants to redirect funding to, they are prohibited from doing anything in this category. The provision states that has to be deployed with possibilities to be deployed in space. Theres absolute prohibition. Its not like he went into budget, it is an absolute position no one caprohibition no the lab and consider anything with respect to this. Thank you for yielding your time. Can i followup with your question is that language typically used in the situation that it would be fully prohibited for any development of the technology that can be deployed that doesnt apply to other technologies that could be deployed on things such as uav aircraft, cbs orlando pace. Its complete. Its not just a line item im not sure we are working on it in an aggressive way versus this program. As i understood this issue and its intention, it is what we have to use before here fly before you buy its clear that it will wor work if its purposefully achieved. My understanding is the way that its intended but it wouldnt move to the deployment until such time as we had assurances that there was a probability that it would work. The current discussion seems to indicate Something Different we ought to move in stages, in other words fly it before you buy it to make sure there is a high assurance that its going to work before we deploy. Thank you for your time. This isnt about that. This is a complete prohibition against anybody doing any research and development with respect to any portion of the Missile Defense that would be deployed in space. Reclaiming my time, i understand what youre saying. I also understood the description that the staff has given us which is different and my understanding of what was intended by this amendment. I think what we might do here to proceed with the engineering, science to the point we have a reasonable assurance that its going to work and go through the Testing Process but dont move to the deployment until we have some assurance that its going to work so perhaps what we need to do is redesign. Just a oneyear period . Everything you are concerned about this another year, another request. No one is depleting anything but it stops everything so in favored the amendment which i am also. To be honest with i agree both and would like to support the amendment because i dont think we should cancel all research and development on this technology is. It sounds to me like theres enough questions maybe we dont want to move in the language we have right here and come back to this. Before we get going we have like five people talking. Hiwhose time is it . It is your time. Do you wish to speak or yield to somebody . I think that there is a need to hold this for a while to follow what was suggested to achieve the goal without flying before we buy or i want to make a clarification the language we are all struggling with is in the bill in the amendment and it strikes the language in the bill, so if we hold the amendment it doesnt help with the language on the bill. We need to preserve the amendment at your discretion. The possibility as we are able to rework the language in a way that is agreeable to anybody and that is impossible that okay but i agree wit what he is saying is that we could rework this in a way that makes it more striking. If you want to do that, you may. You dont have to. If the gentleman would yield i would like to propose a possible solution, and if it is to go with my amendment however we discussed further for this hits the floor for there or not we ht to clear the fight we are not talking about the deployment although nothing is going to be deployed it strictly research ad development. Nothing is ready for deploymendeployment that isnt y even an issue and thats what my amendment is seeking to accomplish right now as we continue with the research and development. If i might, mr. Chairman. You still have time here. They keep stopping the clock. Let me make this very, very quick. Its something that creates clarity. We are close to an agreement. The research and development isnt a problem. The deployment would be by striking all of the language we might wind up with deployment. Lets write something thats very clear that this continued research and development and hold deployment until such time. For that language be agreeable to you . Theyve helped me to do that before we finish up tonight. You do not have to withdraw your amendment. You can just work out this language and then roll it into the portion. In order to consider 396 or one, what purpose does the gentleman seeks recognition tax i have a recognition of the desk. Thank you mr. Chairman. This amendment seek information from the department helping to make sure that the committee is able to ensure any extension of the treaty would reflect the reality of the threats we face in the world today in the decades since president obamas treaty was ratified, the world has grown more dangerous and my amendment doesnt say that we should not extend, it is an effort to make sure that it contributed to the security of the nation by addressing the threats we face so its the information from the chair man joint chiefs for the non strategic weapon systems and secondly the impact on the National Security is an if an extension or a successor agreement to wear not tread ladder all including china it is during the period o with the new start treaty and also what we have seen china doing because they are not party to any limitations. My amendment would ask for information to help the committee in sure we ar ensure o make an educated and informed assessment about whether or not any extension of the treaty actually served to contribute to the security of the nation. I would urge my colleagues to accept to adopt the amendment and yield back the balance of my time the key question for me on this does this mean basically that the treaty that we have right now under this amendment would be allowed to simply go away and would have to be replaced by this Tri Party Agreement i will give you a crack at explaining what your amendment is because i believe the underlying language in the bill is urging them to not dump the new start treaty when it said, 2020 or Something Like that . Can you clarify the status of the new treaty . It expires in 2021. Our underlying language in the bill says please renew its basically. We have an item of special interest that we will be commenting but there is no other language. So our language basically says to keep the new start . And your language says what . My language simply says the chairman of joint chiefs should report to the committee on whether or not, first of all, to give an assessment of the overall Nuclear Inventory of the strategic and non Strategic Nuclear weapons both russia and China Business coming in second, give an assessment on whether or not an extension of the new start mac that does not include china has a positive or negative impact in arrangement that would include all strategic and non Strategic Nuclear capable systems. My amendment is an effort to make. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I have the next amendment on the same subject. I havent had the chance to see the amendment. Her amendment in some way excuse me, i would like to communicate firmament. The amendment is a report requirement that goes further than yours, mr. Cheney, and it goes not as far. It goes further in some of the specifics that are asked for in the current status of the Russian Nuclear forces, and then an analysis if it is not extended to. Similarly, it would assess our own circumstances. What would we then do in response in other words a full description. It does not however deals with the chinese, which i think that you were bringing it up as an important point. It does not in any way affect china at all which has been discussed extensively by the committee. I also in my analysis i believe i do not have a waiver on the money and rent from the Foreign Relations committee. If that is the case, i was simply going to talk about it and withdraw. I would like to work with you on expanding the language to include the report languagefor the study of language that is more fulsome with regards to russia and the United States and bring into that report the work that youve suggested with regards to china and i would be happy to yield. What you are talking about, i dont think we can do. You are talking about amending the amendment with some of your language. That would be the ideal that there would be difficult to achieve. Achieve. What were looking at here is when we go to the floor. We will have to offer a withdrawal on the amendment. If you are simply asking the wake of this is really have to take his word for it theres no point just because he thinks it would be more important to have the chinese involved in it. I dont see the harm in this personally, so i am willing to accept it unless there are strenuous objections. If i might just add one point them in the last three or four amendments theyve spoken to general hayden, and i just want to put this on the record, two things. First the Nuclear Posture review. But its really important having heard the Nuclear Posture review several times, and in february of this year, the general said its really important that is to paraphrase the statement said in support of new s. T. A. R. T startmac. I want to bring the posture review back to my position at the time and with that i will yield. The treaty is unbelievably important. Is there further discussion on the amendment . In support of the amendment, the Chinese Nuclear missile arsenal is now the largest in the world and theyve built arsenal while the United States and russia have limited themselves and limited ourselves under imf. So i certainly think it would be responsible to have the pentagon come back to us and have the chair man come back to us with how the chinese fit into the newest type of arrangement and support. I would like to register my support for studying this as well. I think that we could benefit from understanding what the implication are going