Press Releases

Congressman Jim Banks (IN-03), a member of the House Armed Services Committee, today praised the inclusion of his initiative to modernize and strengthen the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program in the fiscal year 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

“Nunn-Lugar has played an integral role in the process of dismantling weapons of mass destruction in former Soviet states,” said Banks. “As our country faces tumultuous threats from Russia, Iran, North Korea and other rogue actors, it is absolutely vital that we build upon the Nunn-Lugar program’s success and modernize the program to address growing proliferation concerns around the globe.”

The House Armed Services Committee is marking up the NDAA this week. The Banks language directs the Secretary of Defense to provide Congress with a report on how to strengthen the Nunn-Lugar program.

Background:

The Nunn–Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction program is an initiative based on legislation authored by Senators Sam Nunn (D-GA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) in 1991 to dismantle nuclear, chemical and biological weapons in former Soviet states. It was a resounding success throughout the 1990’s and made the world a safer place by reducing nuclear weapons.

In more recent years, the program secured chemical weapons after the fall of the Gadhafi regime in Libya in 2013 and removed similar weapons from Syria in 2014. However, the program and leadership structure remains largely the same as the early 1990s, when its primary focus was nuclear warheads. The world and the weapons used by threats around the globe have changed significantly since then. The threats of tomorrow will be different from those the Nunn-Lugar program was initially designed to confront.

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Interested members of the media may contact Andrea Palermo at andrea.palermo@mail.house.gov.