Dina Titus

Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to prohibit Members, officers, and employees of the House of Representatives from participating in prediction markets in certain cases, and for other purposes.

in committee

To provide a Foreign Service officer career pathway for former United States Agency for International Development officers.

in committee

To establish a commission to study how Federal laws and policies affect United States citizens living in foreign countries.

in committee

“Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to voice my opposition to President Trump's announcement that the United States will resume explosive nuclear weapons testing. As a former political science professor, scholar of history of nuclear weaponry, and now a Member of Congress representing Southern Nevada, I have learned a thing or two about our nuclear legacy. Nevada was the focal point of nuclear development during the Cold War. Over four decades, the Nevada Test Site, which is located just 100 miles north of Las Vegas, hosted over 900 nuclear tests--more than any other location in the United States. Throughout the 1950s, visible mushroom clouds often loomed in the distance as people enjoyed all that Las Vegas had to offer. These tests were conducted to better understand the power and effects of nuclear weapons, and the site played a major role in shaping national and international policies regarding nuclear testing and non-proliferation. The radiation given off by the more than 100 atmospheric tests, however, had devastating impacts on those downwind. The fallout caused cancer and premature deaths for thousands across the West. That's why I introduced the PRESUME Act which would ensure radiation-exposed veterans receive their rightful benefits from the VA. The 800 underground tests sometimes vented out radioactive contaminants entering the air and the groundwater supply, a problem that we are still dealing with today. Earlier this year, the Nevada state legislature passed a resolution urging the federal government to maintain the moratorium on nuclear weapons testing that went into effect in 1992, citing risks of environmental damage and health hazards from previous tests at the Nevada National Security Site. You may remember, in 2020 the first Trump Administration called for a resumption of nuclear testing in breach of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Back then, I led the charge in the FY21 NDAA process to ensure that explosive nuclear testing could not be resurrected in the United States. But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. On October 29, Trump announced that he is directing the Department of Defense to resume nuclear testing in a disastrous policy reversal, but not surprising as this is featured in Project 2025--the policy blueprint for the Trump Administration. On page 399, Project 2025 calls for the rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This would not just allow nuclear testing here at home but will also give the green light to other nuclear powers around the world to do the same. The result would put us on a collision course of catastrophic proportions with Russia and China, allow the proliferation of these weapons to non- nuclear states that seek its development, and put the health of Nevadans once again in jeopardy. By foolishly announcing his intention to resume nuclear explosive testing, Trump will trigger a dangerous nuclear arms race that would blow apart the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. In fact, Vladimir Putin has already directed his forces to prepare a resumption of nuclear testing and, just this week, the Washington Post reported that China is rapidly expanding and modernizing infrastructure at its nuclear testing site in the Xinjiang Province. There is no technical, national security, or political reason for the U.S. to resume nuclear explosive testing. If a nuclear power resumes testing because the U.S. is abandoning the testing moratorium, those countries will develop new types of warheads and close the scientific and technical advantage we have always enjoyed in warhead design. It would be a net detriment to U.S. national security. Furthermore, at the Nevada National Security Site, scientists do groundbreaking experiments and simulations on our existing stockpile to make sure our nuclear arsenal is safe, secure, and reliable. These sub-critical tests are done without an explosion of any kind. With the President's announcement, we have abandoned our leadership position in arms control and non-proliferation. Note: For the first time ever, the U.S. was the only country to vote no on a recent UN resolution supporting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the global nuclear testing moratorium. Not even North Korea opposed it. What kind of signal does this send? Amidst all this nuclear saber-rattling, the New START treaty, which is [[Page E1097]] the last remaining arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, expires in exactly 77 days. For these reasons, I introduced the RESTRAIN Act to prohibit the resumption of explosive nuclear testing and prevent any funds from going toward Trump's misguided policy. Nevadans are overwhelmingly opposed to the resumption of explosive testing. In a 2024 study done by Searchlight Research, 73 percent of Nevadans said they are opposed to explosive nuclear testing on any kind. President Trump may think that testing will make the country safer, but in reality, it puts”

2025-11-19 · Defense

“Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, as a Vice Co-Chair of the Hellenic Caucus and a proud Greek-American, I rise today to welcome His All-Holiness Bartholomew I, Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, to the United States, the spiritual leader of the Orthodox Christian community around the world. His All-Holiness's visit to Washington, D.C. and New York is yet another demonstration of his commitment to peace, his see, and the millions of Orthodox Christians in the United States. Born Demetrios Arhondonis in 1940 on the island of Imvros (today, Gokceada, Turkey), His All-Holiness Bartholomew was elected in October 1991 as the 270th Archbishop of the 2000-year-old Church founded by the Apostle Andrew. His formal office is Archbishop of Constantinople-New Rome and Ecumenical Patriarch, a historic title dating to the sixth century. The Ecumenical Patriarch received his elementary and secondary education in Imvros and Istanbul. After completing undergraduate studies at the historic Theological School of Halki, he pursued graduate studies at the Pontifical Oriental Institute of the Gregorian University in Rome (Italy), the Ecumenical Institute in Bossey (Switzerland), and the University of Munich (Germany). His doctoral dissertation, submitted to the University of Athens (Greece), was in the field of Canon Law, and he was a founding member of the Society of Canon Law of the Oriental Churches. Ordained to the Diaconate in 1961 and to the Priesthood in 1969, he served as Assistant Dean at the Theological School of Halki (1968 to 1972) before his appointment as Personal Secretary to the late Ecumenical Patriarch Demetrios (1972 to 1990) as well as his election as Metropolitan of Philadelphia (1973) and, subsequently, Metropolitan of Chalcedon (1990). His see, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, once possessed holdings as vast as the Vatican but has been reduced to a small, besieged enclave in a decaying corner of Istanbul called the Phanar (Lighthouse). Almost all of its property has been seized by successive Turkish governments, its schools have been closed, and its prelates are taunted by extremists who demonstrate almost daily outside the Patriarchate, calling for its ouster from Turkey. The Patriarch himself is often jeered and threatened when he ventures outside his walled enclave. He is periodically burned in effigy by Turkish chauvinists. Petty bureaucrats take pleasure in harassing him, summoning him to their offices to question him about irrelevant issues, blocking his efforts to make repairs in the few buildings still under his control, and issuing veiled threats about what he says and does when he travels abroad. The Turkish government as a whole follows a policy that deliberately beIittles him, refusing to recognize his ecumenical status as the spiritual leader of a major religious faith. In September 1955, when Bartholomew was studying in Istanbul, he witnessed a massive pogrom against the city's Greek neighborhoods that left them looking ``like the bombed parts of London during the Second World War,'' as one British journalist reported. While the police ``stood idly by or cheered on the mob,'' according to a report of the U.S. consul, 4,000 Greek shops and 2,000 homes were sacked and plundered, 38 churches were burned to the ground and 35 more desecrated, and 52 schools were destroyed. More than a dozen people were killed and scores were injured during the riots, beginning a cycle of violence and intimidation that has seen Istanbul's Greek population reduced from 200,000 when the riots erupted to less than 2,000 today. At a time when hostility and misunderstanding between the Christian and Muslim worlds have reached a deadly standoff, Patriarch Bartholomew, who speaks seven languages including Turkish, has made a deliberate effort to reach out to Muslims throughout the Middle East. ``It is our strong belief that Orthodox Christians have a special responsibility to assist East-West rapprochement,'' he noted. ``For, like the Turkish Republic, we have a foot in both worlds.'' Pointing out that Orthodox Christians have a 550-year history of co-existence with Muslims in the Middle East, he has initiated a series of meetings with Muslim leaders throughout the region in what he calls ``a dialogue of loving truth.'' To strengthen that dialogue, he has traveled to Libya, Syria, Egypt, Iran, Jordan, Azerbaijan, Qatar, and Bahrain, and met political and religious figures in those countries, whom no other Christian hierarch has ever visited. As a result, the Patriarch has created more bridges between Christianity and Islam than any other prominent Christian leader. The Patriarch's concerns are not just limited to interfaith conflicts but have expanded to embrace all of God's creation. He has shown such concern for the environment that he has become widely known as ``the Green Patriarch.'' He famously declared shortly after he assumed the ecumenical throne in 1991 that ``crime against the natural world is a sin.'' Human beings and t”

2025-09-15 · Foreign Policy

“Ms. TITUS. Mr. Speaker, I rise to mark the 15th annual International Day Against Nuclear [[Page E793]] Tests on August 29th, and to commend the Republic of Kazakhstan for its role in working collaboratively with the United States to pursue nuclear disarmament and our shared nonproliferation goals. In doing so, our two countries have preserved peace, stability, and a world free from the ever-present threat of nuclear conflict. When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, it left behind 35,000 nuclear weapons at sites across the Eurasian landmass. With thousands of nuclear-armed ICBMs in places like Belarus and Ukraine, the newly- formed Republic of Kazakhstan inherited the world's fourth-largest nuclear arsenal, which was also home of the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. From Semipalatinsk's establishment in 1946 to its decommission in 1995, Soviet authorities carried out 468 nuclear tests at the test site. The total impact of these tests between 1949 and 1963 was 2,500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The toxic radioactive fallout these tests yielded caused irreparable damage to more than 1.3 million people in Kazakhstan and severe ecological harm to the area surrounding the test site. In 1989, before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, anti-nuclear war activists in Kazakhstan established the Nevada-Semipalatinsk Movement. This grassroots initiative supported by victims of Nevada's own nuclear legacy sought the closure of Semipalatinsk and the cessation of nuclear testing. Of the 18 planned detonations in 1989, 11 were stopped thanks to the group's committed advocacy and resilience. The Nevada- Semipalatinsk Movement underscores the bond and shared history between Nevadans and Kazakhs. Despite any strategic advantage that retention of the Soviet Union's arsenal may have provided to Kazakhstan, its leadership understood the potential political, humanitarian, and environmental ramifications of its development. On August 29, 1991, Kazakhstan made the historic and noble decision to close the Semipalatinsk test site. In its place, the National Nuclear Center of Kazakhstan was established to assist in eliminating the infrastructure for the storage and use of nuclear weapons. It would also provide scientific and technical support for the peaceful use of atomic energy. In 1992, Kazakhstan ratified the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START 1) and a few years later, all of Kazakhstan's 104 ICBMs were safely removed and destroyed. The Kazakh government doubled-down on its commitment to global peace, security, and nonproliferation by becoming a party to the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1993, a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1994, and a cosigner of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty in 1996. Meanwhile, in partnership with the United States, Kazakhstan removed 1,322 pounds of highly enriched uranium from the Ulba Metallurgical Plant under the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. As part of this program, our two countries took monumental steps to remove residual materials and technologies related to weapons of mass destruction in Kazakhstan, signaling a major shift in the global security and political paradigm and building momentum that catalyzed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. In 2010, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling for an International Day Against Nuclear Tests. Thus, August 29th was selected to commend and recognize Kazakhstan's honorable decision to close the Semipalatinsk test site and renounce nuclear weapons. With Cold War-style nuclear saber-rattling becoming the new norm, it is important, on this International Day Against Nuclear Tests, to highlight the successful steps taken by the United States and Kazakhstan to mitigate the dangers of nuclear weapons, institute global nonproliferation regimes, and adhere to international norms around nuclear testing. ____________________”

2025-08-29 · Defense