; and (ii) is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (B) Since the United States signed the CTBT, confidence has grown in the science-based Stockpile Stewardship and Management Plan of the Department of Energy, which forms the basis of annual certifications to the President regarding the continual safety, security, and effectiveness of the United States nuclear deterrent in the absence of nuclear testing, leading former Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz to remark in 2015 that lab directors today now state that they certainly understand much more about how nuclear weapons work than during the period of nuclear testing . (7) Despite the progress made to reduce the number and role of, and risks posed by, nuclear weapons, and to halt the Cold War-era nuclear arms race, tensions between countries that possess nuclear weapons are on the rise, key nuclear risk reduction treaties are under threat, significant stockpiles of weapons-usable fissile material remain, and a qualitative global nuclear arms race is now underway with each of the countries that possess nuclear weapons spending tens of billions of dollars each year to maintain and improve their arsenals. (8) The Russian Federation is pursuing the development of destabilizing types of nuclear weapons that are not presently covered under any existing arms control treaty or agreement and the People's Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea have each taken concerning steps to diversify their more modest sized, but nonetheless very deadly, nuclear arsenals. (9) President Joseph R. Biden’s 2022 Nuclear Posture Review was right to label the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile as no longer necessary , as that missile, if deployed, would have the effect of lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use. (10) On February 3, 2021, President Joseph R. Biden preserved binding and verifiable limits on the deployed and non-deployed strategic forces of the largest two nuclear weapons powers through the five-year extension of the