Council for a Livable World

The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty has not yet been ratified by the Senate and even though there are only a few days left in the lame-duck session, we’re still very hopeful it will be get done by the end of the year.

We have just received indications that the Senate will consider New START this week, with debate starting as soon as this evening.

Recently, three Republican Senators released positive statements about New START treaty.

The ever-cautious-and-unwilling-to-commit Senators from Maine finally endorsed the treaty. Senator Snowe issued a statement praising the treaty and stating: “I am confident that New START will provide predictability in our relationship with Russia and thus enhance global stability, and most importantly, our national security.”

Senator Collins also put out a statement endorsing the treaty, granting that the Administration had addressed her concerns.

Massachusetts Senator Brown (sort of) joined in:  “I’m not party to any agreement right now,” Brown said. “I think we need to do taxes and the CR. Then we need to move on. The next thing I think we should do after that is START.” Not a full-throated endorsement, but getting close.

There is still time to get this treaty done, if you have not contacted your Senator, please consider taking a few minutes to send them a quick letter or calling the capitol switchboard at this toll free number, (888) 475-8162, and encouraging them to give their consent to ratify New START before the end of the year!

Thank you for all your hard work!

A colleague warned that the fate of New START would be riding a roller coaster in the post-election session, and was she ever correct.

On November 16, the treaty appeared fatally wounded when Key Arizona Senator Jon Kyl  ruled out Senate consideration of New START during the lame duck session. His negotiations with the Administration and Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry were still and forever on-going.

That switched in subsequent weeks, when a number of Republican Senators agreed that a deal was close at hand to bring the treaty up before the end of the year.

However, on December 1, all 42 Republican Senators signed a letter saying that no legislation could be considered until the Senate completed action on the tax bill and the appropriations bill. With those two measures still very much in flux and with the Senate slated to adjourn on December 17, that schedule apparently could not accommodate New START.

The challenges were heightened on December 8 when Kyl again stated there was insufficient time to take up the treaty before the end of the year. Kyl told Roll Call: “I just don’t think there’s time,” Kyl said Wednesday afternoon following lunch with the Republican Steering Committee. “I think pretty soon we’re going to have to recognize the reality of the situation and agree for a time for the treaty to be taken up next year.”

Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry seemed to agree: According to Roll Call, “Kerry conceded that the Senate’s legislative schedule is quickly filling up as time is set aside for debate on a deal to extend the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts.”

At least two other senators, Lieberman of Connecticut and Hatch of Utah, talked about putting off the treaty until 2011.

Added Arizona Senator John McCain: “I’m optimistic that we could [reach an agreement] overall and I’d like to support” START, but, clearly, we’re running out of time.”

At that point, the Administration and our community launched a campaign to convince Majority Leader Harry Reid to keep the Senate in session as long as necessary to complete New START. We did so particularly because apparently Kyl and the Administration had finally resolved their disagreements on nuclear modernization substance, but that timing was the remaining question.

Yesterday, things turned again, and in a very positive direction. To that point, only one Republican Senator, Lugar of Indiana, had firmly endorsed the treaty.  Two others, Corker of Tennessee and Isackson of Georgia, voted for the treaty in the Senate but had become squishy since then.

Council for a Livable World coordinated a group letter to the Senate Democratic leadership to that effect. The Administration continued pushing hard, even securing a “magnanimous” one sentence endorsement of the treaty by former President George H.W. Bush.

Yesterday, the ever-cautious-and-unwilling-to-commit Maine Senators finally endorsed the treaty. Maine Senator Snowe   issued a statement praising the treaty and stating: “I am confident that New START will provide predictability in our relationship with Russia and thus enhance global stability, and most importantly, our national security.”

Maine Senator Collins also  put out a statement endorsing the treaty, granting that the Administration had addressed her concerns.

Massachusetts Senator Brown sort of joined in:  “I’m not party to any agreement right now,” Brown said. “I think we need to do taxes and the CR. Then we need to move on. The next thing I think we should do after that is START.” Not a full-throated endorsement, but getting close.

(Three days before, uncommitted New Hampshire Senator Gregg agreed with that sentiment: “I think we should bring it up. I think we should get it done.”)

Arizona Senator John McCain, who had earlier let his colleague Kyl take the lead on the treaty, gave further impetus yesterday, delivering a speech saying he hopes the Senate takes up the treaty before the end of the session. “We are very close.” He added: “I still hope we will be able to bring this up next week, and a lot of work is being done to that effect.…I think we are very close.”

Majority Leader Reid now appears ready to extend the Senate session to take up New START.  “We’ll be here as long as it takes to get it done,” Regan LaChapelle, spokeswoman for Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Dec. 10. (CQ Today online news, Dec. 10, 2010)

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs also added the strong voice of the Obama Administration to getting the treaty considered: “Congress won’t leave before Start is done. START will get done, and START will get done with a strong, bipartisan vote.”  The White House has done terrific work to keep the treaty on the front burner even as it deals with many other issues on the front burner.

On Monday of this week, I was cautiously optimistic. On Wednesday, I was cautiously pessimistic.  Today, I am cautiously optimistic.  Who knows what I will be next week. It reminds one of the Perils of Pauline when the heroine had to be constantly rescued from the dastardly villains.

Stay tuned. The situation could turn several more times

33 national organizations and individuals have written to the top three Democratic leaders — Senators Harry Reid  (D-NV), Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Charles Schumer (D-NY — urging them to keep the Senate in session until the Senate votes on the New START nuclear reductions treaty.

At present, the Senate is slated to adjourn for the year on December 17, 2010, almost surely not leaving enough time to complete work on the treaty.

The letter noted:

Failure to act on the New START treaty this year would undermine the country’s national security interests, as both our military leadership and numerous former Republican officials have noted.

The letter concluded:

We urge you to take up and approve New START now, if need be by extending the Senate in session beyond December 17.

A complete copy of the letter is below,

The Honorable Harry Reid
The Honorable Richard Durbin
The Honorable Charles Schumer
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senators Reid, Durbin and Schumer:

Failure to act on the New START treaty this year would undermine the country’s national security interests, as both our military leadership and numerous former Republican officials have noted.

Failure to bring New START to the floor will also squander the significant momentum that has built up in support of the treaty. There is now widespread bipartisan support for New START in the Senate, making it imperative that a floor vote happen before the Senate goes out of session.

Any issue that is left uncompleted during the next month will drag long into 2011; a new Senate takes months to get organized. The new make up of the Senate also promises to complicate ratification, potentially requiring new, more costly negotiations.

If New START is permitted to lag into next year, the U.S. will continue to lack an essential window into the makeup of Russia’s nuclear arsenal that it hasn’t had since START I expired last December.  As Gen. Kevin Chilton, the commander of STRATCOM, stated June 16: “If we don’t get the treaty, [the Russians] are not constrained in their development of force structure and…we have no insight into what they’re doing. So it’s the worst of both possible worlds.” Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also warned that failure to ratify the treaty now could harm US-Russian relations. Indeed, failure to ratify New START now could undercut US efforts to contain Iran.

The treaty is supported unanimously by the nation’s military and intelligence leadership and most prominent former senior national security officials from Republican as well as Democratic administrations.  They support it because it will make the U.S. safer.

We urge you to take up and approve New START now, if need be by extending the Senate in session beyond December 17.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke, President
Natural Resources Defense Council

Jay Coghlan, Executive Director
Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Shan Cretin, General Secretary
American Friends Service Committee

Charles D. Ferguson
President, Federation of American Scientists

Ambassador James Goodby
Hoover Institution

Susan Gordon, Director
Alliance for Nuclear Accountability

Ambassador Thomas Graham Jr, Chairman
Bipartisan Security Group

Jonathan Granoff, President
Global Security Institute

Ambassador Robert Grey
Former US Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

Ken Gude, Director of National Security
Center for American Progress

Howard W. Hallman, Chair
Methodists United for Peace with Justice

Katie Heald, Coordinator
Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World

Heather Hurlburt, Executive Director
National Security Network  

Paul Ingram, Executive Director
British American Security Information Council

Kevin Kamps, Project Director
Beyond Nuclear

Marylia Kelley, Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs, Livermore

Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director,
Arms Control Association

Rachel Kleinfeld, Chief Executive Officer
Truman National Security Project

Kevin Knobloch, President
Union of Concerned Scientists

Don Kraus, Chief Executive Officer
Citizens for Global Solutions

David Krieger, President
Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Ira Lechner, Chairman
Council for a Livable World

Jan Lodal
Former Principal Deputy Under Secretary of Defense

Elisabeth MacNamara, President
League of Women Voters of the U.S.

Kevin Martin, Executive Director
Peace Action

Rabbi David Saperstein, Director and Counsel
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Susan Shaer, Executive Director
WAND, Women’s Action for New Directions

Karen Showalter, Executive Director
Americans for Informed Democracy

Joe Volk, Executive Secretary
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers)

Paul F. Walker, Ph.D., Director, Security and Sustainability
Global Green USA

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson, Director
Two Futures Project

Peter Wilk, Executive Director
Physicians for Social Responsibility

James E. Winkler, General Secretary
United Methodist General Board of Church and Society