The Senate Foreign Relations Committee today, in a bipartisan vote, voted for the Resolution of Advice and Consent to Ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between the U.S. and Russia. New START would cut deployed, strategic nuclear weapons. It is a small, but necessary step towards Peace Action’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Overwhelmingly, Americans of all parties, bipartisan national security experts and military leaders agree that fewer nuclear weapons make the United States and the World a safer place. The bipartisan vote in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to move the treaty to the full Senate for ratification reflects these views. Peace Action calls on Senator Scott Brown to commit to voting for the treaty. We need the treaty to be passed this year to continue to move the disarmament agenda forward.
Under the treaty, both countries would reduce to 1,550 deployed, long-range nuclear warheads, most of which are tens or hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, which leveled the city and killed 140,000 people. The treaty would reinstate a more robust verification regime that will provide the United States with critical insight into Russia’s nuclear forces. Verification has lapsed since the START treaty expired last December.
Contact Senator Scott Brown at is 202-224-4543 or e-mail him at scottbrown.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/emailscottbrown.