SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — President Obama on Saturday urged the Senate to pass a treaty aimed at reducing nuclear arms in the U.S. and Russia that were built up during the Cold War.
Republicans such as Sen. John Kyl of Arizona have been holding up approval despite the bill’s strong bipartisan support from military leaders.Obama pressed his case from Lisbon, Portugal, where a NATO summit was under way. He also used his weekly radio and Internet address to push passage of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, which would restart mutual inspections.
“Without ratification this year, the United States will have no inspectors on the ground and no ability to verify Russian activities,” Obama said in his weekly address. “So those who would block this treaty are breaking President Reagan’s rule — they want to trust but not verify.”
Kyl’s concern about having enough funds to modernize the U.S. nuclear infrastructure has been answered with a plan to invest $85 billion in that initiative over the next 10 years, Obama said.
It has been 11 months since the U.S. has had inspectors in Russia, Obama said in his weekly address. He characterized the prospect of failing to ratify the treaty as a “dangerous gamble with America’s national security” and warned of setbacks to U.S. leadership in the world.
Republican opposition is on track to push the issue into next year, when lawmakers in the newly reformed Congress would have to start over on the plan.
Kyl said in a Nov. 16 statement that he didn’t think the treaty could be considered in a lame-duck session “given the combination of other work Congress must do and the complex and unresolved issues related to START and modernization.”
When Obama was asked in Portugal if he thought Republican holdouts could be won over before the end of the year, he was optimistic.
“My expectation is my Republican friends in the Senate will ultimately conclude it makes sense for us to do this,” Obama said.
Kristen Gerencher is a reporter for MarketWatch in San Francisco.
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