Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione Expects September Ratification of New START Treaty

(Washington, DC) – Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry announced today plans to hold a vote on the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) early in September.

"Today's announcement clears the way for a September ratification vote," said Joe Cirincione, President of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation. "The hearings conducted by Chairman Kerry and Ranking Member Richard Lugar have carefully examined every aspect of this treaty,” he said.

“Not a single senior military or national security official from any administration going back to Richard Nixon has opposed this treaty,” he noted. “The substantive discussion is largely over, the national security benefits well established.”

“The Senate’s debate has now shifted from policy to process,” Cirincione stated. He said that Senators Kerry and Lugar have addressed any remaining Republican procedural concerns by detailing a clear, orderly process providing six additional weeks for Senate consideration before a September vote.

“The Senate’s August recess will give members ample opportunity to resolve their remaining questions,” Cirincione concluded. “I am confident that Senators will return in September prepared to give the New START Treaty the overwhelming bipartisan approval it deserves.”

“America’s military and defense leaders have told the Senate that is in the U.S. national security interest to get this treaty approved as quickly as possible,” said Cirincione. "Every day without New START in force is another day we don’t know for sure what is going on with Russia's nuclear weapons. That is not good for America.”

Ploughshares Fund is the largest grantmaking foundation in the U.S. dedicated exclusively to security and peace funding. For more information, please visit www.ploughshares.org.

PRESS CONTACT: Kelly Bronk, (202) 783-4401

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