Senator Feinstein speaks out on nuclear weapons

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) had an excellent OpEd in the San Francisco Chronicle today entitled “Russian nuclear agreement a good start.” Responding to President Obama’s negotiations with Russia, she applauds this initial step while highlighting the need to continue on a path forward to make the world safer from the dangers posed by nuclear weapons. Below are the beginning paragraphs. Click here to read the whole OpEd.

President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev reached preliminary agreement Monday for deep cuts to both nations’ deployed strategic nuclear arsenals – to as low as 1,500 warheads each. This is good news. It provides negotiators a framework for a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty by year’s end that would push our nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels of any U.S.-Russian arms control agreement. More broadly, it signals a thaw in the U.S.-Russian relationship and heralds a new era in arms control – one that could lead one day to a world free of nuclear weapons.

I congratulate both presidents, and I will do everything I can in the U.S. Senate to advance their vision of a nuclear-free world.

Nuclear weapons pose a grave threat to humanity; reducing and eventually eliminating them from the world’s arsenals is the most important task facing global leaders today.

The Senate will play a critical role in determining how much progress is made on nuclear weapons issues this year. Senators will have to ratify any final treaty between Russia and the US regarding nuclear weapons reductions and President Obama intends to ask for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.