Global Security Newswire

The support of Utah's two Republican senators could be key in any U.S. attempt to ratify a global ban on nuclear test blasts, a lobbyist for a Quaker political organization said Sunday (see GSN, Dec. 10, 2009).

Senators Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett both voted against the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in October 1999, when Senate backing fell far short of the 67 votes required to ratify the document, the Deseret News reported.

The stakes are high in the battle to ratify the treaty, said David Culp, a lobbyist for the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker organization that favors nuclear disarmament initiatives. If India conducted additional nuclear tests, China, Russia and the United States could follow suit. Should testing become the norm again, nations such as Indonesia, Brazil and Argentina might also seek their own nuclear deterrents, he suggested.

If the Senate voted for ratification, though, China, India and Pakistan might also sign off on the document, he said.

The United States is one of 44 "Annex 2" nations that must ratify the pact before can enter into force. It is also among the nine holdouts within that group. The others are China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan.

"It's not an exaggeration to say that much of the nuclear weapons policy for the planet will be decided right here in [Utah]," Culp said.

The 59 Democrats and Independents currently occupying the Senate are likely to vote in favor of ratification, and they could be joined by as many as three centrist Republicans from other states, he said.

"You can do the math as well as I can. 59 plus three is 62: close but no cigar. If we don't get the two senators from Utah, I just don't see how we can win," according to Culp.

While both senators are likely to line up their votes, Bennett is "under lots of pressure not to break ranks" with other Republicans, Culp added.

Still, Utah residents' successful effort several years ago to press their senators into opposing the "Divine Strake" conventional ordnance blast suggests the lawmakers might also respond to pressure from constituents over the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, he said (see GSN, Feb 23, 2007; Paul Koepp, Deseret News, Jan. 25).