In these last crucial weeks before a likely vote on the New START, many Senate Republicans are still on-the-fence about which way they will vote. So what are the consequences if New START fails?

The latest bout of treaty opposition is in the form of fundraising from right wing groups such as The Heritage Foundation and The John Birch Society (which has consistently opposed every nuclear arms treaty between the US and the Soviet Union/Russia.) Mitt Romney followed up his ridiculous Washington Post op-ed with a fundraising letter calling for donations to stop the treaty. It’s another not-so-subtle attempt to burnish his neoconservative credentials for the 2012 GOP presidential race.

The whopping $7 billion for nuclear weapons programs that was proposed for 2011 is just the tip of the iceberg in a huge funding increase for the nuclear weapons complex. Last year, Republicans successfully pushed to require the Obama administration to submit a special report on modernizing the nuclear weapons complex, maintaining or enhancing our nuclear weapons stockpile, and the expected costs for the next 10 years. When the New START treaty was officially submitted to the Senate, this report had to be released. Wanting to win over Republican senators’ support for the New START treaty to cut US and Russian nuclear arsenals, the administration put forward a plan that greatly increases nuclear weapons related funding to the level of $180 billion over the next 10 years. From the Washington Post:

If you’re in California’s Bay Area, be sure to come out for an interesting discussion with Tad Daley on how to eliminate nuclear weapons on Wednesday, May 26th.

Tad Daley, J.D., Ph.D., is the author of the new book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World. He is the Writing Fellow with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate organization. He has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to members of Congress and has written for major newspapers nationwide. Come here him talk about his new book and what can be done to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons.

When: May 26 from 7-9 PM

Will the Senate stand in the way of a safer world, or will it support a new nuclear weapons treaty to reduce the huge US and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals?

Last week, President Obama formally submitted the New START treaty to cut nuclear weapons to the US Senate. Key Senate committees will be holding hearings beginning tomorrow and Republican senators are weighing whether or not to support the treaty.

With more than 23,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, we have 23,000 chances for an accidental nuclear launch or for a weapon to fall into the wrong hands with devastating consequences. The US and Russia have 95 percent of the world’s stockpiles. The New START treaty can make us all that much safer by reducing both countries’ arsenals and paving the way for future progress to reduce the nuclear threat. [1]

Today, President Obama officially submitted the New START treaty to reduce US and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals to the US Senate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee will begin hearings on the treaty next week. Sen. Kerry issued this press release today in response:

Ratifying New START is an essential step toward making America safer.

This treaty will maintain our flexibility to protect our national security interests and restore hard-won visibility into the strategic nuclear forces of Russia’s still formidable arsenal. It will also strengthen the global coalition against the proliferation of nuclear weapons and thereby reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.

The New START Treaty is the latest in a line of strategic arms reduction accords, often negotiated by Republican presidents, and supported overwhelmingly by Republican and Democratic senators alike.