As he attempts to fend off a primary challenge from a young congressman, Sen. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has belted out a salvo of arms control legislation, including a new bill last week that would make it U.S. policy to extend the New START nuclear treaty with Russia.
Markey filed the Hastening Arms Limitation Talks (HALT) Act on Thursday, before U.S. and Russian officials met today in Vienna, Austria, to discuss a potential follow-up treaty to New START — an effort officials say is near and dear to President Donald Trump’s heart, but which critics say is a long shot at best that should not prevent extending New START for five years.
Markey is among the most consistent of those voices. Aside from making it U.S. policy to extend New START for five years, his new bill would — if passed by the GOP-controlled Senate and then signed by a president who has so far disagreed with the policy the bill seeks to advance — prohibit any funds for nuclear-explosive testing, and require the United States to attempt to “[n]egotiate a verifiable Fissile Material Treaty or Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty in the United Nations (UN) Conference on Disarmament or another international forum.”
Markey, a first-term senator and former congressman of nearly 40 years, faces a primary challenge from Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-Mass.). Polling is sparse in the race, but what polls there are show Kennedy leading. At various points, Kennedy has led by well more than the margin of error.
New START will expire in February unless the U.S. and Russian presidents agree to extend it for up to a half-decade. The Trump administration seeks to replace New START with a trilateral arms control treaty that also constrains China’s nuclear arsenal, but Beijing has resisted overtures to discuss such an agreement and did not participate in talks between Russia and the U.S. today, media reported.
