Todd Jacobson
NS&D Monitor
2/07/2014
A pair of key State Department arms control nominees were cleared by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week. Rose Gottemoeller, the President’s nominee to be Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, and Frank Rose, Obama’s pick to be Assistant Secretary of State for Verification and Compliance, were cleared by the committee in a voice vote. The committee delayed a vote on Gottemoeller and Rose last month due to Republican concerns about a lack of commitment from the Administration to only undertake further nuclear weapons reductions through a treaty process.
For many GOP senators, though, those concerns remain, and it’s unclear how long it might take in the full Senate for the nominees to be confirmed. Gottemoeller has been serving as the acting Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security since early 2012 when Ellen Tauscher left the State Department. Gottemoeller’s status hasn’t kept her from doing her job, however. This week, she traveled to Vienna, Austria, for several bilateral and multilateral meetings on arms control and international security issues. She’ll travel to Moscow Feb. 7 for arms control talks with senior Russian officials.
Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho) have raised concerns about future reductions for months, and have been frustrated that the Administration has not committed in writing that it would not pursue reductions outside the treaty framework. “It is imperative that any further cuts to the U.S. nuclear weapons arsenal be completed only through a treaty subject to the advice and consent of the Senate,” the pair said in a letter sent to the State Department in August signed by 17 other Senators.
