After initially hedging their support for a nuclear weapons treaty between the U.S. and Russia, Maine’s two Republican senators released statements Friday indicating they were willing to vote for the initiative.

In separate announcements, U.S. Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins said they were likely to vote for the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty in the lame-duck session of Congress.

Snowe and Collins were the second and third Republicans to officially declare their support for the treaty. U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, has been on board from the get-go. Lugar has often been critical of his GOP colleagues for wavering on the treaty.

The treaty calls for the United States and Russia to reduce their nuclear arsenals to 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, 700 deployed delivery vehicles and 800 deployed and non-deployed launchers.

New START also adds compliance measures through new inspection and verification procedures.

Snowe earlier voiced concerns that New START didn’t have sufficient verification procedures and that it might hinder U.S. ambitions to create a missile defense system.

On Friday, Snowe said those concerns had been allayed. 

“I am confident that New START will provide predictability in our relationship with Russia and thus enhance global stability, and most importantly, our national security,” she said in a statement. “Therefore, if the majority moves to consider New START under a framework that allows for sufficient debate and amendments, I intend to support the (treaty).”

Collins previously worried about the disparity between Russia’s large stockpile of tactical weapons compared with the U.S. arsenal. She said those questions  were addressed after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates responded to her inquiry on the matter.

“The New START represents a continued effort to achieve mutual and verifiable reductions in nuclear weapons,” Collins said in her statement. “As the ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, I support (President Obama’s) commitment to reduce not only the number of strategic nuclear weapons through the New START treaty, but also to reduce, in the future, those weapons that are most vulnerable to theft and misuse — and those are tactical nuclear weapons.”

Until recently, Collins had been noncommittal about supporting the treaty, at one point telling reporters that she wished former President George H.W. Bush, who signed into law the first START treaty in 1991, would weigh in on the debate.

Earlier this week, Bush issued a one-sentence statement: “I urge the United States Senate to ratify the START treaty.”

Collins and Snowe’s support would seem to bode well for the treaty’s ratification this year. However, as Thursday’s surprise vote on the repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members showed, getting New START done during the lame-duck session is anything but certain.

House Democrats’ surprise decision to push the “don’t ask, don’t tell” vote riled GOP lawmakers, who had struck a deal with the Obama administration to ratify the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts before taking up other Democratic initiatives.

Snowe, who voted against the “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal, and Collins, who supported it, have signed a letter pledging to block all business before the Senate unless the Bush tax cuts are extended.

However, the pledge relates to legislative items only. New START is an executive item, therefore both senators would not violate the pledge if they voted for the treaty.

smistler@sunjournal.com

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