Nuclear foe targets Utah senators in test ban fight

MURRAY — David Culp can picture the nuclear chain reaction.

If the U.S. Senate ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), China has said it would follow suit. If China ratifies the treaty banning nuclear weapons tests, so would India, and then maybe Pakistan, and so on.

But the dominoes could fall in the other direction.

Experts believe India is the country most likely to conduct new tests, and if it did, China, Russia and the United States would likely respond in kind. That would lead to an arms race more complex than anything seen during the Cold War, says Culp, a non-proliferation lobbyist working for the Quaker group Friends Committee on National Legislation.

And Utah's two U.S. senators could have as much influence as anyone on which road the world's current and aspiring nuclear powers will take.

"It's not an exaggeration to say that much of the nuclear weapons policy for the planet will be decided right here in this state," Culp said in a talk Sunday at the Quaker Meeting House.

That's because ratification of the CTBT will probably fall short of the required 67 votes in the U.S. Senate if Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett oppose it, as they did in 1999.

A vote on the treaty, previously expected this year, may be put off until after the 2010 midterm elections. Culp said President Obama, who has urged ratification, is unlikely to press for a vote since his domestic agenda has been largely delayed and derailed.

The defense contracting industry and the military are more focused on conventional weapons and thus have little reason to oppose the treaty, Culp said, but he believes Republicans want to prevent Obama from claiming ratification as a foreign policy success.

He thinks all 59 Democrats and Independents in the Senate would vote to ratify, possibly joined by moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine and George Voinovich of Ohio.

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

He added that he expects Hatch and Bennett to agree to vote the same way, however they decide. But Bennett is "under lots of pressure not to break ranks," Culp said.