START Vote Postponed

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has postponed its vote on the new START treaty and will instead take up the arms reduction agreement following the August recess.

“I chose to reschedule the vote to be responsive to the concerns of our members so that we can build bipartisan consensus around a treaty that our military leaders all agree will make America safer,” Sen. John Kerry, the Senate Foreign Relations Chair, said in a statement Tuesday.

While the treaty, which aims to reduce the amount of nuclear warheads held by both Russia and the U.S. to 1,500 each, has found support from the committee’s Ranking Member Sen. Richard Lugar (D-Ind.), no other Republican on Foreign Relations have joined him. 

The committee vote will now likely take place in September. Once it reaches the Senate floor, it will need 67 votes to be ratified.