By AP/St. Louis Public Radio
JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Missouri Republican Roy Blunt is one of 10 newly elected U.S. senators urging his future colleagues to wait to debate a new nuclear arms treaty with Russia.
The strategic arms reduction treaty would reduce the maximum number of deployed nuclear warheads in each country by about one-third from the current ceiling.
President Barack Obama wants the Senate to act soon on the treaty. But Blunt and the other newly-elected senators want that to wait until they take office in January. The senators-elect said the U.S. has never ratified such a treaty with the Soviet Union or Russia during a lame duck session of Congress.
Blunt said during his Senate campaign that he believes the treaty should be rejected.