Joe Biden: “the chairman has been true to his word. He has had no hearings because that has not been done yet. I think I understand…”

“the chairman has been true to his word. He has had no hearings because that has not been done yet. I think I understand how the Senator from North Carolina connects the rationale of these treaties, and he thinks the orderly way to do it is to do it only after we do other things, but that makes the point. We have had no hearings on this treaty. I think the public may be surprised to know this treaty calls for no more nuclear testing by the United States and other nations. We haven't been testing. There is a moratorium on nuclear testing. That occurred in 1992 in the Bush administration. What we are talking about doing that my friends are talking about is so dangerous and damaging to U.S. interests; that is, to sign a treaty to say we will not test, we are not testing now. The United States made a unilateral decision not to test. Now we have the rest of the world ready to sign up, and we are saying we are not going to ratify, or up to now we are saying we are not even going to have a hearing on this subject. Again, I will get into the merits of the treaty later because I am confident the leadership of the Senate will come up now with the proposal as to how to proceed. But I urge my friend from North Carolina, and I urge my colleagues to urge my friend from North Carolina, to hold hearings. Bring the experts up. Bring the military up.”