The Obama administration has selected U.S. Representative Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) to serve as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, Agence France-Presse reported yesterday (see GSN, March 18).
"Keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists, making sure other countries do not obtain them and, one day, I hope, ridding the world of these terrible weapons has become my passion and, I hope, my life's work," Tauscher said yesterday in a prepared statement.
The Senate must approve Tauscher's nomination, a process that "is fraught with uncertainty and can take weeks, if not months," she said.
Tauscher has served in the House since 1996 and supported the unsuccessful presidential campaign of her potential boss, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (Agence France-Presse/Yahoo!News, March 18).
"She's very competent, she knows the issues," nuclear proliferation expert Bennett Ramberg told the San Francisco Chronicle. "She's someone who I think will rattle the cages of the bureaucracy, particularly a bureaucracy that's populated with bureaucrats from the Bush era."
Tauscher was critical of Bush administration positions on nuclear weapons, particularly when it came to U.S. reluctance to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The pact has found greater support from President Barack Obama (see GSN, Feb. 19).
Ramberg said that the new job would give Tauscher the opportunity to promote significant reductions to the U.S. nuclear arsenal, to pursue CTBT ratification and to promote multilateral efforts against nuclear proliferation in Iran, North Korea and Syria.
There have been concerns, though, among peace activists regarding Tauscher's relationship with the U.S. nuclear complex, the Chronicle reported (Zachary Coile, San Francisco Chronicle, March 19).