Editorials
Friday, October 15, 1999Test ban rejection was
a huge mistakeTHE Senate's rejection of the nuclear test ban treaty may be its most myopic performance in foreign relations since 1919, when the upper house defeated the Treaty of Versailles, establishing the League of Nations. Although some opponents had legitimate questions about verifying compliance with a test ban, the vote was a highly partisan one, with only four Republicans joining 44 Democrats (including Hawaii's Akaka and Inouye) in favor.The issue: The Senate rejected the nuclear test ban treaty.
The fact that the treaty did not even win a simple majority -- a two-thirds vote was required for ratification -- is a testament to President Clinton's weakness in attempting to muster congressional support and his wild miscalculation in earlier urging a vote.
The fact that the Republican leadership spurned pledges that the treaty would not be introduced for the remainder of Clinton's term in return for canceling the vote is a testament to the GOP's willingness to sacrifice the national interest for the sake of embarrassing the president.
There is irony in the way the parties' positions were reversed. Last summer the Senate Democrats joined Clinton in pressing for a vote this year.
Conservative Republicans, notably Jesse Helms of North Carolina, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, resisted bringing up the pact. Helms said that before he would bring up the test-ban treaty Clinton would have to submit the Kyoto protocol on global warming and revisions to the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty.
But when it developed that the Democrats didn't have the votes to win ratification, they pleaded for indefinite deferral, while the Republicans insisted on going ahead. Last-minute Democratic attempts to strike a deal that would spare the treaty from defeat failed.
The rejection of the test ban could have serious repercussions. It could encourage nations with nuclear weapons aspirations, such as North Korea, to continue weapons development. It could discourage India and Pakistan, which last year conducted nuclear tests, from signing the test-ban treaty. It could cripple the United States' position as a leader in the movement to end the proliferation of nuclear weapons and ultimately eliminate them.
The treaty has been signed by 152 countries, including the United States, but requires ratification by the legislatures of all 44 nuclear-capable countries. So far only 26 of these have acted. Without the United States' ratification, it is likely that the treaty will never take effect.
It is impossible to see how such an outcome could be in the interests of the United States, which hasn't conducted a nuclear test since 1992 and has no plans for such tests. But none of this seems to matter to the Republican senators itching to strike back at Clinton.
Internet access
FOR most Internet users, the information highway is a dirt road ready to be paved. The high-powered computers that have resulted from extraordinary technological advances are backed up at the on-ramp. The issue of whether toll booths can be installed should be addressed later if problems occur. For the present, the paving needs to go forward.
In this case, the road-building involves utilization of cable lines capable of handling broadband access to America's 40 million residential Internet subscribers. Little more than 1 million consumers now are hooked up to the futuristic network allowing connection speeds dozens of times faster that the typical dial-up telephone modem.
Highway construction is progressing between cable companies and other providers of high-speed connectors, such as telephone companies. At mid-year, 160,000 consumers were gaining Internet access through digital subscriber lines from their phone companies. A study by the Federal Communications Commission staff says some fixed wireless companies are expected to join in the competition in a few years.
Some Internet providers have insisted that providers of cable service be required to share their lines with competitors. The FCC study provides little justification for regulating cable access at this point.
While more than 11 million consumers could be using cable connection by 2005, most will continue relying on telephone modems. That hardly amounts to a domination of the market. Consumer demand rather than government regulation should open up the cable lines further.
"We'll continue to look at this through the eyes of consumers," says FCC Chairman Bill Kennard. "When we hear that consumers are being denied choice and openness in the broadband world, we will clearly have to take action."
Imposing government regulation would discourage work on an information highway at this early point. If providers of broadband access lines abuse their position, then the government may be justified in assuring consumer access, but not before.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
