Back from the Brink congratulations and thanks lead sponsor, Mayor Quentin Hart of Waterloo, Iowa, and Jackie Cabasso and our friends at Mayors for Peace-US for the unanimous adoption of their resolution, The Imperative of Dialogue in a Time of Acute Nuclear Dangers, at the U.S. Conference of Mayors on June 23, 2014.
For immediate release: June 23, 2024
Contact: Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator, Mayors for Peace
(510) 306-0119; wslf@earthlink.net
Kansas City, MO – At the close of its 92nd Annual Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, on June 23, 2024, the final business plenary of the United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) unanimously adopted a new resolution, titled, “The Imperative of Dialogue in a Time of Acute Nuclear Dangers.” This is the nineteenth consecutive year that the USCM has adopted a resolution submitted on behalf of U.S. members of Mayors for Peace.
The resolution’s lead sponsor, Mayor Quentin Hart of Waterloo, Iowa, commented: “As an elected official and original sponsor of this resolution, I understand just how precious human life is. It is our responsibility as leaders to ensure we leave this earth in a better place than we inherited it. It’s imperative that we look at the ways we utilize nuclear weapons and the threat thereof, and promote meaningful global dialogue in order to avoid nuclear war and create a culture of peace. I am proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with Mayors across the globe as a member of the Mayors for Peace initiative that has led the way.”
Jackie Cabasso, Mayors for Peace North American Coordinator, added: “The USCM has once again charted a responsible path. It’s past time for the federal government to listen to the elected representatives who are closest to the people.”
Reflecting the urgency of the current moment, the new USCM resolution opens with a warning that, “the Russian war of aggression on Ukraine, with its attendant nuclear threats, brings into sharp focus the increasing risks of nuclear war by accident, miscalculation, or crisis escalation that make disarmament that much more urgent,” and adds that, “an intensifying array of antagonisms among nuclear-armed governments is also occurring in North-East Asia, the South China Sea, South Asia, and the Middle East.”
The resolution notes that “the U.S. is planning to spend $2 Trillion over the next 30 years to maintain and modernize its nuclear triad, building new ballistic missile submarines, new silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, a new nuclear cruise missile, a modified gravity bomb, a new stealthy long-range strike bomber, and accompanying warheads for each delivery system, with modified or new plutonium pits.” It points out that “at an April 2024 symposium, National Nuclear Security Administrator (NNSA) Jill Hruby stated: ‘[T]he reestablishment of pit production capabilities is the largest and most complex infrastructure undertaking at NNSA since shortly after the Manhattan Project,’ and ‘NNSA delivered over 200 modernized nuclear weapons to the Department of Defense this past year, the most since the end of the Cold War’.”
In the resolution, the USCM “welcomes the September 10, 2023, Declaration of the G20 Leaders meeting in Delhi, including leaders or foreign ministers of China, France, India, Russia, UK, and U.S., that ‘The threat of use or use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible’.”
The USCM resolution “condemns Russia’s illegal war of aggression on Ukraine and its repeated nuclear threats and calls on the Russian government to withdraw all forces from Ukraine,” and calls on the President and Congress “to maximize diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine as soon as possible.”
The USCM resolution “welcomes National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan’s June 2023 invitation ‘to engage Russia now to manage nuclear risks and develop a post-2026 arms control framework,’ and ‘to engage China without preconditions—helping ensure that competition is managed, and that competition does not veer into conflict’,” and further “encourages our government to pursue any offer made in good faith to negotiate a treaty among nuclear powers barring any country from being the first to use nuclear weapons against one another.”
It also “calls on the government of the United States to make good faith efforts to reduce tensions with the government of the People’s Republic of China, seeking opportunities for cooperation on such global issues as the environment, public health, and equitable development, and new approaches for the control of nuclear arms.”
Looking to the future, the USCM “calls on the Administration and Congress to reconsider further investments in nuclear weapons and find ways that our finite federal resources can better meet human needs, support safe and resilient cities, and increase investment in international diplomacy, humanitarian assistance and development, and international cooperation to address the climate crisis.”
Finally, the USCM “calls on member cities to take action at the municipal level to raise public awareness of the growing dangers of wars among nuclear-armed states, the humanitarian and financial impacts of nuclear weapons, and the urgent need for good faith U.S. leadership in negotiating the global elimination of nuclear weapons,” and it “encourages all its members to join Mayors for Peace to advance the objectives of the organization and to help it reach its goal of 10,000 members.”
As recognized in the resolution, “Mayors for Peace, founded in 1982 and led by the Mayors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is working for a world without nuclear weapons, safe and resilient cities, and a culture of peace, and as of May 1, 2024, has grown to 8,389 cities in 166 countries and territories, with 227 U.S. members.”
The USCM is the official nonpartisan association of more than 1,400 American cities with populations over 30,000. Resolutions adopted at its annual meetings become USCM official policy that will guide the organization’s advocacy efforts for the coming year.
The 2024 USCM resolution was sponsored by Mayor Quentin Hart of Waterloo, IA, and co-sponsored by Mayor Jesse Arreguin of Berkeley, CA; Mayor Lacey Beaty of Beaverton, OR; Mayor Brad Cavanagh of Dubuque, IA; Mayor Martha Guerrero of West Sacramento, CA; Mayor Chris Hoy of Salem, OR; Mayor Elizabeth Kautz of Burnsville, MN; Mayor Daniel Laudick of Cedar Falls, IA; Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway of Madison, WI; Mayor Andy Schor of Lansing, MI; Mayor Matt Tuerk of Allentown, PA; and Mayor Victoria Woodards of Tacoma, WA.
Click here for the official full text of the resolution (temporary link). In future, click here.
# # #
