Organizational Sign-On Letter in Support of H. Res. 77, a Resolution Embracing the Goals and Provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

The following letter in support of H. Res. 77 will be emailed to every House office in early-mid March, 2023. Organizations wishing to sign the letter can sign on here. The deadline for signatures is Friday, March 3, 2023.

Dear Representative:

Vladimir Putin has made terrifying nuclear threats as part of his horrific war against Ukraine. The prospect of war over Taiwan is rising. Last August, the UN Secretary-General said “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation.”

In short the risk of nuclear war is all too real — perhaps greater than it has been since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 – threatening all of humanity. It’s well past time for the United States and the world to get serious about nuclear disarmament and to take steps to prevent nuclear war and reduce nuclear risks.

Congress has a vital role to play in championing nuclear risk reduction and disarmament. In that spirit, we ask you to join Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) in co-sponsoring H. Res. 77, a resolution calling on the United States to embrace the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and to take concrete policy steps to reduce nuclear risks.

More specifically, the resolution calls on the United States to make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of the national security policy of the United States and calls on the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, all other Federal and congressional leaders of the United States and the American people to lead a global effort to move the world back from the nuclear brink and to prevent nuclear war by:

• • Actively pursuing and concluding negotiations on a new, bilateral nuclear arms control and disarmament framework agreement with the Russian Federation before 2026 and pursuing negotiations with China and other nuclear-armed states on an agreement or agreements for the verifiable, enforceable, and timebound elimination of global nuclear arsenals;
  • Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first;
  • Ending the President’s sole authority to launch a nuclear attack;
  • Taking the nuclear weapons of the United States off hair-trigger alert; and
  • Canceling the plan to replace the nuclear arsenal of the United States with modernized, enhanced weapons.

This time of war and heightened global tensions is a stark reminder of why the United States, Russia, China and all nuclear weapons states need to revitalize nuclear arms reductions and disarmament efforts. Before the unthinkable happens. U.S. nuclear weapons did nothing to deter Vladimir Putin’s war on the Ukrainian people. They don’t make the United States nor any country safe. They are illegitimate, immoral instruments of national security that must be eliminated before catastrophe strikes.

Some say that it is unrealistic to talk about abolishing nuclear weapons. We say it is unrealistic to think we can continue with thousands of nuclear weapons in the world and expect that they will not be used. Many experts and former defense officials have for years pointed out that we have likely avoided a nuclear war largely because of luck, not because of sound policies or decision making or infallible technology.

Public support for abolishing nuclear weapons is strong. In the US, a growing number of local and state governments – from small towns to major cities – have adopted resolutions supporting complete nuclear disarmament and these same policies to help prevent nuclear war. Internationally 122 countries – two-thirds of the world’s nations – voted to adopt the TPNW.

Please be a voice and advocate for sensible nuclear weapons policies that will help prevent nuclear war and achieve global nuclear disarmament. Co-sponsoring H. Res. 77 is one simple way for you to show that leadership.

Sincerely,