Our Nuclear Abolition Strategic Priorities

Our vision: We envision a world without nuclear weapons, with strong international arms control to prevent nuclear war and the elimination of the world’s nuclear weapons. We envision a future safe from the humanitarian, health, and environmental threats posed by nuclear weapons. We strive for justice, clean up and restoration of lands, communities and ecosystems already harmed by nuclear weapons.

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  1. Strengthen and expand the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons Coalition

  2. Conduct policy advocacy with Members of Congress on our nuclear weapons policy platform

  3. Build solidarity with nuclear frontline communities

  4. Conduct National coalition building and participate campaigns against nuclear weapons

  5. Conduct broad public education and outreach to communities on nuclear weapons

  6. Pass anti-nuclear resolutions in State Legislature, cities, counties and associations across the state

Nuclear Policy Priorities

We are living in the context of a new nuclear arms race, this time in a multi-polar world. We need our members of Congress to stand for nuclear justice and disarmament, not for nuclear war. In this year’s legislative session, Congress has a crucial opportunity to advance policies that will help put the United States on a path toward nuclear disarmament. To guide this effort, our Nuclear Weapons Task Force has developed a set of policy priorities that we are urging Congress to adopt.

Support the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

We call upon our government to join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the nuclear ban treaty, which would prohibit the possession or use of nuclear weapons in order to achieve a healthier, safer, and more peaceful future. Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a Back from the Brink resolution which calls on the President to embrace the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and makes nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of the national security policy of the United States. It also establishes the sense of Congress to endorse the following common-sense nuclear policy reforms:

  • 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;

  • canceling the plan to replace the nuclear arsenal of the United States with modernized, enhanced weapons; and

  • actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to mutually eliminate their nuclear arsenals.

Continue the U.S. moratorium on nuclear testing

There is no benefit to nuclear weapons tests and decades of evidence of the harm. The United States has not conducted an explosive test since 1992, checking the efficacy and reliability of its weapons with alternative tests that produce no nuclear yield, like computer simulations. With communities around the world still recovering from the nuclear tests of the past 75 years, we must continue the U.S. commitment to the global testing moratorium. The Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2021 includes $10 million to prepare the Nevada test site to resume nuclear testing. The House version contains a prohibition on such funding. Members of Congress consistently push to resume testing, so we must remain vigilant.

Put America on the path toward nuclear disarmament

  • Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first 

  • End the sole authority of any US president to launch a nuclear attack

  • Take U.S nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert

  • Cancel the plan to replace the entire US nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons

Compensate civilians exposed to NUCLEAR radiation

Before the United States military used nuclear weapons against civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, they built and tested them on American soil. The Manhattan Project was spread across the country with facilities at Hanford, Washington; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; Los Alamos, New Mexico; Livermore, California and eventually the Trinity test site in south-central New Mexico. Downwind communities were neither protected nor informed of airborne radiation releases from these facilities.

This failure to inform and protect continued throughout the ensuing decades of the Cold War as uranium mining, production, and testing contaminated soil, air, and groundwater. Testing at the Nevada Test site lasted from 1951-1992. The United States conducted testing in the Marshall Islands from 1946-1958. Many mining and production facilities continue to be active and cleanup at closed facilities is incomplete. Even today, generations later, we see the devastating health effects of exposure to ionizing radiation released from these facilities.

In 1990, The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) began compensating and offering health care to exposed people within a few of these communities. Without Congressional action, RECA will sunset. Congress should renew RECA to continue protecting these very vulnerable groups; strengthen RECA to offer more comprehensive and accessible compensation; and expand RECA to include the communities currently left out.