Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

IV 118TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. RES. 77 Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JANUARY 31, 2023 Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Ms. LEE of California, Ms. NORTON, and Ms. JAYAPAL) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently deter- mined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned RESOLUTION Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Whereas since the height of the Cold War, the United States and Russia have dismantled more than 50,000 nuclear warheads, but 14,500 of these weapons still exist and pose an intolerable risk to human survival; Whereas 95 percent of these weapons are in the hands of the United States and Russia and the rest are held by seven other countries: China, France, Israel, India, North Korea, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom; Whereas the use of even a tiny fraction of these weapons could cause worldwide climate disruption and global fam- VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB 2 •HRES 77 IH ine—for example, a limited nuclear war in south Asia in- volving just 250 Hiroshima-sized 15 kiloton warheads could result in 52,000,000 direct fatalities, loft 37,000,000 tons of soot into the upper atmosphere, and cause climate disruption across the planet, cutting food production and putting an estimated 930,000,000 people worldwide at risk of death due to famine over two years; Whereas according to scientific studies and models, a large- scale nuclear war could kill hundreds of millions of people directly and cause unimaginable environmental damage and catastrophic climate disruption by dropping tempera- tures across the planet to levels not seen since the last ice age; under these conditions much of humanity might face starvation and humans might even be at grave risk as a species; Whereas despite assurances that these arsenals exist solely to guarantee that they are never used, there have been many occasions when nuclear armed states have prepared to use these weapons, and war has been averted only at the last minute; Whereas the current nuclear weapons policies of the United States do not inherently prevent their use; Whereas in the 2003 documentary, ‘‘The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara’’, former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said, when describ- ing the Cuban Missile Crisis, ‘‘It was luck that prevented nuclear war’’—yet the nuclear policy of the United States should not be based on the hope that ‘‘luck’’ will con- tinue; Whereas the United States intelligence community’s January 29, 2019, annual assessment of worldwide threats warned VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB 3 •HRES 77 IH that the effects of climate change and environmental deg- radation increase stress on communities around the world and intensify global instability and the likelihood of con- flict, causing the danger of using nuclear weapons or nu- clear war to grow; Whereas, in October 2017, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Nuclear Modernization Plan to up- grade and enhance nearly every element of the nuclear arsenal of the United States would result in costs of more than $1,200,000,000,000 over 30 years, not adjusting for inflation; Whereas, in May 2021, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that the plans for nuclear forces delin- eated in the Department of Defense’s and the Depart- ment of Energy’s fiscal year 2021 budget requests, sub- mitted in February 2020, would cost a total of $634,000,000,000 over the 2021 to 2030 period, for an average of just over $60,000,000,000 a year, a 10-year total that is 28 percent higher than CBO’s most recent previous estimate; Whereas a February 6, 2018, report by the Government Ac- countability Office report warned that the ‘‘National Nu- clear Security Administration’s (NNSA) plans to mod- ernize its nuclear weapons do not align with its budget, raising affordability concerns’’, thereby increasing the pressure on the defense budget and the implicit trade-offs within that budget, diverting crucial resources needed to assure the well-being of the American people and the ability to respond to global crises and priorities, increas- ing the potential risk of nuclear accidents, and helping fuel a global arms race; VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6300 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB 4 •HRES 77 IH Whereas, on February 2, 2019, the United States and the Russian Federation withdrew from the Intermediate- Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, signed in 1987 by Presi- dent Ronald Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, which has prohibited the development and de- ployment of ground-launched nuclear missiles with ranges of 310 miles to 3,420 miles, and has resulted in each country dismantling more than 2,500 missiles and has kept nuclear-tipped cruise missiles off the European con- tinent for three decades, thus sparking increased concern in a renewed nuclear arms race between the two coun- tries and other nuclear-armed nations; Whereas, on July 7, 2017, an alternative global nuclear pol- icy was adopted by 122 nations by signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which calls for the elimination of all nuclear weapons; Whereas the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons entered into force on January 22, 2021; Whereas, on January 24, 2023, the Science and Security Board at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set their iconic Doomsday Clock to 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever signaled how close humanity is to self- destruction, and urged governments to take action to make the world safer; and Whereas the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation has increased the danger and potential of the use of nu- clear weapons and nuclear war: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep- 1 resentatives that the United States— 2 (1) calls on the President to embrace the goals 3 and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of 4 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB 5 •HRES 77 IH Nuclear Weapons and make nuclear disarmament 1 the centerpiece of the national security policy of the 2 United States; and 3 (2) calls on the Secretary of State, the Sec- 4 retary of Defense, all other Federal and congres- 5 sional leaders of the United States and the Amer- 6 ican people to lead a global effort to move the world 7 back from the nuclear brink and to prevent nuclear 8 war by— 9 (A) actively pursuing and concluding nego- 10 tiations on a new, bilateral nuclear arms control 11 and disarmament framework agreement with 12 the Russian Federation before 2026 and pur- 13 suing negotiations with China and other nu- 14 clear-armed states on an agreement or agree- 15 ments for the verifiable, enforceable, and 16 timebound elimination of global nuclear arse- 17 nals; 18 (B) renouncing the option of using nuclear 19 weapons first; 20 (C) ending the President’s sole authority 21 to launch a nuclear attack; 22 (D) taking the nuclear weapons of the 23 United States off hair-trigger alert; and 24 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB 6 •HRES 77 IH (E) canceling the plan to replace the nu- 1 clear arsenal of the United States with modern- 2 ized, enhanced weapons. 3 Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:10 Feb 01, 2023 Jkt 039200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\HR77.IH HR77 pbinns on DSKJLVW7X2PROD with $$_JOB