IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1185 
Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of 
Nuclear Weapons. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 16, 2022 
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself and Mr. BLUMENAUER) 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 subse-
quently determined 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-
ine—for example, as few as 100 Hiroshima-sized bombs, 
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•HRES 1185 IH 
small by modern standards, if used to attack urban in-
dustrial targets would put at least 5,000,000 tons of soot 
into the upper atmosphere and cause climate disruption 
across the planet, cutting food production and putting 
2,000,000,000 people at risk of starvation; 
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 
that the effects of climate change and environmental deg-
radation increase stress on communities around the world 
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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; 
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-
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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; and 
Whereas, on January 20, 2022, the Science and Security 
Board at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set their 
iconic Doomsday Clock to 100 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: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that the United States— 
(1) calls on the President to embrace the goals 
and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of 
Nuclear Weapons and make nuclear disarmament 
the centerpiece of the national security policy of the 
United States; and 
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(2) calls on the Secretary of State, the Sec-
retary of Defense, all other Federal and congres-
sional leaders of the United States and the Amer-
ican people to lead a global effort to prevent nuclear 
war by— 
(A) renouncing the option of using nuclear 
weapons first; 
(B) ending the President’s sole authority 
to launch a nuclear attack; 
(C) taking the nuclear weapons of the 
United States off hair-trigger alert; 
(D) canceling the plan to replace the nu-
clear arsenal of the United States with modern-
ized, enhanced weapons; and 
(E) actively pursuing a verifiable agree-
ment among nuclear-armed states to mutually 
eliminate their nuclear arsenals. 
Æ 
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