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-
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•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 
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•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; 
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•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-
resentatives that the United States— 
(1) calls on the President to embrace the goals 
and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of 
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•HRES 77 IH 
Nuclear Weapons and make nuclear disarmament 
the centerpiece of the national security policy of the 
United States; and 
(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 move the world 
back from the nuclear brink and to prevent nuclear 
war by— 
(A) actively pursuing and concluding nego-
tiations on a new, bilateral nuclear arms control 
and disarmament framework agreement with 
the Russian Federation before 2026 and pur-
suing negotiations with China and other nu-
clear-armed states on an agreement or agree-
ments for the verifiable, enforceable, and 
timebound elimination of global nuclear arse-
nals; 
(B) renouncing the option of using nuclear 
weapons first; 
(C) ending the President’s sole authority 
to launch a nuclear attack; 
(D) taking the nuclear weapons of the 
United States off hair-trigger alert; and 
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