I 
118TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3154 
To reduce and eliminate threats posed by nuclear weapons to the United 
States, and for other purposes. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MAY 9, 2023 
Mr. MCGOVERN (for himself, Mr. BEYER, Mr. BLUMENAUER, and Mr. 
GARAMENDI) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Armed Services, and in addition to the Committee on For-
eign Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, 
in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the juris-
diction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To reduce and eliminate threats posed by nuclear weapons 
to the United States, and for other purposes. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Hastening Arms Limi-
tations Talks Act of 2023’’ or the ‘‘HALT Act of 2023’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress makes the following findings: 
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(1) The use of nuclear weapons poses an exis-
tential threat to humanity, a fact that led President 
Ronald Reagan and Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorba-
chev to declare in a joint statement in 1987 that a 
‘‘nuclear war cannot be won and must never be 
fought’’, a sentiment affirmed by the People’s Re-
public of China, the French Republic, the Russian 
Federation, the United Kingdom of Great Britain 
and Northern Ireland, and the United States of 
America in January 2022. 
(2) On June 12, 1982, an estimated 1,000,000 
people attended the largest peace rally in United 
States history, in support of a movement to freeze 
and reverse the nuclear arms race, a movement that 
helped to create the political will necessary for the 
negotiation of several bilateral arms control treaties 
between the United States and former Soviet Union, 
and then the Russian Federation. Those treaties 
contributed to strategic stability through mutual and 
verifiable reciprocal nuclear weapons reductions. 
(3) Since the advent of nuclear weapons in 
1945, millions of people around the world have stood 
up to demand meaningful, immediate international 
action to halt, reduce, and eliminate the threats 
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posed by nuclear weapons, nuclear weapons testing, 
and nuclear war, to humankind and the planet. 
(4) In 1970, the Treaty on the Non-Prolifera-
tion of Nuclear Weapons done at Washington, Lon-
don, and Moscow July 1, 1968 (21 UST 483) (com-
monly referred to as the ‘‘Nuclear Non-Proliferation 
Treaty’’ or the ‘‘NPT’’), entered into force, which 
includes a binding obligation on the 5 nuclear-weap-
on states (commonly referred to as the ‘‘P5’’), 
among other things, ‘‘to pursue negotiations in good 
faith on effective measures relating to the cessation 
of the nuclear arms race . . . and to nuclear disar-
mament’’. 
(5) Bipartisan United States global leadership 
has curbed the growth in the number of countries 
possessing nuclear weapons and has slowed overall 
vertical proliferation among countries already pos-
sessing nuclear weapons, as is highlighted by a more 
than 90-percent reduction in the United States nu-
clear weapons stockpile from its Cold War height of 
31,255 in 1967. 
(6) The United States testing of nuclear weap-
ons is no longer necessary as a result of the fol-
lowing major technical developments since the Sen-
ate’s consideration of the Comprehensive Nuclear- 
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Test-Ban Treaty (commonly referred to as the 
‘‘CTBT’’) in 1999: 
(A) The verification architecture of the 
Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban-Treaty Orga-
nization 
(commonly 
referred 
to 
as 
the 
‘‘CTBTO’’)— 
(i) has made significant advance-
ments, as seen through its network of 300 
International Monitoring Stations and its 
International Data Centre, which together 
provide for the near instantaneous detec-
tion of nuclear explosives tests, including 
all 6 such tests conducted by North Korea 
between 2006 and 2017; and 
(ii) is operational 24 hours a day, 7 
days a week. 
(B) Since the United States signed the 
CTBT, confidence has grown in the science- 
based Stockpile Stewardship and Management 
Plan of the Department of Energy, which forms 
the basis of annual certifications to the Presi-
dent regarding the continual safety, security, 
and effectiveness of the United States nuclear 
deterrent in the absence of nuclear testing, 
leading former Secretary of Energy Ernest 
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Moniz to remark in 2015 that ‘‘lab directors 
today now state that they certainly understand 
much more about how nuclear weapons work 
than during the period of nuclear testing’’. 
(7) Despite the progress made to reduce the 
number and role of, and risks posed by, nuclear 
weapons, and to halt the Cold War-era nuclear arms 
race, tensions between countries that possess nuclear 
weapons are on the rise, key nuclear risk reduction 
treaties are under threat, significant stockpiles of 
weapons-usable fissile material remain, and a quali-
tative global nuclear arms race is now underway 
with each of the countries that possess nuclear 
weapons spending tens of billions of dollars each 
year to maintain and improve their arsenals. 
(8) The Russian Federation is pursuing the de-
velopment of destabilizing types of nuclear weapons 
that are not presently covered under any existing 
arms control treaty or agreement and the People’s 
Republic of China, India, Pakistan, and North 
Korea have each taken concerning steps to diversify 
their more modest sized, but nonetheless very dead-
ly, nuclear arsenals. 
(9) President Joseph R. Biden’s 2022 Nuclear 
Posture Review was right to label the nuclear-armed 
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Sea-Launched Cruise Missile ‘‘no longer necessary’’, 
as this weapon, if deployed, would have the effect of 
lowering the threshold for nuclear weapons use. 
(10) On February 3, 2021, President Joseph R. 
Biden preserved binding and verifiable limits on the 
deployed and non-deployed strategic forces of the 
largest two nuclear weapons powers through the 
five-year extension of the Treaty between the United 
States of America and the Russian Federation on 
Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation 
of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed April 8, 2010, 
and entered into force February 5, 2011 (commonly 
referred to as the ‘‘New START Treaty’’). 
(11) In 2013, the report on a nuclear weapons 
employment strategy of the United States submitted 
under section 492 of title 10, United States Code, 
determined that it is possible to ensure the security 
of the United States and allies and partners of the 
United States and maintain a strong and credible 
strategic deterrent while safely pursuing up to a 1⁄3 
reduction in deployed nuclear weapons from the level 
established in the New START Treaty. 
(12) On January 12, 2017, then-Vice President 
Biden stated, ‘‘[G]iven our non-nuclear capabilities 
and the nature of today’s threats—it’s hard to envi-
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sion a plausible scenario in which the first use of nu-
clear weapons by the United States would be nec-
essary. Or make sense.’’. 
(13) In light of moves by the United States and 
other countries to increase their reliance on nuclear 
weapons, a global nuclear freeze would seek to halt 
the new nuclear arms race by seeking conclusion of 
a comprehensive and verifiable freeze on the testing, 
deployment, and production of nuclear weapons and 
delivery vehicles for such weapons. 
(14) The reckless and repeated nuclear threats 
by Russian President Vladimir Putin since his Feb-
ruary 2022 invasion of Ukraine underscore the need 
for a global nuclear freeze. 
SEC. 3. STATEMENT OF POLICY. 
The following is the policy of the United States: 
(1) The United States should build upon its 
decades long, bipartisan efforts to reduce the num-
ber and salience of nuclear weapons by leading inter-
national negotiations on specific arms-reduction 
measures as part of a 21st century global nuclear 
freeze movement. 
(2) Building on the 2021 extension of the New 
START Treaty, the United States should engage 
with all other countries that possess nuclear weapons 
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to seek to negotiate and conclude future multilateral 
arms control, disarmament, and risk reduction 
agreements, which should contain some or all of the 
following provisions: 
(A) An agreement by the United States 
and the Russian Federation on a resumption of 
on-site inspections and verification measures 
per the New START Treaty and a follow-on 
treaty or agreement to the New START Treaty 
that may lower the central limits of the Treaty 
and cover new kinds of strategic delivery vehi-
cles or non-strategic nuclear weapons. 
(B) An agreement on a verifiable freeze on 
the testing, production, and further deployment 
of all nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles for 
such weapons. 
(C) An agreement that establishes a 
verifiable numerical ceiling on the deployed 
shorter-range and intermediate-range and stra-
tegic delivery systems (as defined by the Inter-
mediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the 
New START Treaty, respectively) and the nu-
clear warheads associated with such systems be-
longing to the P5, and to the extent possible, 
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all countries that possess nuclear weapons, at 
August 2, 2019, levels. 
(D) An agreement by each country to 
adopt a policy of no first use of nuclear weap-
ons or provide transparency into its nuclear de-
claratory policy. 
(E) An agreement on a proactive United 
Nations Security Council resolution that ex-
pands access by the International Atomic En-
ergy Agency to any country found by the Board 
of Governors of that Agency to be noncompliant 
with its obligations under the NPT. 
(F) An agreement to refrain from config-
uring nuclear forces in a ‘‘launch on warning’’ 
or ‘‘launch under warning’’ nuclear posture, 
which may prompt a nuclear armed country to 
launch a ballistic missile attack in response to 
detection by an early-warning satellite or sensor 
of a suspected incoming ballistic missile. 
(G) An agreement not to target or inter-
fere in the nuclear command, control, and com-
munications (commonly referred to as ‘‘NC3’’) 
infrastructure of another country through a ki-
netic attack or a cyberattack. 
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(H) An agreement on transparency meas-
ures or verifiable limits, or both, on hypersonic 
cruise missiles and glide vehicles that are fired 
from sea-based, ground, and air platforms. 
(I) An agreement to provide a baseline and 
continuous exchanges detailing the aggregate 
number of active nuclear weapons and associ-
ated systems possessed by each country. 
(3) The United States should rejuvenate efforts 
in the United Nations Conference on Disarmament 
toward the negotiation of a verifiable Fissile Mate-
rial Treaty or Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty, or 
move negotiations to another international body or 
fora, such as a meeting of the P5. Successful conclu-
sion of such a treaty would verifiably prevent any 
country’s production of highly enriched uranium and 
plutonium for use in nuclear weapons. 
(4) The United States should convene a series 
of head-of-state level summits on nuclear disar-
mament modeled on the Nuclear Security Summits 
process, which saw the elimination of the equivalent 
of 3,000 nuclear weapons. 
(5) The President should seek ratification by 
the Senate of the CTBT and mobilize all countries 
covered by Annex 2 of the CTBT to pursue similar 
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action to hasten entry into force of the CTBT. The 
entry into force of the CTBT, for which ratification 
by the United States will provide critical momentum, 
will activate the CTBT’s onsite inspection provision 
to investigate allegations that any country that is a 
party to the CTBT has conducted a nuclear test of 
any yield. 
(6) The President should make the accession of 
North Korea to the CTBT a component of any final 
agreement in fulfilling the pledges the Government 
of North Korea made in Singapore, as North Korea 
is reportedly the only country to have conducted a 
nuclear explosive test since 1998. 
(7) The United States should— 
(A) refrain from developing any new de-
signs for nuclear warheads or bombs, but espe-
cially designs that could add a level of technical 
uncertainty into the United States stockpile and 
thus renew calls to resume nuclear explosive 
testing in order to test that new design; and 
(B) seek reciprocal commitments from 
other countries that possess nuclear weapons. 
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SEC. 4. PROHIBITION ON USE OF FUNDS FOR NUCLEAR 
TEST EXPLOSIONS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—None of the funds authorized to 
be appropriated or otherwise made available for fiscal year 
2024 or any fiscal year thereafter, or authorized to be ap-
propriated or otherwise made available for any fiscal year 
before fiscal year 2024 and available for obligation as of 
the date of the enactment of this Act, may be obligated 
or expended to conduct or make preparations for any ex-
plosive nuclear weapons test that produces any yield until 
such time as— 
(1) the President submits to Congress an ad-
dendum to the report required by section 4205 of 
the Atomic Energy Defense Act (50 U.S.C. 2525) 
that details any change to the condition of the 
United States nuclear weapons stockpile from the 
report submitted under that section in the preceding 
year; and 
(2) there is enacted into law a joint resolution 
of Congress that approves the test. 
(b) RULE OF CONSTRUCTION.—Subsection (a) does 
not limit nuclear stockpile stewardship activities that are 
consistent with the zero-yield standard and other require-
ments under law. 
Æ 
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