Tell Congress to Support Arms Control and Talks with Russia and China

Did you know that the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty between the U.S. and Russia, known as the New START, expires on February 5, 2026?  It’s time for the U.S. and Russia to get back to the table to negotiate for a world without nuclear weapons!

New START is one of the few remaining nuclear arms control treaties.  Key Congressional leaders, Representative Bill Foster of Illinois and Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, have introduced House Resolution 100 and Senate Resolution 61, respectively, that call for negotiations with Russia and China to end the dangerous nuclear brinkmanship that keeps the world on a knife’s edge.  https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/house-resolution/100 and https://www.congress.gov/bill/119th-congress/senate-resolution/61  It’s time to maintain and build the needed arms control agreements, such as the original 2011 START.  https://www.state.gov/new-start-treaty

In 2011, the global inventory of nuclear warheads was estimated to be about 20,000.  https://ourworldindata.org/nuclear-weapons  New START limits the U.S. and Russia to:

* 700 deployed intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs, deployed submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments;

* 1,550 nuclear warheads on deployed ICBMs, deployed SLBMs, and deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments  – each such heavy bomber is counted as one warhead toward this limit; and

* 800 deployed and non-deployed ICBM launchers, SLBM launchers, and heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments.

The proposed House and Senate resolution includes language about current events.  It:

• Condemns the Russian Federation’s escalatory nuclear rhetoric and veiled threats on the potential use of nuclear weapons to further its invasion of Ukraine.
• Condemns the Russian Federation’s purported suspension of the New START Treaty.
• Calls for the Russian Federation to promptly return to full implementation of New START, including on-site inspections, provision of treaty-mandated notifications and data, and resumption of Bilateral Consultative Commission meetings.
• Calls on the Trump Administration to continue to engage the People’s Republic of China in further bilateral talks on nuclear risk reduction and arms control, and to pursue new multilateral arms control efforts.
• Calls on the Trump Administration to continue to pursue nuclear arms control and risk reduction dialogue with the Russian Federation to maintain strategic stability, ensure the conflict in Ukraine does not escalate to nuclear use, and avoid an unrestrained nuclear arms race.

CCNS urges you to contact your U.S. Senators and Congressperson and request they co-sponsor House Resolution 100 and Senate Resolution 61 that call for serious negotiations with Russia and China to avoid an unrestrained nuclear arms race.

1. Join us on Friday, March 7^th from noon to 1 pm at the intersection of East Alameda and Sandoval for the weekly one-hour peaceful protest for nuclear disarmament. Join the weekly peaceful protest with Veterans for Peace, CCNS, Nuclear Watch NM, Loretto Community, New Mexico Peace Fest, Pax Christi and others. Bring your flags, signs and banners and join in the conversation for nuclear disarmament. 

2. Tuesday, March 11^th – 14^th anniversary of Fukushima– read “Remembering Fukushima and American Amnesia,” by Marilyn Elie, Indian Point Safe Energy Coalition. https://www.sierraclub.org/atlantic/lower-hudson/remembering-fukushima-and-american-amnesia

3. Wednesday, March 12^th at 3 to 4 pm – An in-person talk with Sean J. Patrick Carney in the Pete V. Domenici Building at the New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Avenue, Santa Fe, NM. The talk will cover nuclearism and the cultural legacy of nuclear history adapted from his Time Zero

Time Zero is a sonic talk on nuclearism, its aesthetics, and its influence on the paranoiac cultural architecture of postwar America. From the first nuclear detonation in New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin in 1945, through decades of mutually assured destruction, to science-fiction-like visions of atomic energy powering advanced artificial intelligence platforms, to radioactive half-lives numbering tens of thousands of years, Time Zero additionally looks at the ways that the nuclear has reoriented humankind’s relationships to space and time.

https://www.nmhistorymuseum.org/event/details/6529/time-zero

4. Thursday, March 13^th at 5:30 pm at Los Alamos Nature Center, “Electrification Town Hall.” How will Los Alamos County handle growing electric demands?  What if everyone goes all in on electric?  What changes will be made to the grid?  More information at https://www.losalamosnm.us/Events-Directory/Town-hall-meeting-on-electrification

 CCNS questions: Will the Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade (EPCU) Project be needed with the import of 170 MW from the Foxtail Flats Solar + Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) facility in San Juan County?  How much electrical energy will be used to support the planned expanded plutonium pit production at LANL? 

5. Monday, March 24^th at 5:30 pm MDT virtual event – A New Generation of Nuclear Lies: Small Modular Reactors and Nuclear Plant Reopenings/Relicensing.  Speakers:  Paul Gunter, M.V. Ramana, and Linda Pentz Gunter.  Register now at https://masspeace.us/NuclearLies

Tags: China, deployed heavy bombers equipped for nuclear armaments, House Resolution 100, ICBMs, New START, New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, People’s Republic of China, Representative Bill Foster of Illinois, Russia, Russian Federation, Senate Resolution 61, Senator Edward Markey of Massachusetts, SLBMs, U.S., Ukraine