Prevent FY2021 Funding to Detonate a Nuclear Test
Beyond Nuclear
(June 25, 2020) —”The Nevada National Security Site, where more than 924 full-scale nuclear weapons test blasts were conducted between 1951 and 1992, is Western Shoshone Indian land. The US government acknowledged this when it signed the 1863 ‘peace and friendship’ Treaty of Ruby Valley.
“Resuming nuclear weapons testing in Newe Sogobia, the Western Shoshone’s homeland, would further violate the treaty, which is the highest law in the land, equal in stature to the US Constitution itself.” — Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear.
National Network of Warchdog Groups Opposes Funding for Nuclear Weapons Test; Calls Proposal ‘Dangerously Destabilizing’ and ‘Absolutely Unacceptable”
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability
Today, three-dozen nuclear watchdog organizations sent an urgent message to Congress declaring resumption of nuclear weapons testing by the United States “absolutely unacceptable” and “dangerously destabilizing.”
The letter, from the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability to the Chairs, Ranking Members and Member offices of committees dealing with the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Fiscal Year 2021 budget, noted the June 23 release of the full text of the Senate National Defense Authorization Act and its SEC. 3167, deeming that “not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available to carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary.”
The letter states: “ANA unequivocally declares that resumption of nuclear testing at any yield is absolutely unacceptable. Even a hint of resumed nuclear testing by the US could be dangerously destabilizing. If it were to occur, it would lead to testing by other states, likely including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. It would accelerate the growing nuclear arms race, damage prospects for future nuclear arms control negotiations at the very moment when global arms control is gasping for air, and undermine, even fatally, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is already under great stress.”
John Burroughs, executive director of Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy, added: “Nuclear testing would be a very hard blow to international restraints — both formal and informal — on arms racing, proliferation and the threatened use or even the use of nuclear weapons.”
Marylia Kelley, ANA President and executive director of Tri-Valley CAREs told Congress: “We speak with one voice in urging you in the strongest possible terms to block funding or other initiatives that lead toward a possible return to nuclear weapons testing by the United States. In particular, the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization and Appropriations Acts should neither authorize nor appropriate funds that speed preparations to potentially resume such testing.”
The ANA letter concludes: “Nuclear testing is a charred and bitter bridge to the past, not the forward path we desire toward a more stable and healthy future.”
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountabilityrepresents three-dozen local and national organizations addressing policy, safety and cleanup issues across the nuclear weapons complex. Member groups live and work around sites in the US nuclear weapons complex. Beyond Nuclear is an ANA member group.
Preventing FY2021 Funding to More Quickly Detonate a Nuclear Test
The Complete ANA Letter
Dear Chairs and Ranking Members of Armed Services Committees:
Dear Chairs and Ranking Members of Appropriations Energy & Water Subcommittees: Dear Committee Members:
(June 25, 2020) — For more than four decades, Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) member organizations have monitored operations within the US nuclear weapons complex. These are the sites around which our group members live and in some cases work. We have fought for and, with your help, often won improvements in local site operations and federal nuclear weapons policy.
Among the many changes we have witnessed, none has benefitted our members, our country, and the world in which we live more profoundly than the cessation of nuclear testing in Nevada. As you know Congress passed the moratorium with bipartisan support and President Bush signed it into law in 1992. It has held firm and made us all safer for the past quarter century.
We were dismayed when a May 22 Washington Post article reported that top national security officials in the White House had recently discussed detonating a US nuclear test, with the flawed rationale it might create negotiating leverage in relation to China and Russia. While no decision appears to have been reached at that meeting, the article noted that according to a senior official exercising the option is “very much an ongoing conversation.”
Our dismay turned to alarm with the June 23 release of the full text of the Senate National Defense Authorization Act and its SEC. 3167, deeming that “not less than $10,000,000 shall be made available to carry out projects related to reducing the time required to execute a nuclear test if necessary.”
ANA unequivocally declares that resumption of nuclear testing at any yield is absolutely unacceptable. Even a hint of resumed nuclear testing by the US could be dangerously destabilizing. If it were to occur, it would lead to testing by other states, likely including China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. It would accelerate the growing nuclear arms race, damage prospects for future nuclear arms control negotiations at the very moment when global arms control is gasping for air, and undermine, even fatally, the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which is already under great stress.
We note particularly the suffering of downwinders, including some of our members, who were grievously harmed by nuclear weapons testing. This suffering should never be repeated.
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability represents three-dozen local and national “watchdog” organizations. As noted, we address policy, safety and cleanup issues pertaining to the nuclear weapons complex. We speak with one voice in urging you in the strongest possible terms to block funding or other initiatives that lead toward a possible return to nuclear weapons testing by the United States.
In particular, the Fiscal Year 2021 National Defense Authorization and Appropriations Acts should neither authorize nor appropriate funds that speed preparations to potentially resume such testing.
Rather, our country should seek to fully embrace the Non-Proliferation Treaty on this, its fiftieth anniversary year. Much can be done at the pending Review Conference and in other venues to ensure all of the treaty obligations are upheld, including those of the nuclear weapons states to negotiate and achieve elimination of their nuclear stockpiles.
We must safeguard and enhance the local, national and global measures for which we have fought and won while continuing to build a better future for our children and the generations to come. Nuclear testing is a charred and bitter bridge to the past, not the forward path we desire toward a more stable and healthy future.
Please feel free to contact me should you have any questions. Sincerely,
Marylia Kelley,
President, ANA Board of Directors
The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability • 903 W. Alameda #325, Santa Fe, NM 87501
