Promote Norton’s HR 1650

On April 18, 2013, DC's Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton introduced her nuclear-free future bill for the 11th time, as HR-1650.

This new and stronger version of her bill calls for nuclear weapons abolition by 2020, close out of nuclear power with a rapid shift to truly green energy and transfer of saved funds to human needs such as education and job producing infrastructure projects.

See Norton’s press release on April 18, 2013 for her own description of the bill.

TAKE ACTION NOW: 

Help find co-sponsors for HR 1650 and write to your own Representative. You can use and edit the model letter here. The letter  also emphasizes the Conference of Mayors resolutions.  If your Representative is a member of the Progressive Caucus, be sure to include the link given to Norton's statement on introducing HR-1650. Progressive Caucus members are our best friends in Congress and most likely to become co-sponsors of HR 1650.

Edit to personalize your letter and refer to some positive personal link if possible. Even if you believe your Representative will not support HR 1650 thank her/him (if possible) for a legislative or other action that you believe was evidence of at least some concern for preservation of the environment, people, or other species of life on earth. We must win over many of those who currently reject a shorter time frame because they do not share our sense of urgency or still believe nuclear weapons are a deterrence rather than a dangerous threat to all life.

We hope you will continue to contact your Representative with friendly communications. You can also  call him/her via the House switchboard: 202-225-3121 or send a post card in addition to an e-mail letter. Unfortunately, mailed letters will still take a month or so due to screening for biological or chemical death threats. Faxing messages is a good alternative and you can obtain your Representative’s fax number from his/her website or local office.

The House of Representatives has a month-long recess in August and you seek an appointment with your Congressperson for yourself and a group of like minded friends  A meeting with local staff can help build relationship and open the way to a personal interview. You can also attend one of his/her town meetings. Share your own ideas and your experiences moving forward and keep us informed by emailing us at et@prop1.org.

Support of this new and stronger version of Norton’s  bill bolsters the appeals for abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020 of the US Conference of Mayors, United for Peace and Justice and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation as well as International Mayors Peace Vision 2020, Abolition 2000 and our own WILPF Reaching Critical Will. All of these are also pressing for a short time frame and a tipping point.

Carol Urner of WILPF-US Disarm-End Wars Committee says, "The thing that is so significant about this bill is that it actually is calling on Congress to support nuclear weapons abolition (and shut down nuclear power plants) within a time frame which is now very short. Even Ed Markey's SANE Act (HR-1506, "Smarter Approach to Nuclear Expenditures")—as well as almost everything the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability puts out—accepts that nuclear weapons will be with us for a long time and tries to mitigate the dangers with common sense approaches. But someone has to say ‘Stop this madness NOW!’

The whole nuclear chain is killing us and destroying earth as nurturer of life. Indeed, the majority of nations (134 or 2/3) are saying it now. The non-aligned movement has lengthened the time frame to 2025 but the message is the same: begin negotiating abolition now.

Reaching Critical Will has been saying "all we are lacking now is the will—we need a tipping point. Norton's bill and the mayors' resolutions are moving us toward that tipping point. The fact that Congressional nuclear hawks regard Norton as powerless—a mere non-voting delegate like representatives of American Samoa and the Virgin Islands—I think actually makes her bill all the more powerful and especially if we who are part of the majority who yearn for a nuclear free future now can link our unheard voices to hers."

Go to Proposition One for the history of this bill and of the Proposition One Campaign by our DISARM-End Wars co-chair  and friends in the decades before she became a WILPF member.

Share your own ideas and your experiences moving forward and keep us informed by emailing et@prop1.org.

Image: Photo courtesy of Ellen Thomas. L to R Coralie Farlee (WILPF DC coordinator), Pamela Moffat (WILPF DC member), Ellen Barfield (WILPF at-large, Baltimore), Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (Delegate, Washington, DC) Ellen Thomas (WILPF at-large, Tryon NC), in front Carol Urner. Portland OR Branch).