DC Days 2025!

Earlier this month, June 8th-11th, Warheads to Windmills members joined the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability in Washington DC for their annual DC Days!  The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability (ANA) is a national network of organizations addressing issues of nuclear weapons production and waste cleanup; they hold annual DC lobby days to engage with policy makers on nuclear weapons and waste issues.  

In addition to their commitment to total abolition of nuclear weapons and supporting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, the 2025 ANA asks included specific requests to decrease and halt spending and production on new nuclear weapons. These include cancelling the new Sea Launched Cruise Missile, defunding the Sentinel ICBM, and stopping the unnecessary new plutonium pit production.  Advocates also highlighted the importance of oversight conducted by the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board, and urged legislators to push for board appointments so their work can continue.  Nuclear waste asks included more funding for cleanup (whose budget had been cut while weapons production goes up), and minimizing new waste by not funding new reactors or reprocessing.  It also highlighted the danger of funding consolidated interim storage projects for nuclear waste including risks involved in waste transportation, lack of a permanent and environmentally suitable solution, and no consent from the communities involved. You can read the full report on ANA policy priorities here.

Timmon Wallis, Anduin DeVos, and Vicki Elson of NuclearBan.US joined ANA DC days for the first time, other Warheads to Windmills members present at DC Days including the Snake River Alliance, Peaceworks Kansas City, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety have worked with ANA for several years.

During the 3 days of lobbying, we participated in strong dialogue with several ANA priority offices, including Sen. Murphy (D-CT), Sen. Collins, (R-ME), Sen. Warren (D-MA), Sen. Markey (D-MA), Rep. Jayapal (D-WA). Timmon and Anduin, joined by Seth Shelden of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons also met with several Warheads to Windmills priority offices including Rep. Omar (D-MN), Rep. McGovern (D-MA), Congresswoman Norton (D-DC), Rep. Thanedar (D-MI) to discuss congressional plans around this summer’s 80th anniversary of nuclear weapons harms.

On Sunday evening, Timmon Wallis held a book talk presenting his new book, Nuclear Abolition: A Scenario. The book details a possible path toward the global elimination of nuclear weapons, highlighting work by nuclear disarmament campaigners around the world and showing the future steps necessary (in this scenario) to reach total abolition. Check out the book here.

On Tuesday, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton received an award from ANA for her bold work in championing nuclear disarment in congress with the nuclear Weapons Abolition and Conversion Act. The act, which has been introduced by the congresswoman in different iterations in every session of Congress since 1994, is H.R. 1888 in the 2025-2026 session of congress. Timmon Wallis received the award on the Congresswoman’s behalf at the ANA awards ceremony, where several other awardees were honored for their nuclear safety and justice work. The award was delivered to the Congresswoman the next day!

Rounding out the week, on June 12th as we left DC, Ben Cohen launched his new campaign targeting the ridiculous US military spending, including on nuclear weapons programs. The campaign, called Up In Arms, launched with an installation in front of Union Station DC depicting the massive amount of money, 100 billion dollars per year, that the US spends on nuclear weapons(installation depicted in featured image).