By Dave Pack
PeaceWorks Kansas City is seeking to create a KC “hub” of groups to work together in opposition to nuclear weapons, through the national effort Back from the Brink. Come to our session on this ambitious endeavor on May 18, 1-2:30 pm.
In the current U.S. Congress, there is a House Resolution in support of Back from the Brink, H. Res. 317. It calls for eight significant actions:
- Engage in good-faith negotiations with all nuclear-armed states to halt the buildup of nuclear arsenals and pursue verifiable, time-bound reductions;
- Renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first;
- Implement checks on the U.S. President’s sole authority to order the use of nuclear weapons;
- End the Cold War-era “hair trigger alert” posture;
- Rein in the production of new nuclear warheads and delivery systems;
- Preserve the moratorium on nuclear testing;
- Protect radiation-impacted communities and workers through full remediation, compensation, and expanded health care, including an expanded Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA); and
- Plan a just economic transition for workers and communities dependent on the nuclear weapons industry.
The first five points above have been the core of the Back from the Brink proposal for many years. The last three points have been included in the newly introduced H. Res. 317.
Going back several years, PeaceWorks KC won agreement from a few local groups to be part of a Back from the Brink hub. The first goal was getting the City Council of Kansas City, Missouri, to pass a Back from the Brink resolution. We are now renewing that effort, plus aiming for resolutions from councils in Independence, Mo.; Overland Park, KS; and Kansas City, KS.
Implementation team members for Back from the Brink, including Jeremy Love and Maylene Hughes, will be with us via zoom for our session. Jeremy is an organizing and outreach consultant, and Maylene is the regional grassroots organizing and policy coordinator. See the Back from the Brink website at https://preventnuclearwar.org/.
—Dave Pack is chair of PeaceWorks Kansas City. © Dave Pack, 2025, Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License. We ask you to join us on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/pwkc.org.
