Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance to speak at UN

The Oak Ridge Environmental Peace Alliance, a United Nations accredited non-governmental organization, will present information on United States weapons programs at the U.N. next week.

The United Nations conference will open Monday in New York City to negotiate a legally binding instrument to prohibit nuclear weapons and eventually eliminate them.

"The U.S. government refused to support the call for this conference," OREPA coordinator Ralph Hutchison noted, "and it is unlikely that we will participate. So it is up to us to explain the U.S. plan to modernize our nuclear weapons stockpile, production facilities, delivery vehicles — basically the entire nuclear weapons enterprise."

On Tuesday, Hutchison and colleagues from other nuclear weapons sites will speak at a panel — U.S. Nuclear Modernization Under President Trump: Implications for the Ban Treaty Process — organized by the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability. The panel will focus on U.S. efforts to modernize the nuclear weapons program.

"It will be wonderful to have a chance to talk with our colleagues in other NGOs around the world during the conference," Hutchison said.

Hutchison will join Jay Coghlan of Nuclear Watch New Mexico; Marylia Kelley of Tri-Valley CAREs in Livermore, California; Rick Wayman of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation; Matthew McKinzie of the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists.

OREPA is a member of the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability, an accredited Nongovernmental Organization with the U.N.

The U.N. ban treaty conference will run until March 31 and then adjourn until late summer.