MARYLAND ANTI-NUCLEAR GROUPS AND EXPERTS TO TESTIFY IN FAVOR OF DELEGATE PAMELA QUEEN’S HJ12 ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAUNCH AUTHORITY

Press Advisory

MARYLAND ANTI-NUCLEAR GROUPS AND EXPERTS TO TESTIFY IN FAVOR OF DELEGATE PAMELA QUEEN’S HJ12 ON NUCLEAR WEAPONS LAUNCH AUTHORITY

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 5, 2018

Contacts:             Dr. Gwen DuBois (410) 615-0717 or gdubois@jhsph.edu
                                Max Obuszewski 727-543-3227 or mobuszewski2001 at comcast dot net

WHO and WHAT:  Delegate Pamela E. QUEEN, Democrat, District 14, Montgomery County, has introduced Maryland House Joint Resolution 12 which requests that Maryland's Congressional Delegation establish a system of checks and balances to ensure that the President of the United States not have unchecked authority to launch a first strike of nuclear weapons.  The House Rules and Executive Nominations Committee of the Maryland General Assembly will consider the resolution at its meeting March 5.

Groups that will attend the hearing to testify in support of the resolution before the Committee include Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility, Arms Control Association, Maryland United for Peace and Justice, Maryland Peace Action Network, Maryland/DC Metro Pax Christi, Marylanders Preventing Nuclear War, Franciscan Action Network, and the Baltimore Nonviolence Center.

WHEN and WHERE:  March 5, 2018 at 3 PM in the House Office Building, 6 Bladen St., Annapolis.

WHY:   No President, whether Democrat or Republican, should have the unchecked unilateral power to initiate a first strike nuclear attack. Detonation of even a few nuclear weapons would have catastrophic human, environmental, and economic consequences globally, impacting everyone on the planet. Only Congress has a Constitutional duty to declare war. However, the President now has the power to launch nuclear weapons without any checks and balances from the other branches of government. Congress must change this, and HJ 12 is a step in that direction.

Kevin Martin, President of Peace Action, the country’s largest grassroots peace and disarmament organization with 1500 supporters in Maryland, noted that, "The people of the US, Russia, North Korea and the world don't need a new nuclear arms race. Congress needs to take the decision to initiate nuclear war out of this president's or any president's hands as part of an overall move to re-democratize decisions on war and peace, and Delegate Pam Queen's resolution in the General Assembly is helpful in that regard."

Joint statement of Physicians for Social Responsibility, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize, and ICAN, the recipient of the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize:

"President Trump has been judged by the security experts in his own party to lack the judgment, temperament and knowledge to command a nuclear arsenal. But the problem goes far beyond the dangerous instability of this one man. Nuclear weapons pose an existential threat to human survival. No one should ever have the power to unleash them.  The medical consequences of the use of nuclear war will be so catastrophic and the likelihood that these weapons will actually be used is so great, that we must work to eliminate them from the arsenals of all nations.  This is the only way to guarantee that they will never be used."