Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Conversion Act of 2025
HB1888, the Nuclear Weapons Abolition and Conversion Act of 2025, would express Congress’s support for the United States signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and, under certain conditions, ratifying it. The bill states that U.S. leadership should include working with other nuclear-armed nations toward the verifiable, irreversible elimination of all nuclear weapons and strict international controls over dismantlement.
The bill also lays out a transition framework for federal nuclear weapons resources. Once the President certifies that all nuclear-armed countries have begun verifiable and irreversible elimination under the treaty, funding currently appropriated for nuclear weapons programs would be redirected to climate-related purposes, including clean and renewable energy, as well as to human and infrastructure needs such as health care, housing, education, agriculture, environmental restoration, and long-term radioactive waste monitoring. It further calls for retraining nuclear industry workers and converting nuclear weapons industry processes, plants, and programs to these new purposes.
If enacted, the bill would not immediately abolish U.S. nuclear weapons, but it would establish a policy direction toward treaty accession and future disarmament. It would also create a statutory trigger for shifting federal spending away from nuclear weapons programs and toward climate mitigation, clean energy, social infrastructure, and environmental cleanup, affecting defense budgeting, weapons-related industrial facilities, and workers in the nuclear weapons enterprise. The bill’s scope would touch foreign policy, national security, energy policy, labor retraining, and environmental remediation.
The bill appears to be strongly supportive of nuclear disarmament and climate-focused conversion, as reflected by its introduction by a group of progressive House members. No committee transcripts or votes are available, so there is no recorded legislative debate or formal vote history to indicate broader chamber sentiment. Based on the text, the bill is framed as a peace, security, and climate measure rather than a defense expansion measure.
The main points of contention are likely to be the treaty commitment itself, the feasibility of verifiable global nuclear elimination, and the redirection of nuclear weapons funding and industrial capacity. Supporters would likely emphasize disarmament, climate investment, and worker retraining, while opponents may argue that signing the treaty could weaken deterrence, that ratification should not occur absent universal disarmament, and that the bill’s funding conversion depends on an uncertain international trigger. The bill’s requirement that all nuclear-armed states begin elimination before the spending shift would likely be a major practical and political hurdle.