For the past two years, I’ve been blogging on nuclear weapons news, from our success in defeating the Bush administration’s push for new nuclear weapons to the New START treaty to cut US and Russian nuclear arsenals, which is awaiting ratification by the US Senate. It’s been a great experience.

I’m moving on to attend graduate school and so in my final blog post, I wanted to remind our Groundswell readers to keep checking in for the latest news on nukes. Our new Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World coordinator Katie Heald will be taking my spot on the blog. She’ll keep you up to date on what you can do to encourage your senators to ratify the New START treaty, as well as how you can help our ongoing efforts to cut the bloated $180 billion for nuclear weapons and facilities being considered for the next decade. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for Katie’s blog posts!

The whopping $7 billion for nuclear weapons programs that was proposed for 2011 is just the tip of the iceberg in a huge funding increase for the nuclear weapons complex. Last year, Republicans successfully pushed to require the Obama administration to submit a special report on modernizing the nuclear weapons complex, maintaining or enhancing our nuclear weapons stockpile, and the expected costs for the next 10 years. When the New START treaty was officially submitted to the Senate, this report had to be released. Wanting to win over Republican senators’ support for the New START treaty to cut US and Russian nuclear arsenals, the administration put forward a plan that greatly increases nuclear weapons related funding to the level of $180 billion over the next 10 years. From the Washington Post:

If you’re in California’s Bay Area, be sure to come out for an interesting discussion with Tad Daley on how to eliminate nuclear weapons on Wednesday, May 26th.

Tad Daley, J.D., Ph.D., is the author of the new book Apocalypse Never: Forging the Path to a Nuclear Weapon-Free World. He is the Writing Fellow with the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the 1985 Nobel Peace Laureate organization. He has served as a speechwriter and policy advisor to members of Congress and has written for major newspapers nationwide. Come here him talk about his new book and what can be done to eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons.

When: May 26 from 7-9 PM

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference began with big news: the US publicly released the numbers of active nuclear weapons in its stockpile. The Obama administration made this major symbolic move to show its commitment to transparency and prove the US has been moving to reduce its nuclear stockpile.

According to a released fact sheet, the US had 5,113 active nuclear warheads as of September 2009. However, that still doesn’t represent the whole stockpile. Analysts believe an additional 4,500 nuclear warheads are currently retired or waiting to be dismantled. So while progress has been made since the 1960s, much more needs to be done. Watch the video (above) featuring Ploughshares Fund President Joe Cirincione, who makes the case for why we must seize this historic moment and work toward a nuclear weapons free world to ensure our own security.