March 19, 2025, Washington, DC – The Truman Center released the new report “Meet People Where They Are: Local Perspectives on Nuclear Risk.” Written by Jessica Sleight, Janne E. Nolan Nuclear Security Fellow, the report highlights various ways local communities understand and experience nuclear risk and the importance of building more inclusive nuclear decision making spaces.

As local communities continue to bear the burdens of the first nuclear age, nuclear decision-making remains concentrated in highly-gated policy circles in Washington, D.C. Nuclear weapons policymaking would benefit from broader stakeholder input, particularly from those with direct experience of how nuclear weapons development, maintenance, and production affects their communities. Expanding participation in nuclear policy discussions beyond traditional defense circles helps identify underexplored risks and generate new approaches to address challenges such as nuclear arms racing, nonproliferation, and threats to environmental and public health.

Based on interviews and roundtable discussions, the report is a culmination of local engagement on security and nuclear risk in three cities: Great Falls, Montana, home to Malmstrom Air Force Base; Tri-Cities, WA, next to the Hanford Nuclear Site; and Raleigh, NC, an area with a robust academic community working on nuclear weapons-related issues. The report offers five recommendations for federal policymakers, nuclear experts, and local officials to expand nuclear policy conversations to include a more diverse group of stakeholders and community leaders, amplify and support underrepresented communities, and strengthen bridges between decision makers in Washington and stakeholders in the rest of the country.  

Recommendations include:

• Collaboratively working to bring information directly to stakeholders,
• Launching a federal initiative to (re)build trust in nuclear weapons agencies and institutions through meaningful, sustained engagement and follow through,
• Establishing an annual Nuclear Impacted Communities Summit,
• Mandating quarterly site visits for U.S. federal policymakers and planners with impacted communities, and
• Establishing a Cities for Nuclear Risk Reduction Network.

“Meet People Where They Are” is available for download here.