A law that allowed victims of government-caused nuclear contamination who developed cancer and other illnesses to receive federal compensation was set to expire Friday, amid an impasse in Congress over significantly expanding eligibility for the program.
The law, known as the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, was enacted more than two decades ago in an effort to make amends to civilians sickened by the legacy of the nation’s above-ground nuclear testing program. It has paid more than $2.6 billion in benefits to more than 55,000 applicants since its inception in 1990.
But without congressional action, people sickened by exposure to nuclear radiation will no longer be able to seek compensation and could eventually lose access to free cancer screenings provided by local clinics provided for by law.
“The Senate passed this legislation twice. The House hasn’t passed anything,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., who has led efforts to expand the law, said in an interview. “They haven’t done anything. And I guess the message to our radiation survivors, to our veterans, to people across the country who have literally given their health and their lives to this country, is, ‘We don’t care, and good luck to you.’ ‘”
Driving the impasse on Capitol Hill is a fight over whether to substantially expand the program to include wide swaths of the country that were affected by above-ground testing (people known as “downwinders”), as well as people sickened by the exposure to toxic nuclear waste produced by uranium processing plants across the country.
The original law was written with an extremely limited scope. It excluded large congressional districts from those affected by testing, including in substantial parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Nevada. They completely left out communities in areas like Idaho, Montana and Colorado. And they failed to provide reparations for communities like St. Louis, where dozens of people have been sickened by radioactive waste from nearby uranium processing sites that was never properly disposed of.
In March, the Senate passed legislation led by Hawley and Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-New Mexico, that would significantly expand access to the fund.
The White House backed the legislation, but proponents of the bill ran into headwinds in the Republican-led House of Representatives, where Speaker Mike Johnson opposed the potential costs, estimated at up to $40,000. millions of dollars. Some attorneys who handle RECA claims have also expressed concern that the office that processes the claims, made up of 16 employees, would not be equipped to handle the new volume of filings that would come if the law were dramatically expanded.
Johnson proposed voting on a simple renewal of the law, which would not expand eligibility for the program but would prevent it from closing until 2026. A bipartisan group of lawmakers in both the House and Senate told him they would not do so. vote for a program that left out their constituents when the Senate had already overwhelmingly approved legislation expanding access.
Lilly Adams, senior outreach coordinator for the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has worked with lawmakers to push the bill expanding the program, said the two-year extension proposed by House Republican leadership “only “It would perpetuate an injustice and allow Congress to ignore its responsibility to these communities.”
“Prolonging this process is cruel for all the people facing radiation-related illnesses and waiting to see if they will be able to access life-saving support,” Ms Adams said. “It is also cruel to those who are currently eligible to allow RECA to lapse.”
Advocates of legislation to expand eligibility are considering attaching the measure as an amendment to the annual defense policy bill, which is considered one of the few remaining bills Congress must pass this year.
Guidance issued by the Justice Department last year said it would continue to process existing claims, as well as claims postmarked by June 10. More than 400 people have already applied for compensation and are waiting for the department to assess their claims.
Other eligible claimants could be blocked entirely.
Maggie Billiman, founder of Sawmill Diné Warriors, an advocacy group whose goal is to inform members of the Navajo Nation about RECA, said she recently met with a former uranium miner from southern Utah who was battling cancer and who had drove hours to meet her.
Only then did he realize he was eligible for federal compensation, but she had to tell him she only had a few days left to apply.
“I was thinking this morning,” said Ms. Billiman, who suffers from thyroid and pancreatic diseases associated with radiation exposure. “If you didn’t sign the bill on the 7th, what do we do? So I go home and die?