House Democrats tackle ongoing fight in Congress over compensation for US radiation victims

ALBUQUERQUE, NM (AP) — A top U.S. House Democrat says it will take a power shift in Congress to ensure legislation is finally passed to extend and expand a compensation program for exposed people to radiation from uranium mining and nuclear tests. issued by the federal government.

Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar joined members of New Mexico’s congressional delegation on Tuesday to ask voters to put more pressure on Republican House leaders to revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

As his party tries to regain majorities in Congress, the California congressman made campaign pitches to New Mexico Democrats and pledged support for the billion-dollar compensation program.

“I would say this is both a failure in government and a failure in leadership,” Aguilar said, referring to the House’s inaction on the legislation.

The Senate passed the bill earlier this year, only for it to sit in the House because of concerns from some Republican lawmakers about the costs. GOP backers in the Senate urged House leadership to take the measure up for a vote, but the law ended up expiring in June.

Native Americans who worked as uranium miners, millers and transporters and people whose families lived downwind of nuclear test sites were among those who say the legislation was shelved because of the political calculations of the House majority party, May rather than because of the price.

Advocates have pushed for decades to expand the compensation program. Front and center tilted downwind in New Mexico, where government scientists and military officials dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945 as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project.

Residents have made it their mission to raise awareness of the lingering effects of nuclear fallout around the Trinity Test Site in southern New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore have been mined throughout decades to support American nuclear activists.

The chorus has grown louder in the past year as the blockbuster “Oppenheimer” brought new attention to the country’s nuclear history and the legacy of years of nuclear research and bomb-making.

First Congressman Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat from New Mexico who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that national defense spending exceeds $860 billion each year.

“So when you tell me we can’t afford to compensate the people who suffered from pancreatic cancer, miscarriages, the horrors of nuclear fallout and the generation that suffered because of it, it’s a joke to me,” he said.

Vasquez, who faces GOP challenger Yvette Herrell in her re-election bid, suggested the legislation be included in a defense spending measure and that lawmakers find ways to offset the costs by saving money elsewhere.

There is still an opportunity for House leaders to “do the right thing,” he said.

The law was originally passed more than three decades ago and has paid out about $2.6 billion in that time. The bipartisan group of lawmakers trying to update the law said the government is to blame for exposed residents and workers and should step up.

The proposed legislation would have added parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada to the program and covered downwinders in New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Residents exposed to radioactive waste in Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky would also have been covered.

In New Mexico, residents were not warned of the radiological dangers of the Trinity test and did not realize that an atomic explosion was the source of the ash that rained down on them from the detonation. This included families living off the land – growing crops, raising livestock and getting drinking water from cisterns.

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