Barring last-minute action by Congress, a program that for more than 30 years has paid survivors of Cold War-era U.S nuclear weapons testing for radiation-related illnesses, which advocates had hoped to expand, will lapse soon.
Lawmakers arrived at the Capitol early Monday evening and are set to leave by Wednesday afternoon in an even shorter-than-usual workweek in Washington. The reason: the 80th anniversary observation of the D-Day landing at Normandy in World War II on Thursday.
Meanwhile, any new claims for compensation from victims must be postmarked by Monday, June 10, after a two-year extension of the program passed in 2022 expires.
“We have the votes in the House. Speaker [Mike] Johnson it’s time to bring this to the floor for a vote. We have to stop making this a partisan issue because it’s not partisan,” said Tina Cordova of New Mexico in a conference call with reporters held by the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Cordova said her family, where she is the fourth generation to have cancer since 1945, is not unique. Her father had cancer of the tongue, despite not using tobacco or drinking, she said.
“What he did have as a risk factor is that he was a 4-year-old child living 45 miles away from the Trinity test site drinking mass quantities of fresh cow’s milk and living off the land,” Cordova said.
The program was created in 1990 to pay victims of nuclear weapons testing who lived in certain areas of the country near tests and who later developed specific cancers linked to radiation exposure.
Advocates like Cordova want to see the first big update to the law since around 2000, with eligibility expanded to new areas where people lived; new jobs, such as uranium miners; and a broadening of the list of illnesses covered by the law.
A bill to do that, sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) passed the Senate on a bipartisan 69-30 vote in March, but has stalled in the House. A spokesman for Johnson told Spectrum News that the costs of the bill, estimated at around $50 billion to $60 billion over 10 years, were not offset, and the bill was supported by less than half of the Senate Republican conference.
Two recent attempts at simply extending the program before it expires have failed. Hawley objected to a request to pass a simple extension in the Senate. Last week, the House had been expected to take up an extension bill when Congress returned, but that bill was yanked from the schedule. That means there’s no compensation program bill, either expanding or extending the program, set for House floor action this week.
“After consulting with Congresswoman [Ann] Wagner (R-Mo.), the Majority Leader and Speaker have decided not to bring the proposed [Radiation Exposure Compensation Act] reauthorization to the floor next week,” a Johnson spokesman said then.
Supporters of expanding the program say the costs should be looked at as part of the tab for the defense of the country during the Cold War and that the current eligibility rules leave out many victims.
Tricia Burns, a state representative in Missouri, said on the conference call there were three military nuclear waste sites around St. Louis that were classified as the most serious by the Environmental Protection Agency, so-called Superfund sites.
An artificial quarry used as a local swimming hole was also contaminated, something nearby residents were unaware of when she grew up, Burns said.
“They didn’t even put up a proper fence up there. I swam in that quarry and so did my friends. I remember watching them take turns on cliffs, jumping into that swimming hole,” she said.
She said thyroid cancers are so common in her area of the St. Louis region that the throat scars left by surgeries to remove thyroid glands gained their own local nickname.
“It’s actually called the North County necklace,” she said.
Linda Chase said her family moved to Las Vegas and lived about 70 miles from the site in Nevada used for testing.
“We enjoyed an unobstructed view of the bomb. We could see the flash in the sky and few minutes later there would be a little mushroom cloud that would come up from the desert floor,” she said.
She said her family believed the government when it told them there was little fallout from the tests and no health concerns raised by the testing.
Chase said she applied for compensation when the program was set up in 1990 but was denied because most of Clark County, which includes Las Vegas, was not in the eligibility area.
“I guess they figured that the radiation came to the county line and then went around it,” she said.