WASHINGTON — A fund aimed at compensating Americans affected by atomic bomb tests, uranium mining and radioactive waste is set to expire in less than 20 days, and activists and lawmakers are working to keep the fund vigorous and open to additional donations.
AND Bill to reauthorize and extend Radiation Exposure Compensation Actoften shortened to RECA, it sailed through the U.S. Senate in early March on a bipartisan ship 69-30 vote, but the House has not yet taken it to a vote.
Critics cite high costs but bipartisan lawmakers and activists gather for advantage The bill states that victims have already paid medical bills and lost loved ones for this, and that ultimately the government is wrong to fix it.
The U.S. Senate-passed legislation, championed by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, seeks to extend the program for six years and expand eligibility to several fresh locations, including his home state of Missouri, where for decades residents have witnessed many infrequent similar cancers in their neighbors. around St. Louis.
Chemical plants in the center of St. Louis and Weldon Spring, Missouri, processed uranium during the country’s World War II effort to build the first atomic bomb. Radioactive waste from the plants was stockpiled and dumped all over the area.
The Missouri Independent from States Newsroom, in partnership with the Associated Press and MuckRock, obtained and searched through thousands of government records what the government revealed downplayed and ignored threats related to radioactive waste.
“The government did it.”
Tammy Tesson Puhlmann, 63, who lived for decades in Florissantin Missouri sat in the Russell Senate Office Building on Wednesday, showing photos of her son Drew — first as a baby born with a infrequent blood disease, then as a slim 30-year-old man just a week before he died of cancer.
“If I could save one mom from having to go through something like this, I would do anything,” she said through tears. “It’s the most unbearable feeling in the world when you know there’s nothing you can do for your child and that the government did it.”
Puhlmann was among 10 eastern Missourians and state representatives who met with 10 lawmakers on Wednesday, including House Majority Leader Steve Scalise; U.S. Reps. Ann Wagner and Blaine Luetkemeyer, both Republicans from Missouri; and GOP state Sen. Eric Schmitt and Hawley.
Missouri state Reps. Tricia Byrnes and Richard West, both Republicans, who represent districts just outside St. Louis, they reviewed maps and photos documenting contaminated sites, including where there was a uranium processing plant and a byproduct dump site next to Francis Howell High School, which Byrnes participated in.
“Look how close it was to all the contamination. That high school is still there,” Byrnes said, pointing to the map.
To Byrnes’ left was Kristin Denbow, a 1988 Francis Howell graduate who was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, an incurable cancer of the blood in the bone marrow.
“We have memories of men in hazmat suits walking around our high school grounds when we were there,” Denbow said.
“It Was Our Life”
Three generations of Susie Gaffney’s family settled in the suburb of St. Louis near Coldwater Creek, unaware that radioactive waste being transferred from the downtown uranium plant had been leakage into water.
Susie’s husband, Jim, grew up in a house on a creek near John’s Elementary School Closed in 2023 due to radioactive contamination.
“Jim grew up playing in the creek, everyone did. Everyone who tells stories about the creek (there) plays. It was amazing, it wasn’t deep. Children fished and made mudslides. It was a great place to live,” Gaffney said.
Jim, whose mother died of colon cancer after being diagnosed with it at age 40, developed lymphoma at age 24.
When Susie and Jim’s son, Joey, was an infant, they moved to a nearby neighborhood called Wedgewood, a few miles down the creek. Joey also played in the water as a child.
At the age of 18, Joey was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and ultimately underwent surgery to remove his thyroid. Gaffney, now 66, recalls doctors telling her, “This kid is Chernobyl.”
“This is what happened in Chernobyl. He has metastatic thyroid cancer. That’s what happened there. He must have been exposed to radiation” and I naively asked, “So where?” And that was our life,” she said.
Joey is currently 45 years aged. Jim, 68, was also diagnosed with bladder cancer and currently suffers from myelodysplastic syndrome, Gaffney said.
“He lives on blood transfusions,” she said, pointing to his photo on a packet of documents she handed out to lawmakers at the Capitol.
Below Jim’s photo was a map of the region with red dots for each cancer case.
“I just want people to start digging into this,” Gaffney said. “Pretend you’re in Google Earth, zoom out all the way, walk to the front door and imagine our entire lives with health care, depression, anxiety and fear. Our quality of life, all of us, has certainly suffered.”
Debate on Capitol Hill
The nearly expired government compensation program provides a one-time payment of $75,000 to people who developed certain diseases after working on U.S. nuclear testing before 1963. The program pays $50,000 to those who lived in selected counties downwind of the sites test explosions in the period from January 1951 to October 1958 and in July 1962, in ArizonaNevada and Utah.
Uranium workers who were employed in 11 states between 1942 and 1971 and who subsequently developed qualifying illnesses are eligible for $100,000.
Hawley’s bill, co-sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, would also expand to the entire states of Arizona, Nevada and Utah and include leeward areas and affected areas IN Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexicoand Guam. In addition, one-time compensation amounts for victims or surviving family members will raise to $100,000.
If passed, the legislation would cover areas, including ZIP codes in Alaska, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, where communities have been affected by nuclear waste disposal, uranium processing and other related testing activities.
The bill’s estimated cost of $50–60 billion has been met with criticism. Hawley’s office confirmed the estimate. There is no official budget result.
On Thursday, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, asked the Senate for unanimous consent floor for his proposalpristine extension” program as it is for the next two years – covering only those affected in areas of Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
Lee cited the risk of “increasing the deficit by at least $60 billion” and questioned whether sufficient data supports contamination of additional areas of the Hawley Act.
“You see, the House of Representatives has so far refused to take up and pass Senator Hawley’s previous bill, signaling some concerns and raising some of the concerns that I just raised,” the Utah Republican said.
Hawley objected, and Luján presented his objection.
“Study after study has shown the extent of nuclear radiation. Here are studies from 1997, 2005, more from 2005 and 2023, all showing that nuclear radiation extends well beyond the contours of the original RECA law passed in 1990.” Hawley said. “Yet my friend from Utah wants to continue doing the same thing, leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans in the lurch. I won’t agree to this.”
Lee responded that he understood Hawley and Luján’s “impassioned pleas.” He proposed updated version includes Missouri and New Mexico, but excludes other states and Guam. His office cites an unofficial budget figure of $30 billion.
“There are other states with (Hawley’s) legislation pending in the House that deal with the laws of the Marshall Islands, Idaho, Kentucky, Ohio, Alaska and perhaps one or two other jurisdictions. The claims of these countries are not equal,” Lee said.
“This is where a lot of spending – not all of it, but a lot of it – accumulates and there are a lot of concerns expressed in the House that make it difficult to pass quickly, which may lead to it not being able to be passed at all,” he added. he continued.
Hawley again objected, saying he would “not be a party to any attempt to adopt some half-measure, some short stopgap law, or any attempt to sweep it under the rug.”
A spokesman for House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, told States Newsroom on May 15 that “the Speaker understands and appreciates Senator Hawley’s position and is working closely with concerned members and interested parties to chart a path forward for the House.”
RECA was established in 1990.
United States conducted more than 1,000 atomic weapons tests between 1945 and 1992 – the first at the Trinity Test site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, where scientists detonated the first atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project before the United States dropped weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II Japan.
As of June 2022, the government has approved over 36,000 RECA applications for benefits worth over $2.3 billion.
If the fund is not extended, claims must be sent by post by June 10, 2024, in accordance with Art. Ministry of Justicewho manages payouts.
