As part of the must-pass defense policy bill for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, Congress will consider this week a measure to extend benefits to victims of nuclear radiation exposure for nearly another two decades.
Congress last week took up the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in conference between members of both houses. Included in the legislation is an amendment written by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) to extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) for 19 years, providing health care benefits to those sickened by radiation, and expanding program access by including additional communities impacted by nuclear tests, uranium mining and nuclear waste storage.
Cosponsors of the amendment, added to the Senate’s NDAA in July, include Sens. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho). RECA was most recently extended in 2022 for two years and is set to expire in June 2024.
Without Congressional action, RECA will expire in about six months, ending compensation for victims of various sources of nuclear radiation after a 30-year run. Hawley has said he will not vote in favor of the NDAA without provisions to compensate victims of radiation at Cold War-era sites near St. Louis.
Among other provisions, the amendment will extend benefits for the first time to communities impacted by the test of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico; strengthen the program to include residents of Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana and Guam; cover remaining areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona and additional uranium workers; and extend the program by 19 years.
Between the end of World War II and the cessation of U.S. nuclear explosive testing in 1992, the military conducted 206 above-ground nuclear weapons tests, releasing harmful radioactive material into the air and blanketing parts of the United States.
RECA was established in 1990 to compensate individuals who suffer from cancers and other illnesses related to uranium mining and fallout from above-ground nuclear weapons tests conducted in the United States and its territories during the Cold War.
RECA currently covers individuals who lived in parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona when above-ground nuclear tests were conducted between 1945 and 1962, but winds carried radiation much farther than the existing areas specified in the RECA program. Since its inception, the program has provided more than $2.6 billion in compensation to victims of radiation.
