With a June 7 deadline looming, supporters of reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act planned to gather at the U.S. Capitol grounds Thursday and urge House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to hold a vote on the measure.
By May 16, the scheduled day of the rally and press conference, the House of Representatives will have nine working days left to vote on reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), according to a press advisory from the Union of Concerned Scientists, which is helping coordinate the event.
A bill to reauthorize and expand RECA passed the Senate easily in March and President Joe Biden has said he would sign it. The law provides nuclear weapons workers with medical screenings and compensation for work-related illness.
The Senate package would keep the program going for at least six years and expand the number of people potentially eligible for compensation, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists.
More recently, a bipartisan group of lawmakers wrote Johnson and urged the speaker to set a vote.
Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) and Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who pushed an unsuccessful effort to attach RECA to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act in December, as well as Rep. Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) are all expected to be on hand for the Thursday event, according to the advisory.
Others expected at the rally in Washington are Mary Dickson, a downwinder and cancer survivor from northern Utah, and Phil Harrison, a former uranium miner and member of the Navajo Nation, according to the advisory.
The event is scheduled at 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time at the House Triangle, on the East side of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. News of the gathering was reported Monday by KJZZ, a National Public Radio member station in Phoenix.
Advocates have set up the National Cancer Benefits Center website, which says it seeks compensation for people with cancer resulting from “government-created radiation.”
