House Memorial asking for federal RECA revival clears committee
State lawmakers gave the nod Monday to a memorial requesting the federal government rekindle and expand a program to compensate victims of radiation exposure, passing it out of committee.
House Memorial 15 declares legislative support for the federal Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act, an expired fund that offered lump-sum compensation for limited groups of people with diseases due to radiation exposure from the federal government. HM15 urges the passage of federal legislation to restart the program and expand it to people who never qualified – such as New Mexicans exposed to fallout from the first ever atomic detonation at the Trinity Site.
New Mexico is at the nexus of exposure, co- sponsor Rep. Joseph Franklin Hernandez (D-Shiprock) told the House Health and Human Services committee. From fallout raining down during the atomic weapons program, to uranium mining, the damage from exposure decades ago still ripples through communities.
'Both my grandfathers were miners and millers at a uranium mine, and the only memories I have of them is taking them to their doctor's appointments and seeing the suffering that they had,' Hernandez told the committee.
But it wasn't just personal, he said the Navajo Nation efforts to organize on issues around health, environment and water damage from uranium mining. The Church Rock mining spill in 1979 was the worst radioactive release in the U.S., spilling thousands of tons of radioactive waste and nearly 95 million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Rio Puerco.
Federal and Navajo leaders support off-site disposal for Quivira uranium mine waste
'We were dealing with the ongoing issues of these uranium mines on Navajo Nation and also trying to help our relatives navigate the process of applying for this Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act,' Hernandez said.
But the Trump administration is renewing a push to restart uranium mining in New Mexico. As Source NM reported, Cibola National Forest officials recently told staff two long-stalled uranium mining projects are now 'mission critical.' One of those projects is next to Mount Taylor.
In a statement provided to Source NM, U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) noted that 'Mount Taylor is and will always be sacred to many Tribes in New Mexico and the southwest, but the 1872 Mining Law gives private companies the right to mine uranium on public land regardless of the objections of Tribes, the state, or the general public.'
Nonetheless, Heinrich said, 'before announcing 'administrative priorities,' the Trump administration should ask New Mexicans what they think the priorities should be and engage directly with Tribes whose members are still dealing with the long-term impacts of legacy mining. We need to pass the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act amendments to finally compensate previous generations of uranium miners who sacrificed their health for our nation's security. And we need to reform U.S. mining policy so that sacred places like Mount Taylor are protected from extractive industry and abandoned mines that pollute our water and soil are finally cleaned up.'
New Mexico has long been at the center of a national reckoning over compensation for people injured as a result of nuclear testing. In the case of New Mexico, people living downwind to the July 16, 1945 Trinity Test have fought for years for compensation and justice, a struggle chronicled in the 2023 award-winning film 'First We Bombed New Mexico.'
New Mexico Downwinders demand recognition, justice
Current and past members of New Mexico's federal delegation have sought multiple times to expand RECA to include both downwinders and uranium miners. Most recently, U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Heinrich co-sponsored a bipartisan bill with delegates from other states whose constituents also were excluded from RECA. The U.S. Senate has twice passed legislation expanding RECA, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) did not call for a vote on the measure last year, and allowed the program to expire.
The memorial, which doesn't carry the force of law, will only require passage by the House. If passed, the memorial says copies will be distributed to the federal delegation and members of Congress, encouraging them to once again take up RECA.
Luján, who has introduced RECA legislation since he was first elected to the U.S. House in 2008, told Source in a statement he continues 'fighting' to pass the RECA bill. 'In New Mexico and across the country, individuals affected by nuclear weapons testing, downwind radiation exposure, and uranium mining are still waiting to receive the justice they are owed,' Luján said. 'It is unacceptable that so many who have gotten sick from radiation exposure have been denied compensation by Congress. I'm going to keep fighting.'
Julia Goldberg contributed to the reporting and writing of this article.
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On Tuesday, the president posted on his social media site a reminder of his record in the state last November: 'Won by one and a half million Votes, and almost 14%. Also, won all of the Border Counties along Mexico, something which has never happened before. I keep hearing about Texas 'going Blue,' but it is just another Democrat LIE.' Texas has long been eyed as a state trending Democratic because of its growing nonwhite population. But those communities swung right last year and helped Trump expand his margin to 14 percentage points, a significant improvement on his 6-point win in 2020. Michael Li, a Texas native and longtime watcher of the state at the Brennan Center for Justice in New York, said there's no way to know whether that trend will continue in next year's elections or whether the state will return to its blue-trending ways. 'Anyone who can tell you what the politics of Texas looks like for the balance of the decade has a better crystal ball than I do,' Li said. Aggressive redistricting also carries legal risks One region of the state where Republican gains have been steady is the Rio Grande Valley, which runs from the Gulf of Mexico along much of the state's southern border. The heavily Hispanic region, where many Border Patrol officers live, has rallied around Trump's tough-on-immigration, populist message. As a result, Gonzalez and the area's other Democratic congressman, Henry Cuellar, have seen their reelection campaigns get steadily tighter. They are widely speculated to be the two top targets of the new map. The GOP is expected to look to the state's three biggest cities to find its other Democratic targets. If mapmakers scatter Democratic voters from districts in the Houston, Dallas and Austin areas, they could get to five additional seats. But in doing so, Republicans face a legal risk on top of their electoral one: that they break up districts required by the Voting Rights Act to have a critical amount of certain minority groups. 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