Latest news with #RadiationExposureandCompensationAct
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New Mexico delegation, radiation victims renew call for compensation
Tina Cordova, a founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, protests at the Trinity site on Oct. 21, 2023. (Danielle Prokop) In the one year since the federal Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired, New Mexico survivors of federal nuclear testing programs said they have continued to watch family members and friends die. The RECA legislation, passed in 1990, compensated people who developed cancers or other illnesses as a result of radiation exposure from the United States' atomic programs. New Mexico's Trinity test downwinders and uranium miners who worked in the industry after RECA's coverage period (post-1971) have been notably excluded. New Mexico's congressional delegation have made numerous attempts to expand and extend the bill, with the U.S. Senate passing the bill to do so twice last year. But the bill never made it to the U.S. House floor for a vote, and expired on June 10, 2024. Time's run out for the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, which includes victims and descendants downwind from the 1945 Trinity Test, told attendees during a Tuesday news conference marking the RECA-expiration anniversary, two of her cousins have died in the last year, one 'after battling brain cancer for many, many years.' Her youngest brother, Cordova noted, also had also been diagnosed with kidney cancer and is fighting the disease alongside his daughter, who also has cancer. 'My family has five generations of cancer now,' said Cordova, herself a cancer survivor, whose battle for justice serves as the centerpiece for Lois Lipman's award-winning documentary First We Bombed New Mexico. 'My family is not unique. We've documented thousands of families like mine exhibiting four and five generations of cancer. That's the face of the legacy that we've been left to deal with.' Loretta Anderson (Pueblo of Laguna), a patient advocate and co- founder of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71, said she works with 1,000 uranium miners and their families and, in the year since RECA expired, counts 10 who have died. 'They died with no compensation, no apology from the government, and many of them were part of our coalition,' Anderson said. 'We mourn, we hurt, we cry, we suffer. Many of our people are sick. Our young are now being diagnosed with cancer and other horrific diseases. We're losing our young. We're losing our future.' We're losing our young. We're losing our future. – Loretta Anderson, Pueblo of Laguna and Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71 Congress 'is responsible for those deaths,' Democratic U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state's 3rd Congressional District, said during the call, in which she exhorted her Republican colleagues in the U.S. House 'to stand up for their constituents. 'Congress has failed its moral obligation…Speaker [Mike] Johnson needs to let us vote.' Nuclear survivors have lobbied for decades for inclusion in RECA. The current push comes amid the Trump administration's push for renewed uranium mining in New Mexico and elsewhere, which both Cordova and Anderson oppose. 'Our government has not cleaned up the mess they made in the beginning,' Cordova said. 'They have not done anything to address the first round of uranium mining. And as it relates to downwinders, this is the 80th anniversary since Trinity. We have no faith in the government coming back to take care of the mess they made, and they want us to support new mining? Personally, we cannot do that.' Long-stalled NM uranium mines now 'priority projects' at Cibola Forest, leader tells employees Anderson noted that she lives 11 miles from the former Jackpile-Paguate uranium mine, now a Superfund site. 'And so, we're going to fight,' any new mines, she said. 'We need to compensate, take care of the lands that they destroyed…before any mining is done, because people are sick, people are suffering… I know many of our people here on the reservations and surrounding communities do not support uranium mining here ever again.' U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) noted that the Trump administration's push for more uranium mining should serve as yet another reason to support RECA. 'The fundamental issue here is like,' let's own up to what we did as a as a government,'' Heinrich said. 'That's just the right and moral thing to do…you can't expect communities to embrace new mining if you haven't fixed the problems that you created 50, 60 years ago.' As for reintroducing RECA and pushing it through Congress, Leger Fernández said she has spoken directly with Johnson, whose concerns, she said, had more to do with the cost than the concept of compensation. Cordova noted that if survivors could sue the federal government in civil court, they'd likely receive millions in dollars in settlements — far more than is expected in the event that RECA passes. That being said, 'there is no amount of money that anyone could ever pay me for the pain and suffering that my family has seen…and there is absolutely no way that the government could ever make my family whole again,' she said. U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.), who has sponsored RECA legislation every year since he entered Congress in 2008, and most recently co-sponsored the RECA expansion bill with GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri. Luján noted the irony of Republicans worrying about the cost of RECA, given that Republicans in the U.S. House are 'about to pass a bill for a third time that's going to add over $2 trillion to the debt.' Nonetheless, Luján noted, ultimately RECA is a 'bipartisan issue and it has a bipartisan solution — I would argue bipartisan solutions. Alongside our congressional delegation, I commit to continue to work with our bipartisan coalition to keep RECA moving forward.' And to the victims 'still living and suffering…I'll never stop fighting for your stories to be heard and for justice to be delivered.'
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
House Memorial asking for federal RECA revival clears committee
Marissa Lillis, 10, joins her great-uncle Paul Pino, and other Downwinders at the Stallion Gate outside of the Trinity Site on Saturday, Oct. 21, 2023. New Mexico lawmakers are showing support for a federal effort to reinstate and expand a federal fund to compensate people for radiation exposure from the federal government. (Danielle Prokop / Source NM) 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. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
28-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Luján, Heinrich part of group reintroducing Radiation Exposure Compensation Act
U.S. Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich have joined other senators on both sides of the aisle in reintroducing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act in an effort to revive and expand a program that compensates people who were sickened through the federal government's nuclear weapons testing and production. A bipartisan attempt last year to renew the previous Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act — which applied only to parts of Arizona, Nevada and Utah — also would have extended the benefits to residents of New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Guam. The measure passed the U.S. Senate by a wide margin last year but was never voted on in the House; House Republican leaders cited concerns about the cost of the expansion. The lack of action in the House allowed RECA to expire in June. Advocates for New Mexico downwinders, exposed to radiation from the first-ever atomic bomb detonation in July 1945 during the Trinity Test, and former uranium miners slammed House leaders last year for not holding a vote to extend the law. 'It is unacceptable that so many who have gotten sick from radiation exposure have been denied compensation by Congress," Luján said in a statement. "Despite having passed RECA legislation twice through the Senate with broad bipartisan support, and securing the support of the previous administration, I was disheartened that [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson refused a vote on RECA to help victims," Luján added. Along with Heinrich and Luján, both New Mexico Democrats, the bill was reintroduced by U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, U.S. Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Missouri, and Mark Kelly, D-Arizona. 'The time to reauthorize RECA is now," Hawley said in a statement. "The Senate has done this twice before and must do it again. For far too long, Missourians and others across America have suffered without compensation from their government. It is vital that we unite to pass this legislation now, and that the President sign it into law."
