Senators Blame House as Radiation Victims Benefit Fund Lapses

The Republican and Democratic senators leading an effort to expand benefits significantly for more Americans sickened by nuclear radiation are taking different political approaches toward their mutual goal as the program expires this month.

Sen. Ben Ray Lujan (D-N.M.) told reporters last week that while he would continue to fight for legislation to provide compensation to more eligible families, a two-year, or even six-month, extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act keeps “the program alive” while negotiators “look at what can be done.”

The Senate passed the expanded version of RECA (S. 3850) in March, but House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) so far has refused to bring that bill to the floor over cost concerns.

Without extension or expansion of the program, Americans who developed serious diseases as a result of atomic bomb testing risk delays or missing out altogether on compensation to which they are entitled.

Asked if supporting a shorter-term, clean extension of RECA would undermine advocates’ leverage for expanding the program to an estimated 609,000 new claims, Lujan pushed back. “You want to face those families and tell them that you let the program die?”

The 2022 two-year extension of the program ran out on Friday, although claimants officially have until June 10 to submit applications for the one-time compensation provided to eligible survivors of diseases, including cancer, caused by the federal government’s testing of the atomic bomb. The Justice Department, which adjudicates and pays out RECA claims, will be unable to process any applications postmarked after June 10, leaving those claimants in limbo until Congress reauthorizes the program.

Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Lujan’s Republican counterpart on the RECA expansion effort, so far has rejected anything other than the Senate-passed bipartisan legislation to extend and grow the program for another six years. Anything less, including a two-year or six-month extension of the program, is an “attempt again to kick the can down the road,” Hawley told reporters last week.

A short-term extension without expansion “won’t work out anything,” he said. “I’ve seen this movie before. “This is what they did two years ago,” referring to the 2022 extension. “And they did nothing for two years.” He added: “This is the time to actually make some changes to the program.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.) has so far rejected all proposals other than Senate-passed legislation to extend and grow the benefit fund for another six years.

Photographer: Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg

‘Take Up the Bill’

Johnson pulled a two-year extension of RECA from floor consideration last week after a conversation with Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who supports broadening the benefits to more victims, including from Missouri.

“It’s great news for Missouri that House leadership listened to my concerns and those of my constituents and pulled the floor vote on this misguided proposal,” Wagner said in a statement to Bloomberg Government, referring to the two-year clean extension. “We’re going to keep fighting for expansion of RECA so Missourians impacted by radiation get the support and compensation they deserve.”

Neither Hawley nor Lujan would speak to the conversation between Wagner and House leadership, although Hawley said the move to pull the bill was likely because Johnson didn’t have the votes to pass the two-year reauthorization measure. Both Lujan and Hawley continue to criticize Johnson for not putting their bill up for a vote.

“The House is going to have to act regardless,” said Hawley. “They are going to have to take up something, so just take up the bill that has broad bipartisan support.”

Radiation victims and advocates for the broader bill on Friday called Johnson’s failure to allow the program to lapse, a “betrayal.” The House left early last week so members could travel to France for the 80th anniversary of the Allied D-Day invasion during World War II.

“We’ve tried everything we could to meet face to face with Speaker Johnson to make our case, and he has put us off at every turn,” said Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL, a St. Louis-based nonprofit group advocating for radiation exposure victims. “We’ve spent thousands of dollars and weeks away from our families traveling to D.C. to try to meet with members of Congress to get them to care about us.”

“While they play politics, we plan funerals,” said Tina Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, during a call with reporters on Friday. The Tularosa Basin is located primarily in New Mexico. Downwinders is the name given to many victims of potential radiation exposure from nuclear weapons testing in the western US during the 20th century.

Johnson’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment regarding next steps on RECA. The House is back in session on Tuesday.

Teresa Leger-Fernandez (D-N.M.), a member of the Rules Committee, said Friday that Republicans and Democrats submitted a bipartisan amendment to the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act to extend and expand the RECA. The amendment is the same language as the Senate-passed bill. The Rules Committee on Tuesday will consider which NDAA amendments to make in order for floor debate next week.

“I hope when @SpeakerJohnson gets back from Europe he will get focused on America—and make time to meet with radiation survivors, like he promised,” Hawley tweeted Friday on X.

Dawn Chapman (L) and Karen Nickel (R), founders of advocacy group Just Moms STL, which campaigns for the cleanup of radioactive waste in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Photographer: Just Moms STL

Cost, Resource Concerns

The Senate-passed legislation from Hawley and Lujan—Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) is also a lead sponsor—would expand benefits to St. Louis residents exposed to radioactive waste dumped in the area from the Manhattan Project and broadens compensation coverage to eligible victims in Kentucky, Alaska, Tennessee, Guam, and many western states. It also would also extend the time frame that eligible uranium mine workers have to file claims through 1990, instead of cutting it off at 1971.

The compensation fund would be extended for six years, and applicants would have an extra five years to file claims under S. 3853. The legislation also retroactively increases the award available to claimants exposed to atmospheric tests to $100,000 from $50,000 or $75,000.

Hawley and Lujan have proposed an alternative plan that slashed the expanded program’s costs by about $100 billion over a decade to address concerns from other lawmakers, including Johnson. The expansion now is estimated to cost between $50 billion and $60 billion over 10 years.

Still, the bill would significantly expand the scope and cost of administering RECA claims, which the Justice Department is required to process within 12 months of receiving them. Justice can’t use the RECA trust fund to fund administrative and overhead costs, and any expansion of the program would require more staff and money to expeditiously process claims.

The RECA program currently has 16 employees; the office now receives approximately 100 new claims each month, according to the Justice Department. If the Hawley-Lujan legislation is enacted, as many as 34,000 new claims could be received in the first year it goes into effect, meaning the office will need a lot more staff.

Hawley and Lujan have worked hard to convince their colleagues that expanding the program is really about fairness, not money.

“This isn’t about a handout. This isn’t about some kind of welfare program,” Hawley said in March when the Senate passed S. 3853. “This is about doing basic justice by the working people of this nation, whom their own government has poisoned.”

Lujan has worked on expanding the program since his time as a member of the House beginning in 2009 to “include all the families that were left out of the original act of 1990.”

He said he’s optimistic Congress will ultimately pass the broader legislation, which President Joe Biden supports. “We’ve seen more momentum and support on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act this Congress than we have since we’ve been fighting to get this done.”