"A grave injustice": Congress Removes Compensation for Nuclear Test Victims from NDAA
Americans harmed by radiation from nuclear weapons testing deserve financial compensation. Congress agreed, then backtracked.
For the “downwinders,” the legacy of the United States’ nuclear weapons testing is anything but history.
The Senate was on the verge of recognizing and compensating previously unrecognized victims of the United States’ nuclear weapons testing in the upcoming National Defense Authorization Act. The provision was stripped from the bill in last minute negotiations last week.
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What Happened?
From the Trinity test (depicted in the 2023 film “Oppenheimer”) in 1945 until 1962, the United States conducted more than 200 above-ground nuclear weapons detonations. The fallout, radioactive particles dispersed into the atmosphere by the explosion, travels far from the location of the original explosion, and returns to the Earth as dust or in precipitation.
This radioactive fallout has devastating effects on people’s health, chiefly via increased rates of cancer and radiation sickness. Fallout also poisons drinking water and soil, plants, livestock, and other wildlife. The radioactive particles continue to pose significant health risks for decades.
The National Cancer Institute notes that evidence indicates milk-drinkers (primarily children) in the decades following the atmospheric nuclear weapons tests had a higher risk of developing thyroid cancer, because the cows ate grass which contained radioactive isotopes from nuclear tests in Nevada. The levels of the dangerous radioactive isotope (Iodine-131) were particularly elevated in parts of Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Idaho and Montana.
As early as 1955, the government knew about the dangers of nuclear fallout, warning citizens in a cartoon-illustrated pamphlet titled “Facts About Fallout” issued by the Federal Civil Defense Administration. Yet atmospheric nuclear tests continued for years after the dangers to the public were apparent.
The problem of fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests was extremely widespread. As an American Scientist report notes, in the early 1960s:
there was no place on Earth where the signature of atmospheric nuclear testing could not be found in soil, water and even polar ice.
But while nuclear fallout can travel great distances, the impacts are most severe on those closest to the blast. Which brings us to the “downwinders” and the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1990.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) of 1990 was a response to lawsuits alleging the United States failed to notify Uranium miners, millers and ore transporters of the known risks of radiation. This Uranium mining, milling and transportation was essential to the United States nuclear weapons program, and highly dangerous as workers were exposed to high levels of radiation in the course of the work. Many developed lung cancers, fibrosis, silicosis and other deadly and debilitating illnesses.
RECA also covered “onsite participants” (those present at the Trinity test) and those in certain counties “downwind” of the test site, covering certain counties in Nevada, Arizona, and Utah. If residents demonstrate physical presence in these areas and an illness, they are eligible under RECA for a one-time payment of $50,000.
On the RECA webpage, it notes:
This unique statute was designed to serve as an expeditious, low-cost alternative to litigation.
Notably, RECA left out a lot of people indisputably harmed by the United States nuclear program, including anyone mining Uranium after 1971 and people exposed to radiation from the Trinity Test in New Mexico. It also failed to cover many other “downwinders” exposed to nuclear fallout from the United States’ atmospheric nuclear weapons tests.
But, thanks to sustained efforts from activists and communities continuing to suffer the consequences of the United States government’s actions, things were starting to change. People like Tina Cordova, who founded the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium had been fighting for over a decade for recognition of the harms done to innocent people by their government. One activist, Bernice Gutierrez, lived near the Trinity test site, moving to Albuquerque a few years after the Trinity test. Speaking to Responsible Statecraft, Gutierrez shared that 21 members of her family have gotten cancer and 7 have died. In the piece, she says:
“We don’t ask ourselves if we’re gonna get cancer,” Gutierrez told RS [Responsible Statecraft]. “We ask ourselves when, because it just never ends.”
This July, after decades of activism, an amendment was introduced to drastically expand RECA compensation. It passed as an amendment to an earlier Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) with bipartisan support, 61-37. Chief among its supporters were Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-NM) and Josh Hawley (R-MO).
Provisions in the RECA extension included a 19-year extension of the program. Further, from Source New Mexico:
[P]eople living in Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, New Mexico, Utah and Guam would qualify for lump-sum payments.
It would extend to cover uranium miners working until 1990, instead of limiting coverage to people working in 1971 and earlier.
It would allow payments to people and descendants in parts of St. Louis County, which was contaminated with nuclear waste from the Manhattan Project.
It would have recognized, after 78 years, people in New Mexico exposed to radiation from the first nuclear blast at the Trinity Site.
The inclusion in the earlier version of a Senate NDAA made this closer than ever to being a reality.
However, early this December in negotiations, Senate leaders stripped all mention of RECA from the current NDAA. This news devastated those awaiting long overdue relief and recognition for those affected by nuclear weapons tests and their families.
The projected cost was cited as the reason for cutting the initiative. From Connor Echol’s piece in Responsible Statecraft:
In a statement to RS [Responsible Statecraft], Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-N.M.) blamed the decision to kill RECA expansion on Republican House leaders, who quietly oppose the measure due to its projected cost of nearly $15 billion per year — a sharp increase from the $2.3 billion that RECA has paid out to date.
As others have pointed out, this cost is miniscule when compared to the estimated $634 billion the Congressional Budget Office estimates will be spend on nuclear weapons development and maintenance in the coming decade.
In my view it is utterly shameful for Senate to walk away from this initiative, and an abrogation of their duty to those Americans who paid the ultimate price for the United States nuclear weapons development.
Senator Hawley called the decision “a grave injustice” and said further:
This bill turns its back on the people of the United States in defense of the lobbyists and the suits and the corporate entities who are going to get paid.
He has also said he will vote against the NDAA, which is headed to the House and Senate floor for final votes this week, in protest of this move.
Tina Cordova called the decision “shockingly immoral” and provided an apt analogy:
“I wouldn't be allowed to recklessly harm other people and walk away from responsibility for that,” she continued. “It's like driving drunk and plowing into a van full of people and injuring them, and then telling the court that I simply don't have the resources to take care of the mess I've made.”
This is truly a devastating outcome, first and foremost for the individuals, families and communities directly affected by the decision, but also for all of us. We must acknowledge and generously compensate those whose lives were destroyed by the development of nuclear weapons. It is only right.
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) in its existing, unexpanded form, is set to expire next year.
If you’d like to help you can volunteer or donate with the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium here.
I’d also encourage you to check out the excellent reporting on this issue by Danielle Prokop at Source New Mexico and Connor Echols at Responsible Statecraft, whose articles served as the two main sources for this piece.