Science Friday - House Stalls On Bill To Compensate Victims Of Nuclear Testing

Episode Date: June 26, 2024

In July 1945, the US deployed the world’s first nuclear weapon during the Trinity Test. Since then, the US has tested more than 200 nukes above ground in places including New Mexico, Nevada, and several Pacific Islands.For decades to come, “downwinders,” or people who lived near those test sites, and those involved manufacturing these weapons, were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. They’ve disproportionately suffered from diseases like cancer, autoimmune disorders, and more.The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) was established in 1990 to provide victims of the US nuclear program a one-time payment to help cover medical bills. But the program has fallen short of helping everyone affected—like the downwinders living around the Trinity Test site in New Mexico.A new bill, which was passed in the Senate earlier this year, would expand the program to include more people and provide more money. It’s up to the House now to pass it, but Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana won’t call a vote. And the clock is ticking, because RECA expired on June 10. So what happens now?SciFri’s John Dankosky speaks with Tina Cordova, downwinder and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium in Albuquerque; Loretta Anderson, co-founder of the Southwest Uranium Miners’ Coalition Post ‘71, from the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico; and Lilly Adams, senior outreach coordinator at the Union of Concerned Scientists.Transcripts for each segment will be available after the show airs on sciencefriday.com. Subscribe to this podcast. Plus, to stay updated on all things science, sign up for Science Friday's newsletters.

For decades, the U.S. has compensated some of the people affected by nuclear weapons testing. Now, the government has let that program expire. There's no price that you can actually place on a life. And so we bury our loved ones on a regular basis, and they claim it's too expensive to take care of us. It's Wednesday, June 26, and you're listening to Science Friday. I'm CyFRI producer, Rasha Irides. In July 1945, the U.S. deployed the world. very first nuclear weapon during the Trinity test.

And since then, the U.S. has tested more than 200 nukes above ground in places like New Mexico, Nevada, and several Pacific islands. For decades, people who live near those test sites, they're called downwinders, as well as those involved in the making of these weapons, were exposed to dangerous levels of radiation. And they've disproportionately suffered from diseases like cancer, autoimmune disorders, and more. Here's Sifarize John Dankowski. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RICA, was established in 1990 to provide victims of the U.S. nuclear program a one-time payment, but the programs fallen short of helping everyone affected, like the people living right around the Trinity Test Site in New Mexico. With the program set to expire in early June of this year, the Senate passed a bipartisan bill that would expand the program to more people and provide more money.

Now it's up to the House, but Speaker Mike Johnson won't call it. a vote on the bill saying that the price tag, around $50 billion, is just too expensive. So with Rika now expired, what happens next? Joining me to talk about this is Tina Cordova, downwinder and co-founder of the Tullerosa Basin Downwinders Consortium in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Loretta Anderson, co-founder of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition post-71 from the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, and Lily Adams, senior research coordinator at the Union of concerned scientists in New York City. I'd like to welcome you all to Science Friday.

Thank you, John. Thank you for having me. Thank you, John. Tina, I'd like to start with you. How are you feeling about this decision, or I suppose this lack of a decision? Well, honestly, we have felt the whole spectrum of things, anger, frustration, disappointment. You know, there's nothing like being let down by your own government. And so I have felt the whole spectrum of things. And that has been compounded by the fact that I've received numerous emails and telephone calls from people, you know, all across New Mexico who were traumatized by the idea that the government would let the program expire and that they would do nothing to address this issue. Find no solution to this issue. People are devastated. And we need a solution. We've waited far too long. So, Lily, I want to get into the politics of this in just a minute, but could you tell me what groups have been included in RICA so far? How much money do they get? So currently Rika provides a small amount of compensation to three different groups. So the first are downwinders, which you mentioned those near above ground test sites. And right now they're eligible for $50,000. The second group is on-site participants. Those are people involved in the actual above-ground tests themselves. And that often includes veterans involved in the test.

they're eligible for $75,000. And then uranium workers or some uranium workers are eligible for $100,000. For people battling cancer, $50,000 is a pittance. You know, a single cost of chemotherapy treatment can be up to $100,000. So part of the bill that we've been supporting our coalition would increase the amount of compensation to reflect the things like, you know, higher health care costs than inflation to make the compensation $100,000. Okay. And do we know how many people are potentially affected? I mean, how far exactly are those dollars going?

Yeah. So unfortunately, the government did a very bad job of record keeping and of tracking people's exposures. And so we don't have a precise number. We know that so far in the, you know, over 30 years that RICA has been in existence that over 40,000 people have submitted claims. But like you said earlier, we also know that that doesn't nearly represent the scope of people who were harmed. And while Rika, you know, does provide that eligibility to certain groups, it really excludes so many who are harmed that are not covered currently. Yeah, I think it's important also to point out that when you talk about the downwinders that are included, it only includes certain counties in parts of Arizona, Utah, and Nevada. But it has never included the first people ever exposed to radiation as a result of a bomb, which were right here in New Mexico. So the fund has never gone far enough, and it's never been based on proof. It's been based on an assumption that if you lived in one of these downwind areas and you developed one of the radiogenic cancers, then you would qualify for the modest payment of $50,000 towards your loss of wages because you can't work to help cover medical costs. And honestly, it's a pittance.

It's nowhere near what people need to address those issues. The original RICA amendments that were originally passed actually by the U.S. Senate included health care coverage as well, which had to be stripped out to bring the CBO estimate down to $50 billion from $150 billion. And so they're still balking at that price tag. And, you know, we're still reminding them that there's no price that you can actually place on a life. And so we bury our loved ones on a regular basis.

claim it's too expensive to take care of us. Yeah. And of course, this is very personal to you, Tina. I know you've joined us in the program before. Maybe you can talk about your family's impact from these tests. Well, it's pretty clear in my family, and my family's not unique. We've documented hundreds of families in New Mexico like mine that are displaying four and five generations of cancer now since 1945. So I'm the fourth generation in my family to have cancer, and now I have a 20, four-year-old niece that was diagnosed at the age of 23 with thyroid cancer, the same cancer I have, a cancer that is well known to be radiogenic in nature. My dad died from cancer. He was a four-year-old child at the time of Trinity living in a community 45 miles away, drinking mass quantities of

fresh cows milk and dipping water out of their cistern. And my dad developed tongue cancer. He never He never drank much, never smoked, didn't use chewing tobacco, had no viruses, developed two primary tongue cancers eight years apart that the last one killed him. And I've lost count of the aunts and uncles and cousins that have died. And it just goes on and on. And it's not ending. And younger children are being diagnosed all the time. So, Lillia, we're talking about the federal government deciding whether or not $50, $75, $100,000 is enough to compensate people. Obviously, it does nothing to compensate people in the way that Tina's just described. So who else would get RICA benefits under this new expanded bill if indeed it were passed?

So it would finally include some of the downwind communities that have never been recognized, as Tina said, for example, the folks around the Trinity Test in New Mexico, as well as other downwind communities across the West, who we know now were also exposed. It would finally include uranium workers after the year of 1971. Right now there's a cutoff date, but, you know, thousands of workers continued working in the same very dangerous conditions. And then it would also include some additional communities that have been identified as affected by nuclear waste. So, for example, in Missouri, where nuclear waste was illegally and absolutely recklessly buried and is still affecting communities today.

I want to turn to you, Loretta, because amongst the people who would be compensated are uranium miners, but only those who worked in uranium pits through 1971 are part of this RICA program. So why exactly is 1971 the cutoff? The reason being the government insane is they did not buy the uranium anymore. It was companies, but yet they were purchasing the uranium from the companies. So we feel that the government is still responsible. There are so many of our people that are sick, suffering and dying due to radiation exposure. No one ever warned our people.

No one ever told them that if you work in the uranium mines, you're going to get sick. We are fighting for our lives. Our people, our downwinders, are uranium miners. We're fighting for our lives. It is so devastating. No one can understand the pain, the suffering. that our people are going through, especially those that have to see their family members dying. We do not have a cancer center here.

It takes months to finally get diagnosed because we live so far away over 100 miles from specialists. And when they find out they have cancer or kidney disease, it's too late. They go home and die. I had my grandfathers, my uncles, my aunties, my own father. was a minor. He died of colonel cancer. My mother worked in the office at Ohio uranium mines. She was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. I have cousins, my brother, my brother-in-law's. We're all seeing the effects of what radiation exposure has done to our people. Most parts of the American West where people have been overexposed to radiation are rural,

and we don't have access to health care. And Loretta has done an amazing job of explaining how difficult it is for us to access health care. Indian Health Service does not provide cancer treatment. So our native people who had their poverty used against them, that's how they got them to go into the mines without safety gear. They used their poverty against them and they're dying now. Generations of them are gone. I go to meetings at Laguna Pueblo and on the Navajo Nation and there's all these widows. There's no men anymore. We don't have elders. We don't have elders in our communities. anymore. It's not that it got safer to mine uranium. It's just that our government wasn't the only consumer. And so they passed the obligation to take care of people to industry. And industry doesn't

take care of people. I want to get back to you, Lily, for a second. We talked to the very start about one of the reasons why potentially this bill has not passed, just the price tag of it. We're talking about potentially $50 billion. The Speaker of the House has said that Republicans in his caucus aren't on board for this bill, but it passed in the Senate on a pretty bipartisan basis. What exactly is holding this up, do you think, Lily? Yeah, I think, first of all, just raising the concern about the money, this should not be about the money. This is about taking care of people who are sick because they were poisoned by their government. And for all of these decades, you know, Congress has just been offloading that cost onto those communities, onto the backs of families who are devastated by the medical costs and other

associated costs that they're having to deal with. So this is, you know, it's disingenuous because when the government has priorities, they find the money to pay for them. So, you know, we really feel like Speaker Mike Johnson in raising that is just he's trying to put a price tag on human life and dignity, and that's completely unjust. But yeah, raising the issue also of not enough Republicans being in support of this, I mean, I think simply it's just not true. The Senate bill passed with almost 70 votes, 69 to 30 in the Senate. That is far beyond a supermajority in the Senate. That's incredible in this day and age when our Congress is so divided, Congresswoman Corey Bush said, when you have Cory Bush and

Senator Hawley fighting together on the same issue, you've got to pay attention and you've got something, you know, very impressive happening. And, you know, this is how our government works. We don't need to have a consensus of all Republicans. We don't operate by consensus. The way our government works is that we pass bills that a majority of our elected officials agree on, and we've seen that in the Senate. And the speaker should really give the House the opportunity to do the same. this would give more money, $100,000 to people who qualify if this has passed. As Lily just said, we can't put a price tag on it. We shouldn't be talking about how many billions of dollars a cost if people have been poisoned.

That having been said, there is a price tag being put on it, like $100,000. So Loretta, to you, what does that do if that passes? How does that help people in your community? That would help our people to be able to travel, to receive a diagnosis, cancer treatment, so many things within, you know, a livelihood. Right now are people, they have nowhere to turn. Like I said before, it's not going to help everything, but at least it would help with the travel, the expenses, the cancer, treatments, you know,

gas going back and forth. You know, as folks have said, it won't cover all of the costs that people are dealing with. But, you know, some of the people that we work with who are suffering from these cancers, they're doing things like rationing care, deciding what care they can and can't pay for because they just don't have the funds. You know, we work with people who their light bills and phone bills are not being paid because they need that money to drive to their, you know, appointments, people who have had their cars repossessed. We talk with, you know, veterans who this is what saves them from keeping their home or losing their home. So, you know, that increase really can make a huge difference in people's lives, even though it will never bring back. the lives that have been lost. Let me tell you something, John. New Mexico is one of the states

carrying some of the highest medical debt in the whole country. We have a little over two million people living here and we're carrying $881 million, a billion dollars in medical debt. It's the primary reason that people file bankruptcy. You know, an acknowledgement doesn't go far enough. $100,000 doesn't go far enough, but here we are. And let me tell you something else. speaking about the cost of this, we have spent close to $10 trillion since the inception of the nuclear programs in the United States. $50 billion is a pittance. It's a pittance. And when we talk about support from Republicans, I just want to remind everyone that the states that we're trying to add to RICA right now, the locations that we're trying to add to RICA right now, they're

predominantly Republican. So this is an issue of Republicans. and Democrats that have been affected, but primarily Republicans. When Speaker Johnson chooses to look the other way, he's looking away from his own constituents and his own voting public. So what exactly happens with this bill next? Do you think, Lily? Well, we are going to explore every and all possible options. The biggest thing is that Speaker Johnson can still bring this bill

that passed in the Senate, S3-853. You could bring that bill to the floor tomorrow, or next day that the House is in session. And that can still pass. And that would be the fastest and best way to get people the, you know, justice that they need and deserve. But we will look at, you know, attaching this bill to any moving vehicles, as we've done in the past. We'll look to see if there are any possibilities with the NDAA or the National Defense Authorization Act, which is an annual budget bill for the Pentagon. You know, we will have to look at everything. I mean, it's incredibly cruel that we're having to look at this after the program

has already lapsed, which means that people can't apply who otherwise would be eligible, but we'll keep fighting. This is absolutely not over. I think if, you know, if Congress was hoping that the program would expire and we would go away, they will find that that is absolutely not the case. We will keep fighting. Tina, first you, do you have hope that this can still get through Congress? I have great hope, and I'll tell you why, because every day some other good person out there joins with us and decides that they want to be a part of this movement to get this done. I have great hope. I know that there will come a day when Congress has to address this issue. We're not going away and we will not go away quietly. That's the same way I feel. I have hope. I pray. We have so many

people praying, Colin Mike Johnson, asking him, begging him to put this before the house. Tina Cordova, Downwinder and co-founder of the Tula Rosa Basin Downwinders Consortium. in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Loretta Anderson, co-founder of the Southwest Uranium Miners Coalition Post-71 from the Pueblo of Laguna in New Mexico, and Lily Adams, senior research coordinator at the Union of Concerned Scientists in New York City. I'd like to thank all of you so much for joining us, and I wish you best of luck moving forward. Thank you again for your time. Thank you, John. Thanks so much. Thank you, John. God bless you. And we did reach out to Speaker Mike Johnson's office for

comment on this bill, and we have not heard back as of airtime. That's it for this week's show. On tomorrow's episode, we wrap up this year's Cephalopod week. Join us. I'm Cyford producer Rasha Iridi.