Montana’s US senators vote to pass RECA extension
Blair Miller
(Daily Montanan) Just months before the program is set to expire, both of Montana’s U.S. senators voted Thursday to pass a standalone bill that would extend and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include Montanans affected by nuclear testing in Nevada decades ago.
The full Senate voted 69-30 to pass the bill, sponsored by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, over to the House of Representatives, where Republicans stripped the extension and expansion of RECA out of the National Defense Authorization Act in December. Both Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat, and Steve Daines, a Republican, said they were pleased to support the measure.
Hawley led the Missouri, New Mexico, and Idaho delegations in introducing a standalone bill last month to try to push the extension and expansion of the program over the finish line, as the program and window for new claims is set to expire in June, following the House’s decision in December to kill the measure as part of the National Defense Authorization Act over alleged cost concerns.
The Daily Montanan and other States Newsroom outlets partnered with investigative journalism outlet MuckRock to publish a national series of stories in January called “The Radius” investigating the effects of the radiation fallout on Americans in the states that were affected.
The Daily Montanan’s reporting featured a woman who grew up on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation who believes it’s possible radiation could have caused her to develop thyroid cancer and an ovary malady, as well as a woman who now lives in Billings but who grew up in New Mexico and lost several family members to illnesses believed to have been caused by radiation from the Trinity test. Both said they believe any victims of the government’s nuclear testing deserve fair compensation.
President Joe Biden extended RECA in 2022 by executive order just ahead of another expiration deadline, and last summer, the Senate included a 19-year extension of the program, and an expansion to include other states, including Montana, in the National Defense Authorization Act before the House stripped it out just before the end-of-year deadline to pass the $800 million defense package.
Hawley’s bill would only extend RECA through the next six years, until 2030. But it would expand the program to include people in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Missouri, New Mexico, Guam, and parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada that were not previously covered under the program who were “downwind” of the Nevada and New Mexico nuclear testing sites and who later suffered from certain cancers or other illnesses. The bill also expands coverage for uranium mine workers.
“Downwinders” covered under RECA currently can apply for $50,000 if they were present in covered states during certain timeframes in the 1950s and 1960s. A 1997 report showed that 15 counties in Montana were in the top 25 that received the most radiation from nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site, but Montana was never previously included for RECA coverage.
Since 2005, senators from both parties from Montana, Idaho, and New Mexico have led the charge to include their states under RECA, but the effort picked up steam with Hawley’s push to have Missourians affected by radioactive waste dumps in the St. Louis area included over the past year.
The Montana state Senate passed a resolution last year as well urging Congress to pass a RECA expansion to include Montana.
U.S. senators were unhappy in December with the House’s decision to strip out the funding, which led to the standalone bill and Hawley urging his Republican colleagues last week to support the reauthorization and expansion.
On Wednesday, after Hawley announced he’d secured a standalone vote on the bill Thursday, President Biden’s White House issued a Statement of Administration Policy urging lawmakers to support the bill.
“The President believes we have a solemn obligation to address toxic exposure, especially among those who have been placed in harm’s way by the government’s actions,” the message said. “The Administration looks forward to working with Congress to ensure sufficient resources are made available to cover the costs of administering the expanded benefits program to ensure we can honor that obligation.”
That set up Thursday afternoon’s vote on the bill, which needed approval from 60 senators to move on to the House for consideration. The Missouri and New Mexico delegation had downwinders and people affected by radioactive waste present in the Senate gallery for the vote, and Hawley and Sens. Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich, both New Mexico Democrats, spoke on the floor about what the expansion and extension would do for their constituents. Heinrich said a vote in support would mean senators were “standing on the right side of history.”
All but two Democrats supported the bill, along with both independents and 20 Republicans. Tester, who has supported a RECA expansion for Montana since he took office in 2007, said he was happy the bipartisan effort is moving forward.
“Montanans who were exposed to dangerous radiation of their own government’s actions deserve to be compensated for any suffering caused by that exposure,” he said in a written statement. “This is about doing right by Montanans, and I’m proud to have joined Republicans and Democrats to help right this wrong.”
“I’m glad to support a bill that will help so many Montanans who are negatively impacted by radiation exposure,” said Daines, who also voted for the National Defense Authorization Act that included the measure last July.
Now that the measure has passed the Senate, its prospects are unclear in the House, where spending has become a primary target for the Freedom Caucus-led House Republicans. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated the version included with defense spending would have cost $147 billion over the next 10 years. Hawley’s office said his version, which includes a much shorter extension, would cost an estimated $50 billion.