Last week, Alliance for a Better Utah joined 32 other Utah and national organizations to call on Utah’s Congressional delegation to expand RECA and continue providing compensation to downwinders impacted by our country’s historical nuclear weapons testing. 

RECA expired earlier this year in June and although the U.S. Senate passed an expanded RECA bill in March, Utah’s House members are standing in the way of it passing out of Congress. It’s imperative that they act now to expand RECA and ensure that Utahns can receive medical screenings and compensation for the diseases caused by exposure to radiation. 

RECA Background

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) passed Congress in 1990 as an apology “on behalf of the nation” to individuals who were “involuntarily subjected to increased risk of injury and disease to serve the national security interests of the United States.” 

RECA made compensation available to persons exposed to fallout from nuclear weapons testing or as a result of exposure during employment as uranium miners or uranium millers. The Act was designed “as an expeditious, low-cost alternative to litigation” that didn’t require people to show causation of injury or disease, only that the person had died from, has, or had a certain cancer or disease outlined in the Act, and lived or worked in covered areas during a certain time period. 

“Downwinders” who lived in 10 out of the 29 counties in Utah were covered under the Act if they lived there for two consecutive years between 1951 to 1958, or during the summer of 1962. Those counties were: Beaver, Garfield, Iron, Kane, Millard, Piute, San Juan, Sevier, Washington, and Wayne. Utahns throughout the state who worked in uranium mines or mills, or transported ore from 1942 to 1971 were also eligible. 

RECA expired on June 10, 2024 and only claims postmarked on or before that date will be filed or adjudicated, barring further claims and compensation. Before that point, over 8,000 Utahns had benefited from health screenings or financial compensation through RECA, assisting with medical bills and other costs associated with their illnesses. As of June 30, 2024, RECA has paid out over $2.6 billion in compensation to 41,883 Americans.

Expansion, Not Extension

Since the enactment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), studies have shown that radioactive fallout from atmospheric tests was much more widespread than imagined. For example, a study of the radioactive fallout from the Trinity test in 1945 showed that it reached 46 states, Canada, and Mexico. 

Armed with such information, advocates and downwinders have called for an expansion of RECA, arguing that the original Act was too narrow. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri proposed a bill, S. 3853, that would:

• Increase compensation downwinders can receive
• Expand eligibility for certain uranium workers
• Widen the “affected area” to include all of Utah, Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Guam, in addition to parts of Hawley’s district near St. Louis, where creek water was contaminated by radiation during nuclear weapons development

This RECA reauthorization and expansion bill passed the Senate in March 2024 with a bipartisan supermajority. Unfortunately, both of Utah’s senators, Mitt Romney and Mike Lee, voted against the bill.

Despite the bill passing the Senate, the House of Representatives has refused to take up the bill, and the lack of support from Utah’s Congressional delegation is believed to be one of the issues standing in its way. Only two months before RECA was set to expire, Rep. Celeste Maloy and Sen. Mike Lee introduced a bill that would simply reauthorize RECA for two additional years, without covering additional affected areas. 

Cost of Inaction

The stalemate between the Senate and House on reauthorizing the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) comes down to cost. The last two-year extension of RECA from 2022 to 2024 cost just under $50 million a year, while the expanded RECA reauthorization bill from Sen. Hawley is estimated to cost between $50 to $60 billion over the next ten years. Undoubtedly, providing compensation to all those impacted by radioactive fallout will come with a much higher price tag. 

However, this pales in comparison to the amount the United States has spent on developing and testing nuclear weapons over the past century. Our country has spent somewhere between $5.5 to $11.3 TRILLION on its nuclear weapons program through 1996. And we are expected to spend another $1.7 TRILLION updating our nuclear arsenal over the next 30 years. 

Beyond the financial considerations, our nation has a moral obligation to provide compensation and assistance to individuals who are suffering due to actions beyond their control. As our understanding of radioactive fallout continues to evolve and show that many more Americans were directly harmed by exposure to radiation, Congress should be responsible for providing financial support to help treat resulting illnesses that can often be severe and costly to treat.