WASHINGTON (CN) — Congress came one step closer to saving a program aimed at compensating Americans suffering from the legacy of the Manhattan Project, as the Senate approved bipartisan legislation Thursday that would extend its effectiveness through the end of the decade.
The measure, championed by Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, is the crux of a yearlong effort to renew the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, set to expire in June. The lawmaker’s standalone bill to extend the program comes after he and a bipartisan group of lawmakers unsuccessfully tried to weave similar language into the National Defense Authorization Act late last year.
Enacted in 1990, the act provides tens of thousands of dollars in compensation to Americans facing adverse health effects and other issues stemming from atomic weapons testing and manufacturing as well as radioactive waste storage and disposal. People directly involved in the testing or construction of nuclear weapons are eligible for program funds — as well as uranium miners and “downwinders,” people who lived nearby atomic testing sites and have since developed cancer.
The program has only been expanded once, in 2000, to include uranium miners and mill workers.
Although the act was initially set to expire in July 2022, the White House approved a short-term renewal, teeing the program up to sunset this summer.
However, Hawley’s bill, which passed the Senate on a 69-30 vote Thursday afternoon, would extend the program through 2030. That’s a slight compromise from the language the lawmaker attempted to work into December’s defense funding authorization, which would have added 19 years to the program’s lifespan.
The measure would also expand the pool of eligible recipients to include communities in his home state of Missouri as well as in Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Kentucky, Montana and Tennessee. It would further expand program coverage to Guam, whose residents were affected by radioactive fallout from atomic testing in the Pacific.
The proposed legislation would also raise the payout for certain recipients and expand the types of cancer eligible for compensation. It would further make uranium miners and millers who worked between 1971 and 1990 eligible for payments.
Speaking on the Senate floor Thursday, Hawley said making amends with Americans affected by atomic testing and manufacturing is “more than an issue — it is a cause.”
“This isn’t about a handout,” he said. “This isn’t about some kind of welfare program. This is about doing basic justice by the working people of this nation whom their own government has poisoned.”
New Mexico Senator Ben Ray Lujan, who backed Hawley’s bill, pointed out that the Senate was taking up radiation compensation just days before the Academy Awards, at which Christopher Nolan’s "Oppenheimer," a dramatic retelling of the Manhattan Project, is nominated for the year’s best picture.
“Generations of families wiped out by lung, stomach, prostate, thyroid, skin, breast and tongue cancer didn’t get the glossy Hollywood treatment,” Lujan said, “and the United States has not made any significant progress in correcting these injustices since 2000. Shame on us.”
The White House said Wednesday that it supports Hawley’s bill.
“The president believes we have a solemn obligation to address toxic exposure,” the administration wrote in a policy statement, “especially among those who have been placed in harm’s way by the government’s actions.”
The measure now heads to the House for a vote.
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