WASHINGTON — Congress is poised to revive a federal program that compensates uranium miners and people who lived downwind of nuclear bomb tests, more than a year after it expired.

The Senate included the program in its version of the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the GOP tax-and-spending megabill approved Tuesday on a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.

The House version doesn’t include the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. But RECA has broad support — even though Congress let it expire in June 2024.

If the House agrees Wednesday to the Senate’s changes, RECA would not only be revived but expanded by adding eligibility for downwinders in Mohave County, Arizona, and in all of Utah and New Mexico.

RECA, enacted in 1990, provides restitution to people who developed cancer or other specified illnesses after being exposed to fallout from nuclear weapons testing or uranium mining, milling and transportation.

The program has awarded over $2.6 billion to more than 41,000 claimants so far.

The Senate voted to extend RECA in March last year but Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t bring it to the House floor, citing concerns by some in his caucus about the cost.

Navajo activists held a protest in September at the Capitol to prod Congress to revive the program.

Almost 30 million tons of uranium ore was extracted from Navajo lands between 1944 and 1986. Between 3,000 and 5,000 tribal members worked at the mines, exposing them to harmful dust. More than 500 abandoned mines pockmark the land.

Radiation victims view it as unconscionable for the government to turn its back on Americans adversely affected by the U.S. nuclear program.

“It just baffles me that our country is so fast to throw us under the bus,” said Linda Evers of Grants, New Mexico, who worked at a uranium mine run by the Kerr McGee Corp. near Ambrosia Lake and Grants from age 18 to age 25.

“Some of our guys gave their lives for that cause. Just because we didn’t take a bullet to the head … it is still just as dead if you die from pulmonary fibrosis 30 years later,” she said.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2023 that extending RECA for another decade, and adding coverage to people exposed to nuclear waste in Missouri, would cost $147 billion.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Missouri, has been a vocal proponent of restoring the program and expanding eligibility to other Manhattan Project sites such as Mallinckrodt Chemical Works. That St. Louis facility processed 200 million pounds worth of uranium, including the material used in the first atomic bombs.

Hawley’s proposal also covers processing sites in Kentucky and Tennessee and the Ross Adams Mine, Alaska’s only uranium mine.

Arizona Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego have both advocated for RECA, though like other Democrats, they opposed the GOP megabill it’s included in.

“Senator Gallego has long fought to extend and expand coverage for Arizonans who were harmed by radiation,” his office said in a statement. “The measures in the Republicans’ budget bill, however, fall far short of what Arizonans need and deserve, covering only a small fraction of those who have been impacted by unsafe nuclear practices – not to mention the thousands of Arizonans who would lose their health coverage under this dangerous bill.”

Gallego and others have pressed for coverage of all downwinders in Arizona, regardless of what county they lived in at the time.

The reauthorization would allow eligible radiation victims to file claims through December 31, 2028.

The updated program would allow payments up to $100,000 for downwinders, uranium workers and others. That’s up from previous caps of $50,000 for downwinders and $75,000 for miners and others who worked with radioactive materials.

Previous recipients would not be eligible for further compensation.

The amendments allow claims from more victims of nuclear waste relating to the Manhattan Project, the World War II crash project led by physicist Robert Oppenheimer that developed the first atomic bomb.

The Senate bill would expand RECA eligibility to people who:

• Worked in the mines from 1971 through 1990.
• Operated drills used to extract ore samples, called “core drillers.”
• Worked in cleanup and restoration, known as mediation workers.

Evers, a resident of Grants, New Mexico, has long advocated for RECA to cover people who weren’t exposed until 1971 or later.

“It’s lung problems, it’s bone stuff,” she said, describing the effects she deals with. “I was diagnosed and disabled at 39 with degenerative joint and bone disease because of exposure to radiation at a young age.”

Evers is part of a group of post-1971 uranium workers that started with about 35 people. Only two remain alive, she said. Many were afflicted by cancers and other radiation-related illnesses.

“Our guys are dying like crazy. They die, and then the Social Security check goes away, and families are destitute. It’s a really ugly picture,” she said.

I’m standing with my colleagues today to demand @SpeakerJohnson bring RECA for a vote. We must give victims of radiation exposure the compensation they are owed. They CANNOT wait any longer. https://t.co/M4DoXa01zB

— Senator Ben Ray Luján (@SenatorLujan) September 24, 2024

Maggie Billiman, a Navajo member from Sawmill, Arizona, is one of the downwinders affected by nuclear testing in Nevada who hasn’t received compensation because Congress didn’t apply the law to any of her afflictions. She has been treated for thyroid and pancreas problems and many relatives have also suffered radiation exposure, she said.

That includes her late father, Howard – one of the Navajo code talkers in World War II. The family received $50,000 under RECA after he died in 2001.

Billiman was among the Navajo advocates who lobbied Congress last year, demanding a House vote on reauthorization. She felt the efforts were not respected.

“Something’s got to come out of this. I hope they do it right this time and pass it,” she said.

For more stories from Cronkite News, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org.

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Note: This story originally appeared on Cronkite News. It is published via a Creative Commons license. Cronkite News is produced by the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University.

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