Tina Cordova has spent about two decades fighting to bring government compensation to the generations of people in the Tularosa Basin who have suffered the health consequences of radiation exposure following the Trinity Bomb test 80 years ago.
Last year, Cordova came closer than ever before to achieving this goal. Expanding and extending the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act passed the U.S. Senate with a veto-proof majority and then-President Joe Biden committed to signing the bill should it make it to his desk.
Then it stalled in the U.S. House of Representatives when Speaker Mike Johnson chose not to bring it to the floor for a vote.
“We came so close, and one man, Speaker Johnson, blocked this,” she said.
Cordova said she feels “extreme anger” about the way the government is set up so that a single person can “completely block a nonpartisan issue from advancing in Congress.”
The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired last year on June 10.
Tuesday, on the one-year anniversary of RECA expiring, U.S. Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) issued a statement on the urgent need to reauthorize and strengthen RECA. The lawmakers underscored the critical importance of delivering long-overdue justice to Americans harmed by nuclear testing and uranium exposure.
“In New Mexico and across the country, thousands of Americans sacrificed in service to our national security. Exactly one year after House Republicans failed to reauthorize RECA, far too many families are still waiting for the justice they are owed. Letting this program expire is a disgrace to the victims and their loved ones who have suffered the consequences of radiation exposure,” Luján said. “One year is far too long to deny compensation to those who are sick and dying from exposure caused by our own government. This Congress, I’m proud to once again lead legislation to extend and expand RECA. I’m hopeful the Senate will once again pass this critical legislation, and I urge Speaker Johnson to finally do right by these victims and bring it to the House floor.”
Cordova said advocates have been “hoping against hope that somehow this current administration understands that our government’s primary function is to take care of the people. We are tax-paying public that rely on our government to look out for our best interest.”
Some opponents of the expansion of RECA say that it would be too expensive, but Cordova argued that the costs would be a fraction of what the government pays to maintain the nuclear arsenal. She said the government has spent $2.7 billion on compensation for people who have developed health conditions linked to radiation exposure caused by government actions such as nuclear testing. Meanwhile, the government spends $50 billion annually maintaining the nuclear arsenal.
“We are not going to settle for that answer. We are not going to allow them to continue to tell us it’s going to cost too much and we’re not going to go away. I tell people all the time, when you bury enough loved ones, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain,” she said.
The proposal to expand RECA would have included more than just the downwinders in the Tularosa Basin. People in Missouri who were impacted by the dumping of waste from enriching uranium would also have been included.
The effort to expand RECA was led by Luján and Josh Hawley, R-Missouri. The entire New Mexico Congressional delegation banded together in support of the effort.
Since RECA expired, some members of Congress have changed due to the 2024 elections.
Cordova said there are still members of Congress who are fighting for expansion and reauthorization of RECA, but advocates also need to educate some of the new members.
“Coming as close as we did last year really has influenced our appetite for continuing, because when you see something come so close to materializing, you realize that this … continues to be worth fighting for, and we’ve come too far to give up,” she said.
At the same time, the downwinders in the Tularosa Basin are planning events to mark the 80th anniversary of the nuclear bomb test that occurred early on a July morning and has left lasting impacts on the people who live there.
Cordova watched her father die from cancer. She herself has had cancer. Her siblings have had cancer.
“It’s pretty much 100% of my immediate family that’s been affected,” she said.
She said she’s lost track of the number of people she’s buried.
She compared the radiation exposure related to the bomb test to a “silent serial killer that exists amongst us.”
“We don’t know who’s next, but we know there’ll be someone else, and we know there’ll be someone else after that. Our bodies bear the legacy of that test, and the legacy of the testing that was done afterwards, and the legacy of what remains in New Mexico as a result of them developing and testing nuclear devices here. And we will forever carry that footprint,” Cordova said.
Where’s your boy Martin Heinrich?
He could have made something happen.