Source New Mexico is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
by Kyle Dunphey, Utah News Dispatch, Source New Mexico
The federal government’s program that gives payments to people sickened by nuclear weapons testing is one step closer to being reauthorized and expanded.
On Tuesday, Senate Republicans passed their massive tax and spending package, nicknamed the “big, beautiful bill” — among its many provisions is an expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which expired more than a year ago.
If the bill clears the final vote needed from the House, downwinders in New Mexico will now receive compensation for their medical bills, marking a significant change to the program that advocates say was too narrow to begin with.
Here are the RECA highlights, found in the final pages of the Senate’s 887-page bill:
- Downwinders in all of New Mexico, Utah and Idaho would now be eligible for payments. Coverage would also be widened in Arizona to include all of Coconino, Yavapai, Navajo, Apache, Gila, and Mohave counties. Residents who lived in certain parts of Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky who were sickened due to the Manhattan Project would also receive coverage.
- The program’s new expiration date would be Dec. 31, 2028.
- In some cases, people who lived in affected areas for just one year would be eligible for compensation — the program previously required they live there at least two years.
- The compensation amount — originally $50,000 to $75,000 — would be increased to $100,000 in most cases.
- Uranium miners and workers based in New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, Washington, Utah, Idaho, North Dakota, Oregon and Texas would be covered. The timeframe of eligibility would also be extended to 1990.
“RECA is generational legislation for Missouri and will finally deliver justice for survivors in the St. Louis region,” said Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley, who sponsored the provision. “I call on the House to quickly pass this legislation and send it to President Trump’s desk.”
RECA expired in June 2024 after Congress failed to reauthorize it, and in the year since, downwinders who were just recently diagnosed with cancer or who didn’t know about the program were left without compensation. The New Mexico delegation and radiation survivors marked the anniversary of its expiration by renewing calls for RECA’s expansion.
The program had been in place since 1990, but downwinders have long said it should be expanded. Despite studies suggesting the entire West was blanketed by dangerous levels of radiation during nuclear tests, downwinders in just 10 counties in Utah, as well as a handful of counties in Nevada and Arizona, were covered.
Last year, New Mexico Democratic U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján teamed up with Hawley to sponsor a bill that would expand the program to cover much of the West. The bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House, mostly over spending concerns.
In mid-June, when Hawley re-introduced the measure into the GOP budget bill, the delegation responded by noting, in part, that the measure has previously garnered bipartisan support.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, who represents the state’s 3rd Congressional District, also noted in a statement provided to Source that over the years of fighting for RECA, the state’s delegation and the advocates have “built a broad coalition grounded in justice and science, yet Republican leadership refused to pass our bill and the program lapsed last year. Since then, people have been dying while Republican leadership in the House drags its feet. However, even a broken clock is right twice a day. While the broader Billionaires Budget Bill is deeply harmful in many ways, we are glad some Republicans are finally recognizing the value of RECA. New Mexicans have waited long enough. They deserve the compensation and recognition they’ve earned through pain and sacrifice.”
It’s not yet clear whether RECA has the support needed in the House to withstand the final vote. The New York Times estimates that the current proposed expansion will cost about $7.7 billion.
Correction: A previous version reported uranium workers in South Dakota, North Dakota, Washington, Idaho, Oregon and Texas were not covered under RECA. While these states were not covered in the initial version of the bill, it was expanded in 2000 to included these states.
Source New Mexico contributed reporting to this story.
Utah News Dispatch is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Utah News Dispatch maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor McKenzie Romero for questions: info@utahnewsdispatch.com.
Source New Mexico is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Source New Mexico maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Julia Goldberg for questions: info@sourcenm.com.