Missouri Senator Josh Hawley is threatening to block attempts by House Republicans to only partially renew a law that compensates victims of radiation exposure.
Hawley said the GOP proposal would offer compensation to people living in parts of southern Utah but exclude 10 of the other western states covered in the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
Speaking from the Senate floor on Tuesday, he said if leaders move ahead with the plan to attach a Utah-only RECA plan to a continuing resolution to fund the government, he would block the bill.
"Now, at this last minute, for House leadership to be preparing … to shove down the throats of these victims across the country, a back-room deal that excludes almost all of them, is not only unacceptable, Mr. President, it is absolutely offensive," he said.
Hawley, a Republican, sponsored a bipartisan Senate bill to expand RECA that overwhelmingly passed earlier this year. But Speaker Mike Johnson has refused to allow a House vote.
RECA awards compensation to those in the West known as "downwinders" suffering from cancers and other health problems caused by Cold War-era nuclear testing and uranium production. The program covered most of northern Arizona, southern Utah and Nevada before it expired in June.
But many areas of the U.S. that were heavily impacted by radiation exposure have never been covered by RECA. They include Missouri, where uranium was processed in St. Louis during the Manhattan Project, and southern Mohave County, Ariz., and Clark County, Nev. Both areas are in close proximity to the Nevada Test Site, where 928 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests were conducted between 1951 and 1992.
Advocates want Congress to expand RECA to cover residents of these areas before the end of the year.
