VIDEO: Heinrich Urges Senate to Expand RECA Eligibility for Trinity Downwinders & Uranium Workers

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor urging his colleagues to pass bipartisan legislation to reauthorize and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA).  

This legislation, which Heinrich leads along with U.S. Senators Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.), and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), compensates individuals exposed to radiation while working in uranium mines or living downwind from atomic weapons tests. 

VIDEO: U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) speaks on the Senate floor about legislation to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, March 7, 2024. 

“It is long overdue for Congress to finally amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act to include Trinity Downwinders, all Americans who were downwind from nuclear tests, and all of the uranium workers who were exposed to radiation in service to our national defense,” said Heinrich. “I have been honored to fight for this expansion of RECA for my entire time in Congress. I want to urge my colleagues to stand on the right side of history and support this legislation.” 

Originally passed in 1990, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) provides a one-time benefit payment to individuals who may have developed cancer or other specific diseases after being exposed to radiation from atomic weapons testing or uranium mining, milling or transporting. Without congressional action, the RECA program is scheduled to sunset later this year. 

The legislation championed by Heinrich would update the current RECA program by expanding the geographic downwinder eligibility to include then-residents of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. This would include Tularosa Basin Downwinders, who were downwind from the 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico. 

This legislation would also expand eligibility for certain individuals who worked in uranium mines, mills, or transported uranium ore after 1971. The bill would increase the amount of compensation an individual may receive and extend the RECA program another 19 years following enactment. 

Heinrich’s remarks as prepared for delivery are below: 

Nearly 80 years ago, in central New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin, at a place we now call the Trinity Site, the world as we knew it changed.

The Trinity Test was the first detonation of a nuclear weapon in human history.

The families who lived downwind from the Trinity explosion have lived the consequences of that day for every moment of their lives.

These families were never told that the white dust falling around them that day would contaminate their bodies.

Would contaminate the bodies of the children they had yet to bear.

That it would contaminate the crops, water, and livestock they had built their communities around.

They were never told about the kinds of cancers that they would get.

The conditions they would suffer through.

Or the loved ones that they would lose.

These families still to this day have not received the recognition or the compensation for what they endured so that our nation could be victorious in the Second World War.

Nearly a full century later, nearly 80 years later, these folks deserve better.

They deserve justice.

It is long overdue for Congress to finally amend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act—or RECA—to include the Trinity Downwinders.

To include all Americans who were directly impacted by nuclear testing program.

And to include all of the uranium workers who were exposed to radiation in service to our national defense.

That’s what we are voting on this week in the U.S. Senate.

Today, we have the chance to finally deliver justice for the Trinity Downwinders and for all Americans who were exposed to radioactive nuclear materials.

And I want to thank especially the presiding officer.

It has been an honor to work alongside Senator Lujan for this expansion of RECA for our entire time in Congress.

I would urge all of my colleagues to stand on the right side of history and support this legislation.

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