Reconciliation law offers radiation compensation to more people

Valerie Yurk, CQ-Roll Call on Jul 8, 2025

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WASHINGTON — The reconciliation law signed by President Donald Trump last week will provide greater compensation to more victims of radiation exposure from America’s nuclear weapons programs through 2028, putting an end to a yearslong lobbying effort.

The language in the fiscal 2025 law spearheaded by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., would expand coverage for more populations “downwind” of nuclear testing in the Southwest, as well as add compensation for individuals near uranium refining and disposal sites connected with the Manhattan Project.

The compensation program was established by the 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that provided financial help and medical screening to those downwind of nuclear testing sites, including people in states such as New Mexico and Arizona, as well as those exposed and sickened through uranium mining and exposure to waste.

Hawley and other advocates of expanding the program said its current coverage wasn’t accounting for large swaths of populations, including in Alaska, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee, who have been impacted by exposure connected to the Manhattan Project.

Uranium processed in St. Louis was used in the first atomic bombs, and issues surrounding nuclear waste continue to plague that region, even requiring the closure of an elementary school in 2022 because of contaminated soil.

Hawley’s 2024 version of the bill to reauthorize and expand the program was passed by the Senate but died in the House. The law expired more than a year ago, and exposure victims have been unable to file claims since. Another version of Hawley’s RECA renewal and expansion measure wasn’t included in a fiscal 2025 stopgap spending law enacted at the end of the last Congress despite Hawley and other advocates signaling there was an agreement.

Opponents of Hawley’s measure had initially balked at the price, which the Congressional Budget Office in 2023 estimated to be $147.1 billion over 10 years. A CBO estimate of the reconciliation bill found the RECA language would add $49.5 billion in federal budget authority between 2025 and 2029.

Aside from expanded geographical coverage, the reconciliation bill allows core drillers and uranium mine and mill remediation workers to qualify for benefits. Uranium miners can claim compensation for a wider range of diseases, including chronic renal disease.

“To all the radiation survivors and nuclear veterans across the country: WE DID IT,” Hawley wrote on social media platform X last week. “Today, we have prevailed. Your country thanks you and honors your sacrifice.”

The language also expanded the eligible timeframe for so-called downwinders, allowing those with qualifying diseases who lived in New Mexico for at least a year from 1944 to 1962 to receive benefits. It also raised the compensation amount for downwinders and onsite participants with qualifying diseases from $50,000 and $75,000, respectively, to $100,000 for both groups.

“A bright spot in this otherwise terrible reconciliation bill is that it finally allows some of the people harmed by nuclear weapons testing and production to access a federal program from which they were unfairly excluded,” Gretchen Goldman, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “That truly is a win for thousands of people across the country, including the people harmed by the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico.