House of Representatives may consider expanding nuclear weapons damage program without Missouri – Missouri Independent

A proposal to renew compensation for cancer victims who were exposed to radioactive materials from the nation's weapons development without expanding the program to Missouri and several other states amounts to treason, Missouri advocates and lawmakers said Tuesday.

Missouri members of Congress learned Tuesday evening that U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to extend the federal program for two years despite pressure from communities affected by nuclear bomb testing and waste to expand the program.

The announcement was a blow to advocates in St. Louis, the Navajo Nation and other communities who were excluded from the program, originally created in the 1990s. The existing program covers civilians from parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada, as well as uranium miners.

“I can't believe how emotionally manipulated we feel when President Johnson stands idly by and allows sick and dying community members to beg him for a meeting for months – then move on (one) hour and a half with the staff only to have the door slammed. our faces! Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL, said in a social media post.

Chapman was reacting to a message from US Senator Josh Hawley, a Republican from Missouri, who said Johnson told Hawley's office he would seek a bill that doesn't cover either state. Hawley said he would erect obstacles to prevent such a bill from passing the Senate without a fight.

“Total surrender,” Hawley said. “No member of Missouri can vote for this.”

Since last summer, Hawley has been pushing for an expansion of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which was originally passed in 1990 and provided compensation to uranium miners and residents who lived downwind of the sites nuclear bomb tests in certain States.

Hawley's legislation, which has passed the U.S. Senate twice, would expand the program to downwinders in the rest of Arizona, Utah and Nevada and provide coverage to downwinders in Colorado, Utah. Idaho, Montana, New Mexico and Guam. It would also expand coverage to people exposed to radioactive waste in Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky.

The existing RECA program expires June 10, and advocates and state lawmakers hoping to be brought into the program have urged Congress to renew and expand it.

U.S. Rep. Ann Wagner, a Republican from suburban St. Louis, said on social media that a RECA bill without Missouri “is dead on arrival.”

“I will continue to fight for the expansion of RECA so that Missourians receive the justice they deserve,” she said. “The House can and should adopt the version passed by the Senate.”

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush, a St. Louis Democrat, also wrote on social networks that “not extending RECA is not a viable option”.

“Next week, President Johnson plans to rip off Missourians and thousands of others who are suffering from the radioactive waste dumped in our backyards by the federal government,” Bush said.

The parts of the The Saint-Louis region has been contaminated for 75 years with radioactive waste left over from efforts to build the world's first atomic bomb during World War II. Uranium refined in downtown St. Louis was used in Chicago's first sustained nuclear chain reaction, a major breakthrough in the Manhattan Project, as the effort to develop the bomb was known.

After the war, waste from uranium refining efforts was trucked from St. Louis to surrounding counties and dumped near Coldwater Creek and in a quarry at Weldon Spring, polluting surface and ground water. The remaining waste was dumped at the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, where it remains today.

Generations of St. Louis-area families have lived in homes near contaminated sites without warning from the federal government. A study conducted by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found that exposure to the creek increased the risk of cancer for residents. Residents of nearby communities suffer higher than normal rates of breast, colon, prostate, kidney and bladder cancers, as well as leukemia. Cancers of the brain and nervous system in children are also more common.

Johnson's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.