Nuclear Testing Victims’ Compensation Program Only Days Away From Lapsing

Barring last-minute action by Congress, a program that for more than 30 years has paid survivors of Cold War-era U.S nuclear weapons testing for radiation-related illnesses, which advocates had hoped to expand, will lapse soon.

Lawmakers arrived at the Capitol early Monday evening and are set to leave by Wednesday afternoon in an even shorter-than-usual workweek in Washington. The reason: the 80th anniversary observation of the D-Day landing at Normandy in World War II on Thursday.

Meanwhile, any new claims for compensation from victims must be postmarked by Monday, June 10, after a two-year extension of the program passed in 2022 expires.

“We have the votes in the House. Speaker [Mike] Johnson it’s time to bring this to the floor for a vote. We have to stop making this a partisan issue because it’s not partisan,” said Tina Cordova of New Mexico in a conference call with reporters held by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Cordova said her family, where she is the fourth generation to have cancer since 1945, is not unique. Her father had cancer of the tongue, despite not using tobacco or drinking, she said.

“What he did have as a risk factor is that he was a 4-year-old child living 45 miles away from the Trinity test site drinking mass quantities of fresh cow’s milk and living off the land,” Cordova said.

The program was created in 1990 to pay victims of nuclear weapons testing who lived in certain areas of the country near tests and who later developed specific cancers linked to radiation exposure.

Advocates like Cordova want to see the first big update to the law since around 2000, with eligibility expanded to new areas where people lived; new jobs, such as uranium miners; and a broadening of the list of