Opinion: Any bill reforming RECA must include uranium miners AND downwinders

In an Aug. 30 Deseret News opinion piece , Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman advocates for her RECA bill, which only includes expanded support for uranium miners. Her bill does nothing for the many downwinders throughout Utah, the West and elsewhere who have worked for justice for decades to be included under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. The only responsible way to reform RECA is to support the casualties the government was responsible for creating. Hageman talks about making good law. Well, good law is taking care of those harmed by their own government.

Any bill reforming RECA must include uranium miners AND downwinders, who are are united in this cause. We are committed to justice for ALL, not just some. Too many of us have been excluded from RECA for far too long. People are dying as we wait. More are seeing their cancers return. We will not retreat from this fight.

The Utah delegation has been absent in our fight, even though 21 of Utah’s 29 counties were among the highest 50 counties of the nearly 3,100 counties nationwide for deposition of radioactive Iodine-131 in soil from the Nevada bomb tests. According to data examined by Richard Miller in “The U.S. Atlas of Nuclear Fallout,” the top 50 counties for I-131 include Utah, Morgan, Davis, Salt Lake, Weber, Summit, Wasatch and other northern Utah counties — none of which are currently covered under RECA.

Utah Reps. Celeste Maloy and Blake Moore have publicly supported Hageman’s bill while, like the rest of our delegation, ignoring the Senate bill that would expand the coverage area for downwinders. Hageman’s stripped-down bill is unlikely to pass the U.S. Senate, which has already passed the broader RECA expansion bill 69-30.

A just bill would not “result in deficit spending” nor “fly in the face of science,” as Hageman falsely claims. When the government plans to spend another $1.3 trillion on nuclear weapons over the next 30 years, it is specious to claim that taking care of those harmed by nuclear weapons would “result in deficit spending.” The money is there. The science is there. It boils down to a matter of priorities. Unfortunately, to Hageman and the Utah delegation, we are not a priority and once again expendable.

Mary Dickson is a resident of Salt Lake City, Utah.