Luján, Leger Fernández, and New Mexicans affected by fallout urge legislators to expand Radiation Exposure Compensation Act

Tina Cordova is the fourth generation in her family to have cancer since 1945.

When she was first diagnosed, the doctor immediately asked when she was exposed to radiation, Cordova said at a Washington, D.C., news conference celebrating the successful U.S. Senate vote to expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.

Cordova, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, grew up a scant distance from the Trinity Site, where the first atomic bomb was detonated.

Cordova survived thyroid cancer. But at the Thursday news conference, she said a fifth generation in her family is now affected by the disease, after her niece was recently diagnosed with thyroid cancer.

“There are people standing behind us whose genes carry this legacy,” Cordova said, referring to a group of advocates for RECA, many of whom shared their own stories of the emotional and physical fallout of radiation exposure.

Cordova was one of several New Mexicans who spoke at the news conference, including fellow Democrats U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, where speakers rallied support for the expansion of the RECA program.

Luján teared up speaking about his own father, who died of lung cancer, after hearing the stories of uranium miners and others who said they experienced health problems due to radiation exposure.

“You’re lending your breath to many people,” Luján told the advocates.

The amendment to RECA passed the Senate 61-37 on July 27 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

If the House accepts the amendment, the bill would make more people, including New Mexico downwinders — those exposed to nuclear fallout — and post-1971 uranium miners eligible for RECA benefits.

Both Luján and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., expressed optimism for the final vote, highlighting the bipartisan support for the bill. The bill was cosponsored by 16 senators: 13 Democrats, 2 Republicans and one independent. Both Luján and Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., were cosponsors; other senators came from states across the U.S., from Arizona to New Jersey.

“I don’t think you could get national ice cream day to pass with 61 votes,” Hawley said. “I’m pretty darn hopeful.”

Hawley said all 50 states have somehow been affected by radiation, whether it be uranium mines or radioactive waste located in the state.

It’s uncertain when a final vote will occur on the RECA expansion.

While the amendment was passed in the Senate, the amendment was not included in the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Now, a formal conference committee will work to reconcile the two versions before both chambers vote on the bill.