People who are very ill need more than promises of compensation. They need the money now, while they still are alive.
And yet, because of bureaucratic mistakes in the last year of the Clinton administration, many who have been exposed to cancer through the fault of various government programs are being denied money that was promised them.
Congress needs to act quickly to replenish funds first allocated under the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act of 1990. A measure co-sponsored by Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch would do that.
Last year Hatch sponsored a bill that added certain types of cancers to the compensation eligibility list and streamlined the qualification process. Now, he and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, have introduced legislation that provides enough money to pay all claims through this year and gives the program permanent entitlement status so that Congress doesn't have to authorize expenditures for it each year.
Until last year, the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act did what it was designed to do — provide compensation to people who developed various forms of cancer who lived downwind from the nuclear test sites in Nevada. Utah had, and still has, a number of residents who qualify as "downwinders."
Hatch and others have led the fight to make sure all who were affected by such action are entitled to compensation. That includes uranium miners and millers in 12 states: Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, Wyoming and Utah.
From the 1940s through 1971 thousands of former miners extracted uranium from mines throughout the West as part of America's nuclear weapons program.
But as the compensation program expanded with the addition of new categories, the funding inexplicably decreased. Congress appropriated only $10.8 million to cover existing claims, an amount that was quickly exhausted. Estimates are it will take $80 million to cover this year's claims.
At a time when the country is experiencing record surpluses, there is no excuse for not expediting measures to take care of the funding for this and future years.
It hardly qualifies as reckless spending. Many men and women put their lives at risk either working for the government or simply because they were innocent victims of atomic tests. They deserve to be compensated for their suffering. Many cannot be compensated because they have already died.
This isn't a local issue. It is a national issue. Congress needs to act quickly to restore that which shouldn't have been taken away — the ability of the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act to make good on claims.