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Floor Speech

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Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, I have literally grown hoarse coming to this floor defending the rights of Americans poisoned by their own government to be compensated by that government when, through no fault of their own, they have been exposed to nuclear radiation, nuclear waste, nuclear contamination in the soil, in the water, in the air.

I just listened to my friend from Utah describe this eleventh-hour bill after the Senate has spoken to this issue multiple times--multiple times. After that has been done, now my friend from Utah comes and says we need a clean extension--a clean extension--clean. There is nothing clean about this bill. No, it leaves Missouri filthy dirty with nuclear radiation.

Let's just remember how it happened. All the way back in the Manhattan Project, the U.S. Government used the city of St. Louis as a uranium processing site. And did the U.S. Government clean up the nuclear radiation after the fact? No, it did not. Did the U.S. Government warn the people of Missouri that they were, in fact, being poisoned by nuclear radiation? No, they did not.

What they did instead is they lied to the people of Missouri while the nuclear contamination seeped into our ground water, seeped into our soil. For 50 years and more, the people of St. Louis and St. Charles and large parts of my State have been exposed to nuclear radiation. We have the highest rates of breast cancer in the Nation in North St. Louis County. Entire schools cannot go to school because their classrooms are filled with nuclear radioactive material.

What has the Federal Government done? Not a thing. What would this bill do? Not a thing. Would it clean it up? No. Would it clean the lungs of the survivors who even now are dying from the poison they have been exposed to? No. Would it clean the areas of the Navajo Nation that have been overrun with nuclear radiation? No. Would it clean the mines that our veterans went to for decades exposed to nuclear radiation? No.

No, it would do none of these things.

This bill, I think, partakes of an entirely different philosophy, the philosophy expressed by the junior Senator from Utah, Mr. Romney, who said recently it is too expensive for the Federal Government to actually make right what it has done to all these good Americans for decades on end. No, instead what we need to do is pass this bill that the senior Senator from Utah is now advocating. It is a small fraction, he says. He is right about that. And it is reserved for those individuals who have been determined to have actually suffered.

Let's just be clear. If you live in Missouri, you are not deemed to have actually suffered under this legislation. If you live in New Mexico, you are not deemed to have actually suffered under this legislation. Heck, if you live in Utah, you are not deemed to have actually suffered. Is there any expansion for the State of Utah in the legislation proposed by the senior Senator? No, there is not.

Mr. President, we have been here before. We have been here for months. We have been here going on years now. Senator Lujan and I have passed through this Chamber--not once but twice--legislation that would reauthorize this critical program and finally do justice to the hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned by their own government. And this body has passed it twice. The last time by 70 votes.

The time now is to act. It is not the time for further delay. It is not the time to look away. It is not the time to change the subject. It is the time for the House to act.

Study after study has shown the expanse of the nuclear radiation. Here is a study from 1997, from 2005, another from 2005, from 2023, all showing that the nuclear radiation is far beyond the contours of the original RECA bill passed in 1990. Yet my friend from Utah wants to keep doing the same old thing, leaving out in the cold hundreds of thousands of Americans.

I will not consent to it, Mr. President. This body will not consent to it. We have been here before. We have had this debate. We have settled it, and this is not the time to reopen it. This is the time for the House to act, no more excuses, no more delays, no more changing of the subject, no more blaming of the victims. This is the time to stand up and be counted for the House to act.

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Mr. HAWLEY. Mr. President, for a year now, Senator Lujan and I have been coming to this floor and warning--warning--that the Radiation Exposure Act is going to expire. And that is why this body took action, not once but twice, in overwhelming bipartisan fashion to expand and extend RECA in a way that does justice to every American, every veteran who has been poisoned by their own government. And now it is incumbent upon the House to act.

I want to be clear. I will not consent to any short-term stopgap, any halfway measure. I will not give my consent to it.

It will not pass this floor with my consent. This body has acted. This body has spoken. And there can be no turning back now. We are not going to turn our backs on the victims, not any longer. It has been 50 years in the State of Missouri. It has been just as long in New Mexico. It has been just as long for the Navajo Nation. It has been just as long for the uranium miners, our veterans.

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