Triple awards for downwinders?

WASHINGTON — Several Western senators have introduced a bill seeking to triple the compensation for downwind cancer victims of Cold War atomic testing. The bill would also make it easier to prove claims and would expand eligibility for compensation payments to all of Utah — instead of just 10 counties that now qualify.

But opposing the changes is Sen. Orrin Hatch — co-author of the original 1990 Radiation Exposure Compensation Act that created such compensation.

"I fear it is overly broad and prohibitively expensive," he said, worrying that high costs might sink the program in budget battles and take current compensation programs with them. Hatch added, "I also believe it is important to continue to base any expansion of the program on sound science" — and add only those changes warranted by new scientific findings.

But the senators who introduced the bill — the complete Senate delegations from New Mexico, Idaho and Colorado — say many victims in their states have never been eligible for compensation despite evidence they were harmed, and it is time to change that.

"Today we are taking the next step to close this sad chapter in history and to improve the reach of compassionate compensation to those Americans who have suffered but have not qualified under RECA in its current form," said Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., the main sponsor of the bill.

Udall's father, former Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, represented as an attorney many Utah downwinders in unsuccessful lawsuits seeking compensation. Congress finally passed RECA in 1990 to provide payments. It was sponsored by Hatch and former Rep. Wayne Owens, D-Utah.

One of Udall's co-sponsors, Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, added, "The victims of this testing have waited years for just compensation, and the cruel irony is that the federal government has postponed action for so long that many aren't living to see this bill passed."

Fallout maps have shown that part of Crapo's home state of Idaho was hit by heavy radiation from tests but has been ineligible for compensation.

The original bill 20 years ago authorized paying $50,000 to victims of some types of cancer living downwind of the Nevada Test Site in 10 southern Utah counties plus some other counties in Nevada and Arizona — if victims could prove living in the area at the time of specific tests.

The new bill would authorize giving downwinders $150,000 each — and would give the same amount to Nevada Test Site workers and uranium miners, millers, ore transporters and core drillers.