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One year without RECA: Justice delayed for radiation victims in Idaho and beyond • Idaho Capital Sun [1]
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Date: 2025-06-11
June 10 marks one year since the U.S. Congress allowed the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, to expire — abandoning thousands of Americans who sacrificed their health in the name of national security.
RECA provided critical compensation for medical expenses to uranium miners, mill workers, and “downwinders” exposed to radiation during Cold War-era nuclear testing and weapons development. But even when it was active, RECA was incomplete, excluding entire communities — including Idahoans — who suffered the same devastating consequences.
The unfinished legacy of RECA
From 1945 to 1992, the U.S. government detonated over a thousand nuclear weapons, scattering radioactive fallout across the West.
While RECA compensated some downwinders in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, Idahoans — who endured the same invisible poison — were left out.
Uranium miners employed after 1971 and St. Louis communities used as dumping grounds for Manhattan Project Waste were also excluded from RECA compensation.
The consequences have been deadly. Research shows that radiation exposure leads to cancers, heart disease, genetic mutations, and immune disorders —with women and children at greatest risk. Yet for decades, the government dismissed these victims as collateral damage, treating rural Westerners and Indigenous communities as expendable.
A ‘low-use segment’ of the population
Atomic Energy Commission documents revealed the attitude of the officials making decisions, that we were just a bunch of cowboys, Indians, and Mormons, and a “low-use segment” of the population.
Western states were deemed “low-population,” as if rural lives mattered less. The Marshall Islands, subjected to 67 nuclear tests, were treated as a sacrifice zone, and officials justified this; they are “more like us than the mice” is the quote from an Atomic Energy Commission official in 1956.
Dismissing Nevada Test Site downwinders and other nuclear weapons test victims as insignificant reflects a brutal truth: the U.S. government calculated whose life had worth and whose did not.
But cancer doesn’t discriminate. Families in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, and beyond have watched generations suffer from rare leukemias, thyroid diseases, brain cancers, and clusters of tumors. Many never knew their illnesses were tied to nuclear testing — until it was too late.
Justice can’t wait
RECA should be reinstated and expanded to cover all radiation victims, including people like:
Idaho downwinders
Post-1971 uranium workers
Other communities excluded from fallout zones
Congress has a choice: pass RECA in the next must-pass Big, Beautiful, Bill, or continue to let victims die waiting. This isn’t just about compensation — it’s about admitting the full cost of America’s nuclear legacy and justice for victims.
What you can do
Our representatives in Congress will make better decisions if they hear from residents about how expansion of RECA would affect them.
Research your family history — were there unexplained cancers, thyroid conditions, or stillbirths? Radiation’s effects linger for generations.
Speak up — this isn’t ancient history. Every day RECA lapses, more people suffer.
We can’t allow our government to wait for people to die.
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