BELEN, N.M. (AP) — President Joe Biden said Wednesday that he’s open to granting assistance for people sickened by exposure to radiation during nuclear weapons testing, including in New Mexico, where the world’s first atomic bomb was tested in 1945.
Biden brought up the issue while speaking Wednesday in Belen at a factory that produces wind towers.
The President’s comments were flagged for reporters by the office of U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., as a signal of apparent White House support for legislation that would also compensate St. Louis residents who have suffered medical conditions that could be tied to nuclear radiation.
New Mexico’s place in American history as a testing ground has gotten more attention recently with the release of “Oppenheimer,” a movie about physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the top-secret Manhattan Project.
Biden watched the film last week while on vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Lujan, D-N.M. spoke of how the first bomb was tested on soil just south of where the event was. The senator also discussed an amendment of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which gives payments to people who become ill from nuclear weapons tests or uranium mining during the Cold War.
“We’re fighting with everything that we have” to keep the amendment in the National Defense Authorization Act, Lujan said.
Last month, the U.S. Senate voted to expand compensation with Lujan’s amendment, co-sponsored by Hawley, which would add health care compensation for residents with certain medical conditions in 20 ZIP codes in the St. Louis area. The region has been plagued by contamination since the late 1940s, from various uranium processing facilities throughout the region, as well as illegal dumping of nuclear waste.
Cleanup of Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis County could last until 2038 according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. A timeline for removing toxic waste from the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton is unclear.
The same provision would extend similar compensation to so-called downwinders exposed to radiation during weapons testing to several new regions stretching from New Mexico to Guam.
Biden said he told Lujan that he’s “prepared to help in terms of making sure that those folks are taken care of.”
News of President Biden’s comments come one day after Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was in St. Louis and took a private tour of the Weldon Spring Interpretive Center, a Department of Energy facility that sits on the site of a former uranium processing plant and features a containment cell that stores radioactive material from the era.
“I can’t speak for the administration on that particular piece because I just don’t know the answer but it’s certainly something worth looking at for sure to bring justice to families that have been affected,” Granholm said when asked about the proposed language in the NDAA.
"I am glad President Biden has announced his support of our amendment, but now we need action," Hawley said in a statement Thursday. "This amendment must be included in the final negotiated defense bill that the President signs into law. And we also must hear from the Biden Administration about their next steps to support victims in the St. Louis area and beyond.”