[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 80 (Wednesday, May 11, 2022)]
[House]
[Page H4812]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          HELP THE DOWNWINDERS

  (Mr. OWENS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. OWENS. Mr. Speaker, S. 4119 is a clean and simple extension of 
the existing Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. It represents an 
incredible and increasingly rare achievement here in Congress: a 
bipartisan solution to a nonpartisan problem.
  Between 1945 and 1962, the United States conducted over 100 
aboveground nuclear weapons tests, releasing harmful radiation material 
into the air and literally blanketing parts of the United States, 
including Utah, with poisonous dust.
  RECA, championed by the late Senator Orrin Hatch, was a lifeline to 
thousands of downwinders whose lives were lost or forever changed 
because of this exposure. Unless Congress acts, the program will expire 
in 2 months. That would leave downwinders like Sara Penny of Cedar 
City, Utah, behind. Her story was cataloged in the ``Downwinders of 
Utah Archive.''
  Sara Penny was born in 1953, the same year the ``Dirty Harry'' bomb 
was tested in Nevada. She said: ``We knew we could die any day from 
about 5th grade. Our piano teacher's daughter . . . died of leukemia. A 
steady stream of deaths followed.''
  Her grandfather died of leukemia. Her aunt died of breast cancer. Her 
cousin had a bone marrow transplant from his brother but died anyway. 
Her high school classmate died early from a brain tumor. Her cousin got 
breast cancer.
  Her story is tragic, but it is not unique. Too many downwinders are 
still suffering. Just last week, I heard from constituents who were 
starting the process of applying for RECA benefits--these are 
individuals who lived in the shadow of radiation released into our 
beautiful Western skies.
  We have a chance to make right what the Federal Government got wrong 
when it conducted these nuclear tests in our backyard. We can't walk 
away from RECA.
  For Sara and all downwinders, please join me in voting ``yes'' on S. 
4119, the RECA Extension Act of 2022.

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