[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 40 (Wednesday, March 6, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H829]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       OPPENHEIMER'S UNTOLD STORY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gimenez). The Chair recognizes the 
gentlewoman from New Mexico (Ms. Leger Fernandez) for 5 minutes.
  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, this weekend, Oppenheimer is 
expected to win multiple Oscars.
  In the film, we watched the pain and guilt in J.R. Oppenheimer's face 
when he heard what the atomic bomb did to the people of Hiroshima and 
Nagasaki.
  What the film didn't show--and the story that remains untold--is how 
thousands of New Mexican families were exposed to harmful amounts of 
radiation.
  We didn't see how radioactive ash rained down on children, families, 
and farms from that first atomic bomb tested in New Mexico.
  We didn't see the tears and pain as those families saw their loved 
ones die of cancers and rare diseases tied to radiation exposure.
  So I present this film one more award: the award for the most 
incomplete story--for the missing, the countless American lives lost as 
a result of the Trinity test.
  Congress can write a better ending to this story. A bipartisan 
coalition of Senators and Representatives have amendments to the 
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which would finally compensate New 
Mexico downwinders and uranium workers, as well as workers in Missouri, 
Alaska, Kentucky, and Tennessee, and downwinders in other States who 
were left out of that original Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
  Earlier this year, these amendments were included in the NDAA as 
passed by the Senate. Sadly, Republican leadership for some 
inexplicable reason stripped these amendments from the final NDAA.
  But today, soon, Congress can write a happier ending. We can now 
include it in our future funding bills.
  Let's write an ending that honors those who sacrificed everything for 
our national security. Congress can do it. I call on my colleagues to 
join this bipartisan effort for justice.


                         Women's History Month

  Ms. LEGER FERNANDEZ. Mr. Speaker, as we begin Women's History Month, 
we must remember something historic that has happened to women and to 
women's freedoms.
  For 50 years, women enjoyed limited but certain reproductive 
freedoms. A Trump-packed Supreme Court overturned that history, 
overturned Roe v. Wade, and all of a sudden history, a sad history was 
made when for the first time in history women lost an essential right.
  We are going back to a very sad time when women cannot make decisions 
about how and when and if to have a family without governmental 
interference.
  We are going back to a sad time in history when women who were 
suffering complications from pregnancy, who were suffering 
miscarriages, cannot get healthcare, but instead, get handcuffs.
  We are suffering a sad time in history when IVF is now prohibited in 
places like Alabama; and let us remind everybody, almost 200 
Republicans in this very Chamber have voted for, have cosponsored 
legislation which mirrors the Alabama law, which prohibits IVF.
  As we begin Women's History Month, let's not turn back the clock on 
women's progress.

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