The 15-minute interview: Sen. Ben Ray Luján on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act

At the end of 2024, an attempt to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), which expired last summer, and expand its geographic reach fell apart. The Senate had passed reauthorization legislation by a more than two-to-one margin, but House Republicans refused to include it in a massive year-end government-funding bill, at least partly because of cost concerns. A bipartisan group of senators reintroduced a RECA reauthorization and expansion bill in January, led by Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri and New Mexico Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a Democrat.

I spoke with Luján last week about the prospects for the new RECA bill in the context of the Trump administration’s efficiency efforts and internal Republican disagreement over the federal budget. House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana is supporting a new continuing resolution that would keep the federal government funded, largely at current levels, until the end of the fiscal year in September. That resolution would need to be passed by Friday to avert a government shutdown. Its prospects are uncertain, as is the RECA reauthorization bill’s.

The following interview has been lightly edited and condensed for readability.

John Mecklin: I know the RECA extension bill has been filed in the Senate. Can you give our readers who don’t follow this issue as closely as some others a rundown: What does the bill do? And why do you think it’s important?

Ben Ray Luján: I reintroduced an important piece of legislation called the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which goes back to 1990, was a piece of legislation led by former United States Sen. the late Orrin Hatch, working with Democrats and Republicans, bringing attention to people who lived downwind from nuclear testing, who contracted chronic conditions like kidney diseases, cancer—people who are still fighting that today—in addition to providing more support to people that live downwind from these areas.

There was also an initiative to include uranium mine workers who were working in these uranium mines doing national security work, but did not have the protections that they needed, people who are still fighting those cancers today, those that died from cancer. And then the one thing that this new legislation will do is amending that original act, recognizing that many downwind communities were excluded. And the one example that I’ll give you is where the Trinity Test Site, where the first atomic test of a nuclear weapon took place, and a little bitty town, Tularosa, New Mexico. No one can explain to me why this town, near where the first atmospheric test took place, was left out as a downwind community. It seems strange to me. It seems strange to everyone I speak with.

Nonetheless, through our research, we’ve discovered that community after community that were downwind with this testing were left out. Furthermore, the protections that were put in place for uranium mine workers were for those who worked before 1971, so post-‘71 uranium mine workers were left out, even though many of them worked side by side with uranium mine workers who are covered. There’s no good answer here.

In addition to that, I’ve been working closely with Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who has brought to the attention of the American people the plight of so many people who were in and around nuclear waste storage sites where leaks have taken place. And now we’ve identified places in Pennsylvania, in Ohio, in Washington state, in addition to Missouri, where all of these communities should be included. So I appreciate the bipartisan nature of working in this space.

And the other thing that I would just share with you, John, is just remember: While many of us have been working on this legislation for more than a decade now, many observers have suggested that this legislation would never receive a vote on the Senate floor, nor receive the votes to pass it in the previous Congress. There were two moments where this piece of legislation passed the Senate (in 2024), one to be included in the National Defense Authorization Act. The second, which received more votes, actually was a standalone bill that passed the United States Senate, but House Republicans and Speaker (Mike) Johnson refused to give it a vote.

Mecklin: And how do prospects look this time in the Senate? Let’s start with the Senate. Do people expect it to pass the Senate again?

Luján: I guess I would answer you, John, by saying all pieces of legislation are challenging. We never know which piece of legislation may get a vote or which may not. And in the same vein that my colleague Josh and I and others knew that this was a challenge when we first got started, we know it’ll be a challenge again, and we’re just going to keep pressing forward and moving forward.

But I will say that 61 senators voted for this the first time. I think it was 69 senators voted for the second time, and most of them are still here. So that tells me the votes are there to secure a successful passage out of the United States Senate, and we’re growing the momentum and the support in the House. So I hope that once we pass this out of the Senate, that House Republicans will give it a chance, give it an up or down vote and show the American people who’s on their side.

Mecklin: I can just hear some people protesting: But the cost, you know, we’re trying to cut government spending. How much would this bill cost? Is there an estimate for what it would actually cost the federal government?

Luján: John, since the inception of this legislation, it’s cost just over $2 billion since the mid 1990s. The CBO [Congressional Budget Office], when they looked at the cost of this bill, their estimate was north of $150 billion. No one from the CBO has been willing and able to explain how, over 30 years, a program that cost $2.2 billion, now with an expansion [to cover] a small part of America, would cost this enormous amount. Now, with that being said, I’ve been working with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to be able to look at other versions of the bill to address cost concerns from my colleagues.

But in the end, 61 Democratic and Republican senators voted for this bill to be added to the National Defense Authorization Act with that cost; the second time 69 senators voted to get this included. So we’re willing to work with anyone and everyone to be able to get this adopted, and let’s sit down and negotiate, but let’s get this passed. These people deserve it.

Mecklin: Are there champions for the bill in the House? Is there bipartisan support of some kind in in the house?

Luján: Most certainly so. When you look at the previous version of the legislation, it had co-sponsors, predominantly Democratic colleagues but also including dozens of Republican colleagues. And so I’m hopeful that we’ll continue to work with them. One of those colleagues who was a strong supporter in the House is now a member of the Senate, Senator [John] Curtis of Utah. So we’ll work with our Democratic and Republican colleagues, because this legislation benefits states that have Democratic senators and states that have Republican senators. This is not a partisan issue. This is for the American people, and especially those who live downwind of this testing and those uranium mine workers who are sacrificing their lives and their careers for national security purposes.

Mecklin: I can probably guess that the answer to this. But have you had communications with House Speaker Johnson about this?

Luján: Recently, Senator Hawley’s team has been leading communications with Speaker Johnson’s office. I’m not certain of the last conversation that had taken place, but several took place over the last year, especially leading up to the end of the calendar year, as well with our attempt to secure a vote in the House. In addition, advocates who support the passage of the amendments to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act also had meeting with Speaker Johnson’s teams, and I was very encouraged with what was reported out of those meetings and very disappointed that this legislation was not given a vote in the House.

Mecklin: I want to slightly veer off from this subject, but I think it’s connected a bit. Some people have been talking about a supposed need for the United States to start nuclear testing again. I just wondered what you thought of that notion,

Luján: John, I believe that with the nuclear cleanup that still needs to take place and the contamination that has reached into people’s bodies, causing cancer, things of that nature, we should clean all of that up. If there’s going to be some movement towards doing more testing or things of that nature, the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and cleanup must be a part of those conversations. And I’m not aware that they are. So I will continue to advocate to clean up the mess that was created, the devastation that was caused to people, before there’s going to be a next action item, whatever that may look like or feel like,

Mecklin: I think that may be a good wrap for the interview, but I wanted to ask a question that may or may not go into it but would help me maybe on some other articles. Have the efforts of DOGE (the Department of Government Efficiency) and Elon Musk touched on the national labs there in New Mexico?

Luján: Let me say it this way, John: What Elon Musk and the DOGE people have been up to created a security nightmare. Early on—and you may remember this, but we remember this well in New Mexico, looking at the three National Nuclear Safety Administration (NNSA) laboratories, Sandia, Los Alamos, and Lawrence Livermore—the Elon Musk and DOGE folks with the Trump administration fired employees at the NNSA, people who are responsible for keeping us safe. Then they tried to hire them back, but they couldn’t find them. So that was absolutely devastating to those three national labs, and I would argue to the United States of America.