ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A top Democrat in the U.S. House says it will take a shift of power in Congress to ensure that legislation is finally passed to extend and expand a compensation program for people exposed to radiation following uranium mining and nuclear testing carried out by the federal government.
Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar joined Tuesday with members of New Mexico congressional delegation to call on voters to put more pressure on Republican House leaders to revive the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act.
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U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Tina Cordova, center, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, points to audience members who have been dealing with the consequences of radiation exposure, while politicians gathered for a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat, discusses legislative efforts to extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. ( AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, center, talks about efforts to revive legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a visit to Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
With his party seeking to win back majorities in Congress, the California congressman made campaign pitches for New Mexico Democrats and vowed they would support the multibillion-dollar compensation program.
“I would say this is both a failure in government and this is a failure in leadership,” Aguilar said, referencing House inaction on the legislation.
The Senate passed the bill earlier this year, only for it to stall in the House over concerns by some Republican lawmakers about cost. GOP supporters in the Senate had called on House leadership to take up a vote on the measure, but the act ended up expiring in June.
Native Americans who worked as uranium miners, millers and transporters and people whose families lived downwind from nuclear testing sites have been among those arguing that the legislation was sidelined due to political calculations by the chamber's majority party rather than the price tag.
Advocates for decades have been pushing to expand the compensation program. Front and center have been downwinders in New Mexico, where government scientists and military officials dropped the first atomic bomb in 1945 as part the top secret Manhattan Project.
Residents have made it their mission to bring awareness to the lingering effects of nuclear fallout surrounding the Trinity Test Site in southern New Mexico and on the Navajo Nation, where more than 30 million tons of uranium ore were extracted over decades to support U.S. nuclear activists.
The chorus grew louder over the past year as the blockbuster “Oppenheimer” brought new attention to the country’s nuclear history and the legacy left behind by years of nuclear research and bomb making.
Freshman Congressman Gabe Vasquez, a Democrat from New Mexico who sits on the Armed Services Committee, said Tuesday that national defense spending tops $860 billion every year.
“So when you tell me that we can’t afford to compensate people who have suffered through pancreatic cancer, miscarriages, the horrors of nuclear fallout and the generation that have suffered from it, it is a joke to me,” he said.
Vasquez, who is facing GOP challenger Yvette Herrell in his bid for reelection, suggested that the legislation be included in a defense spending measure and that lawmakers find ways to offset the cost by saving money elsewhere.
There's still an opportunity for House leaders to “do the right thing,” he said.
The law was initially passed more than three decades ago and has paid out about $2.6 billion in that time. The bipartisan group of lawmakers seeking to update the law has said that the government is at fault for residents and workers being exposed and should step up.
The proposed legislation would have added parts of Arizona, Utah and Nevada to the program and would have covered downwinders in New Mexico, Colorado, Idaho, Montana and Guam. Residents exposed to radioactive waste in Missouri, Tennessee, Alaska and Kentucky also would have been covered.
In New Mexico, residents were not warned of the radiological dangers of the Trinity Test and didn’t realize that an atomic blast was the source of the ash that rained down upon them following the detonation. That included families who lived off the land — growing crops, raising livestock and getting their drinking water from cisterns.
U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, left, is flanked by Democratic Congressmen Gabe Vasquez, of New Mexico, and Pete Aguilar, of California, as she speaks during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Tina Cordova, center, co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, points to audience members who have been dealing with the consequences of radiation exposure, while politicians gathered for a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
Advocates of legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program for downwinders and uranium workers listen to Democratic politicians during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. Rep. Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico Democrat, discusses legislative efforts to extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a news conference in Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. ( AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
U.S. House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, center, talks about efforts to revive legislation that would extend and expand a multibillion-dollar radiation compensation program during a visit to Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday, Aug. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)
The European Union on Monday condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected Israeli allegations that the U.N. was keeping them there to obstruct military operations against Hezbollah.
Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions since Israel began a ground campaign against the Hezbollah militant group, with most blamed on Israeli forces. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.”
Israel has been escalating its campaign against Hezbollah after a year of exchanges of fire, while it is also at war with Hamas in Gaza.
Israel’s offensive in Gaza has killed over 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities, who do not say how many were fighters but say women and children make up more than half of the fatalities. The war has destroyed large areas of Gaza and displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people.
It’s been more than a year since Hamas-led militants blew holes in Israel’s security fence and stormed into army bases and farming communities, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting another 250. They are still holding about 100 captives inside Gaza, a third of whom are believed to be dead.
Here's the latest:
BRUSSELS — Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin is accusing Israel of trying to prevent the world from seeing what its troops are doing in Lebanon and Gaza, and of working to undermine the United Nations.
Asked what Israel’s aim might be in demanding that UNIFIL peacekeepers leave their bases after a series of attacks, Martin said: “essentially to drive the eyes and ears out of south Lebanon and to give itself free rein.”
“We cannot have an undermining and a chipping away of the status or the credibility or structures of the United Nations and particularly its peacekeeping forces,” Martin said in Luxembourg, where EU foreign ministers are meeting.
“We see what’s happening in northern Gaza, for example, in terms of the necessity of eyes and ears on the ground. The world has really no full picture of what’s happening in Gaza,” he told reporters.
Martin added that “Israel is essentially now undermining (not only) the United Nations and the United Nations peacekeeping force, but the very rules based international order, and it needs to step back.”
He called on his EU counterparts “to stand up now on the side of what’s right and proper and moral in terms of humanity.”
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israel’s Shin Bet domestic security agency said Monday police had charged two Israelis on accusations that they planned to carry out an assassination at the behest of Iran.
The agency said Vladislav Victorson, 30, was approached online by a person called Mari Hossi and was instructed to carry out missions that ranged from petty vandalism to torching cars, and paid more than $5,000.
The Shin Bet said Victorson was asked to damage communications infrastructure and ATMs, although a statement did not say whether he carried out these acts. It also did not name the Israeli figure he allegedly agreed to assassinate. The Shin Bet said he also sought to acquire weapons, including a sniper’s rifle, guns and grenades. According to the Shin Bet, Victorson enlisted two other people, including his girlfriend, Anna Bernstein, 18, to assist in his missions.
The Shin Bet said Iranian agents are known to use social media and promises of cash in efforts to recruit Israelis to carry out such attacks.
Israel and Iran have a longstanding shadow war, which over the past year has erupted into direct conflict.
BRUSSELS — The European Union condemned attacks on U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon and rejected allegations that U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres is responsible for obstructing the Israeli army.
Sixteen EU countries are contributing to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that “their work is very important. It’s completely unacceptable attacking United Nations troops.” Five peacekeepers have been wounded in attacks that struck their positions, with most blamed on Israeli forces.
Speaking in Luxembourg before chairing talks between EU foreign ministers, Borrell underlined that the U.N. Security Council decides whether UNIFIL should be moved, “so stop blaming Secretary Guterres.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for UNIFIL to heed Israel’s warnings to evacuate, accusing them of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah. In a video addressed to Guterres, who has been banned from entering Israel, Netanyahu told the U.N. chief “to get (UNIFIL) out of the danger zone.”
Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg, whose country is one of Europe’s strongest backers of Israel, said the attacks are “simply unacceptable” and that UNFIL will not be leaving.
“No, they will not withdraw. Yes, they will continue to fulfill the mandate. And yes, we demand on each and every party to respect this mandate and respect the security and safety of our blue helmets,” he told reporters.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Health Ministry in the Gaza Strip said it has launched the second round of a polio vaccination campaign in the war-ravaged territory.
It said Monday that a second does of the vaccine will be administered to children under 10 in the central part of the territory over the next three days before the campaign is expanded to the north and south.
The campaign began last month after the territory registered its first polio case in Gaza in 25 years — a 10-month-old boy, now paralyzed in one leg.
Health workers succeeded in administering the first dose of the vaccine to around 560,000 children despite myriad challenges, including ongoing fighting, the breakdown of law and order and widespread damage to roads and infrastructure.
The World Health Organization said humanitarian pauses to facilitate the campaign last month were largely observed.
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — “It is totally, utterly unacceptable for Israel to be targeting U.N. Peacekeepers,” New Zealand’s Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told reporters in the capital on Monday.
“I think the whole world is outraged that Israel is targeting U.N. facilities. They are there on a peacekeeping mission to try and keep the peace on that border,” he said.
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Palestinians look at the damage after an Israeli strike hit a tent area in the courtyard of Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers are seen during a ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Israeli soldiers display what they say is an entrance to a Hezbollah tunnel found during their ground operation in southern Lebanon, near the border with Israel, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)
Middle East latest: EU condemns attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon
FILE - UN peacekeepers hold their flag, as they observe Israeli excavators attempt to destroy tunnels built by Hezbollah, near the southern Lebanese-Israeli border village of Mays al-Jabal, Lebanon, Dec. 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla, File)
Middle East latest: EU condemns attacks on peacekeepers in Lebanon
