Overview

• Congress on July 3 reauthorized the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act and extended its trust fund to cover communities downwind of the 1945 Trinity Test and former uranium industry workers.
• Eligible claimants can now file for up to $100,000 in damages, with applications due within two years before the program lapses in 2027.
• The Justice Department has not yet released formal guidelines for processing claims, and advocates caution against paying private attorneys’ fees to prepare applications.
• The Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium, founded by Tina Cordova in 2005, led sustained efforts that culminated in this legislative expansion.
• Decades of radioactive fallout and uranium mining exposures left multiple generations with elevated cancer rates, driving the long campaign for federal reparations.