July, 21 2023, 06:06pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Lisa Nurnberger, Media Director, lnurnberger@ucs.org
Oppenheimer Biographer Joins Nobel Laureates, Navajo Nation, and Atomic Veterans to Call for Justice for Communities Hurt by Nuclear Weapons Testing and Mining
Letter to Congress calls for action to strengthen Radiation Exposure Compensation Act
As “Oppenheimer” begins its run in theaters nationwide this week, the author of the book the film is based on, Kai Bird, and Nobel laureates have joined with survivors of U.S. nuclear weapons testing to urge Congress to rectify the harm this group has suffered.
In a letter to Congress released today, the group called for Congress to strengthen and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA)—a program that provides financial support to people suffering from cancers and other illnesses related to exposure to radiation from the testing and production of U.S. nuclear weapons but leaves out people who lived downwind of the Trinity test site in New Mexico, along with others.
Legislation has been introduced in the House and Senate that would for the first time extend healthcare benefits and compensation to communities impacted by the test of the first atomic bomb in New Mexico, as well as downwind communities in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Guam, and cover remaining areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona.
In addition to Bird, the Pulitzer Prize winning co-author of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer, signers include Nobel prize winning scientists Roald Hoffmann, Roger D. Kornberg and Martin Chalfie; Dr. Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo Nation, which is home to many downwinders and former uranium workers; engineer and science educator Bill Nye; groups representing people who lived downwind of nuclear weapons tests; veterans who cleaned up test sites; uranium miners; and leaders in the peace and security field.
The letter was coordinated by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and will continue to collect signatures.
“‘Oppenheimer’ provides an opportunity for some public scrutiny of nuclear weapons’ legacy,” said Lilly Adams, senior outreach coordinator in the Global Security Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “People who lived downwind of the Trinity test are, right now, fighting for recognition and compensation for the harms they and their loved ones suffered. RECA is a valuable program with bipartisan support, but too many people are left out—Trinity test survivors and many others. These are our neighbors: veterans, farmers, ranchers, miners, families from across the country who have gotten sick or have lost loved ones. Downwinders have been fighting for justice for decades, and they cannot wait any longer. We need Congress to act now.”
RECA currently limits compensation to Downwinders who lived in parts of Nevada, Utah and Arizona when above-ground nuclear tests were conducted between 1945 and 1962, despite studies indicating the radioactive fallout and radiation reached several states in the Mountain West. Many groups of uranium miners are also excluded, including any workers employed after 1971.
The Union of Concerned Scientists is the leading science-based nonprofit working for a healthy environment and a safer world. UCS combines independent scientific research and citizen action to develop innovative, practical solutions and to secure responsible changes in government policy, corporate practices, and consumer choices.
LATEST NEWS
Oil Giants' Profits Soar as Trump's Iran War Estimated to Deliver $1 Trillion Hit to World Economy
"Gas prices have jumped to the highest level in four years," said Rep. Ted Lieu. "What are Trump and Republicans focused on? Spending $400 million dollars of taxpayers' money for a White House ballroom."
Apr 28, 2026
A fossil fuel industry watchdog is estimating that US President Donald Trump's illegal war with Iran could deliver a $1 trillion hit to the global economy—while oil and gas giants reap the benefits.
According to a Tuesday report in The Guardian, climate advocacy group 350.org is estimating that the Iran war will impose between $600 billion and over $1 trillion in additional costs to households, businesses, and governments, depending on how long the Strait of Hormuz remains closed.
The Guardian noted that even this eye-popping economic cost "is likely to be an underestimate because it does not include the substantial knock-on effects of inflation, particularly higher fertilizer and food costs, lower economic activity, and rising employment."
350.org's analysis came on the same day that US gas prices rose to their highest level since Trump launched the Iran war in late February.
As reported by The New York Times, the average price for a gallon of gas jumped by 1.6% to $4.18 on Tuesday, the highest price for a gallon of gas since April 2022, shortly after Russia disrupted global energy markets with its invasion of Ukraine.
While consumers are paying more at the pump, fossil fuel companies are raking in massive profits. British oil giant BP on Tuesday posted a profit of $3 billion for the first quarter of 2026, which exceeded Wall Street analysts' expectations and was more than double the profit it reported in the first quarter of 2025.
Clémence Dubois, global campaigns director at 350.org, said that BP's blowout earnings report showed how Big Oil's business model depends on the suffering of working people.
"Families are being pushed to the brink by spiraling energy bills, while fossil fuel companies turn a war into a windfall," said Dubois. "This is not just unjust, it’s unacceptable. Fossil fuels companies don’t just heat the planet, they fuel and thrive on geopolitical tension, insecurity, and human suffering. The solutions exist, what’s missing is the political will to stop polluters [from writing] the rules."
In a Tuesday social media post, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) more succinctly echoed Dubois' message.
"It's day 59 of Trump's war with Iran," she wrote. "Gas prices are 40% higher since the war began."
Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-Texas) similarly pinned the blame on Trump for high gas prices, and took at shot at her Republican colleagues who have spent the last two days lobbying to build the president's proposed $400 million luxury ballroom with public funds.
"Gas is $4.18 and rising because of Trump’s war with Iran," Garcia wrote. "Republicans are ripping away healthcare and pushing millions off SNAP. And their priority? $400 million in taxpayer money for Trump’s ballroom. They don’t give a damn about helping working people."
Rep. Tim Lieu (D-Calif.) expressed a similar sentiment.
"Gas prices have jumped to the highest level in four years," he wrote. "What are Trump and Republicans focused on? Spending $400 million dollars of taxpayers' money for a White House ballroom that most Americans will never be able to access, and building a giant arch in DC for Trump."
Dylan Williams, vice president for government affairs at the Center for International Policy, marveled at the political tone deafness of Republicans pushing to fund Trump's ballroom amid a cost-of-living crisis.
"Republicans seem to be betting that Americans will stop worrying about the Iran war and high gas prices," he wrote, "when they hear the good news that they’ll also be paying for Trump’s ballroom."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Sharing 'Grim' Survivor Stories, Amnesty Renews Call for War Crimes Probe of US Strike in Yemen
"I have nothing left that keeps me going," said a survivor who lost a leg. "I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible. Something that will revive my hope."
Apr 28, 2026
A week after Democratic senators launched an investigation into US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's assault on federal efforts to mitigate civilian harm, Amnesty International on Tuesday renewed its call for a war crimes probe of the American airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen that killed dozens of people last April.
While the United States has been bombing Yemen since 2002 as part of the so-called War on Terror, the Trump administration stepped up attacks last spring, in response to Houthi rebels' resistance to Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
"The Trump administration's approach to its airstrikes in Yemen from March to May 2025 should have set off alarm bells in the USA and around the world, clearly signaling an urgent need to strengthen measures to protect civilians," Amnesty International USA director Nadia Daar said in a statement exactly one year after the bombing in Saada.
"Instead, the US administration has systematically weakened safeguards, shrinking offices aimed at reducing civilian harm, while simultaneously displaying a dangerous disregard for the lives of civilians endangered by armed conflicts," she continued. "Against that backdrop, attacks such as the US attack on a school in Minab in Iran, which killed [155] people, including 120 children, were a tragically foreseeable consequence of a failure to implement robust civilian-harm mitigation efforts."
Amnesty concluded last month that the US bombing of the Iranian school "packed full of children" on February 28 was "a serious breach of international humanitarian law" and those responsible "must be held accountable."
Erika Guevara Rosas—Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns—stressed at the time that "the US authorities could, and should, have known it was a school building. Targeting a protected civilian object, such as a school, is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
In a potential preview of what Iranian families impacted by that strike will face, Guevara Rosas noted Tuesday that one year after the attack in Yemen, "US officials have failed to hold anyone accountable or even to clarify the status or outcome of the investigations they had announced a year earlier."
"Families of those killed in the attack on the detention center in Yemen are still being denied basic information about what happened, [and] remain without justice for their loved ones," she explained. "Survivors continue to struggle, lacking the means to secure a decent living or even receive adequate medical treatment."
Amnesty interviewed over a dozen survivors identified by pseudonyms, including Araya, a 22-year-old Ethiopian man, who sustained a serious arm injury and said: "If I don't take a painkiller, I feel hopeless and wish to die. I think about how, at such a young age, I can't even support myself and still rely on help from others. The metal rod inside me is very painful and uncomfortable. It drives you insane."
Jirata, a 30-year-old Ethiopian man, has a metal rod in one of his legs, and lost the other in the attack. He told Amnesty that "I have lost hope and I have nothing left that keeps me going. I came here [to Yemen] to work like everyone else to help my family and change mine and their life for the better... Now people carry me to the toilet."
"The US government caused all this and as a result [of the airstrike], I can no longer work and support myself," he detailed. "I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible. Something that will revive my hope."
Another Ethiopian man, 32-year-old Abay, similarly said that "I went to Yemen to change my family's life, but now I made my family's life even harder than it was before," due to his leg and hand injuries.
"I feel broken whenever I see their faces," said Abay, who returned to Ethiopia. "You can see the sadness on their faces. I hoped for a better life, to work and change our lives, but everything turned upside down."
Guevara Rosas said that "the story of these migrants is grim and heartbreaking. Traveling to Yemen in search of better opportunities, they were detained by the Houthis, denied their freedom, then attacked in a US airstrike. Those who survived have been left in limbo, with no justice or reparation in sight, nor an explanation for why this happened to them, an acknowledgment of the wrong done to them, or any support offered to help them carry on with their lives."
She argued that "they must receive full, effective, and prompt reparation, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of nonrepetition, through an effective and accessible mechanism."
According to Airwars, US forces have killed 443-642 people in Yemen since 2009. The official government estimate for civilian deaths in that time is just 13. The deadline for the Pentagon's next annual report on civilian casualties is May 1.
Guevara Rosas declared that "in order to stop this deadly spiral, the USA must ensure prompt, transparent, impartial, independent, and effective investigations into attacks that have resulted in civilian casualties, including those in Yemen and Iran."
"The US Congress must also urgently step up its oversight role and demand answers, including a public accounting of these strikes and the adequate and prompt provision of reparation to the civilians that have been harmed, and ensure it is not appropriating funds that may contribute to breaches of international law," she added.
So far, both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress have declined to pass a war powers resolution reining in President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran, invasion of Venezuela, or bombings of boats allegedly transporting drugs on the high seas. Still, Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Tim Kaine (Va.), and Adam Schiff (Calif.) intend to force a Tuesday vote on a measure aimed at blocking the president's use of US forces in unauthorized hostilities against Cuba.
Keep ReadingShow Less
To End 'New Gilded Age,' House Progressives Unveil Bill to Raise Federal Minimum Wage to $25 Per Hour
"We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago," said the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía, who helped lead the campaign to raise wages in her home state of New Jersey.
Apr 28, 2026
A pair of progressive Democrats unveiled a bill on Tuesday that would raise the federal minimum wage to $25 per hour, considered the bare minimum a single adult needs to meet the cost of living in much of the US.
The Living Wage For All Act is the first bill to be introduced by the newly sworn-in Rep. Analilia Mejía (D-NJ), who won a special election earlier this month after helping to lead the fight for a $15 minimum wage in her home state of New Jersey.
Citing data from MIT's Living Wage Calculator, the Living Wage For All campaign backing the legislation argues that $25/hour is needed for a single adult in most parts of the country to afford basic necessities like housing, food, and healthcare.
As the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past decade and a half, the federal minimum wage has remained frozen at $7.25 and hour since 2009.
"This is unacceptable," Mejía said. "We need an economy that reflects the realities of 2026, not one stuck over a decade ago."
The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.), the daughter of Guatemalan immigrants who, she said, worked multiple minimum-wage jobs just to get by.
“I remember being in the fourth grade, and my mom talked about her job, and she was getting paid $4.75 an hour,” the 42-year-old congresswoman said during a press conference on Capitol Hill Tuesday. “Yet the federal minimum wage is barely $7.25, many years later.”
"Today, as we think about companies reporting record high earnings, working people are still struggling to survive," she said. "People are working full-time jobs and still cannot afford to live."
A USA TODAY survey from January found that around 40% of workers say their paychecks have not grown enough to meet the rising cost of living, which has been further exacerbated by spiking inflation caused by President Donald Trump's erratic tariff regime and war in Iran. Another survey conducted by Resume Now in April found that about half of workers fear their wages will never catch up to the cost of living.
While some states and cities have gradually raised their minimum wages above the federal level and have seen modest declines in poverty as a result, none have been raised to the point of being considered a living wage.
The bill introduced by Mejía and Ramirez would similarly phase in its increase to the federal minimum wage over more than a decade, with larger employers leading the transition.
Companies with more than $1 billion gross revenue or more than 500 employees would be scheduled to increase their minimum pay to $25/hour by 2031, while smaller employers would be on a longer timeline to reach $25/hour by 2038.
To ensure wages don’t lag again in the following years, the bill also requires the minimum wage to automatically grow each year to reach the equivalent of two-thirds the national median hourly wage. It also eliminates the subminimum wage, which is paid to tipped workers, youth workers, and workers with disabilities.
The bill is almost certainly dead on arrival in a Republican-controlled Congress. Even if Democrats retake both chambers come November, it would likely face an uphill battle to pass.
In 2021, the last time Democrats had a governing trifecta, eight centrist members of the Democratic caucus killed an amendment by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to include a $15/hour minimum wage in then-President Joe Biden's post-Covid budget reconciliation package, the American Rescue Plan.
But as Democrats seek to address rising fears about America's "affordability" crisis, Saru Jayaraman, the president of One Fair Wage, said politics are starting "to catch up to reality."
"Across the country—from California to the Midwest to the East Coast—workers are organizing for $25 and $30 because that is what it takes to live," she said. "The polling shows this is not just popular, it is necessary."
“We cannot talk about affordability without talking about what people are paid,” added Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union.
More than 20 Democrats have signed onto the bill as cosponsors, including Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).
The effort is being spearheaded by the Living Wage For All Coalition, a national collective of labor unions, civil rights groups, and other economic justice organizations that are simultaneously pushing legislation to adopt a living wage in states like New York, Illinois, and Maryland, and municipalities such as Los Angeles and Washington, DC.
April Verrett, the international president of the Service Employees International Union, which has more than 2 million members across North America, said that “the introduction of the Living Wage for All Act is a powerful testament to the worker-led movement that is forcing a new baseline for livable wages.”
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular