07/03/2025 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 07/03/2025 19:15
Thursday, July 03, 2025
Today, U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) championed the House of Representatives' passage of the President's landmark reconciliation legislation, the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act, in which the senator secured the largest expansion ever of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), as well as an additional $1 billion in funding for Missouri Medicaid providers and recipients.
Senator Hawley originally called on Congress to compensate victims of government-caused nuclear radiation on July 13, 2023. After nearly two years of negotiations-and two separate passages of RECA packages by the Senate in2023 and 2024-the senator's hard-fought expansion of RECA now heads to President Trump's desk to be signed into law.
To all the radiation survivors and nuclear veterans across the country: WE DID IT. Today, we have prevailed. Your country thanks you and honors your sacrifice. #MAHA
- Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 3, 2025HUGE WIN for Missouri - after 5 decades, survivors of nuclear radiation will FINALLY be compensated by the government that poisoned them
- Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) July 3, 2025Senator Hawley's RECA provision will deliver long-overdue compensation and health care for survivors of radiation-linked cancers in the St. Louis and St. Charles areas, dating back from negligently exposed Manhattan Project waste. This provision will also expand compensation for uranium miners and downwinders in Western states who were exposed to fallout. The larger reconciliation bill will also deliver major relief for working people, such as no taxes on overtime, no taxes on tips, and a larger child tax credit for families.
Following negotiations between Senate GOP Leadership and Senator Hawley, the reconciliation legislation includes a new $50 billion fund for rural hospitals. This means that Missouri is set to receive approximately $1 billion in new funding to support providers and Medicaid recipients over the next five years. Senator Hawley also secured the delay of any Medicaid reductions.