releases: https://mcadams.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=489
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://mcadams.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=489 | McAdams, Utah advocates highlight dangers and unacceptable costs of restarting explosive nuclear weapons testing | 2020-09-10 | 2020 | 2020-09 | Democrat | House | UT | Ben McAdams | M001209 | mcadams.house.gov | legacy | Salt Lake City, UtahCongressman Ben McAdams together with a nuclear weapons scientist, a Utah downwinder and other Utah advocates cited the urgent need to fight against White House plans to resume explosive nuclear weapons testing at the Nevada Test Site. The last underground explosive test occurred in 1992, ending decades of harmful release of radioactive fallout across Utah and other states. Utahns are still suffering and dying from cancers and other illnesses associated with exposure to radioactive fallout. The federal government lied about the danger from these tests and still refuses to be held accountable for the extent of the damage. I'll continue to do everything possible to block this dangerous and unnecessary plan, said McAdams. McAdams participated in a public virtual roundtable with Utah downwinder Mary Dickson, community advocate Steve Erickson, Utah Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (UCAN) leader Deb Sawyer, and the Nuclear Threat Initiative's Dr. Jill Hruby, moderated by Lilly Adams from the Union of Concerned Scientists. In Congress, McAdams has led efforts to block spending in annual defense and appropriations bills for test site readiness or conducting new explosive nuclear weapons testing. A Senate version of the defense bill includes $10 million in funding for the administration to pursue that course of action. Dr. Hruby said that as the former director of one of the nation's three nuclear weapons labs, she signed annual letters certifying that the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program maintains the U.S. nuclear arsenal as safe, reliable, and secure. She said America has invested more than any other nuclear-armed country in high fidelity computers, modelling, non-nuclear subcritical tests and other sophisticated scientific methods to maintain its nuclear weapons stockpile after the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty halted underground tests. In my opinion, any decision to restart nuclear weapons testing would be driven by political, not technical reasons, said Dr. Hruby. She said if the United States resumes underground explosive testing, it would incentivize other nations to stop abiding by the testing moratorium and restart their own testing programs. Mary Dickson said that given what thousands of Utahns have experienced from past explosive testing, conducting new explosive tests would be morally reprehensible. If we have learned anything from the illness, suffering and deaths due to the federal government's actions, it's that we were not protected and we were not safe, said Dickson. Community advocate Steve Erickson talked about documented cases of extensive fallout released into the atmosphere from past underground tests, such as the 1970 Baneberry' detonation. Government records show that it released 80,000 curies of iodine-131 present in fallout that drifted over Utah, Idaho and Montana. A study by the National Cancer Institute in 1997 estimated that exposure to iodine-131 resulted in tens of thousands of cases of thyroid cancer. Erickson said that the federal Office of Technology Assessment reported that 18 percent of all the underground tests following Baneberry has released some radiation into the atmosphere. UCAN director Deb Sawyer highlighted the bipartisan call in 2007 by former Secretaries of State George Schultz and Henry Kissinger, Senator Sam Nunn and former Secretary of Defense William Perry for the world to reduce the reliance on nuclear weapons as a step towards ending the threat proliferation poses to the world. Dr. Hruby also said that a return to explosive testing is not good for the United States' well-planned Stockpile Stewardship Program. She said underground explosive testing is enormously expensive and money that is now spent on the weapons science program would be diverted to explosive testing, undermining the tremendous scientific investment made in this country. McAdams also highlighted his efforts to expand and extend the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), to ensure that more victims of government negligence and harm receive compensation for cancers that developed from exposure to the nuclear tests. | 1 | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z | 2026-03-30T12:14:52Z |