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The Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, today introduced Congressional reference legislation, consisting of a private bill and an accompanying resolution, aimed at assuring fair and adequate compensation for Marshall Islanders whose lives and lands were adversely affected as a result of U.S. nuclear weapons testing conducted in the Marshalls in the 1940s and 1950s. Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-NY), Madeleine Bordallo (D-GU) and Gregorio Sablan (D-MP) joined Faleomavaega as original cosponsors.
“From 1946 to 1958, the United States conducted 67 atmospheric nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands to further national security interests. Those tests also destroyed the homes and the lives of hundreds of Marshallese people whose islands remained part of a U.S.-administered, U.N. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Today, more than a half century later, the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) still await adequate redress from the United States for the harm they suffered. The legislation I introduced today provides a framework for such redress. It results from work done by the Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment, including the conduct of an oversight hearing on the Marshall Islands in May of this year. I’m pleased that my good friends, Reps. Ackerman, Bordallo and Sablan have added their names as original cosponsors to the legislation,” Faleomavaega said.
“The United States accepted responsibility for the problems caused by the tests in 1986 when RMI entered into a Compact of Free Association with the United States. Section 177 of the Compact makes it clear that the United States recognizes its responsibility to ‘address past, present and future consequences of the Nuclear Testing Program, including the resolution of resultant claims.’ The United States authorized $150 million under Section 177 and additional ex gratia assistance under sections 103, 105 and 224 of the Compact in order to settle such claims, which were to be determined by a Nuclear Claims Tribunal (NCT). Under the Compact, RMI could also seek additional compensation if ‘changed circumstances’ rendered the settlement ‘manifestly inadequate,’” Faleomavaega noted.
“The Nuclear Claims Tribunal determined a settlement amounting to $2.2 billion. Yet, only a fraction of a percent of that has actually been awarded because the fund created to cover the NCT recommendation proved grossly inadequate. When RMI filed a changed circumstances petition to gain appropriate compensation from Congress, the previous administration either never bothered to address the problem or simply opposed the petition based on its contention that the settlement provided in the Compact was ‘full and final.’ No further action was taken on the petition. Earlier this year, in response to a suit for just compensation filed by the people of Bikini and Enewetak in the U.S. Court of Claims, the Supreme Court declined to review the case, upholding the lower court’s dismissal of the suit.”
“The lack of action by the United States became into especially sharp focus in May, when the President’s Cancer Panel concluded, ‘the U.S. has not met its obligation to provide for ongoing health needs of the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands resulting from radiation exposures they received during U.S. nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific from 1946-1958.’ The Panel went on to recommend to President Obama that ‘The U.S. Government should honor and make payments according to the judgment of the Marshall Islands Tribunal.’ The Congressional reference case this legislation would initiate offers perhaps the last, best hope for the United States to honor its obligations to the people of the Marshall Islands who sacrificed so much for the security of the United States. I sincerely hope that my colleagues in the House will support this legislation,” Faleomavaega concluded.
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