A program to compensate people exposed to radiation from past nuclear weapons testing and manufacturing could be restarted and expanded under a provision added by U.S. senators to the major tax and budget policy bill.
The language added Thursday to the Senate version of the massive tax bill would overhaul the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which was originally enacted in 1990 and expired about a year ago. The law compensated people in about a dozen western states who developed serious illnesses from nuclear testing and manufacturing stemming from World War II-era efforts to develop the atomic bomb.
