On April 28, 2010, John McCain introduced legislation in the Senate which would add all of Mohave County to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Program. Two months prior, on February 26, 2010, Representative Trent Franks presented legislation to the House which would also add Mohave County to the program. Now, while I applaud the efforts of both McCain and Franks, I question the timing of the proposed legislation for a couple of reasons.
The Mohave County Downwinders started holding formal meetings many, many years ago. I remember attending my first meeting in Kingman, Arizona back in the fall of 2003. At one of the meetings, Trent Franks' assistant attended to let the group know of Mr. Franks' support of the group's mission. But yet, nothing happened.
Then a few months later, John McCain sent a young man to represent him at one of the meetings. This young man was very kind, and expressed McCain's concerns about the Downwinders of Mohave County. And again, nothing happened
Several members of the group, including the now-deceased Eleanore Fanire, met with former Congressman Rick Renzi in 2004 hoping to gain his support of the group's mission. While Mr. Renzi was very concerned about the forgotten Downwinders, again, nothing happened.
If you look at the text of both the Senate and the House legislation, you will notice it's length: one sentence. One sentence!!! Now I'm not a politician, but my guess is that it wasn't too difficult to put that legislation together. And it took seven years for these two men to get a one-sentence resolution into both the House and Senate. This fact leads me to believe that there was some other motivating factor for the recent interest in Mohave County.
Certainly the voters of Mohave County must be happy that their Senator and Congressman finally got that one-sentence resolution into the hands of the folks who can make a difference in the Senate and the House. But was the motivating factor the people of Mohave County? I hope so....
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Laura, you have it right, I was there with you, also with Danielle, Gloria, Eleanor you and I at Rick Renzi's office in Flagstaff. He was very interested, however did not want to step on Trent Franks toes, funny all those meetings and Franks never showed up, just his assistant, who had a lot of excuses. Oh well, better later than never!!Really hope Mohave county gets in soon, as so many have passed on from there!! Not too many left to file!! Hard to think about the radiation skipping right over the top of Mohave county before it got to Yavapai,Coconino, Navajo, Apache then Gila counties!! As Mohave is closer to the test site than any of the others!!
ReplyDeleteThanks for the great information for everybody!!
Margaret