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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR Begaye
DATE TYPED 2/23/05
HB 702
SHORT TITLE Radiation Exposure Victim Case management
SB
ANALYST Weber
APPROPRIATION
Appropriation Contained Estimated Additional Impact Recurring
or Non-Rec
Fund
Affected
FY05
FY06
FY05
FY06
$100.0
Recurring General Fund
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
LFC Files
Responses Received From
Department Indian Affairs (DIA)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Bill
House Bill 702 appropriates $100 thousand from the general fund to the Indian Affairs Depart-
ment for the purpose of providing case management services to victims of radiation exposure or
their surviving families so they may access benefits due through the federal Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act (RECA).
Significant Issues
The need for compensation resulting from the affects of uranium mining operations in north-
western New Mexico has long been establish with the enactment of RECA. Since RECA’s en-
actment and subsequent amendments, however, the needs of the large number of eligible recipi-
ents remain unmet. Only 558 of 6,000 potentially eligible Navajo claimants have received some
type of compensation in the past fourteen years. And, only 3,755 of these claimants are success-
fully registered. Approximately 5,000 claims are not currently filed. A large reason for these
high numbers of unprocessed claims, is the lack of adequate staff to process the Navajo claims.
Currently, there are only three caseworkers that process the more than 4,000 Navajo claims that
have been submitted to their office.