By MERILEE DANNEMANN
Triple Spaced Again
© 2025 by Merilee Dannemann

Many New Mexicans watched with emotions from concern to dismay as the 900-plus page federal budget reconciliation bill—what the president called the One Big Beautiful Bill—was passed a few weeks ago. We knew provisions of that bill would damage New Mexico in ways we had heard about and ways that we had not learned about yet. We knew the bill, on balance, would be harmful for New Mexico, even if a few things in it might be beneficial—because it was too big and stuffed with too many unrelated provisions.

We had heard about Medicaid and SNAP. New restrictions would affect Medicaid beneficiaries directly and would also threaten to force rural hospitals to close. Cuts in SNAP or food stamp benefits would leave some low-income New Mexicans without access to adequate food.

Some of us were aware of effects of that bill that were less talked about. For example, the bill increases the paperwork requirements for clients of Medicaid at the same time that the administration is cutting staff of agencies that would have to approve that paperwork. As it’s making very rich people richer, it’s increasing the concentration of the power in their hands, reducing our democracy.

And it’s increasing our national debt by trillions of dollars.

At the same time, the bill contained one provision that some New Mexicans wanted very badly, and that New Mexico’s members of Congress, especially Senator Ben Ray Lujan, had worked for years to include in legislation.

That provision was the update of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to recognize, for the first time, the Tularosa Basin Downwinders, who have endured a lifetime of cancers and other illnesses after being exposed to the first test of the atomic bomb. The expansion also adds uranium workers exposed after 1971, communities affected by waste disposal from the Manhattan Project, and additional counties in several states, who were not eligible under the previous version of the law.

Finally, they will be eligible for compensation along with those who were eligible under the previous version.

The members of New Mexico’s delegation were stuck, forced to vote for or against one provision they all supported in the context of a bill they all opposed. RECA had passed the Senate in 2024 as a stand-alone bill with a bipartisan majority of 69-30 and would have been signed by President Joe Biden, but it had not been brought up for a vote in the Republican-led House. Our New Mexico senators tried to reintroduce it as a separate bill earlier this year but were not successful.

Both of our senators and all three of our House members, all Democrats, voted against the bill. Since the Republican majority prevailed in both houses, the bill passed, and RECA became law even though our members had voted against it.

Why mention this issue now?

I have already seen one editorial accusing New Mexico’s members of hypocrisy for failing to support RECA. I expect it will be raised again as we get closer to the next election. So voters should understand – and remember later– that New Mexico’s members were in an impossible position.

RECA was in this bill only because the arcane rules of Congress allowed it to be. It came under the so-called reconciliation rule in the Senate because it was budget-related and an extension of an existing program.

The law limits eligibility for compensation to two years, expiring in 2028. Senator Lujan has added a section to his website providing simple instructions for downwinders and uranium workers. He has also commented that he hopes the administration will move efficiently to start accepting those applications.

Merilee Dannemann’s columns are posted at www.triplespacedagain.com. Comments are invited through the web site.