[House Hearing, 111 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
OVERSIGHT ON THE COMPACT OF FREE ASSOCIATION WITH THE REPUBLIC OF THE
MARSHALL ISLANDS (RMI): MEDICAL TREATMENT OF THE MARSHALLESE PEOPLE,
U.S. NUCLEAR TESTS, NUCLEAR CLAIMS TRIBUNAL, FORCED RESETTLEMENT, USE
OF KWAJALEIN ATOLL FOR MISSILE PROGRAMS AND LAND USE DEVELOPMENT
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON ASIA, THE PACIFIC AND
THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 20, 2010
__________
Serial No. 111-119
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/
______
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
56-559 PDF WASHINGTON : 2010
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey
Samoa DAN BURTON, Indiana
DONALD M. PAYNE, New Jersey ELTON GALLEGLY, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California DANA ROHRABACHER, California
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
BILL DELAHUNT, Massachusetts EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York RON PAUL, Texas
DIANE E. WATSON, California JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
RUSS CARNAHAN, Missouri MIKE PENCE, Indiana
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey JOE WILSON, South Carolina
GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia JOHN BOOZMAN, Arkansas
MICHAEL E. McMAHON, New York J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
THEODORE E. DEUTCH, CONNIE MACK, Florida
FloridaAs of 5/6/ JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska
10 deg. MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas
JOHN S. TANNER, Tennessee TED POE, Texas
GENE GREEN, Texas BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
LYNN WOOLSEY, California GUS BILIRAKIS, Florida
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
BARBARA LEE, California
SHELLEY BERKLEY, Nevada
JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
JIM COSTA, California
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS, Arizona
RON KLEIN, Florida
Richard J. Kessler, Staff Director
Yleem Poblete, Republican Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment
ENI F.H. FALEOMAVAEGA, American Samoa, Chairman
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
DIANE E. WATSON, California BOB INGLIS, South Carolina
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas DANA ROHRABACHER, California
BRAD SHERMAN, California EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York JEFF FLAKE, Arizona
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Ms. Frankie A. Reed, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of East
Asian and Pacific Affairs, U.S. Department of State............ 16
Mr. Nikolao Pula, Director, Office of Insular Affairs, U.S.
Department of the Interior..................................... 20
Steven Messervy, Ph.D., Deputy to the Commanding General for
Research, Development, and Acquisition, U.S. Army Space and
Missile Defense Command, U.S. Department of Defense............ 30
Mr. Glenn S. Podonsky, Chief Health, Safety and Security Officer,
Office of Health, Safety and Security, U.S. Department of
Energy......................................................... 36
Neal A. Palafox, M.D., M.P.H., Professor and Chair, Department of
Family Medicine and Community Health, John A. Burns School of
Medicine, University of Hawaii................................. 62
Mr. Jonathan M. Weisgall, Legal Counsel for the People of the
Bikini Atoll................................................... 75
Mr. Don Miller, Esq., Independent Attorney-at-Law................ 91
Mr. Robert Alvarez, Senior Scholar, Institute for Policy Studies. 104
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega, a Representative in Congress
from American Samoa, and Chairman, Subcommittee on Asia, the
Pacific and the Global Environment: Prepared statement......... 6
The Honorable Gary L. Ackerman, a Representative in Congress from
the State of New York, and Chairman, Subcommittee on the Middle
East and South Asia: Prepared statement........................ 12
Ms. Frankie A. Reed: Prepared statement.......................... 18
Mr. Nikolao Pula: Prepared statement............................. 22
Steven Messervy, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................... 32
Mr. Glenn S. Podonsky: Prepared statement........................ 38
Neal A. Palafox, M.D., M.P.H.: Prepared statement................ 65
Mr. Jonathan M. Weisgall: Prepared statement..................... 77
Mr. Don Miller, Esq.: Prepared statement......................... 93
Mr. Robert Alvarez: Prepared statement........................... 106
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 140
Hearing minutes.................................................. 142
The Honorable Diane E. Watson, a Representative in Congress from
the State of California: Prepared statement.................... 143
The Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega: Material submitted for the
record......................................................... 144
OVERSIGHT ON THE COMPACT OF FREE ASSOCIATION WITH THE REPUBLIC OF THE
MARSHALL ISLANDS (RMI): MEDICAL TREATMENT OF THE MARSHALLESE PEOPLE,
U.S. NUCLEAR TESTS, NUCLEAR CLAIMS TRIBUNAL, FORCED RESETTLEMENT, USE
OF KWAJALEIN ATOLL FOR MISSILE PROGRAMS AND LAND USE DEVELOPMENT
----------
THURSDAY, MAY 20, 2010
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific
and the Global Environment,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:10 p.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Eni F.H.
Faleomavaega (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Today's subcommittee hearing will come to
order. This is a meeting of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
Subcommittee on Asia, the Pacific and the Global Environment.
The hearing involves oversight on the Compact of Free
Association with the Republic of the Marshall Islands, issues
referencing the medical treatment of the Marshallese people due
to our nuclear testing program, the activities of the Nuclear
Claims Tribunal, greater understanding of the forced
resettlement to some of these islands and the current use of
Kwajalein Atoll and land use development--all these issues put
together.
I deeply appreciate the presence of our distinguished
witnesses representing the various agencies of the Federal
Government.
My good friend and ranking member of this subcommittee, the
gentleman from Illinois, will be here later so I will go ahead
and begin our hearing this afternoon with my opening statement.
From 1946 to 1958--that is, for some 12 years--the United
States conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands in
the atmosphere, on the surface and even below the surface to
further our national security interests. Those tests destroyed
the homes and the lives of hundreds of Marshallese people whose
islands remained part of the U.S.-administered Trust Territory
of the Pacific Islands.
Following World War II, the United States unilaterally
declared these islands of Micronesia to be a strategic trust.
Whether or not the United Nations liked it, we grabbed the
islands and said they were ours. Today, more than half a
century later, the people of the Republic of the Marshall
Islands still await adequate redress from the United States for
the harm they suffered.
The United States accepted responsibility for the problems
caused by the tests in 1986 when the Republic of the Marshall
Islands entered into a Compact of Free Association with the
United States. Of particular interest to me is the provision of
section 177 of the Compact of Free Association, which makes it
very clear that the United States recognizes its
responsibility, and I quote, ``To address past, present and
future consequences of the nuclear testing program, including
the resolution of the resultant claims.''
Afterwards, the United States authorized $150 million under
section 177 and additional ex gratia assistance under sections
103, 105 and 224 of the compact to settle claims as determined
by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. Under the compact, the Republic
of the Marshall Islands could also seek additional compensation
if changed circumstances rendered the settlement manifestly
inadequate.
The Nuclear Claims Tribunal determined a settlement
amounting to about $2.2 billion. Yet, because the fund created
to cover the Nuclear Claims Tribunal recommendation proved
grossly inadequate, less than $4 million has actually been
awarded.
When the Republic of the Marshall Islands filed a change-
of-circumstances petition to gain appropriate compensation from
Congress, the previous administrations either never bothered to
address the problem or simply opposed the petition based on
their contention that the settlement provided in the compact
was full and final.
No further action was taken on the petition. And just last
month, 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.
In my opinion, this lack of action by the United States
became especially salient when earlier this month the
President's cancer panel concluded,
``The United States has not met its obligation to
provide for ongoing health needs of the people of the
Republic of the Marshall Islands resulting from
radiation exposure they received during U.S. nuclear
weapons testing in the Pacific from 1946 to 1958.''
The panel went on to recommend to President Obama,
``The United States Government should honor and make
payments according to the judgment of the Marshall
Islands Tribunal.''
Unless that recommendation is followed, options may be limited
to a congressional reference case, which we will discuss today,
though I hope this hearing also helps to spur other good ideas.
Another key issue we will discuss today is a recent rush to
move the people of Rongelap back to their atoll before it is
fully safe to return, in the shadow of a shameful history of
previous attempts to resettle the Marshallese people on their
contaminated islands.
As detailed in a series of important articles by Thomas
Maier in Newsday last year, the people of Rongelap were
resettled on their land in 1957, until they fled in 1985,
because the doctors from Brookhaven National Labs who treated
them allowed their primary responsibility of addressing medical
concerns of the Marshallese to be trumped by the goal of
studying the effects of nuclear radiation on the human body.
In other words, these doctors, these so-called experts from
Brookhaven Lab, spent more time studying the effects of nuclear
exposure and contamination on the Marshallese people than
actually giving them proper medical treatment. This is
absolutely shameful and without justification. How could these
doctors abandon their most consequential responsibility?
I believe that in 1956, a statement made by Mr. Merrill
Eisenbud, a senior Atomic Energy Commission official, regarding
information that might be gleaned in resettling the Marshallese
people is revealing:
``Now, data of this type has never been available, and
while it is true that these people do not live the way
that Westerners do, civilized people, it is nonetheless
also true that they are more like us than the mice.''
This is M-I-C-E, mice.
The United States has obviously made dramatic progress in
reducing such blatant racism over the past half century, but
when it comes to the people of the Marshall Islands, in my
humble opinion, our failure to treat them justly, to honor
their sacrifices and now to push them to return to contaminated
lands harkens to an uglier period in our history.
The United States continues to ignore and, with
indifference, allow the squalid and horrible living conditions
of some 12,000 Marshallese men, women and children who
currently live on this tiny island called Ebeye. Only 66 acres
of land are currently inhabited by these 12,000 people in order
to allow the U.S. Government to operate its missile testing
facility on the nearby island of Kwajalein.
I just wanted to give an idea to our friends of what it
means for 12,000 people to live on 66 acres of land. We made a
little comparative view. Guttenberg, New Jersey, is part of the
New York City Metropolitan Area with a population density of
56,012 people per square mile. It is the most densely populated
incorporated place in the United States and has over twice the
density of New York City, which has some 26,403 people per
square mile.
This means that the 12,000 people living on 66 acres of
this little tiny island, Ebeye, is equivalent to a population
density of approximately 116,364 people per square mile. This
is more than twice the density of Guttenberg, the most densely
populated city in the United States.
The United States regards the Ronald Reagan Ballistic
Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Island as vital to our
national security. Yet our Government did not meet the most
basic needs of the displaced Marshallese people as we built the
facilities. We need to do better for the people of Kwajalein,
just as we need to do better for the Marshallese people harmed
as a result of our nuclear testing program.
I hope that today's hearing and briefing moves us toward
meeting our obligations and keeping our promises. We have a new
administration in office, one that is committed to reducing the
threat posed by nuclear weapons and addressing their broadest
impacts. I think it is particularly appropriate, then, that we
convene this morning just after the Obama administration's
``nuclear spring,'' and while the Review Conference of the
Nonproliferation Nuclear Treaty proceeds.
To his credit, President Obama has done more in the past 2
months to advance the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world than
his predecessors did over the previous 30 years. President
Obama's important accomplishments--devising a new U.S. Nuclear
strategy, completing a nuclear arms control agreement with
Russia, convening the nuclear security summit agreement and
supporting the South Pacific Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty--
deserve our support and appreciation. But if we are to address
the full range of problems posed by nuclear weapons, we must
also deal with the tragic legacy of our nuclear tests in the
Marshall Islands.
Towards that end, I commend Chairman Bingaman of the Senate
Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and the senior ranking
member, Senator Lisa Murkowski, for their interest and
leadership in working to assist the Republic of the Marshall
Islands through legislation that would provide supplemental
compensation for the impacts of nuclear testing.
They introduced Senate bill 2941, which would create a
health care program at affected atolls, require periodic
surveys of radiological conditions on Runit Island as well as a
National Academy of Science assessment of the health impacts of
the testing program. It would also mandate that the Republic of
the Marshall Islands' citizens receive the same treatment as
U.S. citizens working in our nuclear weapons programs. These
are all important matters that should be pursued.
It is my understanding that at yesterday's Senate hearing,
the Department of the Interior indicated it did not support the
$2 million authorization in the proposed Senate bill. Perhaps
our friends from the Office of Insular Affairs of the
Department of the Interior will care to elaborate further on
this issue.
Ladies and gentlemen, the people of the Marshall Islands
have literally sacrificed their lives, their properties, their
islands. And even more critically profound, as a result of our
Government's nuclear testing program, we caused tremendous
suffering among Marshallese men, women, and children due to
severe exposure to nuclear radioactive fallout. Women gave
birth to monstrous looking babies with no legs, no arms, one
eye and high incidences of leukemia and thyroid cancer. It goes
on and on. They still have not been given proper treatment.
It is my humble opinion that our Nation owes these people
much better treatment than we have given them. This isn't about
money. It is about the character of the American people and
their leaders and the will to do the right thing. It is about
equity and fairness for the sacrifices the Marshallese people
made for the success of our country's nuclear testing program.
That was very important and critical for our national defense
at that time against the nuclear capabilities of the former
Soviet Union.
So, with that said, ladies and gentlemen, I purposely wore
this tie to this meeting. It has a lot of meaning. It was given
to me by my dear friend, a member of the Oneida Nation of the
American Indian Tribe. I am an adopted member of the Bear Clan.
That is why I have the claw of the bear. Hopefully, I am not
going to claw anybody here this afternoon.
This is not an adversarial proceeding. I am looking forward
to the statements and also the testimony that will be given
today. We have a long list of witnesses to testify at our
hearing this afternoon and I want to say again how deeply I
appreciate your willingness to take the time to come and be
with us to make this hearing a successful one.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Faleomavaega follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Faleomavaega. For our first panel this afternoon, we
are very pleased to have with us Ms. Frankie Reed, the Deputy
Assistant Secretary of the Bureau of East Asian and Pacific
Affairs of the Department of State.
I have known Ms. Reed for a number of years. She formerly
served as a Charges d'Affaires for the State Department to the
Independent State of Samoa years ago. Now she is the newly-
appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary to the Pacific.
Secretary Reed is very familiar with the Pacific region.
She served as a diplomat in residence at the University of
California at Berkeley, where she lectured and was also
responsible for outreach programs at the University of the
Pacific Northwest. Ms. Reed was also counsel general and deputy
U.S. observer to the Council of Europe and the European Court
of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. She served as deputy
chief of mission in Conakry, Guinea, and as deputy chief of
mission in Apia, Samoa. Ms. Reed also served as a Pearson
fellow, formerly on the staff of the current chairman of the
Foreign Affairs Committee, Chairman Howard Berman.
Ms. Reed is a member of the California Bar Association. She
received her juris doctorate degree from the University of
California at Berkeley and a bachelor's in journalism from
Howard University. She has a very impressive background and
experience, I might say. I want to thank Ms. Reed for being
with us this afternoon.
Also with us as a member of the panel is Mr. Nikolao Pula.
Mr. Pula is the first Pacific Islander of Samoan ancestry ever
to serve as the director of the Office of Insular Affairs and,
in that position, Mr. Pula advises the Secretary of the
Interior on operational and administrative matters involving
Federal policies in insular affairs.
Before coming to the Department of the Interior, Mr. Pula
worked for 11 years on Capitol Hill for Senator Daniel Inouye,
former Congressman Fofo Sunia and also served as a staff member
on the House Committee on Public Works and Transportation. A
graduate of Marist School in American Samoa, he also studied at
Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, and at George Mason
University. I am very happy to welcome Mr. Pula.
With us also as a member of the panel is Dr. Steven
Messervy, deputy to the commander for research, development and
acquisition at the Department of Defense.
Dr. Messervy is deputy to the commanding general for
research at the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command,
Armed Forces Strategic Command, located at Redstone Arsenal in
Alabama. That is quite a distance from the Kwajalein missile
base, but I assume that you have a good relationship with the
Kwajalein missile base.
He has more than 30 years of experience in the research,
development and acquisition business. His doctorate is in
systems engineering and operations research. He is a graduate
of the Defense Systems Management College program of the U.S.
Army Command and General Staff College. He is also recipient of
many awards, including the decorations--my gosh, there are so
many, I don't have enough time to read them.
I want to welcome Dr. Messervy today.
Also with us is Glenn Podonsky with the Department of
Energy. Mr. Podonsky is the chief health, safety, and security
officer. He reports directly to the Office of the Secretary of
Energy and manages the major staff organizations responsible
for health, safety and security policy development. He is also
responsible for independent oversight of the environmental
safety and health safeguard security. I am glad you are here,
Mr. Podonsky. I have a lot of questions to ask you on this.
Mr. Podonsky, we welcome you and look forward to hearing
your testimony.
Also with us this afternoon is my distinguished colleague
and chairman of our Subcommittee of Foreign Affairs on the
Middle East and South Asia, my good friend, the gentleman from
New York, Mr. Ackerman. I would like to give him time for his
opening statement, if he has one.
Mr. Ackerman. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is good
to be with you.
Today's hearing addresses a set of issues that are marked
by both clear absolutes and awkward ambiguity. The detonation
of a hydrogen bomb is as absolute an act as can be imagined.
American nuclear tests literally vaporized entire islands in
the Pacific, and the reason for these tests were obvious. The
Soviet Union posed a clear and present danger to the United
States and the world. Nuclear arms were thought to be the key
to peace following the unprecedented blood-letting of World War
II. We not only thought we were in the right, but we felt
compelled by duty to provide for the defense of ourselves and
for others. But behind the absolutes were shades of gray and
sometimes the darkness of unaccountable and unfeeling
government agents rationalizing what they knew to be wrong, or
should have known.
The United States made promises to the people of the
Marshall Islands on the basis of science it didn't understand
and medical judgments that were, at best, poorly educated
guesses. Contracts and agreements and commitments and promises
rife with certainty and conviction collapsed and failed in the
aftermath of radioactive fallout and contamination.
On an island far away where I was born and have lived all
my life, doctors from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on
Long Island, working under contract for the United States,
assured 250 people that it was safe to return home to Rongelap.
What the doctors didn't mention was that the island was still
highly radioactive.
In the midst of the Cold War it was easy to rationalize. We
were in danger. We needed to know what these new weapons of
unprecedented power could do. We had to know how to survive
exposure to radiation in the event of a nuclear attack. But in
the end, government officials employed to work for the public
good, and medical doctors who took an oath to do no harm, sent
innocent people to live in the cancer incubation ward of a
radioactive danger zone.
The people of the Marshall Islands were treated with
contempt, like guinea pigs. There is no denying the
responsibility of the United States for this treatment. We
tested those nuclear weapons. We irradiated those islands. And,
in the end, we bear the responsibility for providing for the
people who were displaced or injured by our actions.
The people of Rongelap suffered a 9 percent increase in the
cancer rate. That is over 530 cancer victims that can be linked
to U.S. nuclear tests. Their suffering and ill health were bad
enough, but were astonishingly compounded by a bureaucratic and
medical indifference that would make Franz Kafka weep.
Consider the medical treatment the Marshallese received.
All 250 of them were given identification numbers and pictures
were taken, many of them naked, to be kept on record for the
effects of radiation. Exams were d1 yearly, each time with more
pictures and more samples of blood and urine. But never were
the 250 people whose lives and health were in jeopardy told how
severe was their risk as we cooked them in a nuclear soup that
we tested every year.
In 2007, the Marshall Islands Nuclear Claims Tribunal,
established by the United States until 1988, ruled that the
residents of the island will were owed $1 billion in damage
awards because of the radioactive fallout that contaminated the
island and sickened the residents. The Bush White House refused
to pay the claim. The U.S. courts have washed their hands of
the matter. What will the Obama administration do? What will we
do? Are we absolved?
On the one hand, the United States has provided medical
care and spent some $500 million on construction and clearing
projects. On the other hand, the responsibility for the loss,
all the pain, all the illness caused by the nuclear tests, lies
with the United States. And in the end, trying isn't enough. In
the end, apologizing isn't enough. There may be no justice in a
case like this one. But it does not preclude the United States
accepting responsibility for what it did and carrying that
responsibility through until the last legitimate claim is
satisfied.
We do not hesitate to shame those who delay compensation to
victims of Nazi atrocities until they die off or their ranks
thin down. Here in this case, without question, there is great
shame on us. We took the weak and powerless and made them sick
and helpless. And, in the end--if that is the end--it is not a
story about them, it is more a story about us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Ackerman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman for his most
eloquent and profound statement concerning what we are talking
about this afternoon.
As I stated earlier, this is not about money. This is
really a challenge to the character of our Nation, of the
American people and of our leaders to do what is right and to
correct the mistakes that we have made in the past and make
whole our promises to the people of the Marshall Islands.
I just wanted to share a little bit. I will get to my good
friend from Arizona, but this is in reference to the first
hydrogen bomb that was exploded in 1954, the first ever in the
history of the world. The sad part about it is as I read from
the records--and that was indicated and verified--was the fact
that, as they were planning for the explosion of this hydrogen
bomb, the winds had shifted. The administrators, the scientists
and the people responsible for that project knew that the winds
had shifted, and yet they went ahead and exploded the bomb.
The explosion of this hydrogen bomb was, according to
reports, 1,300 times more powerful than the bombs that we
exploded at Nagasaki and Hiroshima against Japan during World
War II. I just want to share personal experiences, and I have
here a book that is probably one of the best written books, I
think. It is called ``Day of Two Suns'' by Jane Dibblin. She
went and recorded the personal testimonies of some of the
victims exposed to this explosion in 1954.
It says that one of these people who was there said that he
was 14 years old at the time, his sister was 12.
``The teacher asked us--my sister and I and our two
cousins--to cook some rice for the other children. We
got ready to do it. Then we saw a bright light and
heard a sound. Boom. We were really scared.
``At that time, we had no idea what it was. After
noon, something powdery fell from the sky. Only later
we were told it was fallout. Hiroko and several cousins
went to our village at the end of Rongelap Island to
gather some sprouted coconuts. Our cousin climbed a
coconut tree and got something in her eyes. So we we
sent another one up. The same thing happened to her.
When we got home, ours was the main village on
Rongelap, it was raining. We saw something on the
leaves, something yellow. Our parents asked, What
happened to your hair? It looked like we rubbed soap
powder all over it. That night we couldn't sleep. Our
skin itched so much and on our own feet burned, as if
it was hot water. Our hair fell out and we would look
at each other and laugh: You are bald, you look like an
old man. But really we were frightened and sad.''
I could go on and on, but I just wanted to share and give a
little sense of human experience as to what happened on that
dreadful day when the hydrogen bomb exploded.
I might also mention to my good friends and colleagues that
the reason why we decided not to continue our nuclear testing
program in the Marshall Islands was because of the nuclear
fallout. Fifty thousand square miles--this is how far these
nuclear clouds traveled. Some of them came right across the
United States and fell. Strontium-90 was found in the milk
products of the States of Wisconsin and Minnesota.
So they said, oh boy, we better do something else. That is
what motivated us to say we better change the place where we
are going to have our nuclear testing. So we ended up going to
Nevada and tested about 1,000 more nuclear bombs, this time
underground, but still very deadly.
I am very happy to have my good friends and colleagues
joining us.
I recognize the gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Flake, for his
opening statement, if he has one.
Mr. Flake. I have no prepared opening statement. I thank
the chairman for having this hearing. I am anxious to hear the
witnesses. I want to thank the Marshallese delegation that is
here. I met with them yesterday in my office.
I have developed a soft spot for the Marshall Islands. As
many of you know, I spent 1 week there last August on a little
island in the Kwajalein atoll and enjoyed my experience
immeasurably there. I was treated very well by the Marshallese
people, both coming and going.
So I want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing,
and look forward to the witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I want to note for the record that my
colleague from Arizona wanted to experience what it means to
live on a lonely island by himself, so he decided to go to the
Marshall Islands. It is a miracle he came back alive. He wanted
to be out there by himself, nobody else, no telephones, no
washing machines, nothing. He lived about 1 week, I believe, by
himself, catching fish and eating coconuts, just like a native.
Congratulations to my good friend from Arizona.
The gentleman from California, Mr. Rohrabacher, for his
opening statement.
Mr. Rohrabacher. Let me note after Mr. Flake had that
experience of eating coconuts and living there on that island,
he still remained a Republican.
It is my honor to be here today and I am very happy that
our schedules happened to mesh, because it is a very busy day.
But we should not be too busy for the people of the Marshall
Islands. They are a small group of people, but they represent
something vitally important to the United States. They
represent whether or not the United States takes its
commitments seriously, whether or not the United States can be
a trusted friend, whether the United States will keep its word.
The Marshall Islands were more than good friends to us.
They were incredibly generous to the people of the United
States at a time when we really needed it. What I am talking
about is the time during the Cold War when the outcome of the
Cold War was totally in question and the Russians had detonated
nuclear weapons and they were ahead of us in terms of advanced
rocketry.
The people of the Marshall Islands not only permitted us,
but joined with us and became partners with us in the
development of those weapons systems during the Cold War, which
I believe deterred a nuclear conflagration between the great
powers, which would have resulted in an historic setback for
all of humanity. One can only imagine if indeed we did not
develop those weapons which deterred that war and we would have
slipped into some kind of a conflagration, what it would have
done to the future of the human race.
The small group of people that permitted us that knowledge
and that ability to develop those technologies were the people
of the Marshall Islands. And if we go even today to the
Marshall Islands, you will find that even to this day, those
people are hosting an American effort to develop our
antimissile defense systems, and have been for the last 10 to
20 years.
That is of incalculable value to us. If we have, Mr.
Chairman, an antimissile system, that if some lunatic from
North Korea someday launches a rocket toward Hawaii or even
toward the West Coast of the United States, if we are able to
knock it down, the first people we should thank are the people
of the Marshall Islands who permitted us to test our systems
there and permitted us the ability to develop such
technologies. So we have a lot to thank them for.
There is, of course, more than a debt of gratitude. There
is a debt of making sure that those people who suffered from
these tests in the past are dealt with fairly and we keep our
word. I certainly am anxious to work with you, Mr. Chairman, to
make sure that those people understand our gratitude and we do
what is right.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from California for
his most eloquent statement, and thank both of our friends on
the Republican side for their attendance and their interest in
this issue.
We will now have our friends here, the witnesses, testify.
Secretary Reed.
STATEMENT OF MS. FRANKIE A. REED, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY,
BUREAU OF EAST ASIAN AND PACIFIC AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF
STATE
Ms. Reed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the
committee. I am honored to appear before you today as Deputy
Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia and Pacific Affairs.
The United States and the Marshall Islands have a close and
special relationship dating back to shortly after the end of
the Second World War when the Marshall Islands became part of
the U.N. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under the
administration of the United States.
In 1986, the Republic of the Marshall Islands gained full
independence and entered into a Compact of Free Association
with the United States. The compact, which was amended in 2003,
provides the framework for much of our bilateral relations, and
its provisions ensure the security of the Marshall Islands and
contribute to the security of the United States.
Since achieving independence, the Marshall Islands has
developed its own style of democracy and has proved itself a
steadfast friend and supporter of the United States. Its
government has an excellent voting affinity with the United
States in the United Nations, and shares our position on other
important international issues.
Many Marshallese citizens are bravely in American military
units conducting operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.
In December 2008, U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Solomon T. Sam, a
young Marshallese serving in Mosul, Iraq, was killed by wounds
sustained from an improvised explosive device. We salute all of
these Marshallese members and their families' heroism and
sacrifice for the cause of building a more secure world.
The Marshall Islands is host to some 2,000 Americans who
work along with about 900 Marshallese at the strategically
important U.S. Army Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense
test site at Kwajalein Atoll. Known as USAKA, the base is the
second largest employer in the Marshall Islands, after the
Republic of the Marshall Islands Government.
The combination of payroll taxes paid by Marshallese
American contract employees and other workers account for about
25 percent of the Marshall Islands' total revenue collections
each year. USAKA also engages in regular humanitarian and
development projects on Kwajalein Atoll.
The United States and the Marshall Islands also has an
important economic relationship. The United States is the
Marshall Islands' largest trading partner. Under the compact,
as amended, the United States provides over $60 million in aid
to the Marshall Islands annually.
U.S. Federal agencies operate 22 different government
programs in the Marshall Islands. We at the Department of State
work closely with all of these agencies, but we have a special
working relationship with our colleagues at the Department of
the Interior Office of Insular Affairs, which has primary
responsibility for implementing the compact's economic
provisions to ensure that assistance efforts are appropriately
coordinated and implemented with transparency and
accountability.
The amended compact includes a trust fund mechanism that
will serve as a resource base to the Marshall Islands after
annual grant assistance expires in 2023. One of our greatest
challenges in our relationship is to promote economic
development that will contribute to the long-term financial
self-sufficiency of the Marshall Islands.
We enjoy a unique and positive relationship with the
Marshall Islands, and we are working to see that the interests
of the U.S. Government are advanced, while working in concert
with the expressed interests of the Marshallese Government and
its people. Additionally, I believe that coordination between
the U.S. executive and legislative branches is important to
this endeavor, and I am grateful for this opportunity to speak
with you today.
I would be glad to respond to any questions you may have.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Reed follows:]
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Secretary.
Mr. Nick Pula from the Office of Insular Affairs.
STATEMENT OF MR. NIKOLAO PULA, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF INSULAR
AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Pula. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the
United States' relationship with the Republic of the Marshall
Islands.
The United States entered into a Compact of Free
Association in 1986. In 2003, the amended compact provided a
total of $1.5 billion in mandatory assistance from 2004 through
2023. Under the amended compact, U.S. Grant funding generally
decreases annually, paired with increasing contributions to a
trust fund established for the RMI. Earnings from the trust
fund are intended to provide a source of revenue for the
Government of the RMI when grants expire in 2023.
The amended compact requires the RMI to target funding to
six development sectors--education, health, the environment,
public sector capacity building, private sector development and
infrastructure, with priority given to education, health and
infrastructure.
The compact and its subsidiary agreement on fiscal
procedures require the U.S.-RMI Joint Economic Management and
Joint Financial Accountability Committee, known as JEMFAC, to,
one, meet at least once annually to evaluate the progress of
the RMI in achieving the objectives specified in the
development plans; two, approve grant allocations; three,
review required annual reports; four, identify problems; and,
five, recommend ways to increase the effectiveness of compact
grant assistance.
With regard to public sector infrastructure, JEMFAC has
allocated approximately $77 million for the public sector
infrastructure since 2004. The use of these funds by the RMI
has been well planned, professionally managed, and targeted on
the priority sectors of health and education. Sixty percent of
the 13,000 students are now enjoying new facilities.
Regarding education, it must be said that despite the
significant amount of resources provided for support of the
education sector, performance results have been less than
satisfactory. According to the compact, emphasis should be
placed on advancing a quality basic education system. For the
most part, the education sector funds cover salaries and
operations.
Affecting the sustainability of education systems are
politically popular efforts to implement school meal programs
and provide transportation to and from school. Food and ground
transportation are increasingly expensive, and, if continued
with compact funding, these services will take increasing
amounts of money away from basic classroom teaching.
Regarding health, the need to strengthen preventive and
primary care and shift emphasis away from secondary and
tertiary care has been been recognized by the RMI and health
leaders. But due to high incidences of chronic disease, notably
diabetes, the RMI's population requires a higher level of sick
care than the typical patient population.
As the amended compact moves into its 7th year, annual
decrements or decreases in funding mean that funds available to
the health sector will diminish.
An important element of the U.S. financial assistance is
the trust fund established to contribute a source of revenue to
the RMI when annual sector grants cease after 2023. As of March
31, 2010, the market value of total assets of the trust fund
for the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands was $108
million. The trust fund sustained losses in 2008. Since then,
most of the losses have been recovered.
The RMI is in a tight fiscal position. Some of the issues
include doubled government payrolls since 2000, growing level
of subsidies and capital transfers to the state-owned
enterprises, and difficulty in serving debt payments. Fiscal
reform is imperative.
To its credit, the RMI has created two commissions and
committees to propose public sector reform. These are steps in
the right direction. The Office of Insular Affairs is fully
prepared to provide support to restructuring efforts.
With regard to Rongelap, the Office of Insular Affairs
carries out a congressionally mandated role in exercising its
necessary right of veto over the use by the Rongelap Atoll
local government, or RALGov, of its resettlement trust fund.
This past March 30th, the mayor of RALGov council members
adopted resolutions committing themselves to the following:
One, moving from Mejatto Island by October 1, 2011; two, using
approximately $7 million to resettle Rongelap Island; and,
three, leaving $10 million in the trust fund's corpus to
maintain RALGov's operations after October 1, 2011.
Once all those who choose to go home have done so, the
resettlement trust fund can be used to carry out resettlement
and to assure the resettlement succeeds.
Regarding Enewetak, the United States and RMI settled all
claims--past, present and future--of the government and
citizens of the Marshall Islands, which are in a way related to
the U.S. nuclear weapons testing program. Nevertheless, Runit
Dome remains a point of friction.
Upon request, the Department of Energy staff have from time
to time performed limited environmental sampling at Runit
Island around Runit Dome. However, the Congress has never
assigned the Department of Energy or any other Federal agency
or department the responsibility to maintain surveillance of
the radiological conditions on Runit Island.
Despite issues of concern that arise for both the
Government of the Marshall Islands and the Government of the
United States, we anticipate a continuation of relatively good
relations between the two nations.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Pula follows:]
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you.
Dr. Messervy.
STATEMENT OF STEVEN MESSERVY, PH.D., DEPUTY TO THE COMMANDING
GENERAL FOR RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND ACQUISITION, U.S. ARMY
SPACE AND MISSILE DEFENSE COMMAND, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Mr. Messervy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member,
members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to
appear before this panel.
Along with the other panel members, my role here today is
to provide some insight and answer your questions regarding the
missions of the United States Army Kwajalein Atoll and Ronald
Reagan Ballistic Missile Test Site, commonly referred to in the
Army as USAKA/RTS. The USAKA/RTS installation and test range
falls under the operational control of the United States Army
Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command
(U.S. Army SMDC/ARSTRAT).
I serve as the deputy to the commander for research,
development, and acquisition at the U.S. Army SMDC/ARSTRAT. In
this role, my primary duties and responsibilities include
overseeing the basic and applied technology development efforts
in the Army Space and Missile Defense Initiatives. Within my
assigned responsibilities, management and operation of USAKA/
RTS is also under my purview. My appearance before you today is
primary to outline the operational missions performed by USAKA/
RTS on Kwajalein Atoll in the Republic of the Marshall Islands
(RMI).
As you are aware, Kwajalein is the world's largest coral
atoll, surrounded by the world's largest lagoon. Eleven of the
approximately 100 islands comprising the atoll are designated
as defense sites and are provided to the U.S. Government to use
for defense purposes by an international executive agreement
known, of course, as the Compact of Free Association.
Sophisticated instrumentation and launch equipment are
located on eight of these islands and provide mission support
and reliable data for ballistic missile and missile interceptor
testing, space launch and operations support. Its isolated
location uniquely qualifies the Reagan Test Site for supporting
rigorous and realistic tests of all missile classes and
intercept scenarios, as well as space operations.
Installation capabilities support the range's test and
development operations with essential services normally found
in a community of about 1,700 people. USAKA employs about 1,000
Marshallese local nationals who make important contributions to
the success of Reagan Test Site operations.
Officially established as a test site in October 1960, the
range was transferred to U.S. Army control in July 1964. When
the RMI was granted independence in 1986, Kwajalein remained an
American military enclave.
USAKA/RTS is approaching half a century of successfully
supporting ballistic missile testing and has more than 20
years' experience of space operations. USAKA and RTS support
three mission areas that are vital to the success of the U.S.
ballistic missile defense and space programs.
The first is space operations. RTS supports the U.S. Army's
space mission, the U.S. Air Force, National Aeronautical and
Space Administration (NASA), space transportation system
operations and experiments in both Department of Defense (DoD)
and non-DoD satellite launches.
As part of USAKA/RSTRAT's support to the U.S. Strategic
Command, RTS conducts space object identification and provides
critical coverage on new foreign launches coming from Asia. Its
radars support deep space surveillance and contribute near-
Earth satellite observations for the space surveillance
network.
Given the increasing problem with what is termed as space
junk, or fragments of objects destroyed in space which have
remained in orbit, the range's tracking capability has been key
in predicting possible collisions with U.S. orbiting
satellites.
The second area is missile testing. RTS has supported the
Missile Defense Agency's long-range, ground-based, mid-course
defense program, as well as various theater missile defense
systems. RTS has also supported U.S. Air Force intercontinental
ballistic missile testing.
RTS supports lagoon impacts, where the reentry vehicles and
test articles needed to be recovered, and impacts into the deep
ocean area. Air Force hypersonic technology testing and air
crew training missions are planned to begin at RTS in the near
future.
The third area is space launch. From its position at 9
degrees latitude above the Equator, the Reagan Test Site is a
prime geographical launch site for both low Earth and
geosynchronous orbits. Since 2000, RTS has supported space
launches by Orbital Sciences and Space Exploration Technologies
Corporation, known as Space-Ex.
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, SMDC/ARSTRAT
recognizes the role USAKA/RTS has performed in the defense of
our Nation. Its missions of space operations, missile testing,
and launch operations have provided the U.S. with valuable
information and advancements, and we foresee it continuing to
play a key role for the Army, the Department of Defense, and
other government agencies and our Nation.
I appreciate the opportunity to speak on these matters, and
request that my written statement be submitted for the record.
I look forward to addressing any questions you might have
concerning the mission aspects of the Reagan Test Site.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Messervy follows:]
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Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you.
Mr. Podonsky.
STATEMENT OF MR. GLENN S. PODONSKY, CHIEF HEALTH, SAFETY AND
SECURITY OFFICER, OFFICE OF HEALTH, SAFETY AND SECURITY, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY
Mr. Podonsky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the
subcommittee. I want to tell you I appreciate being invited
here today to discuss the status of the U.S. Department of
Energy's special medical care program in the Republic of the
Marshall Islands.
The responsibility for the day-to-day management and
operations of the congressionally mandated DOE Marshall Islands
Special Medical Care Program rests within the Department of
Energy's Office of Health, Safety and Security.
I am here to reaffirm the DOE's unwavering commitment to
the successful execution of the program's mandates as
established by the Congress. All of us who are involved in
managing the Republic of the Marshall Islands program are
mindful of our enormous moral and humanitarian responsibility
that this demands.
My office assumed operational responsibility for the
program 4 years ago to ensure that your mandates are carried
out with the professionalism and the compassion they rightfully
deserve.
It is a unique program that is responsible for the well-
being of Marshallese through delivering high-quality patient
care while coordinating logistics, transportation, and
environmental monitoring which provides scientific data to
support informed decisions regarding resettlements.
Our focus is to provide a program that is responsive to the
needs of the beneficiaries and is sustainable over their
lifetime. Our medical program is carried out through nationally
recognized medical organizations with access to a large network
of clinics and physicians that staff the Marshall Islands'
clinics and manage the annual examinations conducted throughout
the year.
Cancer treatment is provided for all patients needing such
treatment, including those living in Hawaii and in the
continental United States, with care provided close to their
residence.
We are pleased that all of the eligible patients in 2009
that wanted to participate in the program have received their
annual comprehensive examinations. Their average age is 65
years, and they reside in 10 atolls, several islands, and seven
States within the continental United States and Hawaii.
The program has safe clinic spaces with modern examination
equipment and communications on Kwajalein Island and Majuro.
The clinics are an important factor in improving day-to-day
lives of the Republic of Marshall Islands citizens. They are
over 3,000 clinical contacts a year where people call or visit
with a problem, to get a test, prescription, or to consult with
medical staff. A third of the contacts are by people outside of
our program.
Licensed Marshallese physicians and nurses staff the
clinics and provide culturally sensitive patient care. We also
ask the Marshallese doctors to schedule and donate time to the
hospital when they are not seeing DOE patients.
Marshallese-operated whole-body counters are strategically
located for additional screenings. This data provides
physicians with important information on patient exposure.
Important work is also taking place under the environmental
monitoring program that directly benefits the quality of life.
These activities are closely coupled to the medical care
program. They provide scientifically credible, objective, and
peer-reviewed data that the Government of the Marshall Islands
can confidently factor into its environmental remediation and
resettlement decisions.
The logistics and transportation component of the program
has effectively served its programmatic mission and also plays
a critical role in fulfilling humanitarian missions. Recently,
during the severe drought in Utrok, we went to extraordinary
means to obtain transportation for our patients to Majuro and
Kwajalein for their annual examinations. We also used our
chartered boat to transport a medical vaccination team, deliver
water and food, and return some patients that were stranded in
Majuro back to Utrok.
To ensure integration of program activities, we instituted
a transparent system of managing the program. For example, we
made sure that the review and selection of a new contractor was
performed in a process involving the Minister of Health, the
Senator from Utrok Atoll, along with the Mayor of Rongelap and
internationally recognized experts on health care and
logistics. All bid packages were provided to panel participants
to review and comment.
The terms and conditions of the cooperative agreement we
have clearly documented and communicated. We hold formal
biannual program reviews. There is significant hands-on DOE
management and oversight of day-to-day operations. The DOE
program manager has substantial involvement and authority and
program direction to ensure congressional mandates are
effectively met.
My respective management team and I have embarked on a more
aggressive outreach to local communities in partnership with
the Republic of Marshall Islands Governments. Our DOE Marshall
Islands program manager holds community events and outreach in
every community within the continental United States and Hawaii
and all locations where we have Marshallese patients to inform
them of any changes to the program and to get feedback directly
from them in areas where they think improvements are still
needed.
Our medical team has also increased the number of community
visits within the Marshall Islands. The purpose of these visits
is to provide follow-up medical examinations as needed and to
discuss questions and issues raised by individuals or the
community at large. We promptly communicate the feedback
received from the community to our partners within the
Government of the Marshall Islands.
The annual program meeting with the Government of the
Marshall Islands also provides another forum for us to
collaboratively discuss and develop strategies and actions to
improve the delivery of services to our patient population.
DOE's commitment to fulfill its mandates established by the
Congress for the Marshall Islands Special Medical Care Program
is solid. We view our commitments to the Marshall Islands not
only as a programmatic responsibility but it is a moral
obligation for a better future for the Marshallese.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Podonsky follows:]
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Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank our witnesses for their
testimony.
Without objection, all the statements of our witnesses from
this panel will be made part of the record; and if they have
any additional miscellaneous materials they want to add on to
their statements, they will be more than welcome to do so.
The gentleman from New York for his questions.
Mr. Ackerman. Thank you very much, and I thank the panel.
Thank you for the rundown of what we have and have been and
continue to be providing.
Madam Secretary, let me start with you, if I may. Could you
give us the state of play of what the outstanding claims are?
Ms. Reed. I am sorry. The state of play of the outstanding
claims? You mean a figure? I am sorry.
Mr. Faleomavaega. The Nuclear Tribunal's claim. I think
after their work they wanted to give $2.2 billion in claims for
the loss of property for all the damage that we caused to the
Marshallese people. I think that is the starting point of the
question here. What is the status?
I think, as a result of that, we basically rejected the
$2.2 billion that the Tribunal had stated in their records as
compensation owed to the Marshallese people, right?
Ms. Reed. Yes, I believe that sums it. In terms of an exact
figure, I would have to get back to you, but we agree with the
position I believe that was stated by the Department of
Interior.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from Ms. Frankie A. Reed to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Gary L. Ackerman
There is no authoritative source that provides a single dollar
figure for outstanding claims before the Claims Tribunal established by
the Marshall Islands. However, in estimation the total balance owed on
property damage awards at $2,284,108,436, plus interest due from the
dates of the respective awards, for Enewetak, Bikini, Utrik, and
Rongelap atolls.
Citing Article IX of the Section 177 Settlement Agreement, the
Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) submitted a ``Changed
Circumstances'' request to the United States Congress in September
2000, asserting, and seeking additional compensation and remedies for,
injuries and losses to the people of the Marshall Islands arising from
the U.S. nuclear testing program at Enewatak and Bikini atolls from
1946 to 1958. In its request, the RMI sought over $3 billion in
additional compensation and assistance for Tribunal awards for personal
injury claims, for loss of land use and hardship, and for atoll
rehabilitation, exceeding the amounts provided in the Section 177
Settlement Agreement, occupational safety, nuclear stewardship, and
nuclear education.
At the request of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources
Committee, the Executive Branch evaluated the RMI's request under the
Changed Circumstances provision, the Department of State on behalf of
the Executive Branch submitted a report to Congress in January 2005
concluding that the issues raised by the RMI did not qualify as changed
circumstances within the meaning of Article IX of the Section 177
Settlement Agreement. We do not consider the $3 billion request an
outstanding claim.
Mr. Ackerman. And what is that position that we agree with?
Ms. Reed. That we rejected the claims, and that this is a
full settlement, has already been negotiated.
Mr. Ackerman. So what is it now? Remind me. What do we owe
the people of the Marshall Islands?
Mr. Pula. I think the 1986 agreement, that was $150 million
that was paid at the time. Legally, that is the stand of the
United States regarding this. I don't think I can put a value
on the claim.
Mr. Ackerman. What do the people and entities in the
Marshall Islands think we owe?
Mr. Pula. Based on the petition that they provided, it was
over $2 billion.
Ms. Reed. If I can add, I understand that this is a very
sensitive and contentious point in terms of I believe what the
Congressman, if I can summarize a bit, is asking, can we place
a value on this in terms of the U.S. Government response? And I
believe that leads to quite a different issue.
Mr. Ackerman. Well, I think that is the issue. If somebody
says we owe them $2.2 billion and our point of view is we can't
place a value on what we owe you, what is it we think we owe
them? Do we owe them anything besides, hey, good luck guys?
Ms. Reed. Not at all----
Mr. Ackerman. Sorry about the cancer and all the bombs and
all?
Ms. Reed. I would believe that simply the presentations
with my colleagues here that we have made today certainly
affirm, in conjunction with the numerous programs that have
been in place for many, many years in the Marshall Islands.
Initially, 10 years ago, I worked with my colleagues in the
interagency group as we put together an office for the
negotiations; and some 10 years later I find myself returning
and looking at a vast array of measures that have been put in
place.
Mr. Ackerman. So the status of play is they claim that we
owe them a couple of billion dollars; and our response is, huh?
Mr. Faleomavaega. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Ackerman. I will yield to anybody. I don't seem to be
getting any responses.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I think the point here is that Congress
had to go back and establish a Nuclear Claims Tribunal.
These are non-Marshallese, by the way, that served as
members of the Tribunal. They worked their butts off for years
taking in the claims. All of that was put together, and the
best recommendation from the Tribunal was that our Government
owes these people for their loss of property--loss of islands,
for that matter--approximately $2.2 billion.
Then we came back and said, that is outrageous. It is too
much.
Mr. Ackerman. Mr. Chairman, I find it astonishing that you
and I are having a hearing, and there is nobody out there. I
mean, the lack of even an attempt to really respond to the
question, when I think you all out there--I think I see some
people out there. I heard all their testimony. We have it in
front of us--is that they have these blank looks like they
don't know what we are talking about. There seems to be an
unbelievable--arrogance isn't even the right word, that, hey,
we don't even want to play.
There is no state of play. You claim you owe us $2.2
billion, and so what? We are going to just wait for these
people to die, right, that we have given cancer to, that we
have taken away their property. We tell them they can reinhabit
their island. They have to put down fertilizer before they grow
food or scrape the topsoil away. You have no answers for us?
Why are you here?
Mr. Pula. Well, if I may, Congressman, the issue, as
mentioned by the Deputy Assistant Secretary from State, is, of
course, everybody knows. There has been a long history of this.
I mean, we can always go back to the time that the Department
of Defense, in terms of they did the tests, I mean, the
Department of State handling diplomatic relations, the
Department of the Interior taking care of the implementation of
the Compact, as I testified, and the Department of Energy.
The four of us who are appearing before you today are here
based on all the information that has come from the past. In
response, not for us to look like we don't have any answers, in
your opening statements, I think we all feel the importance
that this is not about money.
Mr. Ackerman. It is about dignity. You got it right.
Mr. Pula. Absolutely. And when you ask the question, what
is the value? We responded we can't put a value on these.
Mr. Ackerman. Well, they have put a value on it. And it
seems to me that if we know that this is about dignity then
there has to be something besides, good luck, fellows, with
whatever few years you might have left.
And what they are asking, to come up with a real answer.
They put a value on it. Of course, that doesn't fix the
problem. You can't unscrew them is the point. But we do
compensate people for wrongs that we have committed. And to
tell them they can go to the doctor, we are picking up the tab,
isn't really the answer.
It is about dignity. That is what it is. It seems to me
those people have dignity, and we lack it by pretending that
they are not even there anymore. I know we are doing some
stuff, and I know we spent half a billion bucks pretending to
do the right thing, but they deserve to be compensated, not a
trial lawyer's thing. I mean, it is a real case here. I mean,
what we did was inhumane and unconscionable. We know it, don't
we? Or do we?
My time is up, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from New York.
I just want to note for the record that Congress passed the
Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990. In that act, the
U.S. Government approved compensation claims of approximately
$1.5 billion for claimants who were on site at the Nevada
nuclear test sites, those downwind from the testing, uranium
mill workers, uranium ore transporters and others working in
the radioactive mines in Nevada.
And I am quoting this from my good friend's testimony, Mr.
Jon Weisgall. We look forward to his testimony.
The other problem here is what my good friend from New York
is saying. We compensated people who were exposed to nuclear
radiation in our own country. In Hanover, Washington, the
people were compensated $5 billion. So I think the question was
quite relevant and very simple: How much should we pay?
The Nuclear Claims Tribunal worked arduously for years to
bring about some sense of fairness to their recommendation of
$2.2 billion.
Former Attorney General Thornburgh made an observation that
the character and the caliber of those who participated in the
Nuclear Claims Tribunal was just and unbiased. It was fair and
it was not inflated. Their judgments were made in terms of
their hearings--countless hearings and meetings that were held
with the claimants and the people of the Marshall Islands.
So I just want to note to my good friend from New York, who
raised the issue, that we will continue to raise this issue.
The gentleman from Arizona.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman.
Can you tell me how many survivors who were there for the
actual last blast--my understanding is there are a few hundred
who are still living at this time? Can somebody answer that?
Mr. Podonsky. Congressman, Glenn Podonsky from the
Department of Energy. We are responsible for providing medical
care for what started out as 253 Marshallese, and it is down to
153 from the original, from the atolls that we were responsible
for, as spelled out in the legislation.
Mr. Flake. As far as medical care, I know there was an
issue just a while ago in Hawaii, the Marshallese who are
living in Hawaii and had received care in Hawaii under their
system. There were some cutbacks in Hawaii, and there was a
fear at least--and this may or may not be related to any of the
claims or the payments that we are making. Has that issue been
settled at all, do you know? There was concern for a while that
their treatment wouldn't be coming.
Mr. Podonsky. For the population that DOE is responsible
for, we have had no cutbacks. We have not faltered from our
commitments on the population that we are responsible for.
Mr. Flake. In terms of resettlement then, someone was
mentioning some timetable in terms of some of the resettlement
that is going to be happening soon. When is the next movement
going to happen in that regard, Mr. Pula?
Mr. Pula. Basically, that we were supporting the wishes of
the Mayor, Matayoshi of Rongelap, and the council. The date
that has been set or suggested has been I think October 2011
based on the fiscal year.
Mr. Flake. October 2011. And approximately how many
families would that involve?
Mr. Pula. I think we have to deal with the information that
we get from the--we can provide that for you.
In the last several years, there has been some concern of
the money being depleted in the trust fund, but we wanted to go
back over 10 years and look at the funds or the trust fund and
make sure that the intent of it, as was passed by law, that
they provide to go back to Rongelap, provided it is safe. And
we have had some meetings--I have been there about 4 years ago,
5 years ago--with some of the folks in Rongelap.
Mr. Flake. On the Kwajalein Atoll, when I was there last
time, you have Kwajalein and then you have Ebeye and then a few
smaller islands going forward from there. There has been a
breezeway built along that was surveyed by the Corps of
Engineers. We were in charge of that process. There is some
concern of environmental damage that is being done because you
don't have the natural flow of water over the reef into the
lagoon. Is that being addressed in any fashion? I am told that
there may not have been sufficient attention paid
environmentally to the consequences of having this breezeway
built. Does anybody want to address that?
Mr. Pula. I can look into it and get back to you with a
response on that.
Mr. Flake. I just want to echo what has been said in terms
of the importance of the Marshall Islands to the United States
in terms of our missile testing and what we get out of this
relationship, and it is substantial. Ms. Reed mentioned those
who are serving in our military. There are a number. And the
commitment and number of casualties taken and everything I
think is disproportionate to the population of the United
States, what has been inflicted and the sacrifices that have
been made by the Marshallese in our own military. I know that
that is appreciated by everyone here.
And the geography there, everything that we have, the
largest lagoon in the world, as was mentioned, the ability to
use, with the agreement with the RMI, those islands to do
missile testing is invaluable to the U.S. And I hope that we
proceed in a way forward that recognizes what a wonderful
partnership this is from our side and that we make sure that we
fulfill all of our commitments to the Marshallese Government
and to the people and to make sure that not just the medical
claims, relocation, but everything else is done as we would
treat someone who has been a very good friend to us, as they
have.
So, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman from Arizona.
It is nothing to boast about, but I am probably the only
Member of Congress who has personally visited the sites where
we conducted our nuclear testing in the Marshalls. And I also
visited the island of Mururoa where the French detonated some
220 nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, on the surface, and below
the surface in French Polynesia.
A couple of years ago, I was invited by the President of
Kazakhstan to visit ground zero where the Soviet Union exploded
its first nuclear bomb in 1949. And guess what? That place is
still contaminated to this day. The Soviet Union conducted 450
nuclear explosions in Kazakhstan and, as a result, 1.5 million
Kazakhs were exposed to nuclear fallout and nuclear
contamination. The horrible sites that I have personally
witnessed have deformed children with genetic abnormalities as
a result of the nuclear explosions.
Secretary Reed, at that time there was no question that the
Marshall Islands were critically important to our overall
strategic, military and national security. And for that very
reason, rather than exploding bombs in the continental United
States, we decided to go to where the population was sparse.
These little islands were sparsely populated and far away from
our own people here in the continental United States. So a
decision was made. Let's go to the Marshall Islands.
In the aftermath of completing our nuclear testing program
in the Marshalls and as a matter of our continuing foreign
policy relationship with the Marshall Islands, Madam Secretary,
do you still consider the Marshall Islands as a very critical
and important political relationship with this country?
Ms. Reed. In response to the chairman's question, the
Marshall Islands, do we still consider it critical in terms of
its relationship to this country? Very much so. Secretary
Clinton, in her meeting with the President of the Marshall
Islands just the day before yesterday, reiterated this and the
U.S. commitment to the Marshall Islands, noting the strategic
importance and expressing her goodwill in terms of recognizing
the many contributions, including that to which Congressman
Flake referred in support of U.S. policies, and also noted the
support the U.S. receives in the U.N. It is a broad umbrella in
terms of the relationship, not only the strategic commitment,
in terms of the defense relationship.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I will come back to you, Madam Secretary.
Mr. Pula, what are the total yearly funds that we give to
the Government of the Marshall Islands as part of the Compact
of Free Association agreement?
Mr. Pula. The question is total amount?
Mr. Faleomavaega. Yes. How much do we give the Marshalls to
help operate their government?
Mr. Pula. It is around $60 million.
Mr. Faleomavaega. And how long will this stream of funding
continue?
Mr. Pula. The amended Compact goes through 2023.
Mr. Faleomavaega. And then after 2023 they are on their
own?
Mr. Pula. There is a trust fund, as I had mentioned.
Mr. Faleomavaega. How much is the trust fund?
Mr. Pula. Right now, the last quarter is about $108
million. And there is a decrement of about $500,000 from the
operation. It goes into the trust fund as it is being invested
throughout.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So the hope is that, after 2023, the
trust funds will be collected and go into their operations?
Mr. Pula. Help them with the operations, yes
Mr. Faleomavaega. And what is the guesstimate when we look
at projecting how much will be in that trust fund come 2023,
when we say we no longer have any more financial obligations to
the Republic of the Marshall Islands?
Mr. Pula. Congressman, that is a very tough question.
Because if we have years like 2008, because it is invested,
they lost about $11 million to $12 million. So at the end of
2023, it depends on----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Do they invest in Wall Street or is there
some other source of banking? With all due respect to my friend
from New York.
Mr. Pula. Well, they have financial advisors and the folks
that invest the money for the trust fund.
Mr. Faleomavaega. In your best judgment at this point in
time, in terms of their overall development, will the Marshall
Islands be able to be self-sufficient by the year 2023 in view
of the stream of funding that we give them every year to help
their government a little?
Mr. Pula. I sure hope so. But, like I said, it is based on
how the investment goes.
Mr. Faleomavaega. So what happens if the investment goes
down hill and this $108 million they are going to be depending
on every year to draw from disappears?
Mr. Pula. I think that is something that when comes year
2023 we will have to revisit.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Messervy, I was very impressed with
our missile testing program in Alabama and your connection to
our Kwajalein missile base. But I noted with interest not once
did you mention Ebeye Island, from which that little island
that serves some 1,000 Marshallese people that come and work in
Kwajalein every day. Has your Department of Defense ever taken
into consideration the plight of the Marshallese people living
on Ebeye Island or is this something for which the Department
of the Interior is responsible? I am trying to figure out who
should be there to help these people, the Marshallese. Twelve
thousand Marshallese men, women and children live on 66 acres.
I have been there and it is almost just like what my friend
from New York says: Tough luck, you are on your own.
Who should be responsible to help these 12,000 Marshallese
people who live literally in squalor? It is worse than the
ghetto. No water, except what amount of rain that comes to this
island.
Mr. Messervy. Sir, I can address a couple of things.
I know there have been several projects that the DoD has
been involved in that are assistance projects for quality of
life both in water and in power where DoD has really arranged
and helped many of the people on Ebeye; and we still provide
services to them in case of emergencies, et cetera.
Mr. Faleomavaega. My understanding--and I didn't mean to
interrupt you--electricity goes on at Kwajalein Atoll 7 days a
week, 24 hours a day. But if you go to Ebeye Island, there are
constant outages, immense logistical and structural
difficulties.
As I have said, these people really, really are in dire
conditions. Is there any way the Department of Defense can give
assistance to these people, or is it not your responsibility?
Mr. Messervy. I think on a humanitarian--that is my point--
is we are providing some of that support. But it is not our
responsibility directly to do that. But, as representatives and
as good neighbors, we do many of those things. In fact, last
year we provided some spare parts and technicians to go up and
help restore power on several occasions at Ebeye.
Mr. Faleomavaega. You know, when I visited Kwajalein, at 4
o'clock every one of these Marshallese people working at
Kwajalein needs to be on that boat back to Ebeye. Do you know
how that makes me feel? I feel like a criminal, like I am some
person not to be trusted because of all the highly classified
research and programs in Kwajalein. Are these people
terrorists?
How many people live on Kwajalein?
Mr. Messervy. Now there is a little less than 2,000.
Mr. Faleomavaega. 2,000. Do you think that perhaps they can
take in some people from Ebeye?
Mr. Messervy. I am not prepared to answer that.
[Additional information follows:]
Written Response Received from Steven Messervy, Ph.D. to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega
Primarily due to the classified research and test programs that are
conducted at the locations' 11 defense sites, US Army Kwajalein Atoll/
Reagan Test Site is a military installation with extremely limited
access. In addition to the operational requirement to severely limit
access, the government and contractor workforce occupy all available
housing on the islands of Kwajalein and Roi-Namur.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Pula.
Mr. Pula. If I may, Mr. Chairman, the Compact provides
about $3.1 million, with inflation adjustment annually, as
Ebeye's special needs grant, the funding to improve the
infrastructure and delivery of services over there at Ebeye.
There is also, within the Kwajalein Atoll, this amount
increases to about $5.1 million, plus inflation, annually in
2014.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Kwajalein Atoll? But the Marshallese
don't live on Kwajalein. These are all Americans and
contractors.
Mr. Pula. Yes, I know. But I am saying the impact of that,
with the $3.1 million that goes into Ebeye to help them with
their deliveries.
Mr. Faleomavaega. You mean the wages, the salaries that are
paid to these 1,000 Marshallese?
Mr. Pula. No, no, no. This money goes to Ebeye itself.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Which raises another question: How much
do we pay the Marshallese people working on Kwajalein? How many
dollars an hour are we paying the Marshallese workers there at
Kwajalein? Could you provide that for the record? I am very
curious.
Mr. Messervy. Mr. Chairman, we can provide that for the
record.
[The information referred to follows:]
Written Response Received from Steven Messervy, Ph.D. to Question Asked
During the Hearing by the Honorable Eni F.H. Faleomavaega
In regards to the Chairman's inquiry regarding the salaries of the
Marshallese workforce that supports USAKA/RTS, the overall hourly
average of the workforce is $7.57. The salaries paid by USAKA support
contractors range from a high of $28.74 an hour for highly skilled
positions (such as pilots, hospital technicians, and managers) to a low
of $3.00 an hour for entry-level unskilled manual labor positions. For
reference, per Section number 403 of RMI Public Law, the established
minimum wage in the RMI is $2.00 an hour.
Mr. Pula. I also want to note that the Compact provides
about $1.9 million as Kwajalein impact funding to be used for
purposes of affordable housing of the folks for both Ebeye and
the Marshallese communities in the Kwajalein Atoll.
Mr. Faleomavaega. This is what the Republic of the Marshall
Islands agreed to with our Government in a Compact, $1.9
million?
Mr. Pula. Yes. It is a bilateral agreement that we agreed
upon.
Also, using this funding, we provide generators, recently
purchased, and reverse osmosis machinery were repaired in
Ebeye, enabling the island to have a little bit more reliable
electricity, and also potable water.
USAID is pre-positioning emergency supplies on Kwajalein to
improve response time and efficiency in the event the U.S.
Ambassador declares a disaster on Ebeye.
Mr. Faleomavaega. We didn't have a USAID presence in the
Pacific until maybe 3 or 4 weeks ago, after years and years of
my complaining and criticizing our foreign policy toward the
Pacific, no USAID presence until only a matter of 1 month ago,
I believe.
Ms. Reed. Right. This is an AID Office of Foreign Disaster
Assistance, a representative that sits in the embassy. I am
speaking of the Marshall Islands now, Majuro.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Please, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
Mr. Podonsky, you mentioned that your activities in giving
medical treatment to the Marshallese people are under the
mandate of the Congress. What is the total amount of
appropriations that Congress gives the Department of Energy for
addressing the medical needs of the Marshallese?
Mr. Podonsky. $6.3 million.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Do you think that is adequate?
Mr. Podonsky. We have made it as adequate as we can.
Mr. Faleomavaega. You made it as adequate as you can. How
many doctors does the Department of Energy specifically assign
to give help to Marshallese people with medical problems?
Mr. Podonsky. I am sorry, sir. Could you repeat that? How
many doctors do we have?
Mr. Faleomavaega. Yes. How many doctors do you have going
out there and making these assignments and checking the health
status of our Marshallese people?
Mr. Podonsky. I will have to get back to you on how many we
have.
[The information referred to follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Podonsky. But I will tell you this, Congressman, that
we have taken our responsibility for the numbers of people that
we have, which I mentioned in my testimony. By an Act of
Congress, we only have the original 253, which is now down to
153. And my director of the program, who sits behind me, Dr.
Worthington, and my program manager are with me here.
I want to answer your question by saying this. We firmly
agree with what the Department of Energy's slice is of
responsibility, but we have done more than we are legislatively
mandated to do. We have asked our doctors, as well as our
arrangements with the Marshallese doctors, to see other
patients, not just the DOE patients that we have identified.
We also have on Runit Island taken on responsibility where
it used to be a DoD responsibility for the environmental
monitoring; and we have our health physicist from Livermore
National Laboratory volunteering his time to do that.
We have four agencies represented----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Podonsky, I didn't mean to interrupt
you but, in your best judgment, do you think Congress is doing
its job by giving you sufficient funds to carry out your
responsibilities and giving the best medical treatment possible
to these people?
Mr. Podonsky. For the population that I am responsible for,
yes. But are we doing our job both in the executive branch and
legislative branch? No, sir.
Mr. Faleomavaega. All right, good. I appreciate that.
For the record, I note that our so-called ``experts''
during that time seem to have focused primarily on the four
atolls, and I am not--maybe Dr. Messervy can help us--saying
the amount of radioactive intake of the Marshallese people
seems to have been focused on the four atolls. We declassified
some of these documents from the Atomic Energy Commission, and
found out years later that the entire Marshall Islands
Archipelago had a tremendous amount of radioactive exposure. It
wasn't just these four atolls. And I am definitely going to
pursue this issue; we need to clarify this.
I am going to yield to the gentleman from New York for his
second round of questions.
Mr. Ackerman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to go back to Mr. Pula for a moment, if I
might.
You brought up the trust fund, which expires in 2023, or is
scheduled to. Who is the trustee of the trust fund?
Mr. Pula. We have two trust funds. I want to make sure that
I get the right--for the Marshall Islands, I think it is the
First Hawaiian Bank. At the moment, we are going through a 5-
year review where the members of the trust fund committee are
looking to change the financial advisors as well as the
trustee, the banks.
Mr. Ackerman. Who appoints the trustees?
Mr. Pula. We have three members from the United States and
two members from the Marshall Islands.
Mr. Ackerman. So we are basically in control of the trust
fund.
Mr. Pula. The trust fund committee, yes.
Mr. Ackerman. So this is American responsibility.
Mr. Pula. Bilaterally, yes.
Mr. Ackerman. You mentioned the fund not doing well in
2008. I don't know how well it did in 2009, but my suspicion
and gut is that the fund has suffered severe losses, has
tremendously underperformed its expectations, and I don't know
if it has met its hurdle as far as what it is supposed to be
producing in order to be adequate.
I don't know what those numbers are, nor do I pretend to. I
don't know if you have that information, but the response to
the chairman that we will have to wait until 2023 is not a very
good response for those who are supposed to be the trustees of
this fund to take care of the needs of those people. By then,
it is all over. There is no more trust, and there is no more
time to fix it if we wait until the funds run out. And we have
to know, as policymakers, as to whether or not there should be
adjustments or beefing up of the fund or a replacement of the
trustees. And I would like to request, Mr. Chairman, if that is
okay with you, that we get a full report on the performance of
the fund.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Without objection.
Mr. Ackerman. And we need your recommendations. You are
performing your congressional mandate, your legislative
mandate. That is fine, and we need that. But you are a lot
closer to the ground here on this than we are. With all the
issues that we are facing, we are embarrassingly not paying
enough attention to this very small place with a small number
of people, and it really cries out for attention because of all
of the other justice issues that are involved here.
I don't know that we are doing a good enough job. The
larger issues that I spoke to in my opening statement and in my
first round of questions are nothing personal to this panel,
which I am sure, I know, is made up of good and diligent people
struggling to do the right thing under the mandates and
restraints that you have. But my frustration initially is based
on the history and the need for us, as a people, to make right
a wrong that we are totally responsible for, where we are the
victimizers and they are the victims, that we have negotiated
the number of doctors and what we are doing, we have evidently
negotiated this bilateral agreement with a thoroughly limited,
weaker partner that had no leverage whatsoever in the
negotiations and can't necessarily speak with great authority
as to what their needs are.
I think, Mr. Chairman, if you and the committee that you
chair that I am privileged to sit on would try to come up with
recommendations as to the adequacy of what is being provided
for the Marshall Islands, that I and others on the committee
would stand full square behind you to try to marshal--if I
could use that word--the resources----
Mr. Faleomavaega. If the gentleman would yield, I gladly
thank my good friend from New York for his interest in this
issue.
As you rightly say, it is not exactly high on our priority
list as far as the national interest and the commitments that
our country has. But this should not be an excuse for us in our
responsibilities to these people and I believe that the
contributions they made to our country's overall strategic
interests and military interests should not be overlooked. I
deeply appreciate the gentleman's interest in this matter and I
definitely will pursue this.
Mr. Ackerman. Mr. Chairman, it is not just for the
strategic value of this place, which is enormous for us, it is
very, very important, but for our own self-respect to be able
to fix the problems to whatever limited ability that we can. To
know that we have put all the resources behind remedying the
things that we have caused to go wrong is an obligation that
should be a priority, besides any other priority that we might
have.
I thank the chairman for calling the hearing and putting
this matter before the Congress so that we might remedy this
and fix the problems that we have caused and do justice, which
is what the people on this panel I know would like to see. But
you all have to help us to tell us what is needed so that we
might work that out with you and provide that.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. I thank the gentleman for his statement
and observations on the issue and we look forward to working
with him as we pursue this matter.
I have just one or two more questions to our panel, and I
deeply appreciate your patience.
Mr. Pula, I indicated earlier the position of the
Department of the Interior on yesterday's Senate hearing that
your Department does not support the bill's proposal to provide
an additional $2 million in funding and authorization in
funding, as ex gratia payment, to assist with some of the
issues and problems that we have discussed this morning. Maybe
you could elaborate on that. If that is the correct way that
the hearing was held yesterday, I would appreciate your
comment.
Mr. Pula. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
We did not support that section of the Senate bill, I
think, 2941. However, I would like to mention that in the last
2 or 3 years, in the context of appropriation, there is about
$1 million that the Office of Insular Affairs received, and we
have utilized that money for the four atolls and their health
in collaboration with the Marshall Islands.
I think the administration proposed a permanent allocation.
However, on an annual basis, we do get about $1 million that is
provided for the four atolls in the health issue. So I want to
clarify that.
And I also mentioned at the last part of my statement that
we were looking forward to working with the Senate committee on
any amendments to the legislation that they we had testified
yesterday.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Given the years of experience that you
have had in working in this administration as well as with past
administrations, do you sense that the perception among some of
our national leaders is that perhaps we have given too much
money to the Marshallese people?
Mr. Pula. Well, I don't venture to respond on my opinion on
that. However, as the administration, we execute the laws that
are passed by Congress. A lot of times we want to do more, but
because of the constraints upon us based on the laws and the
amounts of money that are in there, for example, the changed
circumstances--that we were all shocked in the beginning when
Congressman Ackerman asked the question about the value. I
mean, that issue is so sensitive, and we know that none of us,
I think, were there in 1986 when the United States and the
Republic of the Marshall Islands in the Compact settled all
nuclear claims for $150 million. And I know that the Marshall
Islands came back I think maybe in the year 2000 with a changed
circumstances to Congress.
In January 2005, the Department of State transmitted to the
Congress the executive branch evaluation at the time, that the
executive branch concluded there was no legal basis for
considering additional payments under section 177.
And the hearing today----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Pula, if I might interrupt you. When
you say that there was no legal basis, can we consider perhaps
a matter of not legal, but moral, basis above any legalese
things that these lawyers con up?
Here is my concern. I think one of the circumstances that
was claimed by the Marshall Islands Government, the change of
circumstance, was the fact that they found out, after
declassifying a lot of these documents on our nuclear testing
program, that it wasn't just the four atolls. It seems that
that was the emphasis of the Atomic Energy Commission and the
whole national government; that these are the four atolls that
we need to focus on because they are the ones that were
exposed. And yet when we declassified the documents, we found
out it wasn't just the four atolls. The whole of the Marshall
Islands was seriously exposed to nuclear radiation. That was a
change of circumstance. And you are saying that our Government
refuses to accept that as a change of circumstance.
Mr. Pula. I think that was the 2005 conclusion that that
administration had reached.
You have mentioned the changes, where we got into
documents. I think we also appreciate you holding hearings
regarding this issue. And I would say that, as Congressman
Ackerman said, it is something that both the Congress and this
administration----
Mr. Faleomavaega. You know, I just wanted to say please
don't take it wrong if sometimes I get a little emotional about
this issue, as my good friend John Weisgall and I have been
involved with these issues since 1975. I am an old man already.
And the bottom line, I am not disparaging any of you
personally, but I just honestly believe that the policies that
our Government has enunciated--from all previous
administrations--have jerked these people around too long with
inconsistencies and contradictions. All kinds of excuses we
come up with, more than anything, just to say these people
don't deserve the money that they should get for the losses of
their islands, their property and even their lives. And we are
saying that it is too much.
But we can pay other people, our fellow constituents and
citizens, exposed to nuclear radiation in Nevada over $1
billion; and probably even more in the Hanover situation in
Washington, in the billions.
So I am not saying that this money is not very important,
nor that it is too high, by the estimates of some of our so-
called ``experts.'' And, as you said earlier Mr. Pula, you can
never put any value of money on a person's life. I believe
these people have suffered enough, have sacrificed more than
their share for the 12-year period that we conducted these
tests. They deserve better. That is all I am trying to say.
Please help us.
And I am saying the blame is just as much on Congress, as
Mr. Ackerman said, for lack of attention. I remember the chiefs
of American Samoa who had treaties of session proposing that we
have a compact relationship with the United States. It took us
29 years to finally ratify these treaties of session with the
Congress of the United States. So I think we all have a sense
of appreciation.
Dr. Messervy, Mr. Podonsky, Mr. Pula, Secretary Reed, thank
you so much for coming. I still have a good amount of people
here who need to testify. And this is not at all to be
disrespectful to our good leaders and to those who will be
testifying from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, but it is
just that a briefing takes on an entirely different procedure.
So we have come to our second panel. Thank you very much
for coming. We look forward to working with you and your
respective agencies and departments.
For our second panel, we have Dr. Neal Palafox, Jonathan
Weisgall--Jonathan, you are still around; I can't believe
this--Mr. Don Miller and Mr. Robert Alvarez.
Dr. Palafox is presently professor and chair of the
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at the John
A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii. He
completed his residency in family medicine at UCLA Medical
School, obtained a master's in public health at Johns Hopkins
in Maryland and he went to the Marshall Islands in 1983 as a
National Health Service Corps physician, where he became co-
medical director of the U.S.-funded program to care for the
radiation-affected people of the Marshall Islands in 1985. He
completed his 9-year tenure in the Marshall Islands as their
medical director for preventive health services and public
health.
Dr. Palafox has been working on Pacific health care
disparities and developing cancer health care systems in the
Marshall Islands and other U.S. Pacific countries, including
the Territories of Guam, American Samoa, CNMI, FSM and the
Republic of Palau. And between 1997 and 2009, Dr. Palafox was
the principal investigator for a congressionally-mandated
program to provide medical care for Marshall Islanders who were
exposed to fallout from the Bravo hydrogen detonation in the
Marshall Islands. Dr. Palafox has been integrally involved in
the health issues of the Compact negotiations.
Another witness today is my good friend, Jonathan Weisgall,
who has served as legal counsel for the people of Bikini since
1975. He is the author of ``Operation Crossroads: The Atomic
Tests at Bikini Atoll'' and executive producer of Radio Bikini,
which was nominated for a 1988 Academy Award for best
documentary.
He is an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University.
He is a graduate of Columbia University and Stanford Law
School. This gentleman has expended tremendous effort to help
the people of the Marshall Islands.
Mr. Don Miller is a solo practitioner attorney from
Colorado, specializing in Federal Indian law. Before starting
his own firm in 2001, he was a staff attorney with the Native
American Rights Fund in Boulder and Washington, DC, for 27
years.
He has represented tribal clients before the United States
Supreme Court, Federal appellate courts and district courts. He
has quite a bit of legal experience representing the various
Indian tribes before State as well as Federal courts. He
graduated from the University of Colorado with a bachelor's
degree and a law degree.
Mr. Robert Alvarez is a senior scholar at the Institute for
Policy Studies in Washington, DC, specializing in energy,
environment and national security issues. And for 6 years,
until 1999, Mr. Alvarez served as Deputy Assistant Secretary
for National Security and Environmental Policy and senior
policy advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy.
He also served on the majority staff of the U.S. Senate
Committee on Governmental Affairs under the leadership of
Senator John Glenn from the State of Ohio. Mr. Alvarez's work
has appeared in Science, Ambio, Science and Global Security,
Technology Review, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the
Washington Post, the Nation and several other publications.
Gentlemen, thank you for taking the time to be with us this
afternoon. We would like to have you give your testimony.
Dr. Palafox.
STATEMENT OF NEAL A. PALAFOX, M.D., M.P.H., PROFESSOR AND
CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY MEDICINE AND COMMUNITY HEALTH, JOHN
A. BURNS SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII
Dr. Palafox. Honorable----
Mr. Faleomavaega. Just call me Eni.
Dr. Palafox. Honorable Eni, I have been requested by this
committee to provide a personal assessment of the medical
achievements of the Marshallese people affected by U.S. nuclear
testing. As you mentioned, I draw my testimony from my
experience with the many nuclear programs in the Marshall
Islands.
My testimony will discuss three related medical themes. The
first is the health impact of the U.S. nuclear testing program
in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The second is the U.S.
medical care response to the health impacts of nuclear testing.
And third, what I think should be the recommended medical
response and health care responsibility of the U.S. Government
under the current situation.
The first part. Illnesses caused by the U.S. nuclear
testing program were the result of three things: One is high-
dose radiation exposure; the second thing is long-term exposure
to low levels of ionizing radiation; and, thirdly, it is
destruction of ancestral lands, culture disruption, and
dislocation of Marshallese communities.
The health effects of high-dose exposure. Marshall
Islanders, as you noted, Honorable Eni, is they experienced
severe nausea, intractable vomiting, severe burns, hair loss,
hypothyroidism because of the hot, sudden, high-dose radiation
of 1954. Shortly after that, thyroid cancers began to appear.
The health effects from long-term, low-dose radiation.
Long-term, low-dose radiation exposure can result in 24 types
of cancer, including leukemia, breast, lung, intestine,
stomach, bone, liver and brain cancers, to mention a few. An
individual who is exposed to low doses may develop radiation-
related cancer 40 years or more after the exposure.
Cancers will occur in the Marshallese throughout all of the
atolls of the Marshall Islands because of the long-term effects
of high- and low-dose radiation. These doses come from
environmental particles that may be eaten, breathed, and
digested in the food and environment. Ionizing radiation is
also showing other illnesses that are other than cancer. They
include hereditary defects, heart disease, strokes, digestive,
respiratory and blood disorders.
What are the health effects associated with the destruction
of ancestral lands and social disruption? Destruction of land
and critical natural resources through radioactive
contamination or forced evacuation leads to forced changes in
dietary patterns and lifestyle which can prematurely cause
heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.
Posttraumatic stress disorder results from trauma of forced
change, cultural disruption, and illness. Posttraumatic stress
disorder has never been addressed in the Marshall Islands.
The U.S. medical response. Because of nuclear testing, U.S.
medical teams have three functions: One is to provide health
care; secondly, is to perform medical monitoring regarding
health trends; and, thirdly, research to gain information about
the human response to ionizing radiation.
Provision of health care monitoring or research services by
U.S. Medical teams was dependent on the U.S. Government
priority at the time. Medical health care for illnesses
generated by high-dose and low-dose radiation and the illnesses
from destruction of lands and cultural living should have been
provided by the U.S. medical teams. There is very little that
was done or that is being done to adequately address, A, the
long-term effects of radiation; or B, health effects from the
destruction of Marshallese culture and lands.
It is my opinion that the major emphasis during and in the
post-nuclear testing era was not the provision of medical care.
Medical care was provided in an acute, as-needed function,
without much forethought to developing a systematic health
system to meet the ongoing health needs of the affected
populations.
There are two medical programs that were put forth to meet
medical needs. One program worked with Rongelap and Utrok
communities affected by the Bravo detonation. Neither the
Atomic Energy Commission and then the Department of Energy have
the expertise or background to develop or implement the
necessary health care systems needed to address the health
impact of the nuclear testing program.
The current 177 health program for the four atolls was
designed to be a comprehensive health care program and had an
appropriate design. The 177 health care program for the four
atolls has been crippled because of funding restraints.
This severely underfunded program sends a message from the
U.S. Government that a comprehensive health care system
response to the legacy of nuclear exposure in the Republic of
the Marshall Islands is not a priority. The emphasis of the
U.S. medical response to this day, in spite of the evidence of
harm to the Marshall Islanders, is piecemeal, poorly contrived,
poorly funded, and does not address the known health care needs
of the affected population. It is not apparent that the U.S.
agencies which provide health care to the Marshallese people
have the health of the Marshallese people as a primary and
central concern.
The recommended response. After 60 years of U.S. oversight,
knowing there are latent cancers caused by U.S. Nuclear
testing, the fact that a Marshallese person living in the
Marshall Islands does not have access to routine cancer
screening or there is not systematic mammography screening for
breast cancer or that cancer treatment is not readily available
is a travesty.
The appropriate approach to health care should advocate to
protect and care for potential victims of nuclear testing at a
U.S. standard of health care. Withholding health care for known
consequences of nuclear radiation testing is a true social
injustice, and, I agree with you, is racism. The Marshallese
are developing and dying from treatable illnesses caused by the
U.S.-Marshall Islands thermonuclear weapons testing programs.
I recommend the following actions. One, that the standards
for health care screening and treatment for the people affected
by ionizing radiation from the Nevada test site in Hanover be
applied to the people of RMI.
Two, that the U.S. policymakers review the operational
definitions regarding the extent and consequence of the nuclear
testing program and support an expanded definition coinciding
with current scientific evidence.
Three, that a preventive, precautionary, patient-centered
approach to potential health issues be utilized instead of a
reactionary approach.
Four, that a comprehensive cancer health care program,
including prevention, screening, diagnosis and treatment, be
systematically provided in the Marshall Islands at U.S.
standards.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Palafox follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you, Dr. Palafox.
Mr. Weisgall.
STATEMENT OF MR. JONATHAN M. WEISGALL, LEGAL COUNSEL FOR THE
PEOPLE OF THE BIKINI ATOLL
Mr. Weisgall. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I am legal
counsel for the people of Bikini, but today I have been asked
to testify on behalf of Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrok,
the atolls most directly affected by the U.S. nuclear testing
program. They are here today, Mr. Chairman, to tell you one
story, and that is to review a 64-year shell game that the
United States has played with their constitutional rights.
I am going to go over some of the issues that you covered
with the first panel, but maybe from some different angles. So
I am going to jump around a little bit in my statement.
Let's begin back in 1947 with the U.N. When the United
States pledged to the United Nations in that agreement to
protect the inhabitants against the loss of their lands and
resources, that did not happen. The people of Bikini and
Enewetak left their homelands and relied on the government's
promise to return them safely. That has yet to happen. Bikini
is still radioactive. No one lives there. The Enewetak people
cannot return to their northern islands because of the high
radiation levels there.
Let me give you an interesting statistic about that Bravo
shot. The people of Rongelap, 125 miles away from Bikini,
received radiation doses similar to people 2 miles from ground
zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That was the strength of the
Bravo shot.
That Compact of Free Association--those solemn words by the
United States, ``We accept the responsibility for compensation
owing to the citizens of the Marshall Islands for loss or
damage to property and person resulting from the nuclear
testing program.'' I have got that memorized.
On the other hand, the United States acknowledged its
obligation but forced the Marshallese to seek the compensation
in this newly established Nuclear Claims Tribunal. The atolls
argued at the time that the funding was inadequate to protect
their rights, and the U.S. courts ruled that they have to
exhaust their remedies under the tribunal first before they
come back. We will get back to that question.
Nineteen years go by with litigation before the tribunal.
As you said, awards of $2.2 billion and payments of $3.9
million. If Mr. Ackerman were here, I would tell him the exact
finances of that $150 million trust fund which had to pay out
$18 million per year for 15 years. You do the math. It had to
earn 12 percent per year. And, by the way, the first year of
the trust fund was the 1987 crash, so you know what happened to
that trust fund.
The Marshallese patiently pursued every possible remedy
afforded by our legal system. They trusted the system to make
them whole. The U.S. paid them nothing. And when they came back
to the U.S. courts to seek to enforce the awards, the U.S.
said, ``Sorry, the doors are closed.''
Let me give you one sentence as to what happened. The
United States legislated itself out of its obligation to
provide just compensation to these islanders, forced their
claims into an alternative forum, and then failed to provide
adequate funds for that forum.
My written statement covers the 30 years of litigation
before the U.S. courts and the tribunal, but let me stress two
key points here, because it is going to lead to my conclusion
on this reference case.
Number one, in the 1980s, the U.S. Government wed language
in its legal briefs that would have led any reasonable judge to
conclude that there would be adequate and sustained funding. I
want to read you some highlights from their briefs back in the
eighties when this system was set up and they said go to the
tribunal.
They called the 177 Agreement, that trust fund--I am
quoting--``a permanent alternative remedy, with substantial and
regenerating funding, for compensating all claims, in
perpetuity.''
Let me quote from some other lines. I am reading from the
U.S. Government's briefs: ``Permanent funding mechanism.''
``Comprehensive long-term compensation plan.'' ``Provides
continuous funding.'' ``Structured and financed to operate `in
perpetuity.' '' And, in response to us, ``There is no basis to
presume that the Agreement will fail to provide a just and
adequate settlement.''
The second point I want to make, the courts. There is a
level of sympathy there, and the courts, even in the eighties,
said if the tribunal doesn't function correctly--the U.S.
Government said if the tribunal doesn't function correctly,
``Congress would need to consider possible additional
funding.'' And in their briefs, they refer to that trust fund
as a base amount.
And when you read the written opinion of the U.S. Court of
Appeals, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, two separate
times it refers to that trust fund as an ``initial sum,'' an
``initial amount.'' And then 20 years later, last year, the
Federal Circuit Court of Appeals recognized that the funding is
simply outside of judicial remedy.
There is a role for Congress, that is my point, especially
after the Supreme Court denied cert.
What should this committee do? Develop legislation under
your congressional reference authority to refer these cases to
the Court of Federal Claims; direct that court to make findings
sufficient to inform Congress whether this is legal or
equitable--that is an issue we have talked about today--legal
or moral; and to determine the amount of damages. That court
does that every day. They determine damages on land claims. And
let them come back with a recommendation.
The American people--and you have heard it from your
colleagues up there--the American people have a legal and moral
obligation to compensate the people of the Marshall Islands.
And I would say to those who have said that the book is closed
on this issue because of the passage of the compact and because
of the establishment of that trust fund, I would say that one
chapter is missing in that book, and that book cannot be closed
until the lands of the islanders are restored and they receive
full compensation for their claims against the United States,
and the United States cannot and should not play a shell game
with the constitutional rights of the Marshall Islanders.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Weisgall follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Faleomavaega. As always, I am very happy to see you,
Mr. Weisgall, not just as someone who has institutional memory,
but also because we have been together on this issue with the
Marshall Islands for so long. I deeply appreciate your
statement.
Mr. Weisgall. I do know you from the Eni Hunkin days when
Mr. Burton chaired the committee a long time ago.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Miller.
STATEMENT OF MR. DON MILLER, ESQ., INDEPENDENT ATTORNEY-AT-LAW
Mr. Miller. Mr. Chairman, it is an honor to appear before
you today. I have been asked to provide the committee my
assessment of the congressional reference process and its
suitability for furthering the nuclear claims case of the
Marshallese people. I have prepared and submitted written
testimony and my comments will generally summarize what I have
prepared and submitted.
For the last 26\1/2\ years, I have represented the Alabama-
Coushatta Tribe of Texas in Congressional Reference Number 3-
83. I think that that case and the experience of that tribe in
pursuing it may be instructive to the committee, so I would
like to review it just very briefly.
In 1970, the Alabama-Coushatta Tribe filed a 9-million-acre
land claim against the United States. After a trial, the court
ruled that they couldn't pursue it; that the courthouse door
was closed. The tribe could not bring it because of the statute
of limitations. So the tribe sought a congressional reference.
It took six Congresses to get it through.
In 1983, Congress referred the claim to the claims court.
We litigated--I drafted and filed the complaint in that case--
and we litigated that case for 17 years against the United
States Department of Justice. It is the most contentious
litigation process I have ever been involved in.
In the year 2000, the court finished the liability phase of
the case and ruled that the United States would be liable for
damages on 2.5 million acres of that 9-million-acre claim. At
that point in time, the Justice Department and the Tribe and
all the lawyers looked at each other and said, ``Wow, we are
tired; let's see if we can't settle this.''
So for 2 years we worked toward settlement. We hired
experts. And in 2002 we stipulated that, under that opinion,
the United States should pay the Tribe $270.6 million. It was
approved. That recommendation was returned to Congress in 2002,
and Congress has yet to take action on it. We are still working
on it.
The congressional reference process is a process that is
available to you here to seek an advisory opinion from the
Court of Federal Claims. It is used in complex cases where
Congress doesn't feel like it has the fact-finding and legal
expertise, so you can refer a private claims bill to the court
of claims for--it is now the United States Court of Federal
Claims--for an advisory opinion.
Once the case goes over there, it is a fully adversarial
proceeding. And if the court finds in favor of the claimant, it
will return a recommendation to Congress and then it will be up
to Congress to take action.
I certainly am not an expert on the Marshall Islands, but
from what I have heard and read over the last few weeks
preparing for this testimony, it appears to me that the
congressional reference process would be ideally suited to
address the circumstances that you have before you now.
The United States has undertaken and breached a number of
solemn fiduciary and contractual obligations. The United States
has given assurances upon which the Marshallese relied in good
faith, and they apparently have done so to their extreme
detriment. The courts have considered these claims and have
ruled with finality that the courthouse doors are now closed,
and that is precisely the kind of circumstance that the
congressional reference procedure is designed to address.
I would note that the Marshall Islanders have been through
decades of litigation, and if you utilize this process, you are
probably consigning them to decades more of litigation. But if
that is the only route that is available to the Congress--and I
am not sure it is--I think perhaps you could do the right thing
and go ahead and pay it. But that may not be feasible, and if
it is not, then certainly the congressional reference procedure
is appropriate in these circumstances.
I might urge the committee, though, that if you do send
them to the Court of Federal Claims, you might want to consider
making provision--in light of the role that the United States
has played in prolonging their litigation woes, if you will--
you might want to consider providing a fund that could allow
them to retain expert witnesses and assist them in that
litigation process. I think that that is well within your
purview to do. Congress has done that before for American
Indian Tribes in the Indian Claims Commission Act, so the
committee might want to consider doing that.
I will be happy to answer any questions. Thank you for the
opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Miller follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S)] [NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Faleomavaega. Thank you.
Mr. Alvarez.
STATEMENT OF MR. ROBERT ALVAREZ, SENIOR SCHOLAR, INSTITUTE FOR
POLICY STUDIES
Mr. Alvarez. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for the
opportunity to testify before you.
The radiological legacy of the U.S. nuclear weapons testing
in the Marshall Islands remains to this day and will persist
for many years to come. The amount of radioactivity released
from the weapons tests in the Marshall Islands is staggering.
The six largest tests conducted in 1954 released on the order
of 50 times more radioactive iodine than the Chernobyl
accident, for example.
The most severe impacts were visited upon the people of
Rongelap in 1954, following a large thermonuclear shot which
deposited life-threatening quantities of radioactive fallout on
their homeland.
The Rongelap people were exposed to more than three times
the estimated external dose than the most heavily exposed
people living near the Chernobyl accident in 1986. It took more
than 2 days before the people of Rongelap were evacuated after
the explosion. Many, as you have heard, have suffered from
tissue-destructive effects of radiation and, subsequently, from
latent radiation-induced diseases.
In 1958, they were returned to their homeland, even though
officials and scientists working for the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission determined that radiation doses would significantly
exceed those allowed for citizens of the United States. That
desire to study humans living in a radiation-contaminated
environment appeared to be a major element of this decision.
By 1985, the people of Rongelap fled their atoll after
determining that the levels of contamination were comparable to
the Bikini Atoll, where people were resettled in 1969 and
evacuated in the mid-1970s after radiation exposures were found
to be excessive.
A few years before the evacuation of the Rongelap people in
1981, a policy was secretly established by the Energy
Department during the closing phase of the negotiations of the
Compact of Free Association to eliminate radiation protection
standards so as not to interfere with the potential resumption
of weapons testing in the Pacific.
These circumstances were subsequently uncovered in 1991 by
the U.S. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, which I was
involved in investigating. As a result of this investigation,
the Environment Safety and Health program of the Marshall
Islands was moved out of the DOE weapons program. Congress
terminated what was called the ``Safeguard Sea'' program that
was to be a readiness program to resume nuclear weapons testing
in the Pacific. And in 1992, the U.S. Departments of Interior
and Energy entered into an agreement with the Republic of the
Marshall Islands and the local Rongelap Government that
reestablished radiation protection standards as the major
element for the resettlement of Rongelap. This agreement was
reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences in 1994 and found
to be viable.
One of the key aspects of this, according to the Academy:
``A crucial provision is that resettlement will occur
if no person returning to Rongelap and subsisting on
native foods only will receive a calculated annual
whole-body radiation dose equivalent to more than 100
millirem above background.''
In 2006, a radiological expert for the people of the
Rongelap Atoll reported that the 100 millirem limit would be
exceeded based on a local-food-only diet and if potassium
fertilizer was not repeatedly applied. Apparently this was not
done for the southern islands, the atoll where local food is
obtained. Despite this warning, the Departments of Energy and
Interior did not take steps to ensure this would be done in
accordance with the 1992 agreement.
Given the long and unfortunate legacy of nuclear testing,
it appears that this critical element of safety was lost in the
shuffle. Until the U.S. Government can assure that steps to
mitigate doses below 100 millirem are demonstrated by applying
potassium fertilizer, efforts to pressure the Rongelap people
back to their home is unjustified and unfairly places the
burden of protection on them. It appears that DOE and Interior
have quietly crept away from this 1992 agreement without
verifying that its terms and conditions to allow for safe
habitability will be met.
I also would like to say that I wholeheartedly agree with
Dr. Palafox. The United States Congress has enacted legislation
for U.S. citizens, people who were exposed to weapons testing
from the Nevada test site, people who worked in uranium mines,
and people that worked at Energy Department facilities making
nuclear weapons, which provide a far greater benefit of the
doubt than is provided to the people of the Marshall Islands.
In particular, the Energy Employment Illness Compensation
Program Act, which I was involved with while in the Energy
Department, has a very interesting concept which I think needs
to be applied to the Marshall Islands. It essentially provides
for compensation for workers where it is not feasible to
perform dose reconstruction and the burden of proof shifts to
the government.
At the Hanford site in Washington State, the Los Alamos
site in New Mexico, for example, and the Nevada test site, it
has now been determined it is not feasible to reconstruct the
exposures to these workers, even though they wore individual
film badges, were routinely monitored for internal exposures
and the like. And I think that this is a clear example of what
we need to follow, and I wholeheartedly support that proposal.
Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity, and will
be willing to answer any questions you may entertain.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Alvarez follows:]
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Mr. Faleomavaega. I want to thank you gentlemen for your
most eloquent statements. Certainly this is an issue that I
sincerely hope this subcommittee will continue to pursue while
working closely with the appropriate Federal agencies and our
colleagues here in the Congress.
I just want to get a sense from each one of you. There
seems to be a consensus that we are reaching here. As I have
said earlier, the people of the Marshall Islands have been
jerked around for the past 64 years by our Government, in not
giving them proper compensation for the loss of their islands,
the loss of their lives, severe exposure to nuclear fallout and
all that was done. I am saddened by this, but we are going to
pursue this.
I am very glad that my good friend from Arizona is also
here with us.
Dr. Palafox, I want to commend you and thank you for taking
the time, at your own expense, to come all the way from Hawaii
to join us in this hearing. It is so important. You have played
a very critical role in trying to give medical attention to the
people of the Marshall Islands in range of our nuclear testing
program conducted during that 12-year period.
I want to note with interest that you seem to agree that
the whole basis of our treatment of the Marshallese people in
the beginning was never really to treat them, but to monitor
and to survey and to find out what were the effects of nuclear
fallout, especially on those who were exposed as a result of
our nuclear testing program.
In other words, it seems that we really were not focused on
giving proper medical treatment to these people; instead, they
were guinea pigs, specimens. That is all we cared about. We
didn't care about whether or not this child or this mother or
this woman was severely exposed or giving birth to a deformed
baby as a result of this.
Please, your response.
Dr. Palafox. In your opening statement, Honorable Eni, you
mentioned that one of the doctors regarded Marshallese close to
mice, not quite mice, but close to mice. So I think when I
think back on the whole history, it is very clear that even the
basic premise that you can test atomic weapons in someone
else's home is extremely arrogant. But I think it carried into
the science at that time.
So when the doctors were caring for people, their primary
concern wasn't the people. It wasn't patient-centered. It was
what was the interest in the time. I don't think as individuals
that these doctors were trying to be mean or negative to the
patients. But I think what consumed them was the thinking
process, the arrogance, what was important, and it wasn't
patient care.
What really worries me today is that shouldn't carry on
today, and it is carrying on right now. And that to me is the
bigger problem. That should have been transcended a long time
ago, and it is continuing to this day.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Mr. Weisgall, I went through your
statement with tremendous interest. I am always happy to have
you testify and to give us insight based on your personal
experience.
How much money did we give to those exposed in Hanover in
Washington? As I recall----
Mr. Weisgall. That is an extraordinary example to use. We
have not put a shovel in the ground yet at Hanford to clean it
up. Total funding is on the order of magnitude now of $49
billion. These claims--the $2.2 billion, obviously, that is a
significant amount of money. We do spend a lot of money as a
country to clean up, and that is one site.
We have got Hanford, Rocky Flats, we have Savannah. There
are a lot of other places. But we do spend a lot of money to
deal with the legacy of that program, because we recognize that
it is something that is a responsibility of our country.
Mr. Faleomavaega. As I recall, it would take us over $100
billion to clean up the nuclear waste that we are currently
producing here in the United States. I don't know if I am
correct on that.
Mr. Alvarez?
Mr. Alvarez. Well, according to the most recent baseline
budget estimate of the Energy Department to clean up Department
of Energy nuclear weapons sites, this will cost approximately
$300 billion and will take perhaps 50 to 70 years to
accomplish. In addition to that, approximately $5 billion has
been paid out as an entitlement to workers and their survivors
who were involved in producing nuclear weapons, and
approximately $1.5, perhaps $2 billion, has been paid out to
residents living near the Nevada test site and to uranium
miners who toiled in the mines in Arizona, Utah, and the
Western States.
Mr. Faleomavaega. We are very happy to have with us a
little delegation of some of our distinguished students, who
currently attend Brigham Young University in Hawaii. I hope
they are learning something about congressional hearings. The
chair would like to personally welcome them here to observe
what it is like here.
I say this with tremendous pride, because I am an alumnus
of Brigham Young University, Hawaii campus. I am very happy to
have our young people come and observe the workings of
Congress. I don't know if it will be to their benefit or
detriment. I would like to yield to the gentleman from Arizona
for his questions.
Mr. Flake. I thank the chairman, and I apologize for having
to go vote. I wasn't able to read the testimony either before.
So if this has been answered or talked about, forgive me.
I also wanted to welcome the students from BYU-Hawaii. I
also spent a semester there, the best semester of my life,
because that is where I met my wife. Anyway, many found
memories of school there, and welcome here.
Mr. Weisgall, you mentioned--I have just been glancing
through your testimony, let me try to get the chronology right
here. There are some 4,000 inhabitants of the Bikini Atoll. Was
that prior to the Bravo test or is that----
Mr. Weisgall. No, 167 were moved back in 1946. The
population today, those who actually receive, for example, USDA
food or other benefits, it has now grown to a little bit under
4,000.
Mr. Flake. All right. And how many were moved back in the
sixties only to be moved again?
Mr. Weisgall. By the sixties, the population had grown
quite a bit by then, and my best recollection is you were
dealing with a couple of hundred folks who moved back. I want
to say somewhere between 200 and 300. Not the entire
population. In fact, there was a debate in the community about
moving back. Some were still concerned about radiation. But a
large number did. In fact, the mayor of Bikini, who is going to
follow me, was there as a little boy, moved back as a little
boy, and then as a 10-year-old was moved off in 1979.
Mr. Flake. For those moved back and then were relocated
again, they were relocated because they were told they had
ingested levels of radiation far in excess of what we thought
were there. What, if any, ill effects have we detected from
that period?
Mr. Weisgall. From an epidemiological point of view, with a
small number of people like that, it has been hard to see any
major statistical differences. There have been cancers. There
have been radiation-related ones. But nothing as dramatic as
you see in the statistics from Rongelap, where you had exposure
similar to Hiroshima or Nagasaki, or much greater than
Chernobyl.
So with Bikini, while they had ingested the largest amount
of radiation of any known population through the food chain,
that also went through their systems pretty quickly once they
were evacuated.
Mr. Flake. Ingested. Then it was in the soil, therefore in
coconuts?
Mr. Weisgall. Coconuts, pandanus, breadfruit. It all came
up through the soil simply because the cesium acts a little bit
like potassium; but the cesium, strontium, americium were
absorbed in the food. This is something that, again, was
discovered by scientists once the folks were back there. The
scientists did not realize in advance what that level of
absorption would be in the food products.
Mr. Flake. Here we are 60-some years later. Are there any--
I know some are willing to move back now just because the
relocation is finally happening. But what concerns are there
now still on any of the islands in the Marshall Islands in
terms of radiation still existing?
Mr. Weisgall. To speak very quickly for Bikini, it still
needs a radiological clean-up. You could scrape that soil. You
could apply potassium-rich fertilizer and block the uptake of
the cesium and some americium, strontium and plutonium. But
there is not funding. Right now, there are no Bikinians living
back on their atoll 64 years later.
In Enewetak, the northern islands are still too
radioactive, and the radiation concerns at Rongelap and Utrok
are similar.
Mr. Flake. There is some tourism, mostly ecotourism,
happening near Bikini, is there not; and where are those
individuals living or staying?
Mr. Weisgall. There was a dive program that the Bikinians
started because the first test in 46 sank a number of Navy
ships, including the Saratoga. You can actually walk end to end
on that flight deck. That started in 1996. It was terminated
several years ago simply because the logistics of the airline
couldn't support it.
To be up at Bikini for a couple of days or for 3 or 4 days
is not an issue, especially when you are eating imported food.
So it is not a medical or scientific concern because, number
one, it is a short duration, and number two, very little if any
local food is consumed--was consumed.
Mr. Flake. But if somebody were to relocate there without
soil scraping or anything else, there are still levels of
radiation?
Mr. Weisgall. You would expect pretty much a repeat of the
experience from 1968 to 1979, with the half-life of the cesium
being obviously somewhat reduced. But even the folks, the very
good scientists at Lawrence Livermore who have been helpful in
coming up with these remediation measures, came up with them
because not having the remediation measures is a problem. In
other words, the lack of the remediation measures leaves you
the radiation levels in excess of acceptable standards.
Mr. Flake. So there are no full-time residents of Bikini
Atoll at all right now?
Mr. Weisgall. Correct.
Mr. Flake. Mr. Alvarez?
Mr. Alvarez. Yes. In 2005, the National Cancer Institute
reported to the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural
Resources, that among the 14,000 inhabitants who live in the
Marshall Islands, an estimated 500 cancers would result from
radioactive fallout. The risk of contracting cancer for those
exposed to fallout was greater than 1 in 3.
So, it is not simply just the people who were the most
heavily exposed. It is the entire archipelago that we need to
be concerned about.
Mr. Flake. So not just the ones who were downwind of
Rongelap or elsewhere?
Mr. Alvarez. I guess it is important to understand there
were 66 nuclear shots there, and in many cases the radiation
monitoring, given the time and circumstances, left much to be
desired. So it is very similar to the United States when we
exploded bombs in the Nevada test site. We weren't monitoring a
lot of stuff. We released a lot of radiation, and there is
still a lot of unknowns. But there was a lot of radiation
released and a lot of people have been exposed.
Mr. Flake. Any other comments on that?
Mr. Alvarez. No.
Mr. Flake. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Faleomavaega. Dr. Palafox, you mentioned the word
``arrogance'' about why we shifted our whole testing program. I
don't know if it was really arrogance to say, ``Rather than
testing in America, in the continental US, let's take our
atomic bombs to the Marshall Islands. It is more feasible. A
few people, little islands, who cares?''
I am reminded of what former Secretary of State Kissinger
said when he was talking about negotiations with the
Micronesians. Do you know what he said? ``There are only 90,000
of them. Who gives a damn?'' That was the attitude. That was
the attitude that our administrators, those national
policymakers, had toward these people.
I was saddened by that fact as I traveled to visit Mururoa
Island where the French conducted their nuclear testing
program. Certainly nobody in France would like to have nuclear
bombs dropped all over the place in France, so they decided to
come to the Pacific and conduct their nuclear tests.
As for the Soviet Union, nobody wanted to explode bombs in
Russia; they decided to go to Kazakhstan, then a province, and
detonated 450 nuclear devices.
By the way, when we exploded the Bravo shot in 1954, it was
1,300 times more powerful than the bomb we dropped in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. The hydrogen bomb that the Russians built was 50
megatons, 3,000 times more powerful than the bombs we dropped
in Hiroshima, which still to this day is classified and not
much is known about it.
I don't know. In our national interest we decided to do
this, and I think that all we are trying to do here is give
better treatment to the Marshallese people for the sacrifices
they have had to endure for that 60-year period. They are still
waiting for justice and fairness and we should give them what
they are due.
I sincerely hope that my colleagues, Mr. Flake, Congressman
Ackerman and others, will be supportive of this effort. I am
not going to wait. This is just the beginning. We are building
a record, hopefully, and in such a way that we can develop
legislation that is going to address some of these serious
issues affecting the good people of the Marshall Islands.
Mr. Miller, thank you for your visit. As you notice, I am
wearing a mai kai. It was from my dear friend, a member of the
Oneida Nation of New York. I am an adopted member of the Bear
Clan. Hopefully I will have the mana and the power of the bear,
not to kill anybody, but just to hopefully be helpful in such a
way that we will produce better results in helping the people
of the Marshall Islands.
Mr. Weisgall?
Mr. Weisgall. Two very quick points. Number one, going back
to your quotation at your opening statement about the mice,
that was a transcript of a meeting. I think it is very
interesting to see a sanitized view of this issue.
The annual report, the 1957 annual report from Dr. Canard
who headed up the AEC team--the Brookhaven team--listen to this
language. This concerns putting people back on Rongelap and
Utrok:
``The habitation of these people on the island will
afford the opportunity for most valuable ecological
data on human beings. The various radio isotopes
present on the island can be traced from the soil
through the food chain and into the human beings.''
It is a very kind of sanitized, very scientific view of
well, we can learn a lot by doing this, as opposed to what one
would say privately at a meeting. It is an extraordinary
statement in an annual report from Brookhaven.
My second point for Mr. Flake, you know, this is a
bipartisan issue. It is a bipartisan concern, as you have
pointed out, and Mr. Rohrabacher. It is interesting to me there
is now a bill pending both in the House, H.R. 5119, and in the
Senate, S. 3224, to expand even more the Radiation Exposure
Compensation Act. That is H.R. 5119 and S. 3224.
I am also pleased that the sponsors over on the Senate side
include a range of Senators, that include for instance, Mr.
Risch from Idaho, a number of Republicans that are as concerned
as Democrats about this issue, obviously for their constituents
down-winders and the like in the continental United States. But
as we have heard today, the same issues should apply to the
Marshalls.
Mr. Alvarez. On page 1 of my testimony, I have the verbatim
quote taken from the transcript of the meeting of the Advisory
Committee for Biology and Medicine in 1956, discussing whether
or not the people of Rongelap should return. What it says is
the following. It says,
``The northern atolls is by far the most contaminated
place in the world. It would be very interesting to go
back and get good environmental data.''
On and on he goes.
``Now, this type of data has never been available.
While it is true these people do not live, I would say,
the way Westerners do, civilized people that is,
nevertheless they are more like us than the mice.''
Mr. Faleomavaega. Gentlemen, thank you for your time and
for your most eloquent statements.
Dr. Palafox, again, thank you for traveling such a long
distance to come and provide this most valuable testimony to
the committee.
Hopefully, we will continue to be in touch with all of you.
Thank you very, very much.
[Whereupon, at 4:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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Material Submitted for the Hearing RecordNotice deg.
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[Note: Additional material submitted with the preceding statement is
not reprinted here but is available in committee
records.]
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