Lawmakers and advocates working to secure compensation for victims of nuclear radiation are hoping that two Trump administration officials will help carry their long-sought, bipartisan environmental bill across the finish line.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — a fierce opponent of environmental regulations and the face of vaccine skepticism, respectively — have emerged as some of the executive branch’s most outspoken backers of radiation mitigation in years.

The two members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet are spearheading the administration’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement and have been eager to meet with communities affected by nuclear waste pollution, bringing new attention to an issue that advocates say Congress has neglected for too long.

“That movement has sensitized a whole bunch of people to toxic chemicals, the presence of pollutants,” said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the lead sponsor of S. 243 — the “Radiation Exposure Compensation Reauthorization Act.” He added, “I think that’s the pathway forward.”

The effort to pass the legislation remains a long shot. Neither Zeldin nor Kennedy has publicly advocated for the bill.

And critically, it’s facing stiff resistance from House Republican leadership and lawmakers working to advance competing legislation. One House Republican said in an interview that final passage “ain’t going to happen over my dead body.”

But bill sponsors and radiation survivors say they’re optimistic that Zeldin, Kennedy and their galvanizing MAHA brand will generate enough support among MAGA loyalists to enable passage of the roughly $60 billion legislation. It could make tens of thousands of people suffering from radiation-related illnesses eligible for long-awaited compensation, according to supporters.

“What’s interesting about the MAHA folks is that they tend to be folks who are not traditionally in the environmentalist bucket, you know?” said Hawley.

“It’s a lot of conservatives, a lot of independents, and if you ask them, ‘Are you an environmentalist?’ they’d be like, ‘Uh, no.’ But, ‘Do you want clean soil, clean water, clean air, especially for your kids?’ They’d be like, ‘Heck yes.’ So it’s a very interesting coalition there.”

Hawley’s bill would reauthorize and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). The law, first passed in 1990, provides financial support to individuals who have developed health conditions due to exposure to radioactive waste that originated from the government’s nuclear weapons development during and after World War II.

RECA’s authorization lapsed last June, blocking the Department of Justice from processing new claims. The bill’s sponsors have been pushing not only to renew the program for five years but also to expand it to cover dozens of new ZIP codes across the country.

The MAHA movement is known for its commitment to fringe causes supported by Kennedy, such as removing fluoride from tap water and eliminating seed oils. But it has gained an impassioned following among Americans across the political spectrum who see the campaign and its leaders as potential champions for their health issues.

Contamination from nuclear waste, deemed an environmental injustice by the Biden administration, has quickly been folded into the MAHA portfolio — even as Zeldin and the Trump administration move to eliminate funding for communities disproportionately affected by pollution.

“We fit into [MAHA]. I mean, that is 100 percent it,” said Dawn Chapman, co-founder of the St. Louis-based advocacy group Just Moms STL. “Because that’s how you make America healthy again. You clean up sites where people are exposed to these toxic materials, and you put this RECA program in place. Even if it’s just for a few years, it will save lives.”

Chapman, who attended last year’s State of the Union speech as Hawley’s guest, is one of many St. Louis County, Missouri, residents who have been personally affected by radioactive contamination at a local creek and landfill.

The advocates have met with six different EPA administrators over the years to request faster cleanups, and they have called for Congress to expand RECA to include them and others.

S. 243 would expand RECA claims eligibility to include people in Missouri, Alaska, Kentucky and Tennessee who have developed certain health conditions from the government’s nuclear waste. Additionally, it would extend the dates for eligibility to some former uranium miners and expand eligibility for residents with certain health conditions in Guam and New Mexico.

Co-sponsors include Republican Sens. Eric Schmitt of Missouri and Mike Crapo of Idaho, as well as Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly of Arizona and Ben Ray Luján and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico. It has bipartisan supporters in the House, too.

Variations of the bill passed out of the Senate twice in the last Congress, including on a stand-alone 69-30 vote , but they never got votes in the House because of opposition from Republican leaders and cost-conscious conservatives.

Former President Joe Biden supported it . Trump has not publicly stated his stance.

‘Nobody but Trump’

At Hawley’s invitation, Zeldin earlier this year made a trip to St. Louis County to visit the area’s two contaminated sites. Zeldin and other EPA officials met with community members who believe they have been sickened by the contamination, listening to their pleas for federal help and pledging to accelerate the remediation.

Coldwater Creek was contaminated in the mid-20th century with nuclear waste left over from the Manhattan Project. The West Lake Landfill was contaminated in the 1970s when a contractor used thousands of tons of polluted soil as fill dirt. Federal investigators have found that the radiation in the area has likely contributed to higher cancer rates among locals.

A few weeks after Zeldin’s visit, Hawley announced that Kennedy would make his own trip to the polluted area, and days later, Zeldin announced that the landfill, a Superfund site, would see its cleanup begin two years ahead of schedule.

EPA’s cleanup and lawmakers’ RECA expansion bill are two separate but related efforts. Advocates and lawmakers are optimistic the Trump administration’s increased focus on the remediation will prod Republicans who have been opposed to the legislation to ultimately get on board. They hope Cabinet members’ early visits to affected communities are a sign of good things to come.

“There’s nobody [else] that would come [so quickly] after they started the job,” said Debbie Neuman, a cancer survivor who has lived or worked near the contaminated sites around St. Louis for decades. “Nobody but Trump would ever make sure — and Hawley — that somebody came that quick.”

Some advocates believe Trump could pull the strings needed to build more momentum for the bill, as he has with other legislation. Republicans in Congress — including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who has been opposed to Hawley’s bill — often fall in line with the administration’s desires.

Advocates hoping to sway administration officials have appealed to their affinity for traditional family values. Neuman, for example, told Zeldin during his visit about how health conditions that she believes are related to the radiation kept her from achieving her dream of having children.

Chapman, who was also at the meeting with Zeldin, said the administrator got emotional hearing her story. “It got him,” she said, “and he had a reaction in that moment. That was validation.”

Zeldin wrote on social media that it had been a “powerful visit.” In a separate post , he wrote that “LONG overdue action is desperately needed to clean up the contamination.” But he stopped short of expressing support for a RECA extension or expansion.

An EPA spokesperson said the agency does not comment on pending legislation and pointed to a press release from Zeldin’s visit to Missouri. It included a statement in which Zeldin said that “hearing directly from those most impacted will help this Administration align EPA priorities to continue to help them.”

The Department of Justice and HHS did not respond to questions about RECA or compensation for victims of nuclear radiation more broadly.

The bill’s Democratic sponsors say that while they haven’t gotten their hopes up yet, they welcome Trump officials’ support on the issue and would be happy to collaborate with them.

“If it’s Administrator Zeldin that’s speaking in a positive light about what’s happened in this space and the importance of getting it done, I congratulate him and appreciate that,” Luján said.

Unlikely champions

Zeldin and Kennedy’s moves to cancel environment and public health funding and decimate their respective agencies appear to be in direct conflict with their stated desire to support radiation victims, but the two men have teamed up to work on certain shared priorities before, and they say they want to position their agencies to help.

When Kennedy met privately with Hawley ahead of his confirmation hearing, the first topic he raised was RECA and its public health implications, Hawley said.

“We hadn’t even sat down yet and he was talking about RECA … and about how this was central to the kinds of things that MAHA does and what they care about, and he offered to help,” Hawley recalled. “I said, ‘I’ll take you up on that.’”

In a budget proposal unveiled Friday, the Trump administration requested $500 million in new funding for MAHA-related spending at HHS, including to help address “environmental impacts.”

And amid the cuts at HHS, Kennedy has so far spared the Radiation Dose Reconstruction Program, which estimates the level of radiation exposure among former Department of Energy employees who worked with radioactive materials, according to an HHS official who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

Still, in Friday’s budget plan, the administration proposed slashing more than half of EPA’s budget, including cutting the Superfund program — which is leading cleanups of some radioactive sites — by more than $250 million. Zeldin has canceled programs meant to help people affected by legacy pollution and exempted polluters from certain environmental regulations .

Neuman said EPA officials told advocates they are going to find funds for compensation by eliminating programs the administration considers to be wasteful. And in a recent op-ed , Zeldin asserted that EPA needs to find more funding to “protect human health and the environment.”

Zeldin reportedly told advocates in St. Louis that regional staff working on remediation would not be affected by EPA’s reorganization plans.

It’s not yet clear how any reductions at DOJ, which administers RECA, might impact the processing of future claims. DOJ has more than 360 pending claims , and thousands more would likely pour in if the program is reauthorized.

‘There’s going to be a war on this’

For the Senate bill to pass, Trump officials would likely have to sway not only Republican leaders but also rank-and-file Republicans who see narrower, less expensive RECA extension bills as the only way forward.

For now, that seems unlikely. Republicans are dug in over competing bills, and the conference’s focus for the next several months will be on finding ways to cut, not increase, spending through reconciliation.

Further, key members of leadership — Johnson; Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.)l and Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), whose committee has jurisdiction over the bill — have all opposed the bipartisan RECA bill in the past. None of their offices responded to questions about the bill.

A House Republican leadership aide said last year that while leaders are sympathetic to the needs of radiation victims, the Senate bill has no spending offsets. The aide also said it was not clear that a majority of House Republicans would support it since less than half of Senate Republicans did last year.

The Congressional Budget Office has not released a cost estimate for the Senate bill, but Hawley has pegged its price tag at roughly $60 billion.

An attempt by Johnson last year to hold a vote on a narrower bill sponsored by members of the Utah delegation went up in smoke amid bipartisan backlash .

“There’s probably going to be a war on this one,” said Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who has introduced his own bipartisan RECA expansion bill. H.R. 1362 , the “Downwinders Parity Act,” would extend RECA to far fewer communities than Hawley’s and would likely cost far less.

“I don’t know what he’s promised, but it ain’t going to happen over my dead body,” Gosar said of Hawley.

Hawley said he is “in active talks and negotiations” with House members and open to striking a compromise. He said Thune has told him he would be supportive if it moved.

Advocates and sponsors of the Senate bill say they remain hopeful that the needs of the victims will continue to draw the attention of the administration.

“The political climate can sometimes be challenging,” said Chapman, of Just Moms STL, “but not as much when you’re looking at a community like ours that is just so desperate and that has so many sick people.”

Heinrich added, “We need all the friends we can get.”