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SHIPROCK, N.M. (AP) — The Navajo Nation is urging Congress to expand a federal law that compensates people who were exposed to radiation.
Currently, the law covers people who lived downwind from nuclear test sites in Nevada, Arizona and Utah, and workers in the uranium mining industry in a dozen states.
Most claims under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act come from the Four Corners region.
Proposed amendments would expand the cutoff for uranium mining workers from 1971 to 1990.
Navajo officials say those workers were exposed to the same harmful conditions.
Residents of the New Mexico village of Tularosa near the site of the world's first atomic bomb test also want to be covered under the law.
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