New Mexico

RECA has expired. What's next?

Published

2 years ago

June 7, 2024

Help for people sickened by radiation from nuclear tests and uranium mining, including here in New Mexico, is coming to an end after 34 years.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Help for people sickened by radiation from nuclear tests and uranium mining, including here in New Mexico, is coming to an end after 34 years.

The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act expired Friday after U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson didn’t call a vote on a bill to extend and expand it.

That’s despite a 69-30 U.S. Senate vote in March.

The expiration left New Mexicans, who worked in uranium mines and were downwind of nuclear tests, in wonder. What’s next for them and their families?

“I’m the fourth generation in my family to have cancer since 1945. And unfortunately, now I have a 24-year-old niece who’s diagnosed with thyroid cancer,” said Tina Cordova, co-founder and executive director of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium.

Advocates like Cordova are never giving up. For her and others, it’s a lifelong fight – but this is a massive setback.

“While they play politics, we’re gathering up our resources for someone to have cancer treatment. We’re having bake sales and car washes and selling cattle so we can meet our health care needs,” Cordova said.

Lawmakers are using this energy and support to chart the next steps for RECA.

Starting Tuesday, the House Rules Committee will decide which amendments could be made to the National Defense Authorization Act.

“There’s over a thousand amendments and ours is one of them,” U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez said.

Cordova is pressing local Republican leaders to call on their counterparts in Congress.

“The Republican Party of New Mexico knows and has supported our efforts to expand RECA in the past. They know that radiation exposure is not discerning. It’s affected the young, the old, the black, the white, and the Republican and the Democrat alike,” she said.

Just a simple extension isn’t enough either. With RECA the way it is, it doesn’t cover New Mexico downwinders and their families, like Cordova and her family.

Rep. Leger Fernandez says people already covered aren’t budging either.

“They’re saying no. The Navajo Nation, whose members can benefit from the existing RECA, have passed a resolution calling for the expanded RECA,” she said.

While the RECA program has expired, the office will still process claims submitted before June 10. The office will remain open until they’ve addressed all of the claims.

KOB 4 reached out to the Republican Party of New Mexico for a response to Cordova’s call to them. Chairman Steve Pierce issued the following statement:

“During my time in Congress, I supported the RECA program to provide compensation for the victims of radiation exposure from United States nuclear testing. The main challenge has always been to negotiate a bill that is fair to all parties involved. From the outside, it appears the Senate bill has provisions that House leadership is currently not willing to accept. The issue is bipartisan, so I trust that negotiations are ongoing, which will see that the program continues. Even if the bill expires, provisions can be incorporated to mitigate any disruption to the program.”

We also reached out to U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson’s office for a statement. However, we have not heard back from them yet.

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New Mexico

Meta faces New Mexico trial over child-exploitation claims

Published

4 hours ago

January 30, 2026

Press Room

Meta faces New Mexico trial over child-exploitation claims

Meta Platforms is set to face trial next week in a lawsuit brought by the state of New Mexico accusing it of exposing children and teens to sexual exploitation on its platforms and profiting from it, the first case of its kind against the social media giant to reach a jury.

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New Mexico

Federal grand jury indicts former treasurer for stealing more than $2 million from New Mexico abbey

Published

16 hours ago

January 29, 2026

Press Room

Federal grand jury indicts former treasurer for stealing more than million from New Mexico abbey

A former member of a Norbertine community in New Mexico has been indicted on allegations that he stole millions of dollars from the religious group over the course of several months.

A grand jury handed down charges in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico alleging that James Owens stole funds belonging to the Norbertine abbey of Santa Maria de la Vid on the outskirts of Albuquerque.

The Jan. 21 charging document alleges that Owens, who reportedly became a brother at the abbey in 2009, began stealing money from the community in 2022. Owens, formerly a certified public accountant and lawyer, had been made treasurer of the organization in 2016, the same year he became a permanent member there.

As treasurer, he had signatory authority over the abbey’s financial accounts and was responsible for the payment of the community’s expenses.

Owens allegedly used “wire communications, monetary transactions,” and other methods to transfer over $2 million to multiple accounts he controlled. Some of the money was used to purchase a home in nearby Placitas, the grand jury said.

The transfers were carried out from around May 2022 to March 2023, the indictment says, during a development project to expand retreat facilities at the abbey.

In a press release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico said Owens has been charged with “eight counts of wire fraud, 23 counts of engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from unlawful activity, and one count of attempt to evade and defeat tax.” He is facing 20 years in prison if convicted.

On its website, the Norbertine community says it established its abbey on property bought from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in 1995. The property had originally been run as a Dominican convent that replaced a late-1940s airstrip.

The facility offers retreat opportunities including “self-contained hermitages” and guest accommodations.

The community notes that “several of our brothers have their earthly resting places here in our communal cemetery.”

“As Norbertine brothers we will have an everlasting presence on this land,” the website says.

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