Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Ms. HIRONO. Mr. President, I rise today to introduce a resolution that affirms the importance of our compact of free association with the Republic of the Marshall Islands and apologizes to the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands on behalf of the U.S. Government for the United States' nuclear testing program. I am thankful to Senator Markey for joining me in this resolution as we seek to strengthen the ties between the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

After freeing what are now the Republic of the Marshall Islands from Japanese control during the Second World War, the United States was entrusted with administering the islands as a part of the United Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. Under the trusteeship, the United States was charged with promoting self-government and the economic and educational advancement of the islands. The trusteeship also obligated the United States to protect the health of the inhabitants of the trust territory.

President Harry Truman reaffirmed the United States' ``special responsibility'' for the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands when he reassured the United Nations that the people of the Marshall Islands ``will be accorded all rights which are the normal constitutional rights of the citizens under the Constitution.''

In many ways, the Government of the United States failed to live up to that special responsibility. From 1946 to 1958, the United States conducted 67 thermonuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. The tests contaminated at least 11 of the Marshall Island's 29 atolls. These tests destroyed their land and led to their displacement. Nuclear testing also exposed the Marshallese to radioactive fallout, contributing to increased cancer rates, birth defects, and other serious health conditions. The nuclear testing program has caused irreparable harm to the people of the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

That harm and our collective failure to live up to our nation's responsibilities have similarly failed members of the Armed Forces and civilian contractors that were tasked by our government with cleaning up nuclear waste in the Marshall Islands. In the 1970s, the United States sought to clean up Enewetak Atoll, where the United States conducted over 40 nuclear tests. In an effort to contain radioactive material on Enewetak, members of the Armed Forces and civilian contractors constructed the Runit Dome, an unlined nuclear waste containment structure that stores approximately 110,000 cubic yards of radioactively contaminated soil and debris. Thousands of servicemembers were exposed to radiation and nuclear waste as they worked to clean up Enewetak Atoll.

To this day, those servicemembers remain ineligible for health benefits through the Department of Veterans Affairs that other ``radiation-exposed veterans'' receive. I am thankful to Senators Smith and Tillis for their leadership on this issue, as they seek to secure health benefits for these servicemembers through the Mark Takai Atomic Veterans Healthcare Parity Act.

The Republic of the Marshall Islands is one of the United States' strongest allies and one of its most important partners in the Indo- Pacific region. Since entering into a Compact of Free Association with the United States in the 1980s, thousands of Marshallese have migrated to the United States to live and work. The Marshallese have made invaluable contributions to my home State of Hawaii and have enriched communities throughout the country. The compact also protects U.S. national security interests by providing the U.S. military with exclusive access to the territorial waters of the Marshall Islands and serves as host to the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site on Kwajalein Atoll.

While our relationship with the Republic of the Marshall Islands remains strong, they are in jeopardy. U.S. economic assistance under the Compact of Free Association to the Marshall Islands is set to end in 2023 while near-peer competitors threaten to undermine our alliances. Additionally, climate change poses an existential threat to the Republic of the Marshall Islands.

But in order to continue on with our relationship with the Marshall Islands, we need to reckon with our past. The United States has never apologized for its nuclear testing program in the Marshall Islands. The harm caused by the United States' nuclear legacy in the Marshall Islands cannot be taken back or undone. But as the Republic of the Marshall Islands memorializes today, March 1, as Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day, we can show our contrition and endeavor to build a stronger relationship based on correcting the wrongs of the past and strengthening the special ties that bind our two nations.

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