Tom Udall: “I just wanted to rise today to say a few words about Wayne Owens and his service to the United States of America. He was…”

“I just wanted to rise today to say a few words about Wayne Owens and his service to the United States of America. He was a fine public servant. Many will talk and some have already about his tireless efforts for Middle East peace, but Wayne had an extensive legislative record here in the House of Representatives. He fought tirelessly to restore endangered species across the West. And the issue that I specifically would like to talk about today is his bringing justice to the Colorado plateau uranium miners. Wayne saw this as a situation with the Colorado uranium miners that had to have justice be brought to the situation. And what happened is these uranium miners went into mines on the Colorado plateau, worked in very dangerous, dirty air mines. There were high radon levels, as the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Cannon) knows. He has worked on this very issue. The government knew these levels were very high. Government doctors did reports and doctors issued studies, but nobody told the uranium miners that there was really a problem.”