Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to acknowledge an important achievement for Nevada's Cold War veterans and their families. These individuals served their country at the Nevada Test Site, where over one thousand nuclear weapons detonations took place over four decades of nuclear testing. The work at the Nevada Test Site, NTS, helped America win the Cold War, but it also left thousands of workers with debilitating cancers. Beginning today, many of these workers will now be eligible for automatic compensation, putting an end to years of bureaucratic nightmares and redtape. On February 19, 1952, the Nevada Test Site was created to serve as the Nation's nuclear test site. 174 atmospheric and underground tests were performed there before the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 banned all atmospheric, space, and sub-sea nuclear weapons testing. Another 754 tests were completed before the United States established a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing in 1992. The vast majority of testing in this period took place underground, in a network of tunnels and shafts, although some nonweapons nuclear testing continued to take place above ground. Even though these tunnels were designed to contain the radiation produced by the tests, most of the underground detonations did release radiation that reached NTS workers.…”