Jim Matheson: “today I announce the introduction of legislation called the Safety for Americans From Nuclear Weapons Testing Act. Let…”

“today I announce the introduction of legislation called the Safety for Americans From Nuclear Weapons Testing Act. Let me describe the history and the events that have led me to the introduction of this legislation. Our country began open-air testing of nuclear weapons in 1951. Between 1951 and 1992, over 1,000 weapons tests took place, over 100 above ground and over 800 below ground as well. Now, what is interesting about this is the government told the citizens of this country that the testing was safe. And I, like a lot of people in Utah, have roots in southern Utah, and my relatives live in southern Utah. They said it was safe too. {time} 1945 I remember my dad telling me how people would wake up and watch the sky light up in the morning from the tests. People in southern Utah take a back seat to no one when it comes to their patriotism and their support of a strong national defense. What is unfortunate in this story is that the government lied. They lied to the people in southern Utah. They lied to anyone who was down wind of the fallout from the nuclear testing. In fact, the government knew they were putting people at risk. They kept that information quiet. It was not until the early 1980s that documents in the Pentagon were declassified that showed that in fact the government only conducted the testing when the wind blew the fallout in the least populated direction, which happened to be southern Utah.”