Josh Hawley: 'St. Louis deserves better' than Ann Wagner

He torched her – justifiably – for snubbing St. Louis-area residents poisoned by radioactive waste

Well, you don’t see this every day.

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley lit into a fellow Missouri Republican – Rep. Ann Wagner – as if she’d been caught wearing a “Free Hunter Biden” T-shirt at a Democratic fundraiser.

Hawley was fresh off the first legislative achievement of his dreadful U.S. Senate career: a hard-fought win that would bring some $3.7 billion in relief over the next five years for thousands of St. Louis-area residents poisoned by nuclear waste from the World War II Manhattan project. That figure was calculated by the Congressional Budget Office.

It was part of a $56 billion national compensation package as part of an extension and expansion on the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA), first passed in 1990 by Congress. The law is set to expire in June.

Hawley had every right to become apoplectic when Wagner immediately greeted the victory by raining on his parade. It seems, based on her comments in the media, that her sympathies lie with the suffering of federal budget numbers.

Here’s what Wagner said Thursday about the measure, according to the Kansas City Star:

“We’re just not looking to raise our deficits and debts any further than they already are,” said Rep. Ann Wagner, a St. Louis County Republican. “So there needs to be a legit pay-for on this.”

And there was this:

“While Wagner said Hawley has not reached out to her directly about the new version of the bill, she said she told advocates like Dawn Chapman, who co-founded Just Moms STL, that the bill needed to be narrower in scope, needed to pass as stand-alone legislation and it needed to have a smaller price tag.”

Hawley “reached out” to Wagner through his comments last week on social media.

“RECA passes the Senate with a massive bipartisan vote — and Ann Wagner immediately attacks it? Whose side is she on? Not Missouri’s,” Hawley said, in a marvelous impression of a political hit ad.

“Shameful for Ann Wagner to turn her back on her constituents — after doing nothing on this issue for years. St. Louis deserves better than this.”

Whatever one thinks of Hawley – I wouldn’t vote for the insurrectionist with a gun to my head – he truly deserves credit for fighting hard, and sincerely, to get relief to people in St. Louis and across the nation on this one. He did a terrific job on this.

If passed, the bill would provide a measure of relief to citizens in our region and others who have been literally poisoned for decades by their federal government. Those living and sick from diseases caused by radioactive waste would receive $50,000 in compensation.

For the thousands more who died from this negligence, survivors in their families could receive $25,000. These payments just scratch the surface of the tragedy, as many more people affected will not receive help because of the enormity of the suffering.

The payments are limited in the bill to the following illnesses, according to the bill:

Any leukemia, other than chronic lymphocytic leukemia, provided that the initial exposure occurred after the age of 20 and the onset of the disease was at least 2 years after first exposure.

“(2) Any of the following diseases, provided that the onset was at least 2 years after the initial exposure:

“(A) Multiple myeloma.

“(B) Lymphoma, other than Hodgkin’s disease.

“(C) Primary cancer of the—

“(i) thyroid;

“(ii) male or female breast;

“(iii) esophagus;

“(iv) stomach;

“(v) pharynx;

“(vi) small intestine;

“(vii) pancreas;

“(viii) bile ducts;

“(ix) gall bladder;

“(x) salivary gland;

“(xi) urinary bladder;

“(xii) brain;

“(xiii) colon;

“(xiv) ovary;

“(xv) bone;

“(xvi) renal;

“(xvii) liver, except if cirrhosis or hepatitis B is indicated; or

“(xviii) lung.

To qualify for relief, a claimant must show they lived, worked or went to school for at least two years in an affected areas. In St. Louis, those areas include: Coldwater Creek, which runs throughout a large swath of North County; West Lake Landfill in Maryland Heights and theWeldon Spring area in St. Charles County – both in Wagner’s 2nd district; and the area downtown around the old Mallinckrodt Chemical Works, where it all started.

The subject has been dear to my heart for decades. The first editorial I wrote about it was all the way back in 1983 in The Riverfront Times as a follow-up to some pioneering journalism by writer Byron Clemens.

And here’s what I wrote in 2013 about Coldwater Creek in St. Louis Magazine:

“Over seven decades, home sweet home has doubled as a hell zone of water, soil, and air contaminated with treacherous substances like uranium-238 (with a half-life of 4.5 billion years) and thorium-232 (with a half-life of 14 billion years). The residents have paid a ghastly price, and the contamination may continue to plague future generations.

“It all started with the famous Manhattan Project, as St. Louis’ Mallinckrodt Chemical Works secretly signed on to enrich uranium for the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942. For 15 years, the company would continue its uranium-refining activities at its downtown site, and when it ran out of room to store its tons and tons of hazardous waste—known in the day as “poisons”—it was off to a couple of sites near the airport.

“‘We have the oldest radioactive waste of the atomic age,’ says Kay Drey, the grande dame of local environmentalism. ‘And there is no place on the planet to put this where it won’t impact our air, our water, and our lives. There is no solution.’”

Today, we still don’t have a solution, but for the first time, there’s at least some compensation possible for these victimized souls. That is, if the bill can get past Wagner and some others in the House.

In light of Hawley’s attack, expect Wagner to try to walk back her malfeasance. But whatever she tries to spin going forward this was not some faux pas or misunderstanding with the media. T

There is a consistent history here. This is what Wagner told the Kansas City Star last December about why she was opposing Hawley’s effort at that time:

“While I support some compensation and recourse for the constituents that have been affected, there was no pay-for and you didn’t have a score on it.”

Some compensation? No pay-for? No score?

Despite all the suffering among her constituents and others in the St. Louis area, Wagner’s priorities are clear. And nothing new.

Josh Hawley has a pretty concise word for it:

Shameful.

Yep. But I sure never expected to be quoting him.