IA 
118TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. J. RES. 202 
Formally apologizing for the nuclear legacy of the United States in the 
Republic of the Marshall Islands and affirming the importance of free 
association between the Government of the United States and the Gov-
ernment of the Marshall Islands. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 
Ms. PORTER submitted the following joint resolution; which was referred to 
the Committee on Natural Resources, and in addition to the Committee 
on Foreign Affairs, for a period to be subsequently determined by the 
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within 
the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
JOINT RESOLUTION 
Formally apologizing for the nuclear legacy of the United 
States in the Republic of the Marshall Islands and af-
firming the importance of free association between the 
Government of the United States and the Government 
of the Marshall Islands. 
Whereas the United States took the islands now constituting 
the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Republic of 
Palau, and the Federated States of Micronesia along with 
the Northern Mariana Islands from Japan through 
bloody battles during World War II; 
Whereas the United States persuaded the United Nations to 
designate those islands as a United Nations Trust Terri-
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tory and the United States as Administering Authority of 
those islands pending the development of self-government 
on such islands; 
Whereas the United States used the northern atolls of the is-
lands to conduct extensive nuclear weapons testing dur-
ing the Cold War; 
Whereas, in response to United Nations Security Council con-
cerns with respect to such testing, President Harry S. 
Truman wrote that the people of the Marshall Islands 
‘‘will be accorded all rights which are the normal con-
stitutional rights of the citizens under the Constitution’’ 
and ‘‘will be dealt with as wards of the United States for 
whom this country has special responsibilities’’; 
Whereas March 1 is Nuclear Victims Remembrance Day in 
the Marshall Islands, which memorializes the 67 nuclear 
tests the United States conducted in the Marshall Is-
lands; 
Whereas, between 1946 and 1958, the United States con-
ducted nuclear testing that produced an explosive yield 
many times greater than the bombs that destroyed Hiro-
shima and Nagasaki, constituting the majority of explo-
sive yield of all atmospheric U.S. nuclear weapons test-
ing; 
Whereas the Castle Bravo test on March 1, 1954, remains 
the largest ever nuclear test by the United States, which 
yielded an explosion equivalent to approximately 1,000 
times the power of the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima; 
Whereas the Castle Bravo test, in particular, seriously ex-
posed civilians to radiation; 
Whereas research is not conclusive due to difference in meth-
odology and challenges in comparison, but one study con-
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ducted in 2019 by Columbia University researchers found 
that levels of radioactive contamination on the four atolls 
most affected by nuclear testing exceeded the levels of ra-
dioactive contamination in Chernobyl, Ukraine, and 
Fukushima, Japan; 
Whereas the resettlement of individuals on such atolls, which 
were later found to be unsafe due to direct exposure to 
nuclear fallout, contributed to increased cancer rates, 
birth defects, and other illnesses among the people of the 
Marshall Islands; 
Whereas, from January 1, 1977, to December 31, 1980, a 
joint task group made up largely of contractors, but in-
cluding Department of Defense servicemembers and civil-
ians, conducted radiological cleanup and built the Runit 
Dome (also known as the Cactus Crater containment 
structure) on Enewetak Atoll to house more than 
110,000 cubic yards of radioactively contaminated soil 
and debris; 
Whereas more than 99 percent of all transuranic elements at 
Enewetak Atoll remain outside the Runit Dome; 
Whereas, since 2012, the Secretary of Energy has been re-
sponsible, under section 103(f)(1) of the Compact of Free 
Association Amendments Act of 2003 (48 U.S.C. 
1921b(f)(1)), for quadrennial studies of the groundwater 
surrounding and in the Cactus Crater containment struc-
ture, but the Secretary has failed to complete such stud-
ies; 
Whereas, in October 2012, an official of the Department of 
Energy testified before Congress that seawater is ‘‘com-
municating’’ with the radioactive material in Cactus Cra-
ter; 
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