“DOE ARCHIVEs | ~ . THIND CunGRESS OF MICRONES1 NRT TN ORT Rm ee ce ee weg ew OMX GUA d asa Le Fo A SENATE JOINT RESOLUTIOR Respectfully apprising the United States Congress of the sense of the Congress of Micronesia that the restoration and rehabilitation costs of Bikini Atoll should be borne jointly by the United States Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission. WHEREAS, in 1946 the Bikini people were moved to Kili Island in the southern ‘sector of the Marshall Islands District where they had to eke out a living from the meager products of poor fishing waters and poor soil the exodus being instigated under the pretext that the nuclear experiments to be conducted on their islands would benefit mankind; and WHEREAS, between 1946 and 1956 twenty-three thermonuclear detonations stripped and scarred the islands of Bikini Atoll of vegetation and any remnants of living ercatures inhabiting the islands, resultins in scrap metal debris marring the once beautiful landscape of lush foliage and 10 ll azure sea3 and _ WHEREAS, after much instigation and many petitions the people of Bikini 12 Atoll were allowed to return to their islands with a promise of a rehabilita- 13 tion and restoration program to settle the people in their lands and to 14 provide them public services and projects; and 15 WHEREAS, except for the initial clean-up of the islands by the United 16 States Defense Department, the restoration costs are being budgeted for 17 and taken out of the Federal grant funds for the operation of the Government 18 of the Trust TErritory and for essential public projects of first priority 19 order; and 20 21 WHEREAS, the Trust Territery Government is presently under a budgetary authorization ceiling which it must not exceed during each fiscal period, a