-3-

— The medical care to be provided is "comprehensive" care, including
primary, secondary, and tertiary care, and the-medical—eerete—be-preovided is
accordingly not sambe limited to injuries, illnesses, or conditions resulting
from the nuclear weapons testing progran.
-- With respect to the four atolls named in the statute, the medical
care and other program benefits to be provided are not to be limited to

the "people" of those atolls, wherever they may now reside in the Marshall
Islands.
There is dispute among the interested parties, however, as to the
islands and atolls covered by the statute.

No doubt exists as to the

application of the statute to the people of the four atolls explicitly named -Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utirik.

At least one party contends, however,

that the statute and the foreseen program of comprehensive medical care must
extend to all of the people of the Marshall Islands, @eée on the ground that
at least some)

all islands and atolls in the Marshall Islands have received]

radioactive

as a result of the nuclear testing program, and thatges}
lthereforé been "exposed" }
fallout) -ed=ell the people of those islands and atolls have/thwe—heea
tthaty

affcesed to some extent by the-nuelear-veapons—tectiag/progran.

The

So extensive a program would, in our view,
require further legislation,

the current residents of those atolls, but are instead to be provided to

Department of the Interior believes that the Congress intended to provide
a program to benefit more than the people of the four named atolls, but that

[the entire Marshallese people.

it did not intend that the program conprehend(aLi-altheHarensil.

That is,

is

we believe that the soundest reading of the statute indiceases that the

(wherever they may now reside,J

program is to apply to the people of the four named atolls,/plus the people
of such other atolls as were dimeetiy affected by the weapons testin
TOgramsy in
some manner significantly greater than were people in otherparts of the worl 8 prog

The question then arises as to how "such other atolls" are to be
identified.

A procedure that could be utilized would be a rule-making under

Select target paragraph3