Out in the cold; America's cold war energy workers

For energy workers in the United States, the cold war is nowhere near over. Why? Because the Energy Department (DOE), the Department of Labor (DOL) and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) seem to be playing "keystone cops" with the lives of thousands of these American citizens. Hang on. This is not a pretty story.

During the Cold War, many workers employed in the nation’s atomic weapons program, or other programs associated with atomic energy, were exposed to radioactive and toxic substances. In 2000, Congress passed The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) to provide assistance to those workers who became ill as a result of that employment exposure. The Act provides for compensation to Energy Department workers, or their survivors, who have occupational illnesses from exposure to the unique hazards associated with building the nation's nuclear defense. This law was enacted with strong bipartisan support as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

The Act required a great deal of cooperation between NIOSH, DOL and the DOE. Here's how. First, NIOSH was supposed to develop site profiles for the Energy Department's sites where radioactive toxic exposure happened.

Second, DOE is responsible for determining whether an applicant is eligible for benefits under the program by gathering records relating to the worker's occupational history and health conditions and referring the matter to a physician's panel to determine whether there is a connection between the worker's illness and exposure to a toxic substance while working at a DOE facility.

Third, DOL provides a $150,000 lump-sum payment and medical benefits to employees that the DOE has determined are qualified and who have developed certain occupational illnesses--such as chronic beryllium disease, radiation-induced cancers, and silicosis--as a result of their exposure to hazards while helping build the nation's nuclear arsenal.

With great fanfare, in March, 2001, the Clinton Administration convinced Congress to amend the ACT (Public Law 106-398) to provide even more benefits for the ailing workers. Under the Clinton proposal, which DOE Secretary Bill Richardson and DOL Secretary Alexis M. Herman jointly transmitted to Congress, qualified workers could elect to receive the lump sum payment of $150,000, as provided by the then current law, or compensation for lost wages provided by the new legislation. Compensation for lost wages is the traditional remedy for workers’ compensation under Federal and State workers' compensation programs. Under the Clinton amendment, DOE would pay the lost wage, or indemnity, compensation. Both the Clinton legislation and the original law provided for payment of medical expenses.

So there things stood as the nation's energy workers waited for the government to organize the program and set the compensation wheels in motion.

Fast forward to March, 2004. In a Senate Hearing to evaluate the program, Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) acknowledged that DOE "still is miserably behind in clearing its claims backlog." DOE, Bunning said, had completely processed only 6 percent, or 1,380, of its 23,000 cases, and only one person out of the 23,000 people who had filed had received compensation for illness caused by exposure to hazards unique to nuclear weapons production and testing.

So, it wasn't very surprising the other day in late September, 2004, four years after Congress passed the EEOICPA, when U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), standing with former nuclear workers from western New York, took the federal government to task for not processing the claims of 525 former New York nuclear workers or their survivors, and called on the Departments to move the process along "now."

Schumer was reacting to a report by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) last week that indicated that claims processing has "essentially stopped" at Linde Air and Linde Ceramics in Tonawanda, Hooker Electrochemical and Simonds Saw in Niagara Falls, and Bliss and Laughlin Steel in Buffalo. Why? Because four years into the program, NIOSH, has yet to develop site profiles for the former Linde Air Products and Linde Ceramics in Tonawanda, Hooker Electrochemical and Simonds Saw in Niagara Falls, and Bliss and Laughlin Steel in Buffalo, all of which were involved in nuclear weapons-related activity during the Cold War.

No one seems to know exactly how many workers, eligible for these benefits, have already died. Luckily, their survivors remain eligible. We shall continue to follow this story and we remain hopeful that well-meaning people will end what appears to us to be a lot of bureaurocratic infighting and get on with the business of compensating the truly deserving among us.