Compensation plan for nuke workers on hold

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Sept. 7, 2000 | 11:22 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Workers made ill by constructing and testing nuclear weapons may not see the multimillion-dollar compensation package the Clinton administration promised this year.

Still, Nevada lawmakers said Congress seems supportive of the compensation plan and will likely pass it -- next year.

"This is a very bipartisan piece of legislation that certainly has favorable chances of passing in the next Congress," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said.

In April Department of Energy officials led by Secretary Bill Richardson announced for the first time that the department had wronged nuclear workers, exposing them to dangerous radiation. They said they would urge Congress to compensate ailing nuclear weapons workers and surviving families more than $400 million for lost wages and medical costs.

Among the workers who beginning in the 1950s built and tested the nation's nuclear arsenal in 10 states are laborers from the Nevada Test Site, about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Congress, now racing to finish up work this year by early next month, seems stalled on the issue. The Senate included the worker compensation package in its Defense spending authorization bill. The House did not.

Now a "conference committee" made up of representatives from both bodies will have to meet to determine whether the provision will be included this year.

The major sticking point seems to be the House Judiciary Committee, which wants to hold hearings on the issue before giving it their blessing.

"To lose this over some esoteric procedure would really be a monstrous injustice," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said. Bryan on Wednesday talked to Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., an influential member of the conference committee.

Levin told him there would be a fight to preserve the compensation plan, Bryan said.

But House Judiciary Committee leaders say the measure invites lawsuits by admitting so much federal liability to thousands of workers and families.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, who chairs the Judiciary subcommittee that handles claims against the government, has said it would be irresponsible to approve the plan without more Congressional review. Smith could not be reached for comment Wednesday and today.

The Judiciary Committee may meet Sept. 14 for a hearing on the compensation package, Gibbons said.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the bill stands a 50-50 chance of passing this year. He has lobbied Office of Management and Budget director Jack Lew and Gene Sperling, chairman of the president's National Economic Council, as well as Secretary of Labor Alexis Herman.

"I've covered all my bases, complaining to them," Reid said. "We'll get it done."

Reid and Bryan, along with 21 other senators, signed a July 28 letter to Levin and another powerful conference committee member, Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Warner, R-Va., requesting the compensation package be approved this year.

"It has been the subject of several Committee hearings, including hearings before the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee," the letter states. "We believe the time is now to begin to remedy the mistakes of the past and provide compensation to those who sacrificed so much for our country."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., toiled this year to urge the House to approve the compensation plan as soon as possible, seeking to tack the measure onto the House's defense bill as an amendment. That effort failed, and in May the House passed a nonbinding resolution that expressed a "sense" of Congress in favor of the bill, but required no action. That wasn't enough, Berkley had said.

"Having observed firsthand the victimization of my constituents, I think the evidence is overwhelming that we must compensate the Nevada Test Site workers, and no amount of hearings that can be held will change my mind on this issue," Berkley said today.