DOE criticized over handling of compensation claims

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, March 30, 2004 | 11:37 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department needs to show better results of actually getting compensation benefits to former employees before Congress decides to give it more money to run the program, senators told federal officials today.

Senators demanded answers on why it has taken the department so long to figure out how to run the program, but Energy Undersecretary Robert Card said it has made "substantial improvements" since November and has plans to eliminate its backlog of claims by 2006.

The Labor Department and the Energy Department share responsibility for helping former Energy Department employees, now sick from various illness due to toxic exposures at nuclear weapons construction plants, get federal compensation or help with state compensation through a law passed in 2000.

"In terms of performance, the winner is clear. The Labor Department is performing well, and the Energy Department is not," Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing today.

Grassley said the Energy Department has only processed about 8 percent of 23,000 claims filed so far according to its own data, but his own analysis that left out withdrawn and ineligible claims shows just under 2 percent of the claims have been processed and only one paid out.

"The least our government can do is try to compensate them, compensate them quickly and compensate them obviously before they die," Grassley said.

Overall, the Labor Department has received more than 50,000 claims and made final decisions on more than 27,000, Grassley said.

Card, who oversees the program, said the department submitted a bill to Congress Monday night that would allow it to pay physicians more to review claims and hire them for a longer period of time. It also asks for an additional $33 million.

Under the law, the Labor Department helps former Energy Department employees who are sick from exposure to beryllium or who have cancer or silicosis caused by radiation exposure receive lump sum payments of $150,000 each and payment of future medical expenses associated with their illness from their work at department facilities, including the Nevada Test Site, located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Test Site workers have field 2,270 claims as of March 11, but only 103 claims have been filled to total of $12.6 million. The Labor Department has denied 728 and referred 1287 to that National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health for further review.