Editorial: Gratitude is not enough

Saturday, Dec. 9, 2006 | 7:09 a.m.

A congressional review of a federal program that is supposed to compensate nuclear weapons workers who were sickened by exposure to radiation and toxic substances shows that the Bush administration has sought to limit payouts to the workers.

According to a story by USA Today, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Claims has been investigating a program created in 2000 to compensate Cold War-era workers who developed cancer and other illnesses from exposure to dangerous substances at government and contractor-run facilities - including the Nevada Test Site. The facilities were involved in nuclear weapons production.

In a Nov. 30 memo to the subcommittee's chairman, Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., panel staff members wrote that the probe had found "a continuous stream" of Bush administration communications that were "strategizing on minimizing payouts," USA Today reports.

Shelby Hallmark, director of the Labor Department's workers' compensation programs, denied that the administration has been seeking to shortchange workers who were sickened by their Cold War duties. Hallmark told USA Today that the department "all along" has been trying to make sure that compensation is "fair and consistent."

During a November hearing, however, Hostettler said the records show that those in charge of ensuring that the program adequately compensated the workers "have failed that purpose miserably." The probe also revealed that federal officials sought to change the composition of the program's oversight panel by adding people who were skeptical of the workers' injury claims, USA Today reports.

The Labor Department has approved payments to 24,000 of the 98,000 workers who have filed claims under the program. But even many of those approved payments still have not been made. And it seems from this most recent probe that Bush administration officials were dragging their feet on making restitution to these workers for the cancers and other sicknesses they suffered as a result of serving their country.

It is time to stop quibbling and to start making payments. These individuals already have lost so much time and so much of their lives, and it is wrong to keep them waiting.