House leaders revive discussion of compensation for sickened workers

WASHINGTON - House leaders on Tuesday renewed talks with the Senate over compensating nuclear weapons plant workers robbed of their health because they weren't protected from dangerous materials.

Lawmakers from states with nuclear weapons plants were informed that the conference committee that abandoned compensation talks on Monday afternoon would reopen negotiations.

A new House proposal was being drafted, and would be presented to conferees working on the Defense Authorization Act, said John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert.

''They're still trying to work something out,'' he said. ''We want to get something done on this.''

The speaker, he added, ''wants to find a compensation plan that will be fiscally responsible.''

Hastert and other House leaders had been taking a verbal beating, both by Democrats from weapons-plant states and from some fellow Republicans such as Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., who said ''the House leadership refused to even consider the issue.''

''It's callous disregard to people who gave their lives to this country,'' said Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the House leaders' decision ''underscores their twisted priorities.''

And Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the decision an ''embarrassment'' and a ''slap in the face to the American people.''

House negotiators, concerned about the eventual price tag of an open-ended program exempt from having to get annual appropriations, previously offered a $250 million down payment on a program that would be set up in future legislation, after additional study.

David Michaels, the Energy Department's top health official, said there was no need for sick workers to wait for completion of another government study.

''For the last decade we've spent more than $150 million studying the health of workers at DOE sites,'' he said. ''We don't think additional studies are needed and we don't think additional legislations are needed.''

Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, said the compensation proposal's advocates would try to emphasize to the House leaders that the years of workers being exposed to dangerous substances such as radiation, beryllium and silica without any protection have passed, so ''this is not some kind of benefit that will go on for eternity.

''We're trying now to make sure that whatever we do here is intellectually honest, and not some Saturday night special that is not going to get the job done for the people that need it,'' he said.

''I've looked enough of those people in the eye that I could not go to them with a bad program.''

Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, said a group of interested senators met informally on the Senate floor in anticipation of a new offer from the House negotiators.

''We agreed we aren't going to accept it unless it's fair to these individuals. They're victims. They're people who have been victimized by our government.''

Last spring, the Energy Department reversed 50 years of federal policy by declaring that workers injured or killed by radiation exposure at weapons plants should be compensated.

The agency proposed minimum lump sum payments of $100,000.

When the Senate passed its version of the Defense Authorization Act, it included a provision calling for $200,000 plus health benefits for affected workers.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the measure would cost taxpayers $1.7 billion over 10 years, based on DOE estimates that at least 4,000 workers either contracted life-threatening diseases because of radiation, silica or beryllium exposure or already have died from those diseases.

During negotiations, senators backed off from the $200,000 offer and told the House they could accept $100,000 as the minimum payment if that would get the proposal passed.

Michaels said his office estimates that as many as 100 new workers would become eligible for benefits each year for the next decade.

However, about 600,000 people worked at the weapons plants during the Cold War era, and all potentially could be in the pool of beneficiaries, depending on whether they develop cancer or one of the other work-connected diseases specified under the compensation proposal.

About 100,000 workers helped in the development of nuclear weapons from 1951 to 1992 at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

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The bill numbers are HR 675, HR 3418, HR 3478, HR 3495, HR 4263, HR 4398, HR 5189 and SB 2519

On the Net:

Bill texts: http://thomas.loc.gov

National Economic Council report on compensation issues: http:// www.eh.doe.gov/benefits