Panel OKs Radiation Compensation

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@earthlink.net>]

Tuesday November 2 5:05 PM ET  

Panel OKs Radiation Compensation  

WASHINGTON - More people harmed by radiation from aboveground nuclear 
tests or uranium mining could get compensation from the federal 
government under a measure approved Tuesday by the Senate Judiciary 
Committee.  

The measure would make changes sought by critics of a law that 
provides government payments to Westerners who became ill because of 
their involvement with Cold War nuclear weapons programs.  

``We should not add a bureaucratic nightmare to the burden of disease 
and ill health that these citizens are carrying,'' said Sen. Orrin 
Hatch, R-Utah, the sponsor of the measure now sent to the full Senate 
for consideration.  

Many nuclear tests were conducted in Nevada. Much of the uranium used 
in the nuclear weapons was mined in the Four Corners region of Utah, 
Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico.  

The bill would expand the list of cancers and other diseases that 
make the workers eligible for $100,000 government payments. It also 
would include people who worked in open-pit uranium mines, uranium 
mills and in transporting uranium from 1941 to 1971. Underground 
uranium miners already are getting compensation for their ailments.  

Since the first payments began in 1992, the Justice Department has 
approved 3,135 claims worth nearly $232 billion, said Sen. Pete 
Domenici, R-N.M., who cosponsored the bill. He said the Congressional 
Budget Office estimates that the proposed changes to the compensation 
program would cost $1 billion during the next 21 years.  

Specific changes in the bill include:  

- Adding leukemia and cancers of the lung, thyroid, brain, kidney, 
esophagus and stomach to the list of cancers that make miners 
eligible for compensation. Kidney disease and two lung ailments also 
would be added to the list. For downwinders - people who lived in 
areas of Nevada, Utah and Arizona most affected by nuclear fallout 
from tests - the added cancers include leukemia and those of the 
brain, bladder, colon, ovaries and salivary glands.  

- Extending eligibility to uranium workers from South Dakota, North 
Dakota, Idaho, Oregon and Texas. The current law covers Arizona, New 
Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state.  

- Eliminating provisions that give less money to downwinders or 
miners who smoked.  

- Cutting the amount of time an eligible miner had to work in uranium 
mines from an average of just under 20 years to less than four years. 
 

- Requiring the Justice Department to take American Indian law and 
custom into account when processing applications. Navajo officials 
have complained that widows of dead miners have been denied 
compensation because they were married in traditional  
 Indian ceremonies and do not have marriage certificates. 

Sandy Perle
E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net 
Personal Website: http://www.geocities.com/scperle

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