September 2, 2004

FAX LETTER

Honorable George W. Bush
President of United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, US 20500
Phone: 202-456-1414
FAX: 202-456-2461

Dear Mr. President:

I am writing to share my concern on the position you have taken on the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA) senate Amendment - specifically the effort to transfer Subtitle D away from the Department of Energy (DOE) into the Department of Labor (DOL).

I am going introduce myself to you. I am a constituent of yours and a Vietnam area veteran.. I served my country proudly, I offered myself and was put in harms way. Little did I know when my service ended and I started my life raising a family my government would purposely and covertly expose me to unsafe working conditions that would disable me at age of 51 for life. I am a sick worker from the Oak Ridge K-25 and Y-12 Plants. I am one of the leaders of the local sick worker effort to hold DOE accountable and correct the inequities of the law.

A group of local sick workers and myself started this effort in the Coalition for a Healthy Environment in 1997. In 1999, we met with then Assistant Secretary Dr. David Michaels, in Oak Ridge, on his second day on the job. We stated our cause, the conditions we worked in, and the impacts on the worker community. We led the worker efforts to style this program. We have been to Washington many times in support of justice. I remember the sense of the Congress in wanting to establish a non-adversarial program which DOE and DOL would help advocate for the worker in filing their respective claims. The DOL program has accomplished this for the most part. DOE set up a inept bureaucratic, adversarial program that sick workers can't deal with.

We have worked for years to expose the horrible conditions we suffered through in the DOE workplace while being assured we were in a safe environment. In fact we were covertly being exposed and there was a lack of proper safety controls and equipment.

This all happened with DOE's knowledge. Then the DOE ducked for cover behind the government's legal rule called "sovereign immunity" that prevented the worker community from settling this in court with our private contractor employers who, in my opinion, had improper and unethical protection by DOE. No other large, private corporations enjoy this protection from legal recourse by the U. S. Government We had to settle for the EEOICPA instead, not an equitable settlement. In my opinion the workers have had enough. We want the waste, fraud, and abuse in the DOE program to stop and the program be transferred to DOL. DOE has spent a total of $95 million. Very few claims have been processed. And there has been back room contracting in a no-bid contract with a vendor who virtually has no experience in setting up worker compensation programs and has charged the taxpayers for work that was not a part of their contract. Why do you believe that letting DOE continue to run this program is the appropriate action?

The GAO, the GSA, and the Senate Energy and Commerce Committee have criticized DOE. The program is broken. In my opinion, there will be no significant delays processing claims through DOL, as you fear. DOE has a vested interest in complicating and obstructing this program to limit the impact on investigations into DOE's culture and treatment of its contractor work force. Commonsense dictates a change. Not one worker or claimant has expressed to me a concern that transferring this program will cause significant delays.

We hope to talk with you or your staff soon about this situation. We know you care. It seems to us that your administration just doesn't have a feel for our situation. We are asking you to intercede and help the cold war veterans, sick workers and last but not least we are citizens who suffered at hands of our government.

Sincerely:
Harry Williams