Rocky Mountain News

Feds play coy on Flats compensation plan
Officials refuse to go on record about aid for sickened workers

By Ann Imse, Rocky Mountain News
May 27, 2005

The head of a program to compensate nuclear weapons workers sickened on the
job held a press conference Thursday - but refused to speak on the record.

Shelby Hallmark, director of the division of the Department of Labor that
has taken over a troubled section of the compensation program from the
Department of Energy, would speak only if his name was not used.

The same rule applied to Labor's solicitor, Howard Radzely, who also was on
the conference call about the program, which has left thousands of sick
Rocky Flats workers waiting years for help.

Labor Secretary Elaine Chao did speak on the record, but referred questions
about specifics of the program to Hallmark and Radzely.

Federal officials often speak anonymously, even when addressing the
programs they run. The Rocky Mountain News and another news outlet asked
Hallmark and Radzely to go on the record, but Labor spokeswoman Stephanie
Cathcart refused to allow it.

Labor now runs both parts of the program that pays up to $250,000 in
compensation to workers at Rocky Flats and other nuclear weapons plants who
were sickened and sometimes died as a result of exposure to radiation and
toxic chemicals on the job. So far, $1 billion has been paid out.

Nationwide, 47,000 sick workers have applied to the original Labor program
and 30,000 to the Department of Energy program.

Congress shifted DOE's part to Labor last year after the Energy Department
spent $95 million on paperwork while compensating only 31 workers. DOE had
no federal funding for paying workers and instead sent them to workers
compensation programs.

Since Labor has taken over the DOE's part of the program, it has paid 430
claims. More than $3.8 million has been paid on 31 cases at Rocky Flats.
Another 56 approvals are pending, out of 2,044 applications from Flats
workers, Cathcart said.

Chao used the press conference to announce the publication of regulations
for the former Energy program, on the last day before she would have missed
a congressional deadline. But the rules were still not on the agency's Web
site by the end of the work day.

Richard Miller of the watchdog group Government Accountability Project said
the Labor Department was still negotiating the rules with budget officials
at day's end.

Miller said the draft rules could bar hundreds, if not thousands, of
workers from collecting under the second part of the program.

Progress on claims

430 claims have been paid since the Labor Department took over the
Department of Energy's part of the compensation program.

$3.8 million has been paid on 31 cases at Rocky Flats.

56 more approvals are pending out of 2,044 applications from Flats workers.

Copyright 2005, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.