Monday, August 9, 2004
Analyst looks at claims move

'No one should count on a nickel any time soon,' says watchdog group expert.

By MATTHEW LeBLANC
mleblanc@thehawkeye.com

Members of Iowa's congressional delegation laud a move last week by the
Department of Energy to help ailing former nuclear weapons workers in Iowa
as an important "first step" in ensuring compensation payments, but pending
legislation that would revamp the entire program makes more sense, says an
analyst who has reviewed the plan.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham announced Friday that a Texasbased
weapons manufacturer will be responsible for shouldering the costs of
compensation payments awarded by Iowa workers' compensation officials to
former workers at the Iowa Army Ammunition Plant in Middletown. Prior to
the move, IAAP workers had been unable to secure payments because the
contractor under which many of the employees worked no longer existed.

But even that won't make compensation payments to the more than 600 workers
who have filed claims under a federal program a sure thing, according to
Richard Miller, a senior policy analyst with the Government Accountability
Project, a Washington watchdog group.

Miller, who has pushed for changes in the twotiered compensation program,
says that legislation moving control of the compensation program from the
Energy Department to the Department of Labor will speed up the claims
process and move workers who contracted cancer and other ailments while
working at the weapons plant closer to payment.

"On Friday, I checked with the nation's leading expert in workers'
compensation to get his opinion if this DOE 'fix' of using an employer in a
different state would work and whether Iowa had jurisdiction over this
contractor to order payments of claims," Miller said in an email Sunday.
"And he said he did not know if it would work.

"No one should count on a nickel any time soon from this DOE announcement."

The Energy plan makes BWXTPantex, which operates an Amarillo, Texasbased
sister plant to IAAP, unable to contest state workers' compensation claims
filed in Iowa. The move makes Pantex a "willing payer" through which claims
can be processed under the program, a necessary item the Iowan lacked prior
to Friday's announcement.

However, a similar plan to designate a thirdparty willing payer failed in
Colorado, Miller said.

That plan, directed at workers sickened by work at a nuclear weapons plant
outside of Denver, was scrapped after a confusing debate among insurance
companies and contractors over whether and what amounts to pay workers.

"This Colorado solution doesn't cover subcontractors, and I question if
they will be covered in Iowa," Miller said.

Workers at IAAP assembled, testfired and disassembled components of
nuclear weapons during the Cold War at the Middletown plant. Work in
specific section of the plant's 19,000acre grounds have been linked to
cancer, lung diseases and other illnesses.

Congress passed a measure in 2000 to pay workers in Iowa and other states
for medical bills. None of the 640 IAAP workers who have filed claims under
one section of the program have been paid. Under another section, only 40
of more than 1,600 claimants have received payments.

Legislation introduced by Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning would move control of
the entire program to the Department of Labor, which has processed nearly
all claims filed under the Energy Employees Illness Compensation Program.
Iowa proponents of the plan say more claims will be processed and more
people will be paid, though that measure also does not ensure payment.

"It's a good first step," said Jennifer Carrier, an aide to Iowa Sen. Tom
Harkin after announcing the Energy Department's move Friday. "There are
other states that have a willing payer and they've only paid one person.

"We still think it should be transferred to DOL."

That measure, attached to a defense authorization bill passed by the Senate
June 15, awaits the approval of a joint HouseSenate conference. The
amendment is expected to be taken up by the bipartisan group after Congress
returns from recess in September.

A measure sponsored by Harkin, a Democrat, would place employees injured at
IAAP in a "special exposure cohort" that would make payment automatic. That
measure also is currently stalled in Congress.

Sen. Charles Grassley, a Republican, supports moving claims to the Labor
Department.

"We think Sen. Grassley, Sen. Harkin and Rep. (Jim) Leach are 100 percent
on track continuing to move their legislation forward in conference,"
Miller said. "To stop now and discover that DOE's experiment doesn't work
... would be a huge setback when a solution is on the horizon."


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