[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 35 (Thursday, March 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2381-S2382]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               RADIATION EXPOSURE COMPENSATION TRUST FUND

  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, today I rise to express my continued 
dismay with the lack of funding for the Radiation Exposure Compensation 
Trust Fund. Hundreds of former uranium miners, including many New 
Mexicans, have recently been mailed IOUs from the Department of 
Justice. These individuals have had their claims approved, but have 
been told that there is no money in the Fund to compensate them. These 
are former miners who are stricken with radiation-related diseases, and 
unfortunately, many will die soon.
  We often pledge that we will never forget our Nation's veterans, who 
have sacrificed so much in order to secure our freedoms. But, we have 
forgotten the uranium miners, who also sacrificed for our nation's 
security while building up our nuclear arsenal. These miners endured 
long, dark, and dust-filled days underground. Often, the only fresh air 
that they breathed was what leaked out of the air compressors used to 
operate their jack-hammers. These miners were not even given protective 
masks or gloves, and they were never warned about the lethal medical 
risks until decades later.
  These miners are afflicted with cancer and various respiratory 
diseases, and very few have sufficient money to pay their staggering 
medical bills. Most of these miners were never given the opportunity to 
build up a pension because they were continuously moved from one 
company to another. And now, while our veterans rightfully enjoy a 
great many benefits, these miners are left with only a depleted 
compensation fund and a handful of IOUs. Unfortunately, an IOU does not 
pay their medical bills.
  I recently introduced legislation to provide $84 million in emergency 
supplemental appropriations to pay for those claims that have already 
been approved, as well as the projected number of claims for FY2001. 
Because of the urgency of these claims, I will make this promise to our 
miners: I will introduce this legislation as an amendment to the first 
appropriate legislative vehicle to ensure our miners are compensated as 
quickly as possible.
  We must replenish the trust fund immediately. Our miners have urgent 
health care needs and medical bills that will continue to pile up. Many 
miners have died without receiving any of the compensation that they 
were promised. Many will die without compensation, if we do not take 
action now. We must not break our promise to the miners who sacrificed 
and suffered to protect our Nation's security.
  I promise today to make every effort to ensure that our miners are 
compensated for their sacrifice. We must make sure that they don't die 
with only an IOU in their hands.
  I ask unanimous consent that an article from the Albuquerque Tribune 
be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Albuquerque Tribune, Mar. 14, 2001]

                       Half-Lives, Half Measures

                        (By M.E. Sprengelmeyer)

       They were promised government compensation, but dying 
     former uranium miners say they get nothing but IOUs.
       Richard Leavell doesn't want to die with a government IOU 
     in his pocket.
       Like his father, Merle, Leavell helped the United States 
     fight the Cold War from the trenches of the Colorado Plateau. 
     And like his father, he paid a high price.
       The Leavells were uranium miners, helping provide the raw 
     material America craved for its nuclear arsenal.
       Only years later did the federal government tell miners 
     about the deadly health risks they faced while blasting and 
     digging through the hills of the Four Corners region, 
     breathing radioactive dust that would take its toll as they 
     aged.
       After Merle Leavell was left with radiation-related lung 
     damage, the federal government promised $100,000 of 
     ``compassionate compensation'' under a law enacted by 
     Congress in 1990. But the check didn't arrive until after his 
     death in 1995.
       Now the same thing could happen to his son because of a 
     funding oversight in Congress last year and a long list of 
     unpaid government IOUs.
       At 57, Richard Leavell suffers from pulmonary fibrosis and 
     silicosis of the lungs, which leave him gasping for air and 
     tied to expensive, ever-present bottles of oxygen.
       ``I can't do anything,'' he said. ``This is no kind of 
     life.''
       Last year, the government sent him a notice that he 
     qualifies for $100,000 compensation. ``Regretfully,'' the 
     letter said, there's no money to back it up.
       Doctors aren't sure whether Leavell, who lives in Cortez, 
     Colo., will live another six months or several years, but he 
     says government officials don't seem to be in any hurry.
       ``They told us they accept responsibility, and this was 
     supposed to be some kind of apology,'' Leavell said. ``It's 
     not much of an apology if you don't get it.''
       The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act is in a crisis, but 
     even an emergency fix could come too late for many of the 275 
     aging former miners, nuclear test participants, 
     downwinders or their surviving spouses with unpaid IOUs.
       Commonly known as RECA, the program got only $10.8 million 
     this fiscal year but needs at least $84 million on top of 
     that to pay all the claims expected to be approved in 2001.
       Although Congress voted to increase each victim's 
     compensation by $50,000, President Bush put that on hold 
     while he reviews virtually every new regulation approved last 
     year. Bush also signaled he is reluctant to approve any 
     supplemental funding requests while he focuses on a proposed 
     $1.6 trillion tax cut.
       ``Here we've got this huge surplus in Washington, D.C., and 
     the government is sending these IOUs to people who are 
     dying,'' said Rebecca Rockwell, a private investigator from 
     Durango, Colo., who helps miners compile their claims.
       ``I've lost 10 of my IOU holders since October,'' Rockwell 
     said. ``The problem is people are dying. I've gone to about 
     as many funerals as I can take.''
       Republican Sens. Pete Domenici, of Albuquerque, and Orrin 
     Hatch, of Utah, recently introduced legislation asking for 
     $84 million in emergency appropriations. Rep. Scott

[[Page S2382]]

     McInnis, a Republican whose district includes the mining 
     county of western Colorado, plans to introduce a House 
     version of the emergency funding bill.
       However, legislative analysts say it's unlikely any new 
     money will be approved before the summer or, more likely, at 
     the end of the fiscal year in October.
       The IOUs are worse than an embarrassment or inconvenience, 
     said Ed Brickey, co-chairman of the Western States RECA 
     Reform Coalition, a collection of citizen groups that are 
     advocates for victims covered by the act.
       ``It has been an injustice to delay any further 
     appropriations or the regulations because the people that 
     have (IOUs) are dying,'' Brickey said.
       The RECA program has long been plagued by complaints about 
     a complex application process that often takes victims many 
     tries and several years to clear.
       The program got into its current funding mess during the 
     11th-hour haggling over the budget in late 2000. Ironically, 
     it came just months after Congress amended the law to ease 
     restrictions, cover more medical conditions, add another 
     $50,000 in compensation under a separate program, and allow 
     uranium mill workers and ore transporters to qualify for the 
     first time.
       The Justice Department estimated it would take $93 million 
     to cover all the claims expected to be approved in fiscal 
     2001. But that request came too late, and when the budget was 
     approved in December it included only $10.8 million for the 
     trust fund. The shortfall includes about $23 million for 
     those already waiting for their money.
       The waiting has left many victims bitter and hopeless in 
     the small towns of southern and western Colorado, eastern 
     Utah and northwest New Mexico, where uranium once meant a 
     livelihood.
       These guys went underground. They would work their butts 
     off, sometimes 10 to 16 hours a day . . . so the government 
     could get their damned uranium,'' said Anna Cox of Montrose, 
     Colo. ``And how do they get repaid? They die for it, with a 
     promissory note that maybe you'll get something . . . after 
     you're dead.''
       Her 63-year-old husband, Eugene, has lung cancer. He worked 
     10 years in the uranium mines outside Grants in New Mexico 
     and Naturita, Slick Rock and Gateway, Colo.
       In the early days, before strict radon monitoring, 
     companies and workers gave little regard to the health risks, 
     he said.
       ``It was work, guaranteed,'' Eugene Cox said. ``You drilled 
     holes with a jackhammer and you shot, blasted out. Then you 
     loaded, either with a slusher or by hand and a scoop 
     shovel.''
       Dust filled the air, but workers never wore protective 
     masks. They used gloves only if they brought their own. Some 
     miners remember days when the only ``fresh air'' they 
     breathed was what leaked out of the air compressors that ran 
     the jackhammers.
       ``I was a young, healthy man,'' Eugene Cox said. ``I did 
     not know. It was a livelihood for me and my three children 
     and my wife.''
       It took three years for Eugene Cox to verify his work 
     history and qualify his illness for compensation. Last year, 
     he finally got an approval letter, which explained the lack 
     of funding and told him to wait.
       ``I stuck it in a box,'' Anna Cox said. ``That's what good 
     it's doing me.''
       Uranium left its mark on whole communities throughout the 
     Four Corners region.
       In tiny Monticello, Utah, local newspaper editor Bill Boyle 
     has a map stuck with more than 200 pins, one for each local 
     resident who died or is dying of a radiation-related illness.
       One pin represents a small, one-story house in the center 
     of town.
       There, former miner Joe Torres has turned his family's 
     living room into a medical ward, with a bed propped where the 
     sofa should be. Cancer has spread from his lungs to his 
     liver, and a government IOU is doing him little good when he 
     needs to buy more painkilling patches.
       ``I'm very shaken,'' he said. ``I can't do a bit of work. 
     And Social Security doesn't give me enough money to pay for 
     my medicines.  . . . I'd like to get at least part of my 
     money to get by.''
       Combined, he and his wife, Vicenta, get just over $1,000 a 
     month from Social Security. The painkillers alone cost $300 a 
     month, and health insurance is coming due soon, she said.
       Torres, 74, started working in the mines of 1951.
       ``They went in and worked and came back pretty well dusty 
     from head to toe,'' Vicenta remembers. ``But he had no idea 
     that in time it would do something to them.''
       Shortly after talking with a reporter, Torres was 
     hospitalized.
       Since 1990, the radiation compensation program has relied 
     on year-to-year allocations in the federal budget. Several 
     lawmakers say it should be converted into an entitlement 
     program so payments are guaranteed without a year-to-year 
     budget fight. But they disagree on how to accomplish that.
       Regardless of the answer, Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., says 
     filling the trust fund's coffers should be a national 
     priority.
       ``These people, as you know, have been jacked around for a 
     lot of years,'' he said. ``The statement we would make by 
     providing them with this compensation they're due would be 
     more than the money.''
       Meanwhile, surviving victims struggle to pay high medical 
     bills and widows wait, not knowing when the government's 
     promise will be kept.
       In the northwest New Mexico town of Aztec, 56-year-old 
     miner's widow Helen Story says she works two jobs a day shift 
     and an overnight shift taking care of elderly hospice 
     patients to get by.
       She worked the same jobs while her husband, Jerald, fought 
     the final months against cancer before he died last March at 
     age 59.
       Jerald Story started working in the uranium and coal mines 
     as a teen-ager.
       He never built up a pension because, like many miners, he 
     bounced from one company to another over several decades. 
     Health problems forced him to retire and go onto Social 
     Security disability in the early 1980s.
       ``I was having to work as much as I could, which took time 
     away from him,'' Helen Story said. ``Some days you think you 
     just can't take much more.''
       The couple first applied for RECA compensation three years 
     ago. The government IOU came after Jerald Story's death, and 
     his widow has become bitter.
       ``If they weren't going to stand good with the program, 
     they never should have started it,'' Helen Story scoffs. 
     ``It's for sure that if we owed the government, they wouldn't 
     wait this long on us.''

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