[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 21 (Wednesday, February 25, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E223]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        INTRODUCTION OF ROCKY FLATS SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                            HON. MARK UDALL

                              of colorado

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 25, 2004

  Mr. UDALL of Colorado. Mr. Speaker, I am today introducing a bill to 
make it more likely that red tape and missing documents will not 
frustrate Congress's attempt to provide compensation and care for some 
nuclear-weapons workers made sick by on-job exposure to radiation.
  The bill is cosponsored by my colleague from Colorado, Mr. Beauprez. 
I appreciate his support.
  The bill would revise the part of the Energy Employees Occupational 
Injury Compensation Act (``the Act'') that specifies which covered 
workers are part of what the law designates as the ``Special Exposure 
Cohort.''
  The revision would extend this ``special exposure cohort'' status to 
Department of Energy employees, Department of Energy contractor 
employees, or atomic weapons employees--all terms defined by the 
current law--who have worked at the Rocky Flats site, in Colorado, for 
at least 250 days or will have worked there that long by January 1, 
2006.
  The result would be to help provide the Act's benefits to any of 
those workers who contracted a radiation-linked cancer specified in the 
Act after beginning employment at Rocky Flats.
  As the law now stands, before a Rocky Flats worker suffering from a 
covered cancer can receive benefits, it must be established that the 
cancer is as likely as not to have resulted from on-the-job exposure to 
radiation.
  That sounds like a reasonable requirement--and it would be 
appropriate for Rocky Flats if we had adequate documentation of 
radiation exposures for the years when it was producing nuclear-weapons 
components as well as for the more recent time when DOE and its 
contractors have been working to clean it up and prepare it for 
closure.
  However, in fact there were serious shortcomings in the monitoring of 
Rocky Flats workers' radiation exposures and in the necessary 
recordkeeping--to say nothing of the slowness of the current 
administrative process for making the required determinations 
concerning links between exposure and employment.
  This means there is a real risk that a significant number of Rocky 
Flats workers who should be able to benefit from the Act will not 
obtain its benefits in a timely manner or will be denied them entirely.
  The bill would prevent this miscarriage of justice, by recognizing 
that Rocky Flats workers have been plagued by the same kinds of 
administrative problems that entangled workers at some other 
locations--administrative problems that were addressed through 
inclusion in the Act of the provisions related to the ``Special 
Exposure Cohort.''
  My understating of the need for this bill by meeting with Rocky Flats 
workers and their representatives and by consulting experts. I have 
particularly benefited from the great experience and expertise of Dr. 
Robert Bistline. Dr. Bistline has served as Program Manager of the 
Energy Department's Oversight of Radiation Protection Program at the 
Rocky Flats field office and has few if any peers in terms of his 
understanding of the problems addressed by the bill.

  In particular, the bill reflects these aspects of Rocky Flats 
history--
  Many worker exposures were unmonitored over the lifetime of the 
plant. Even within the past month a former worker from the 1950's was 
monitored under the Former Radiation Worker Program and found to have a 
significant internal deposition that had been undetected and unrecorded 
for more than 50 years.
  No lung counter for detecting and measuring plutonium and americium 
in the lungs existed at Rocky Flats until the late 1960's. Without this 
equipment the very insoluble oxide forms of plutonium cannot be 
detected and a large number of workers had inhalation exposures that 
went undetected and unmeasured.
  Exposure to neutron radiation was not monitored until the late 1950's 
and most of those measurements through 1970 have been found to be in 
error. In some areas of the plant the neutron doses were as much as 2 
to 10 times as great as the gamma doses received by workers but only 
gamma doses were recorded. The old neutron films are being re-read but 
those doses have not yet been added to the workers' records or been 
used in NIOSH's dose reconstructions for Rocky Flats workers.
  Radiation exposures for many workers were not measured or were 
missing, therefore, the records are incomplete or estimated doses were 
assigned. There are many inaccuracies in the exposure records that 
NIOSH is using to determine whether Rocky Flats workers qualify for 
compensation under the Act.
  The model that has been used for dose reconstruction by NIOSH in 
determining whether Rocky Flats workers qualify for compensation under 
the Act is in error. The default values used for particle size and 
solubility of the internally deposited plutonium in workers are in 
error. Use of these erroneous values reduces the actual internal doses 
for claimants by as much as 3 to 10 times less than the Rocky Flats 
records and autopsy data indicate.
  Some Rocky Flats workers, despite having worked with tons of 
plutonium and having known exposures leading to serious health effects, 
have been denied compensation under the Act as a result of potentially 
flawed calculations based on records that are incomplete or in error as 
well as the use of incorrect models.
  Mr. Speaker, since early in my tenure in Congress I have worked to 
make good on promises of a fairer deal for the nuclear-weapons workers 
who helped America win the Cold War. That was why enactment and 
improvement of the compensation Act has been one of my top priorities. 
I saw this as a very important matter for our country--and especially 
for many Coloradans because our state is home to the Rocky Flats site, 
which for decades was a key part of the nuclear-weapons complex.
  Now the site's military mission has ended, and the Rocky Flats 
workers are pressing to complete the job of cleaning it up and 
preparing it for closure. But while they are taking care of the site, 
we in Congress need to take care of them and the others who worked 
there in the past.
  That was the purpose of the compensation act. I am very proud that I 
was able to help achieve its enactment, but I am also aware that it is 
not perfect. The bill being introduced today will not remedy all the 
shortcoming of the current law, but it will make it better.
  For the benefit of our colleague, I am attaching an outline of the 
bill's provisions:

     Section 1: Short Title, Findings, and Purpose
       Subsection (a) provides a short title, ``Rocky Flats 
     Special Cohort Act.''
       Subsection (b) sets forth several findings regarding the 
     need for the legislation.
       Subsection ( c) states the bill's purpose: ``to revise the 
     Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act so as 
     to include certain past and present Rocky Flats workers as 
     members of the special exposure cohort.''
     Section 2: Definition of Member of Special Exposure Cohort
       Subsection (a) amends section 3621(14) of the Energy 
     Employees Occupational Injury Compensation Act (EEOICPA). The 
     effect of the amendment is to provide that a person employed 
     by the Department of Energy or any of its contractors for an 
     aggregate of at least 250 work days at Rocky Flats before 
     January 1, 2006 would be a ``member of the Special Exposure 
     Cohort.'' Under EEOICPA, a member of the special exposure 
     cohort suffering from one of the cancers specified in the Act 
     is covered by the Act if the cancer was contracted after the 
     person began employment at a covered facility.
       Subsection (b) provides that someone employed by the Energy 
     Department or any of its contractors for an aggregate of at 
     least 250 work days at Rocky Flats before January 1, 2006 may 
     apply for compensation or benefits under EEOICPA even if the 
     person had previously been denied compensation or benefits 
     under the Act. This is to make clear that the subsection 
     (a)'s change in the law will apply to people who had applied 
     previously.

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