[Congressional Bills 108th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2047 Introduced in Senate (IS)]
108th CONGRESS
2d Session
S. 2047
To amend the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program
Act of 2000 to include certain former nuclear weapons program workers
in the Special Exposure Cohort under the compensation program
established by that Act.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
February 2, 2004
Mr. Bond introduced the following bill; which was read twice and
referred to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions
_______________________________________________________________________
A BILL
To amend the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program
Act of 2000 to include certain former nuclear weapons program workers
in the Special Exposure Cohort under the compensation program
established by that Act.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the
United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. FINDINGS.
Congress finds that--
(1) energy workers at the former Mallinkrodt facilities
(including the St. Louis downtown facility, the Weldon Springs
facility, and the Hematite facility) were exposed to levels of
radionuclides and radioactive materials that were much greater
than the current maximum allowable Federal standards;
(2) the Mallinkrodt workers at the St. Louis site were
exposed to excessive levels of airborne uranium dust relative
to the standards in effect during the time, and many workers
were exposed to 200 times the preferred levels of exposure;
(3)(A) the chief safety officer for the Atomic Energy
Commission during the Mallinkrodt-St. Louis operations
described the facility as 1 of the 2 worst plants with respect
to worker exposures;
(B) workers were excreting in excess of a milligram of
uranium per day causing kidney damage; and
(C) a recent epidemiological study found excess levels of
nephritis and kidney cancer from inhalation of uranium dusts;
(4) the Department of Energy has admitted that those
workers were subjected to risks and had their health endangered
as a result of working with these highly radioactive materials;
(5) the Department of Energy reported that workers at the
Weldon Springs feed materials plant handled plutonium and
recycled uranium, which are highly radioactive;
(6) the National Institute of Occupational Safety and
Health admits that--
(A) the operations at the St. Louis downtown site
consisted of intense periods of processing extremely
high levels of radionuclides; and
(B) the Institute has virtually no personal
monitoring data for workers prior to 1948;
(7) the National Institute of Occupational Safety and
Health has informed claimants and their survivors at those 3
sites that if they are not interviewed as a part of the dose
reconstruction process, it--
(A) would hinder the ability of the Institute to
conduct dose reconstruction for the claimant; and
(B) may result in a dose reconstruction that
incompletely or inaccurately estimates the radiation
dose to which the energy employee named in the claim
had been exposed;
(8) the Department of Health and Human Services published
the first notice of proposed rulemaking concerning the Special
Exposure Cohort on June 25, 2002, and as of January 27, 2004,
the rule has yet to be finalized; and
(9) many of those former workers have died while waiting
for the proposed rule to be finalized, including some claimants
who were waiting for dose reconstruction to be completed.
SEC. 2. DEFINITION OF MEMBER OF THE SPECIAL EXPOSURE COHORT.
Section 3621(14) of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness
Compensation Program Act of 2000 (42 U.S.C. 7384l(14)) is amended--
(1) by redesignating subparagraph (C) as subparagraph (D);
and
(2) by inserting after subparagraph (B) the following:
``(C) The employee was so employed for a number of
work days aggregating at least 45 workdays at a
facility operated under contract to the Department of
Energy by Mallinkrodt Incorporated or its successors
(including the St. Louis downtown or `Destrahan'
facility during any of calendar years 1942 through
1958, the Weldon Springs feed materials plant facility
during any of calendar years 1958 through 1966, and the
Hematite facility during any of calendar years 1958
through 1969), and during the employment--
``(i)(I) was monitored through the use of
dosimetry badges for exposure at the plant of
the external parts of an employee's body to
radiation; or
``(II) was monitored through the use of
bioassays, in vivo monitoring, or breath
samples for exposure at the plant to internal
radiation; or
``(ii) worked in a job that had exposures
comparable to a job that is monitored, or
should have been monitored, under standards of
the Department of Energy in effect on the date
of enactment of this subparagraph through the
use of dosimetry badges for monitoring external
radiation exposures, or bioassays, in vivo
monitoring, or breath samples for internal
radiation exposures, at a facility.''.
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