Congress Asked to Investigate Charges that Labor Dept. Thwarted Nuclear Worker Claims

Monday, July 31, 2017 | 0

An advoacy group for nuclear weapons workers is asking Congress to hold hearings to investigate a Labor Department whistleblower’s allegations that the government officially intentionally interfered with occupational illness claims by workers and widows, according to a report by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Alliance of Nuclear Worker Advocacy Groups says the whistleblower’s complaints confirm its long-held concern that Labor Department administrators are interfering with valid claims. Stephen Silbiger, an attorney in the department’s Solictor’s Office, told the Free Beacon last week that federal officials interfered with claims by “writing regulations that made qualification much more stringent than Congress intended, failing to disclose all the application rules, changing eligibility rules midstream, and delaying compensation for years until the sick workers died.”

"It is time, and ANWAG strongly urges Congress to hold hearings in the very near future to not only investigate the allegations made by the DOL whistleblower and ANWAG but also to determine if [the program] is fulfilling the purpose of this compensation program, as Congress defined it," ANWAG’s Terrie Barrie wrote to Sens. Lamar Alexander, R-Tennnessee, chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, and Patty Murray, D-Washington, the committee's ranking member. 

The letter was signed by eight other organizations that assist sick workers with their claims, including the Energy Employees Claimant Assistant Project, the Atomic Workers Advocacy Group, and advocates for claimants who worked at nuclear plants in Denver, Colorado; Kansas City, Missouri; and Paducah, Kentucky.

ANWAG contends that Congress has not conducted any oversight in the past 10 years over the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Program Act, which pays up to $400,000 in medical bills and wage-loss benefits to former nuclear weapons workers who were exposed to toxic substances while on the job.