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Article
published March 27, 2001
Don’t delay beryllium
aid
IF LABOR Secretary Elaine Chao has any
intention to obstruct the program to compensate northwest Ohio
nuclear weapons workers made ill by exposure to beryllium, she
should forget about it.
In the midst of the trashing of a
whole series of workplace-safety and environmental regulations by
the business-friendly Bush administration comes news that Ms. Chao
has asked the White House to rescind the executive order under which
the program was created and transfer it to the Justice
Department.
Fortunately, Ohio’s U.S. senators, George
Voinovich and Mike DeWine, have intervened with a strongly worded
letter to Ms. Chao, trying to get the program back on
track.
Mr. Voinovich and Mr. DeWine were instrumental in
Congress’ appropriation in December of $60 million for the program,
which is intended to compensate weapons workers suffering from
cancer or lung ailments due to exposure to radiation, silica, or
beryllium. Payments are expected to go to at least 4,000 people,
including a number who contracted Chronic Beryllium Disease working
at the Brush Wellman plant in Elmore. Some of them are desperately
ill.
The plight of the beryllium victims was featured in an
award-winning series of articles in The Blade in 1999. The series
led to congressional investigations and an unprecedented admission
by the government that nuclear weapons workers of the Cold War era
had been harmed by their labor. The program is to provide lump-sum
compensation of $150,000 per worker, plus medical benefits to those
still living. It’s not much, but it will help.
The Labor
Department is due to begin accepting applications for the program
within a few months. Ms. Chao claims that the work could be better
accomplished by a radiation compensation program in the Justice
Department, but the senators point out that Justice officials
testified at a hearing last year that that department "does not have
the necessary infrastructure or expertise to administer this program
effectively." That’s why it was assigned to Labor.
Ms. Chao
should know that, but since she’s new on the job we’ll give her the
benefit of the doubt. Only the coldest bureaucrat would want to
sabotage a program to aid Americans who unwittingly forfeited their
health in service to their country.
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