WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration, acknowledging that thousands of people became seriously ill, unveiled a broad package of compensation Wednesday for ailing workers who were exposed to radiation at the country's nuclear bomb factories during the Cold War, government sources said.
Energy Secretary Bill Richardson was to announce the compensation program, most of which will still have to be approved by Congress.The plan would offer lump-sum payments of at least $100,000 to workers or their survivors, or allow them to negotiate a package that would cover medical costs, lost wages and job retraining, according to sources familiar with the proposal.
While it's unclear how many people would be affected, the Energy Department has estimated that about 3,000 former workers at nuclear weapons plants, or their families, are likely to be eligible because of exposure to radiation in the 1950s and, in some cases, into the 1970s.
The plan estimates the cost of the program at as much as $400 million a year in the early years, but costs would decline as the number of eligible workers declines, said officials.
The plan represents the first action by the government that would affect long-standing claims by nuclear-weapons workers throughout the government's vast nuclear weapons production complex covering facilities in more than a dozen states.
It was not immediately clear what specific facilities would be covered, although workers at uranium enrichment plants in Paducah, Ky., and Piketon, Ohio, are among the locations where compensation was expected.
Last January, a White House panel concluded there was credible evidence that many workers at the nuclear weapons plants became ill with lung cancer and other serious illnesses because of exposure to radiation or toxic chemicals. Until then, the government had always denied a direct link between work exposure and later illnesses.
Under the proposal being unveiled Wednesday, the government would assume workers were exposed to the highest expected level of radiation associated with their work if actual medical records were not available, said the sources, who spoke on condition of not being further identified.
The proposed compensation plan, which was put together by the White House National Economic Council, was first reported by The Washington Post.
The plan expands an earlier proposal by the Energy Department that would provide compensation to a limited number of workers who have contracted an incurable beryllium disease because of exposure to chemicals and radioactive material at the Kentucky and Ohio uranium enrichment plants.
"The government is done fighting workers and now we're going to help them. We're reversing the decades-old practice of opposing worker claims and moving forward to do the right thing," Richardson was quoted as saying by the Post.