Clinton Signs Expansion of Payouts for Radiation Victims

A program that pays up to $100,000 to people sickened by Cold War-era uranium mining and nuclear tests will be dramatically expanded under a bill signed by President Clinton.

The changes augment a 1990 law giving payments to uranium miners and nuclear test “downwinders”--people who lived in areas most affected by nuclear fallout from tests--with cancers or other ailments linked to their radiation exposure.

The new law adds to the list of cancers that make people eligible for payments and broadens the categories of people who may apply.

The aim is to compensate those unknowingly exposed to radiation while working to develop the U.S. nuclear arsenal from World War II until 1971.

“The president believes that people who have gotten sick from radioactive fallout or uranium miners who were involved in the atomic weapons program should not have to jump through unnecessary hoops to be compensated,” White House spokesman Jake Siewert said Wednesday.

As of March 1, the Justice Department had paid 3,302 claims worth $244 million under the 1990 law and denied another 3,500 claims.

Up to 9,600 more people could get compensation with the changes, said Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), who backed the measure. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the program will cost $750 million during the next five years.

The law, signed late Monday, streamlines the application process, adds open-pit uranium miners and those who transported uranium to those eligible for compensation, and eliminates provisions that give less money to downwinders or miners who smoked.

The law also extends eligibility to uranium workers from South Dakota, North Dakota, Idaho, Oregon and Texas. The previous law covered Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Washington state.