A Senate spending bill approved by the appropriations committee last week wiped out $72 million requested by President Bush to prevent a shortfall in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) trust fund that the Justice Department is forecasting for next year.

The last time the fund ran out of money, in 2001, the Justice Department sent IOUs to ill Downwinders - people exposed to radioactive fallout carried by winds from nuclear testing in Nevada - and uranium miners. Many died waiting for the government to make good.

“I thought we were done with this IOU thing,” said Ed Brickey, co-chairman of the Western States RECA Reform Coalition, which represents uranium miners and others suffering from exposure. “I never thought that would be something that would ever be heard of again.”

Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett say they are battling to restore the money and are hopeful they will succeed.

“I do not want to repeat the problems we had in 2001,” Hatch said.

RECA provided for $100,000 payments to uranium miners, millers and ore haulers, while Downwinders were eligible to receive $50,000.

“The shortfall in the RECA trust fund is a serious problem,” said Bennett, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, while also pledging to work within the appropriations committee to boost funding.

Adding insult to the potential injury, House and Senate members of the Armed Services Committees are considering guaranteed payments to a new group of Energy Department workers sickened by weapons development.

Hatch views the discussion as patently unfair to the RECA recipients who are once again fighting to keep their compensation fund from drying up.

“I don't think it's right,” Hatch said. “We should be working to resolve the RECA funding issues before looking at adding more people to [the Energy Department program].”

Richard Miller, an expert on the compensation program with the Government Accountability Project, said Hatch is right that RECA claimants should be paid. But the problem is not the Energy Department workers and contractors who filed claims under a law passed four years ago and have been patiently awaiting payment.

“There's 25,000 claims that have been filed with the Energy Department and DOE has only processed 6 percent,” Miller said. “There's an expectation that these claims deserve an answer and the meritorious claims should be paid.”

The DOE has sent payments to just 31 of the claimants, despite $95 million in administrative costs.

“This begged for reform,” Miller said. “That's not to say that RECA workers shouldn't worry about receiving IOUs and if there are inequities they should be examined.”

In the past, the law said the federal government would merely assist the particular group of Energy workers in getting assistance from their employer or the state workers compensation program.

An amendment backed by Sens. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., and Jim Bunning, R-Ky., would require the federal government to take over the compensation payments and ensure they are made without annual appropriation fights.

“There shouldn't be a separation between radiation workers,” said Brickey. “That doesn't seem to me like the American way of doing things. We should take care of all of them, put them on equal ground.”