The U.S. Department of Justice on Monday sued the state of Washington over a new law that eases state workers’ compensation requirements for claims from employees of the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site.
The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for Eastern Washington after a telephone discussion Monday between attorneys with the Justice Department and the Washington state Attorney General’s Office to clarify the federal government’s concerns.
The Justice Department says the state law that took effect in June violates the U.S. Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. It attempts to directly regulate the federal government and holds it to a stricter standard that other entities in the state, according to the lawsuit. “It singles out DOE, its contractors, and the federally owned and operated portions of Hanford for a substantially more burdensome and costly workers’ compensation scheme,” the lawsuit said.
The lawsuit asks that the court declare the state law invalid, enjoin its enforcement, and award the federal government costs of the proceeding.
Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, condemned the lawsuit during a press conference Tuesday, calling it a “depraved action” of the Trump administration. “The people who fought communism shouldn’t have to fight their federal government to get the health care they deserve,” he said.
In March, Inslee signed the legislation requiring the Washington state Department of Labor and Industries to presume that a wide range of health conditions suffered by Hanford personnel were caused by their work at the form plutonium production complex and current nuclear cleanup site. They include neurological and respiratory illnesses and many cancers.
The law means Hanford workers will no longer have to demonstrate a connection between their health problems and time at Hanford, even just a single eight-hour work day. There is no time limit for workers or former workers to apply for compensation under the eased compensation rules.
The Department of Energy, which is self-insured to pay state workers’ compensation claims for Hanford, can provide information to challenge the presumption, including the workers’ history of smoking, their lifestyle, or exposure to toxins at home or other jobs.
The federal lawsuit is based on an incorrect interpretation of the interaction of state and federal laws, state Attorney General Bob Ferguson said at the press conference. Congress has given the state authority over the workers’ compensation program for Hanford contractors, he said.
He pointed out that firefighters also have eased requirements for workers’ compensation in Washington state because of their risk of being exposed to unknown hazardous chemicals. The Hanford law was modeled after the 1987 firefighter law, but with fewer restrictions. Firefighters must work for at least 10 years and file a claim within five years of their last day of work to qualify for eased compensation requirements.
Democratic state Sen. Karen Keiser, who sponsored the legislation passed into law, said workers’ compensation claims at Hanford have been rejected at a rate 52 percent higher than the state average. “We have heard firsthand, through testimony before the Senate Labor and Commerce Committee, of the medical tribulations experienced by these Washingtonians,” she said in a statement. “People have gone bankrupt paying for cancer treatments, suffered from lung disease, and lost tragic battles with dementia.
The legislation was controversial with business and insurance interests. A legislative staff report on the bill before it passed said critics called it “breathtaking in its scope and inclusivity. The bill does not take into account any nexus between conditions and any particular class of workers or exposure.”
The Washington state Department of Labor and Industries reported, that as of the end of November, 83 Hanford claims have been reviewed under the new law. Twenty-eight claims were approved, six denied, and the rest are still pending a ruling.
