The U.S. Supreme Court this week agreed to hear the Department of Justice’s challenges to a Washington state law that made it easier for cleanup workers at the Department of Energy’s Hanford Site to claim compensation for certain occupational illnesses.
The highest court in the land, an independent branch of the federal government, said Monday it would consider whether the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrongly upheld a Washington state law easing workers’ compensation eligibility for certain diseases arising from cleanup work at the former plutonium production site.
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who filed a brief in opposition to the Supreme Court hearing the case, took to Twitter to voice his displeasure.
“The [Joe] Biden administration is continuing Donald Trump’s cruel effort to eliminate these critical protections for the hardworking men and women at Hanford,” Ferguson tweeted. “After we beat the Trump administration in court —twice— the Biden administration is bringing this anti-worker crusade to the highest court in the land. We will continue to fight for Hanford workers.”
The high court’s approval of the writs of certiorari in the case was listed among orders issued Monday by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Washington state House Bill 1723, supported by labor groups and both Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature, was signed into law in June 2018 by Gov. Jay Inslee (D). The Donald Trump administration then challenged the law in the federal courts, unsuccessfully. \
Under the state law, workers suffering from respiratory diseases, neurological problems, and chronic beryllium disease have an easier path to qualify for benefits. The Biden Justice Department asked the high court in September to review the lower court decision.
Used to produce plutonium for military purposes from the 1940s into the 1980s, the Hanford Site is considered one of the most contaminated nuclear properties in the world.
The high court only accepts 100-150 of the more than 7,000 cases that it is asked to review each year and four of the nine justices must agree to hear a case, according to a Supreme Court website.
In recent years, cases so closely tied to a Department of Energy weapons complex site have not gotten much attention from the nation’s highest court.
In March 2021, the Supreme Court turned down a New Mexico citizens group challenge of a Clean Water Act permit at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. The same court in October 2019, declined to hear the state of South Carolina’s attempt to at-least temporarily stave off DOE cancellation of the Mixed Oxide Fuel Fabrication Facility.
