Millions of Dollars of Improper Payments Paid to Energy Department Contractors
Grassley, Bunning, Bingaman GAO Report Reveals Major Flaws
WASHINGTON – Senators Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Jim Bunning of Kentucky and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico today released a report from the Government Accountability Office that shows the Department of Energy’s poor internal controls resulted in $26.4 million in improper and questionable payments to contractors of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program. These improper and questionable payments account for nearly 30 percent of the $92 million of funds allocated for the program.
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Act of 2000 was enacted to provide benefits and compensation to employees and contractors of the Department of Energy who developed cancer and other illnesses after they were exposed to toxic substances or radiation through their work.
The Senators requested the report in 2004 after learning that a contractor hired to process the compensation claims of sick workers got paid millions of dollars while only one sick Cold War worker was paid compensation.
The Senators said the GAO report is evidence that Congress’ actions in 2004 to move the program to the Department of Labor were appropriate.
“The bottom line is that sick workers got short-changed and the taxpayers got gouged. The Energy Department had virtually no oversight of contractors assigned to the important program. It’s outrageous to see contractors line their pockets while cold war veterans got stuck with absolutely nothing,” Grassley said. “It looks like the ridiculous salaries outlined during the 2004 Energy Committee hearing were just the tip of the iceberg.”
“What we see in this report is nothing short of a fleecing of taxpayers’ money. This is exactly why I pushed to move the program from the DOE in the first place. These cold war workers sacrificed their health and safety to preserve our freedoms. They deserve their promised benefits instead of the deceit and fraud they received. DOE needs to be held accountable for their ignorance in wasting taxpayer dollars and we need to do everything we can to stop the mismanagement of funds by bureaucrats in order to ensure that something like this doesn’t happen again. I will continue to work with my colleagues here in the Senate to look into this issue and see that the needs of the workers are met,” Bunning said.
“It’s hard to imagine that this program would be so badly administered that nearly one-third of all payments it has made have been improper or questionable. I hope we can recover at least some of the taxpayer dollars that are unaccounted for,” Bingaman said. “This is very disappointing, but I am hopeful that the situation has been much improved since the program was moved to the Department of Labor.”
The Senators intend to continue their oversight efforts of the Department of Energy and will work to see that the taxpayers’ money is recouped from the contractors.
The full GAO report can be seen here.
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