U.S. Department of Labor Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs Washington, DC 20210

February 2, 2023

Dr. Steven Markowitz, Chair

Advisory Board on Toxic Substances

 and Worker Health

Queens College, Remsen Hall 

65-30 Kissena Boulevard

Flushing, NY 11367 

Dear Dr. Markowitz:

Thank you for your letter dated December 21, 2022, transmitting the recommendation adopted 

by the Advisory Board on Toxic Substances and Worker Health (Advisory Board or Board)

during its meeting on December 1, 2022. On behalf of Secretary of Labor Martin J. Walsh, to 

whom you addressed your letter, the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP)

responds to the recommendation herein. 

The Board adopted the following recommendation regarding Exposure Evaluations for Claimants 

Who Worked Widely Within a Department of Energy (DOE) Site:

The Board recommends that the Department of Labor [DOL or Department] provide 

instruction to claims examiners, industrial hygienists, and contract medical consultant 

reviewers that, if there is evidence that a claimant’s employment led to their routine duties 

being performed widely across a site, this be specifically noted in the claim file and that 

consideration be given in establishing toxic substance exposure and causation for exposures 

that are site-wide and not just limited to their work area of record.

Supporting its request, the Board provided the following rationale:

The Board recognizes that the Site Exposure Matrices [SEM] is a very useful tool for

identifying some potential exposures to toxic substances at Department of Energy sites in

relation to claims for compensation. However, there is broad agreement that, due to the

incomplete nature of historic data or other evidence concerning potential exposures that

occurred at Department of Energy sites, the Site Exposure Matrices provide only a partial 

view of such potential exposures. This limitation isin part mitigated by other sources of

exposure information that are used in the claims' evaluation process.

Thislimitation in the Site Exposure Matrices is most conspicuous for occupations whose 

work tasks routinely require that they work in many areas and buildings at a Department of

Energy site. These occupations include, for example, security guards, firefighters, health 

physics technicians and others. We have noted very considerable variation in the number 

and types of toxic substances associated with these job titles at different sites with the 
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Department of Energy complex.

To address the limitation in the Site Exposure Matrices for these occupations, the claims 

examiners can ensure a more informed and fairer evaluation of potential exposures for a 

defined and finite set of these occupations through identifying their claims and through the

routine referral of their claims for an industrial hygiene evaluation, indicating in the request

that it is accepted that the claimant may have had a broader profile of exposure to toxic

substances than the Site Exposure Matrices indicates. Such a communication should 

also be made to any contract medical consultants who are providing evaluations of these 

claims.

DOL Response: The recommendation noted above is similar, in nature, to previous

recommendations offered by the Board. In response to those, DOL issued letters dated June 2, 

2020, and November 5, 2020. A summary of our responses is noted below.

On June 2, 2020, we noted:

“...there are essentially two ways to create a SEM labor category profile, and often the profile is 

a combination of both. Because there are some jobs that are unique to DOE facilities, such as 

nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly, DOE possesses specific information about those 

processes. As such, DOE documents form the basis of the profile. As facility-specific 

documentation inform the profiles for security guard and health physics technicians, the number 

of corresponding toxic substances for each profile are different. For jobs not unique to DOE, 

such as roofers, DOE did not maintain specific information and therefore the SEM team has used 

industry information to create a profile.”

On November 5, 2020, we further stated that:

“...the assignment of toxic substance exposures to positions, such as firefighters, security guards, 

health physics technicians, and safety personnel, is dependent on site-specific data. The 

Department has provided to the Board the site profile information it requested to further assess 

this topic. It is the Department’s position that it is inappropriate to assign such a broad 

classification of exposure to specific labor categories in the absence of any underlying 

documentary support. Accordingly, the Department does not agree with the Board’s 

recommendation. The Department remains willing to dialog further with the Board about 

specific toxic substance exposures that the Department could assign to highly mobile workers at 

particular facilities.”

Regarding the current recommendation, the Department continues to hold the position that 

broad-based generalizations are not appropriate in the absence of specific evidentiary support for 

particular labor categories. However, we want to reiterate that claims examiners are trained to 

consider the evidence of file specific to the individual claimant and use that data to link the 

particular employee to potential exposures. The Procedure Manual also provides clear guidance 

to claims examiners that examination of exposure is a holistic effort that considers information 
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from many sources. The information assembled by the claims examiner in the case file as 

described above can be considered, if needed, by subject matter experts like industrial hygienists 

and contract medical consultants. In summary, the Department will consider any specific 

information provided by the claimant during the collection of evidence about their work 

activities/locations and assign exposure based on data that reasonably connects an employee to a 

specific toxic substance through a labor category, work process, incident, or other factor.

On behalf of the Department, the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs, Division of 

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation, and the communities we serve, I look 

forward to the continued efforts of the Advisory Board. 

Sincerely,

Christopher J. Godfrey

OWCP Director