JOSEPH P. KENNEDY Il l 

4 'fH DISTRICT, MASSACHUSETTS 

COMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND COMMERCE 

S UBCOM M ITTEE ON H !:ALTH 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON COMMERC~. MANUFACTURING , 

AND TRAOE 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 0 VERS1GHT ANO INVESTIGATIONS 

306 CANNON H OUSE OFFICE BvteOING 

WAS~INGTON, DC 205 1 5 

(2021 225-5931 

DISTRICT OFi::1ces: 

29 CRAFTS 5 TAEET 

Sum 375 

NEWTON, MA 02458 

(61 7) 332-3333 

8 NORTH M AIN STREET 

SUITE 200 

ATTLEOORO, MA 02703 

15081 4 31- 1110 

Congrc9'9' of tbc mntteb ~tatcS' 

T!)ou.se of l\epresentatibe.s 

~asbington, il0~ 20515-2104 

August 11, 2020 

Ms. Josie Beach 

Chairman 

Metals and Controls Special Exposure Cohort Working Group 

Dear Ms. Beach, 

I represent the Fourth Congressional District of Massachusetts which includes the city of Attleboro. 

During the 1950's and 1960's Metals and Controls Corporation (M&C) performed government sponsored work as a 

nuclear fuel plant and some of that work included Atomic Weapons Employer (A WE) operations. Texas 

Instruments Incorporated merged with the Metals and Controls Corporation (M&C) in 1959. Work on nuclear fuel 

and A WE operations continued until 1967, and work on nuclear fuel in a small area of one building continued for a 

government research reactor until 1981. 

As the government contracts ended, the radioactive materials were removed, and the plant was declared 

decontaminated. Further records show the M&C facility was not properly decontaminated until 1997. For 30 years 

(1968-1997), during the so-called "Residual Period," M&C re-purposed the buildings where the nuclear operations 

had historically been performed for non-nuclear manufacturing activities. Consequently, many non-nuclear M&C 

workers were exposed to high levels of residual radioactivity during the Residual Period and have had or are still 

experiencing cancers due to their exposures. 

In 2001 the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act, or EEOICPA, was 

created by the federal government to compensate qualified workers or workers' families for their exposure to 

radioactive materials and for their related cancers. Under the standard individual claim process, each worker's 

claim is evaluated on the basis of a dose reconstruction to determine if the probability of causation of the illness 

suffered is greater than 50% ("more likely than not" caused by one's occupational exposures). Under the Special 

Exposure Cohort (SEC) provision, no dose reconstruction is required to show the probability of causation; the 

worker is eligible if he/she can demonstrate that they are a member of a class of workers recognized under the SEC 

and have developed one of the covered cancers. The enabling statute (42 USC c.84 §7384q) specifies that "the 

Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health (Advisory Board) under section 73840 of this title shall advise the 

President whether there is a class of employees at any DOE facility [AWE-Facility] who likely were exposed to 

radiation at that facility but for whom it is not feasible to estimate with sufficient accuracy the radiation dose they 

received." 

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER 

®,e..,, 
Since taking office in 2013, I have sought to assist in the distribution of benefits to former T.I. employees 

who have fallen ill as a result of working at the site in Attleboro. I have met several of these employees and have 

heard many stories about the pain they and their families have experienced as a result. My office organized 

resources to improve outreach to former employees, and thanks to our efforts, an additional $45 million was 

awarded in individual claims submitted after 2013. 

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the claims submitted by former workers whose exposures 

occurred exclusively during the Residual Period. As I understand it, the problem is that the standard Residual 

Period dose reconstruction model, which assumes that exposures are lower and diminish at a predictable rate after 

the end of the Operational Period, is entirely inadequate for certain classes of Residual Period workers at the M&C 

site. 

I am aware that a group of former M&C Maintenance Workers filed an SEC Petition in August 2016 for 

exposures they received during the Residual Period (1968-1997). These workers came in direct contact and 

disturbed high levels of radioactive materials that had been released during the Operational Period into subsurface 

drains, soils and trenches, into overhead areas, and had gone undetected until the site was fully characterized and 

decommissioned between 1992 and 1997. During the entire 30-year Residual Period, these workers were exposed 

without knowledge of or training for the hazards to which they were exposed, their exposures were never measured 

or monitored, and they were not compensated when they became sick from their exposure. 

As I previously stated in my letter of November 20, 2018, it is my hope that the Work Group (and by 

extension, the entire Advisory Board) takes a broader view and considers the original purpose and intent of the 

EEOICPA when considering the SEC Petition for M&C Maintenance Workers under evaluation. 

Thank you for your work and consideration of this request. Please do not hesitate to let me know if I can be 

at all helpful. 

Sincerely, 

Joseph P. Kennedy III 

Member of Congress