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and NIOSH . So you'll receive both items 

simultaneously . The question is is does NI OSH 

actually make copies and distribute to the entire 

Board at the same time. I mean I don't know if 

Dr . Ziemer wants to be in the business of 

reproducing the deliverables and disseminating 

them to the Board or should we do that at your 

discretion. 

DR. ZIEMER: Well, I'm certainly glad to 

comment on that. I think NIOSH is, in a sense, 

tasked with providing Board support, and I think 

we would rely on them to do the distribution. 

Wanda? 

MS . MUNN: I move that the Chairman of this 

Board be authorized to act on behalf of the Board 

in notifying timely deliverables' receipt and in 

authorizing payment of vouchers by the contractor 

as submitted to him. 

DR. ZIEMER: Thank you . 

the motion? 

DR. DEHART: 

DR. ZIEMER: 

Second . 

Seconded. 

Is there a second to 

Discussion? 

DR . MELIUS: Someone repeat exactly what's 

included in the deliverable parts of that . 

DR . ZIEMER: Can you read the motion back to 

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us, Ray? 

(Whereupon, the motion was repeated by the 

Court Reporter.) 

DR. ZIEMER: 

favor , aye. 

Ready to vote? Okay. 

(Affirmative responses) 

All opposed? 

(No responses) 

AbstentLons? 

(No responses) 

Motion carries . Thank you . 

All in 

DR. ANDERSON: Is the Chair agreeable? 

309 

DR . ZIEMER: I'm always agreeable, aren't I? 

Next I'd ask that we take from the table the 

motion that was made yesterday regarding a letter 

to Secretary Thompson on the Special Exposure 

Cohort . In the meantime, we asked Jim to actually 

dra ft t he letter that he was proposing so we had 

somet h ing to work on , and I will interpret the 

dra f t that has been distributed as the motion that 

is before us. That motion has been duly seconded, 

so we have before us a proposed letter to the 

Secretary dealing with this issue. 

I now open the floor for discussions, any 

proposed changes or -- you can speak for or 

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against the motion. Tony? 

DR. ANDRADE: I had two proposed changes. 

One is fairly simple. It's in the very first 

paragraph of the letter, first sentence, which 

goes on to say (reading) I am writing to you to 

express our concern about the delay. 

310 

I'm a little leery of using the word "delay". 

It implies that there ' s perhaps some deliberate 

activity in actually withholding the release of 

the SEC draft legislation. If they are having 

half as much problems or problem with it as we had 

in getting our comments together, then I don't 

blame them for taking this kind of time for its 

review. Hence, I would simply suggest that we 

change the word "delay" to "timeliness". 

DR. ZIEMER: Are you making that as a 

proposed amendment then? 

DR. ANDRADE: Yes --

DR. ZIEMER: I ' m not -- it's not obvious to 

me whether that is a substantive change or a 

friendly amendment. I might ask the movers --

mover and seconder if they regard that as friendly 

or neutral or -- is it different? Is the impact -

DR. MELIUS: I don't have any strong 

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objection to it . I'd probably disagree with Tony 

about some of the interpretation, but if people 

are more comfortable with that word , that's fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: It appears that the motioner 

would accept that. What about the seconder? 

MR. ESP I NOSA: That's fine. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Then let's consider that 

change. Thank you. 

DR. ANDRADE: Second 

DR. ZIEMER: You still have the floor. 

DR . ANDRADE: Right . Second of all, this may 

be a little bit more controversial, we go down to 

the bottom of the draft letter --

DR. ZIEMER: Are you at the bottom of the 

first page or --

DR. ANDRADE: Bottom of the first page. I'd 

like to propose that we strike the entire 

paragraph, which carries on into the next -- onto 

the second page . Reason for doing that is that it 

implies that the SEC legislation is going to give 

us definitive criteria for performing dose 

reconstructions or for -- which are currently 

ongoing. And I think those methods are being 

developed, and I don't believe that there are 

going to be new criteria as far as I can recall 

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the language in the draft legislation . 

DR. ZIEMER: I think I will interpret that 

a motion to a mend , is to strike the paragraph. 

there a second to the motion to strike that 

paragraph? 

MS . MUNN: Yes, I'll -- I'll second that. 

312 

as 

Is 

DR. ZIEMER: And it's seconded. Now we will 

discuss this proposed amendment to strike that 

paragraph. You may speak p.r.u UL <.:uu [uL Lhe 

motion to amend . We need to get some sense of the 

Board on this . 

DR. MELIUS: 

DR. ZIEMER: 

DR. MELIUS: 

I can give you my sense. 

Yeah. 

I think it sort of strikes to 

the heart of the letter and some of the rationale 

for why we should have concerns about this . I 

think it's one of the concerns about the 

timeliness of getting the final rule out. And I 

think it's an important point, and I think 

striking that entire paragraph is not appropriate. 

DR. ZIEMER: Okay. Jim speaks for retaining 

it. Anyone -- Henry and then Mark. 

DR. ANDERSON: Yeah , to me , reading that, the 

issue is we need to know, if we do a review, 

rather than to say this review is, you know, 

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313 

inadequate because there's insufficient dose 

reconstruction, we need to know Lhe definitions 

that are going to be used so Lhat when we review 

we don't criticize a dose reconstruction thaL 

might well have fallen into the special cohort. 

so we -- while I'm not sure it'll help us in our 

definitional review, it would help us, I believe, 

on knowing, you know, kind of in the right-hand 

side of this if we know what the criteria are, 

then when we do our reviews we could say that this 

-- whether or noL this meets or would seem to meet 

that or we need Lo, in our review, critique that 

in that sense o£ the adequ acy of the dose 

reconstruction. It may be appropriate then that 

that person would fall into special cohort if we 

know what the definition of a special cohort is. 

If we don't, all we're saying is there's problems 

wiLh the definition and that it then goes back and 

you can churn and churn and churn, but it may well 

be -- I mean that's how I read this, it helps us 

set kind of the one bar that has to be reached in 

adequate or not. And for our contractor, they 

need to know that so they don't spend a lot of 

time on it. And I think NIOSIJ needs to know Lhat, 

as well. I mean that's how I Look it. 

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DR . ZIEMER: We've got Mark and then Tony. 

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, I'm speaking against the 

amendment, as well . I just -- I was also thinking 

as possible compromise language, the one thing 

that we possibly can concede is that in the last 

part of that sentence we could possibly rephrase 

it to say the Board will, in many cases, need to 

rely upon the criteria defined in this rule. I 

think some of the dose reconstructions are not as 

dependent on that -- that line, as defined in the 

Special Exposure Cohort rule, and you know, work 

has gone forward without that in place. I think 

that's part of Tony's point, maybe not, but I 

think that might be a possible compromise. I 

don't know if that's agreeable to the original 

proposer . 

DR . ZIEMER: If this motion fails, then you 

will have an opportunity to make those changes 

that Tony. 

DR. ANDRADE: I actually like Mark's idea. I 

think that is a good compromise. I think the real 

criteria that are going to be set forth in the 

legislation are the guidelines by which special 

cohorts will be defined, so that's looking at it 

kind of from a different point of view. And so my 

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315 

last change was going to be that on the nexL 

paragraph that we just add the Lwo words -- along 

with what Mark proposed -- that potentially 

eligible classes of workers da, da, da, have and 

continue to be blocked from filing petitions to 

become members . I think that that is a totally 

appropriate -- and that that really goes to the 

heart of the matter that Jim was bringing up. 

DR. ZIEMER : Okay. Agaln, you will have 

opportunity, after this motion, to address that 

issue. Other -- Gen Roess ler. 

DR. ROESSLER: (Off microphone) (Inaudible) 

DR . ZIEMER: Okay, other comments on this 

motion? Jim? 

DR. MEL IUS : Just to indicate that once we 

have dealt with the amendment that's on the floor 

that I would be glad to accept both of Mark's and 

Tony's recent suggestions as friendly amendments. 

DR . ZIEMER: Okay, a hint of things to come. 

It almost sounded like Tony was speaking against 

his own motion there, but are there other 

commenLs, pro or con? 

Okay, then all in favor of the amendment 

if you vote in favor, you're voting to strike the 

paragraph. All in favor will say aye. 

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(Affirmative responses) 

All opposed say no. 

(Negative responses) 

The noes any abstentions? 

(No responses) 

316 

The noes have it. The paragraph remains in. 

We now can open the floor for certain friendly 

amendments, and (Off microphone) (Inaudible). 

MR. GRIFFON : I guess just to restate my 

what we discussed prior to this, the end of that 

paragraph that we didn't strike, it says the Board 

-- and I'm proposing that we rephrase it to say 

the Board will, in many cases, need to rely upon 

criteria defined in this final rule. And I 

believe that's a friendly amendment. 

Jim, for the record, I think you 

DR. MELIUS: That is a friendly amendment. 

DR. ZIEMER: Wanda? 

MS. MUNN: Also a friendly amendment, I 

understand that the word "tasked" is commonly 

accepted in parlance right now, but it's one of 

those things that grates against the grain of 

purists. I would really appreciate it if we could 

change that to either "charged" or "is responsible 

for" rather than "the Board is tasked with 

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reviewing .. II 

MR. ELLIOTT: So you're speaking to the first 

or the last paragraph, first page 

MS. MUNN: Where -- I'm ta lking about the 

same paragraph that Mark is talking about . I'm 

jusc talking about Lhe firsL llne o( lt. 

(Reading) The Advisory Board, pursuant co the Act, 

is tasked with reviewing ... 

I'm suggesting that it be changed to 

'' charged " or " responsible for" . 

MR. ELLIOTT: And reaction to that? 

DR. MELIUS: I would also accept "charged 11 • 

MR. ELLIOTT: Mr. Presley? 

MR. PRESLEY: First paragraph, it says 11 0n 

behalf of the Advisory Board ... 11 Should that not 

read "The Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

Health wish es to express our concern .. . 11 

DR. MELIUS: That would be fine with me, too. 

I think, as we've done in the past with these 

letters, we've let the Chair edit and -- in terms 

of style and grammar and -- as he feels 

appropriate, so . . 

MR. ELLIOTT: Dr . Ziemer, we h ave a friendly 

amendment on the first paragraph, first sentence, 

to change the language to read "The Advisory Board 

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318 

on Radiation and Worker Health wishes to express 11 

correct , Mr . Presley? 

MR. PRESLEY: Yes. 

MR. ELLI OTT: And then down later, the bottom 

of the first page, last paragraph, first sentence, 

11 The Advisory Board, pursuant to EEOICPA, is 

charged 11 instead of 11 tasked 11 • 

And t h en the next -- top of t h e next page, 

that last sentence in that same paragraph -- Mark, 

help me out again here with what -- I --

MR. GRIFFON: Yeah, the Board will, in many 

cases, need to rely upon the criteria defined in 

this final rule . 

MR. ELLIOTT: And the proposer of the motion 

agreed with those friendly amendments, I believe. 

DR. MELIUS: There was an additional 

MR. ELLIOTT: An addi tional one? 

DR. ANDERSON: Potentially e l igible was the 

next one . 

DR. MELIUS: Yeah, in the . .. 

DR . ZIEMER: Where does the --

DR. MELIUS: The next to last paragraph, at 

=he beginning of that paragraph, "Potentially 

eligible classes". 

DR . ZIEMER: Thank you. While we're still 

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