RECA establishes a procedure to make partial restitution to individuals who contracted serious diseases, such as certain types of cancers, presumably resulting from their exposure to radiation from aboveground nuclear tests or as a result of their employment in uranium mines. The law established three claimant categories—uranium mine employees (those who worked in underground uranium mines in certain specified states), downwinders (those who were downwind from aboveground nuclear weapons tests conducted at the Nevada test sites), and onsite participants (those who actually participated onsite in aboveground nuclear weapons tests). Table 1 summarizes the key provisions of RECA by type of claim, prior to the RECA 2000 Amendments. In addition to creating eligibility criteria for compensation, the law stipulates that appropriated funds be held in the Trust Fund to pay claims. By law, the Trust Fund is to be administered by the Secretary of the Treasury but maintained by the Attorney General. The Attorney General is also responsible for reviewing applications to determine whether applicants qualify for compensation and establishing procedures for paying claims. To discharge these two responsibilities, the Attorney General issued a final regulation implementing RECP on April 10, 1992. The regulation established RECP within Justice’s Civil Division and charged it with administering claims adjudication and compensation under the act. To file for compensation, applicants submit the appropriate claims forms along with corroborating documentation to RECP, whose claims examiners and legal staff review and adjudicate the claims. If the claim is approved, Justice authorizes the Treasury Department to make payment from the Trust Fund. If the victim is deceased, compensation may be awarded to the victim’s eligible survivors (e.g., the victim’s spouse or children). Figure 1 shows RECP’s claims adjudication process, including the procedures for refiling and administratively appealing denied claims. If RECP denies a claim, it notifies the claimant in writing of the basis for the denial and the claimant’s rights to refile or appeal the claim. Claimants may refile a claim with new information to RECP up to two times. If denied, claimants may file an administrative appeal to a Justice Appeals Officer, who can affirm or reverse the original decision or remand the claim back to RECP for further action. Applicants may also appeal denied claims in the U.S. district courts. RECP officials said that through July 3, 2001, claimants sought a judicial remedy only eight times. More recently, the Attorney General approved revisions to the regulations, effective April 21, 1999, to assist claimants in establishing entitlement to an award. The revised regulations modified eligibility restrictions regarding the claimants’ use of tobacco. Prior to the revision, RECP would apply stricter standards if the victim contracted certain qualifying diseases and was a “heavy smoker” or “heavy drinker.” The revised regulations, among other things, allow claimants to submit affidavits to establish smoking use histories and to submit pathology reports showing specified diseases. In addition, the changes permit applicants, whose claims were denied prior to the implementation of these regulations, to file another three times. The RECA Amendments of 2000, signed into law by the President on July 10, 2000, expanded the criteria for compensation, opening RECP to more people and establishing a prompt payment period. Some of the major changes include: permitting eligible aboveground uranium mine employees, uranium mill workers, and individuals, who transported uranium ore, to qualify for compensation; they are entitled to a payment of $100,000; increasing the geographic areas included for eligibility and extending the time period considered for radiation exposure for uranium mine employees; expanding the list of specified diseases that may qualify individuals for compensation to include other types of cancer and also noncancers (e.g., salivary gland, brain, and colon cancer); decreasing the level of radiation exposure that is necessary to qualify for compensation for uranium mine employees; making certain medical documentation requirements less stringent for eliminating distinctions between smokers and nonsmokers pertaining to diseases such as lung cancer and nonmalignant respiratory diseases; and requiring the Attorney General to ensure that a claim is paid within 6 weeks of approval. In addition to RECA, other programs provide compensation to persons who have presumably become ill as a result of working for the federal government in producing or testing nuclear weapons. For example, the Radiation-Exposed Veterans Compensation Act of 1988, in general, provides monthly compensation to veterans who were present at certain atomic bomb exercises, served at Hiroshima and Nagasaki during the post World War II occupation of Japan, or were prisoners of war in Japan. In addition, on October 30, 2000, the President signed into law The Floyd D. Spence National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2001. Title XXXVI of this act establishes the “Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program” to, in general, compensate covered employees who contracted certain illnesses resulting from exposure to certain ultra- hazardous materials during employment in Department of Energy facilities that processed or produced radioactive materials used in the production of atomic weapons. Certain uranium employees who are eligible for compensation under RECA may also be eligible for additional compensation and medical benefits under title XXXVI. This would be RECP’s administrative responsibility. To determine the outcomes of the claims adjudication process, including the number of approved and denied claims, the timeliness of the claims adjudication process, the primary reasons for denials, and the amount of money awarded, we obtained and analyzed RECA-related case information from DOJ’s Civil Division’s case histories database. Our analysis was done on claims filed during fiscal years 1992 through 2000. Our analysis was done using the case histories database, as of February 26, 2001. We also analyzed claims payment information from the Civil Division’s Office of Planning, Budget and Evaluation (OPB&E). We discussed the basis for any major fluctuations with RECP officials. While we did not independently verify the accuracy of the RECA data extracted from the database, we did, however, ask the Civil Division’s Office of Management Information, the office that maintains the database, to complete a data reliability questionnaire about the design specifications and documentation for the database. The reliability questionnaire also posed questions about quality controls and procedures used to ensure data reliability. Our analysis of the questionnaire responses did not indicate any data reliability problems. To determine the cost of administering the RECP and the FTE program staff levels, we requested that OPB&E provide us with RECP administrative costs by budget object class for the end of fiscal years 1992 through 2000. The cost provided includes items such as personnel compensation and benefits, travel and transportation of persons, and printing and reproduction costs. To determine FTE staffing levels, the office provided us with FTE staff levels for RECP at the end of fiscal years 1992 through 2000. To determine the nature of expenditures from the Trust Fund, we evaluated annual Trust Fund activity (appropriations, interest earned on investments in government securities, and payments to awarded individuals) from fiscal years 1992 through 2000 provided by OPB&E. To verify that compensation awarded by RECP was paid as authorized, we randomly selected 30 individual payments from DOJ’s Civil Division’s case histories database of 1,592 RECA payments made from fiscal years1996 through 2000. We then obtained financial documentation for each payment from OPB&E, including (1) RECP’s payment authorization letter to OPB&E, (2) the fiscal payment request invoice approval sheet from OPB&E to the Justice Management Division’s (JMD) Financial Operations Service, and (3) the payment certification summary generated from a JMD financial database that shows that the Department of the Treasury made payments electronically or by check to the authorized individuals. We interviewed officials from RECP, OPB&E, and JMD to determine how they authorize, process, and certify payments from the Trust Fund. Finally, we interviewed officials from Treasury’s Financial Management Service to clarify Treasury’s role in disbursing the awarded RECA compensation. To determine the nature of RECP’s outreach activities, we interviewed RECP officials who described the elements of their outreach efforts and provided us with a list of the office’s outreach-related onsite visits that could be identified from existing records. To obtain insights on RECP’s outreach efforts, we conducted telephone interviews with a judgmental sample of 11 NGOs that (1) had members who could be eligible for compensation under RECA or (2) provided assistance and information about the program to potentially eligible candidates. We selected these organizations from a list provided by RECP, an Internet search, and a list of those who testified before the Congress in a RECA-related 1998 hearing. In addition, we asked officials from these organizations to suggest other related groups for us to contact, some of which we contacted. As agreed, we focused our review on Justice’s administration of RECA from its inception in fiscal year 1992 through the end of fiscal year 2000. We began our review in October 2000 and performed our audit work from January to August 2001 in Washington, D.C., in accordance with generally accepted government auditing standards. When RECP reviews and adjudicates a claim, the process ends in one of two possible outcomes—approval or denial of the claim. If approved, Justice electronically submits a request for payment to Treasury. If denied, applicants may refile their claims or pursue other avenues of appeal. Through the end of fiscal year 2000, RECP received 7,819 applications for compensation. During this period, RECP approved and denied roughly equal numbers of applications, awarding compensation to about 46 percent of the claimants, and denying compensation to about 46 percent. Moreover, approximately 8 percent of the applications were still pending at the time of our analysis. RECA claims are most frequently denied because the disease contracted by the victim is not specifically designated as eligible for compensation under the RECA program.