ANÁLISIS DEL EXPEDIENTE Y POSTURA PERSONAL

Labor is not a major cost element of nuclear power. As a result, any subsidies to labor would not be expected to significantly alter this energy resource’s competitive position. Nonetheless, labor in the nuclear sector had been subsidized through 2007 by means of nuclear training grants to uni- versities across the country, while proposals to tar- get new federal funds for nuclear worker training have been included in pending climate and energy bills.53 _{More important from a subsidy standpoint} 53 While many disciplines receive training support from the government and the value of this support to the nuclear industry was fairly small, it is included to ensure a complete picture of the subsidies available to this industry

are the large programs that compensate nuclear workers for health damages they have suffered dur- ing their tenure in the industry.

The University Reactor Infrastructure and Education Assistance Program boosted funding to universities with nuclear engineering curricula. The program supported reactors, staff, and students in an effort to reverse the decline in enrollments. Awards and fellowships totaled about $16 million in 2007 (DOE 2009a: 625). Since then, rising energy prices and increased interest in nuclear energy have boosted enrollment on their own, and the DOE did not request funding for this activity in 2008 or 2009. Nonetheless, the program was funded at $2.9 million in 2008 and $6.1 million in 2009 (DOE 2009f).

A well-functioning market should integrate occupational health into product prices; for example, wages in developed economies are nor- mally higher in the more dangerous professions. In addition, both public and private health insur- ance and workers compensation programs can send important price signals that encourage the more dangerous industries to boost their investments in worker protection. Worker litigation can serve a similar role. None of this happened effectively in the nuclear sector, however, and hundreds of thou- sands of workers on both the military and civilian side have suffered injuries.54

Worker payments come through two federal programs, both of which are financed through general taxpayer revenues rather than fees on the nuclear industry:

• The Radiation Exposure Compensation

program (RECA, administered by the U.S. Department of Justice) provides monetary compensation to uranium miners, uranium

millers, ore transporters, on-site participants, and “downwinders.” The last two categories apply primarily to people affected by fallout from weapons testing. The employment period of eligibility for this program was 1942 to 1971, so it does not affect most current work- ers. In any case, compensation payments of $50,000 to $100,000 per person are funded by taxpayers rather than by user fees on the indus- tries that benefited from the uranium mining activities (OMB, 2008: 11-07, 11-08). • The Energy Employees Occupational Illness

Compensation program (administered by the U.S. Department of Labor) provides lump- sum payments and medical benefits to workers harmed by DOE operations. This program is also Treasury-funded, without requiring addi- tional congressional appropriations, for incre- mental payments to uranium miners, millers, and ore transporters who may have benefited under RECA55 _{(OMB 2008: 11-08).}

The workers compensated through these pro- grams were not primarily processing uranium for commercial reactors. However, in some cases they and their facilities supported both commercial and military sectors. To estimate the subsidy to civilian reactors, payments made only to catego- ries related to nuclear power were included (Table 12, p. 50); that is, workers affected by weapons fallout, for example, were excluded. The remain- ing payments were then allocated between civilian and military sectors based on their relative shares of enrichment services, as measured by separative work units, or SWUs. These include only actual payments to workers at the three federal enrichment facilities during the period of eligibility (through 54 In some respects, these are “sunk costs” of nuclear power: injured workers were harmed at facilities that no longer exist or because of practices that have been corrected. However, because they covered workers injured through 1971 (or early 1992 in the case of enrichment facilities), many existing reactors benefited directly from the services these workers provid- ed. In addition, the costs usefully serve as a placeholder for occupational harm associated with workers at mines, plants, and fuel-cycle facilities in subsequent years that has yet to be rec- ognized. However, the subsidy numbers in this report conservatively assume that workers in the industry have been properly protected since the period of eligibility for these programs ended, and that occupational heath and safety issues are not ongoing.

55 Statutory language notes that: “Upon the exhaustion of amounts in the compensation fund attributable to the authorization of appropriations in section 7384g(b) of this title, the Secretary of the Treasury shall transfer directly to the compensation fund from the General Fund of the Treasury, without further appropriation, such amounts as are further necessary to carry out the compensation program.”

Table 12. Taxpayer Payments to Uranium Workers for Occupational Injury

Program/Employee Category Claims Approved $Millions

Radiation Exposure Compensation Program

Uranium miner 5,049 504 Uranium miller 1,225 113 Ore transporter 225 26

Total 643

Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation All categories 144,000 Enrichment-plant workers Paducah, KY 489 Portsmouth, OH 349 Oak Ridge, TN 698 Total 1,536

Total uranium workers, both programs 2,179 Allocation to civilian versus military

U.S. reactors 31%

Foreign reactors 19%

All civilian 50%

Military 50%

Implied share of worker payments

attributable to civilian sector 1,089

Cents/kWh nuclear power during periods

of eligible worker exposure 0.29

Sources: DOJ 2009; DOL 2009a, 2009b, 2009c; Warren 2007.

1971 for RECA; through February 1, 1992 for enrichment workers under EEOIC). Payments to other classifications of workers were ignored. Federal enrichment facilities were dual-use, serving both the military and civilian sectors. Therefore it makes sense to attribute part of the compensation paid to the work conducted on behalf of the civilian sector, and an SWU basis is a reasonable proxy for the rela- tive utilization by the three plants.

The civilian share includes both SWUs used by domestic reactors and those sent abroad, totaling roughly 50 percent. Uranium mining and milling demand by sector is assumed to follow the same pattern as the use of enrichment services. Nearly $1.1 billion in payments has supported civilian nuclear workers through the beginning of 2009,

or 0.29 ¢/kWh of nuclear electricity generated during the period of exposure covered by these programs. As workers age, the number of claims submitted is expected to taper close to zero by 2022 (GAO 2007b: 12).