SPOKANE, Washington – Biden receives heat after supporting a case challenging a law compensating workers in the Hanford Nuclear Reservation suffering illnesses from the workplace’s environment.
The Hanford Nuclear Reservation was created during World War II as part of the Manhattan Project. The country used this site to build the bombs that destroyed Nagasaki, Japan.
President Donald Trump first began challenging the constitution because of how federal jurisdiction supersedes this law. However, this appeal lost in Eastern Washington by the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals.
The Biden administration chose to resume the issue by filing a lawsuit to challenge the law again.
One of the biggest reasons for implementing the law in the first place was the duration it took for proper compensation to the workers.
The Washington State legislate released this law in 2018 in response to this issue. This health law requires the nuclear entity to compensate the workers for any health detriments in the workplace. Under the law, the workers no longer need to prove that the illness is not from other parts of their lives.
In other words, this law also presumes that the illness experienced by the workers is directly attributable to the workplace’s conditions. Thus, the Hanford Nuclear Reservation will still need to compensate the employee for any neurological or respiratory diseases.
Hanford union leader Nick Bumpaous calls this law a literal matter of life and death. Through this law, the company can focus more on creating conducive conditions to prevent any illnesses in the future.
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